[INFO] Deploy Spy Drone

[pelador]

Deploy Spy Drone

Now consolidated into one package.

All Peladors drones: [ external image ]

Now includes regular MKI drones and their more secretive cousins the MK II drone.


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Overview:

With any ship equipped with:

Explorer Command Software
Special Command Software

and has the following wares:

Recon Drone
Computer Component
Cargo Bay Shielding (Required for MKII)

The ship can launch a drone that will fly to a chosen gate within the SAME sector and then on passing through the gate will fly to the centre of the sector (x:0, z:0) approximately 15km above the sector 0 point through that gate. Once there it will convert itself using the computer components into an advanced satallite after a very brief period.

To order a ship that is equipped to do so simply go to the Special Drones menu under special commands in the command console. Its a fairly intuitive process after that. Select gate. Then select wether to deploy a MKI or MKII drone.

Carefull use has to be applied with settings as enemies will still attack spy drones or deployed satallites if discovered.

MKII Spy drones are a little bit more secretive in getting to their destination. As a result all communications are lost and no details are recieved from its gravidar scanner to prevent possible detection. MKII Spy drones need 1 unit of Cargo bay shielding to be applied to the drone.

(Possible Boron Lore/History/flavouring to follow)

[pelador]

Notification History.

19.02.2009 V1.0 ALPHA
20.02.2009 V2.0 Beta
21.02.2009 V2.1 Beta (Added MKII drone selection)
26.02.2009 V2.2 beta (MKII AI improved)
03.03.2009 ----- Consolidated in All drones package.

[pelador]

Possible future addition Spy drone might be an "Analysis Drone".

The idea is that it will be a rather expensive recon drone fitted with prefitted system override software, triplex scanner and possibly a few others.

It could be deployed to follow and scan a ship over time learning it's schematics. Once learnt it would then attempt to fly back (not jump) into proximity of the players HQ and then transfer the schematics as a blueprint. As this process is intensive in encryption recording methods the drone would then be removed making it expendable.

Since you can't pickup recon drones from space but can run over them and gain cargo dropped. It would probably mean creating a new ship (recon drone) so that they are pre-installed components are not dropped else it would be a potential exploit. And Ideally I need the cost to reflect the relative advantage of gaining ship schematics.

It would also have to be faster to keep up with its target, still thinking about wether distance breaks, jumping targets, destroyed targets etc. should obviously stop the scan and the drone expires as a result. I'm thinking enough to keep up with most M3's. (I can add to the lore information that above a certain speed causes inconsistencies/errors in the scanning operations).

I'm hoping that even with freind/foe settings certain targets may still not be applicable for this to be used on. E.g. Khaak, Xenon, some pirates. Though I can stop Khaak/Xenon scans pre-deployment with an error message saying you can't scan that technology etc.

As a result of this development I can potentially see the need for:

A new ship (copy of recon drone with modifications or new model would be great!).
A new ware (the Analysis drone).
A new factory to produce them (just thinking NPC Boron, Queens Harbour).

Relative costs of the drone would have to be in the millions, haven't calculated sensible value yet. Factory productions would have to have long cycle times and small amount of stock. And that it would likley need the Players trading interventions to stock the factory.

I've only just started scripting and haven't touched on modding yet so its a unknown whats involved really, so the above is a tall order for me to produce atm.

As a result I'm kind of asking for collaboration help from a modder who might want to develop the items (Drone, Ware and NPC factory in sector) for use. I'd be looking for their advice how best to approach the above requirements.

Also ideas associated with stats (balance issues) feel free to suggest values or generally add to the idea as you like of course.

[pelador]

Deploy Spy Drone V1.0 ALPHA

2) Jumping out of sector whilst the drone flys to gate causes it to stop. Other commands may apply a similar effect. Still Testing/Analysing what is causing these interupts.

3) Using more than one drone concurrently on different ships with different sector targets at the same time can end up confusing them and getting them to stop. Again looking at these settings.

4) The gate selection requires energy cells and presumably JD to select a warpgate as such these are currently extra components required to run the process.

5) Does not currently work with Terran Orbital Accelerators.

All above issues have been fixed.

Can now order multiple drones from different ships concurrently.

Doing other things including jumping etc. will no longer interupt drone commands.

No longer needs energy cell jump selection critera, can choose gate freely.

Can now select Terran Orbital accelerators.

New Release to follow when point 1) Positioning is resolved but is a minor annoyance at this stage.

Will update Beta release soon (hopefully).

[pelador]

Positioning has been resolved.

New Beta version released. (Download in main title thread changed, also here).

[Chavve84]

How hard would it be to make another recon probe, let's call it recon probe MK II but camoflagued? and sorry if u said this but does it display the ships in the sector that are within range?

[pelador]

How hard would it be to make another recon probe, let's call it recon probe MK II but camoflagued? and sorry if u said this but does it display the ships in the sector that are within range?

Camoflaged MKII, probably quite easy as you can make objects hidden. I could make a more expensive option for this, watch this space.

Yes it displays ships within its sensor range, discovers sectors and objects.

[pelador]

Camouflaged MKII drones implemented, details in main first post.

Update can be found here.

[Chavve84]

Much obliged for Introducing the MKII series

Will be a fun immersion tool for my pirate career.

My idea is to launch them from the system I'm currently in, making them jump to all nearest gates and highlight good ships to cap/steal freigt/destroy.

[pelador]

Now available as Cycrow spk file. See main first post.

[pelador]

MKII Spy drones AI improved to ignore race logic calls when encountering collision problems. Links in main first post.

[pelador]

Now consolidated into main drones package. Thread now for information and discussion.