Subset Games Forum

I'm an avid SF gamer buff and have been looking for a game like this for years.
Please accept my apologies if this has been brought up before, but from what I have seen in various other places the game has drone bays that have drones that shoot down missiles, but I would have expected something along the lines of drones being used to attack other ships just like fighter craft, whilst a new type of short range beam weapon acting as a point defense system being used to shoot down missiles.

Just a thought.

There are drones that attack the enemy as well as drones that act as point defense. Not using beams, but same idea.

Is that what you are asking about? I am having trouble understanding your post...

RoyGordon wrote:I'm an avid SF gamer buff and have been looking for a game like this for years.
Please accept my apologies if this has been brought up before, but from what I have seen in various other places the game has drone bays that have drones that shoot down missiles, but I would have expected something along the lines of drones being used to attack other ships just like fighter craft, whilst a new type of short range beam weapon acting as a point defense system being used to shoot down missiles.

Just a thought.

You have seen the defense drone mk 1 it shoots down incoming missiles, asteroids and boarding drones.
Other external drones are:
defense drone mk 2 also shoots down incoming laser fire.
Anti ship mk 1 drone swarms around the enemy ship and bombards it with laser fire
anti ship mk 2 drone fires faster then mk 1
beam drone: as anti ship drone but fires a beam across the hull instead of laser bolts.
hull repair drone: repairs your hull a few points and then disappears.

Inside the ship you can have:
repair drone: helps repair subsystems and puts out fires.
anti personel drone: helps fight boarders (on your own ship only).
Boarding drone: is launched onto the enemy ship, causes a hull breach there and then attacks enemy subsystem and crew.


I think that's all of the drones... might have forgotten one or two

icepick wrote:There are drones that attack the enemy as well as drones that act as point defense. Not using beams, but same idea.

Is that what you are asking about? I am having trouble understanding your post...

I think he has just misunderstood what the drones subsystem does and has assumed there are only one kind of drone or something. I think he just wanted to have attack drones... that already exists in the game.

Thanks for clearing up my confusion about drones, it appears the articles I read were very out of date.
However, this does not explain the absence of that stalwart of SF stories, games and films, the point defence anti-missile beam weapon systems. We have such systems now with high rate chain/gatling guns and high velocity small intercept missile weapons, most SF stories/films etc have ships with high velocity, short-ranged laser/beam weapon systems with fast tracking devices that are designed to shoot down incoming missiles and I just wondered why they dont feature in FTL?

RoyGordon wrote:Thanks for clearing up my confusion about drones, it appears the articles I read were very out of date.
However, this does not explain the absence of that stalwart of SF stories, games and films, the point defence anti-missile beam weapon systems. We have such systems now with high rate chain/gatling guns and high velocity small intercept missile weapons, most SF stories/films etc have ships with high velocity, short-ranged laser/beam weapon systems with fast tracking devices that are designed to shoot down incoming missiles and I just wondered why they dont feature in FTL?

I'm not following you. English isn't my native language so I'm not certain I fully understand what exactly you are after? Something that completely blocks all incoming missiles or what? (Current system doesn't block everything)
(BTW for clarification SF is Science Fiction? I'm more used to the "Sci-Fi" abbrivation... I was wondering what capcoms Street Fighter had to do with anything for a second.)

I don't understand why the defense drone doesn't fill this point defense role for you? in what way is it different from what you want?

Possible reasons other systems aren't in the game is because they simply don't fit, they aren't the mechanic the devs are looking for, are overpowered or too difficult to represent in the game.

I'll try and make it a bit clearer. There should be room in the game for a beam weapon system that is too short ranged and low powered to affect ships but which could provide defence against missiles and even possibly drones. Perhaps they could start with say only a 50% of hitting the target (the target is much smaller than a ship after all) and there may be a way of boosting the hit chance by having a skilled crewmember man the weapon system.

It was just a thought based on my reading and watching a vast number of Sci-Fi books, films and TV series.

RoyGordon wrote:I'll try and make it a bit clearer. There should be room in the game for a beam weapon system that is too short ranged and low powered to affect ships but which could provide defence against missiles and even possibly drones. Perhaps they could start with say only a 50% of hitting the target (the target is much smaller than a ship after all) and there may be a way of boosting the hit chance by having a skilled crewmember man the weapon system.

It was just a thought based on my reading and watching a vast number of Sci-Fi books, films and TV series.

The defense drone can't target the enemy ship. It only fires on incoming missiles, asteroids and boarding drones. (mark 2 also fires at incoming laser bolt fire) It already does what you want it to do? It's just not the incarnation that you are expecting/prefer.

It has an internal cooldown between shots so it doesn't fire at everything. Some of the larger ships has the drone circulating in such a big arc that at some points missiles can sneak in from one end and hit a system while the drone is on the other side of the ship.

The drone control does not have a station (can't be manned by crew for bonus) neither does medical, stealth or teleporting. I expect it would be too complicated to have more then 4 systems use a station. Making a defense system mannable would be redundant since the shield system is already mannable. Making it a separate system means the whole game needs to be rebalanced around the added cost of having and upgrading another system. Having it part of the drone system means that the other drones would be affected by the crew member bonus as well.

It just seems very odd to me to create a drone to fly out from the ship and then to protect it from incoming missile or beam weapon fire when a turret based beam weapon system on the ship could do exactly the same job, and it would have meant much less coding which I suspect the drones have done (you have to code for the drone model in the bay, the launch, then the graphic for the drones etc.)

Anyway, if a standard feature of most Sci-Fi literature and films/TV shows has not been considered then all I can hope for is that in a later incarnation of the game it does feature, as it does in other games.

RoyGordon wrote:It just seems very odd to me to create a drone to fly out from the ship and then to protect it from incoming missile or beam weapon fire when a turret based beam weapon system on the ship could do exactly the same job, and it would have meant much less coding which I suspect the drones have done (you have to code for the drone model in the bay, the launch, then the graphic for the drones etc.)

Anyway, if a standard feature of most Sci-Fi literature and films/TV shows has not been considered then all I can hope for is that in a later incarnation of the game it does feature, as it does in other games.

No, external drones doesn't exist in the bay or require any launch sequnce. The only drone that is actually launched is the boarding drone. The defense and the attack drones only have orbiting phase that starts directly hen they are powered.

A turret system would be more coding then the current drone system, the defense drone system shares mechanics with the attack drone system. I think it even works on aspects present from the shield system that the turret system wouldn't be able to use.

I also doubt the graphical is the difficult part of programming the systems. I expect it would be harder to design a stationary turret system that does what Justin and Matthew wants it to do rather then a remote platform that circles the ship and intercepts fire.

Which ever incarnation of the system depends on what the one telling the story wants to illustrate. as well as what ever othertehcnology is present. I don't think the system you imagine is as standard as you assume it to be. It's also possible the system you are talking about was simply used because of limitations in the rules regarding their technology preventing them to use a drone system. Rules that does not apply to FTL.


I still don't understand WHY you want another system. It wouldn't be better or make more sense?

RoyGordon wrote:It just seems very odd to me to create a drone to fly out from the ship and then to protect it from incoming missile or beam weapon fire when a turret based beam weapon system on the ship could do exactly the same job, and it would have meant much less coding which I suspect the drones have done (you have to code for the drone model in the bay, the launch, then the graphic for the drones etc.)

Anyway, if a standard feature of most Sci-Fi literature and films/TV shows has not been considered then all I can hope for is that in a later incarnation of the game it does feature, as it does in other games.

The reason you don't have turrets on the ship is because you would need a lot of turrets to cover every single arc, and each turret would need to draw power in order to charge up and be ready to intercept... it would probably draw up half of your fully-upgraded reactor. A drone based system can offer full coverage and not hog up the entirety of your reactor. Even still, the drone is taking up a fair amount of reactor power when it's running, for sector 8 battles I usually have to divert power from oxygen to maintain the drone.