Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

This forum is the ideal place for all discussion relating to X4. You will also find additional information from developers here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
User avatar
mr.WHO
Posts: 8549
Joined: Thu, 12. Oct 06, 17:19
x4

Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by mr.WHO » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 10:14

In my 500+ hours of play I fail to see or apply any use of combat drones.


With the exception of Xenon Shipyard and Wharf, that are able to launch a giant swarm of drones, I don't see any other ships (both NPC and mine) to use drones in any noticable way when I'm IS.
I mean they launch an ocasional drone or a few, but that's all.


It seem that even lasertowers are less useless than these.

M and L ships don't have enough launch capacity to be able to launch them.
As for XL ships, other than Auxilary Ship, they don't have capacity to use them (I mean only 20 drones for a carrier? are you serious?).
Only Axulary ship seems to have both capacity and launch ports to use drones, but again, I never saw any of them launch a drone swarm on it's own.

Frigates supose to be a class that was build on the drone feature, but they are actually crappy with drones and would rather benefit from getting rid of drones in favor of better firepower and armor. Not to mention I'm yet to see a single NPC frigate that actually use drones in combat when I'm IS.

I think drones need a serious overhaul, both balance and script wise.
IMO if there should be dedicated drone ship, it should be an L-size ship.

GCU Grey Area
Posts: 7777
Joined: Sat, 14. Feb 04, 23:07
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 10:28

I find them moderately useful. My favourite ship class in the game is frigate (carrying an S miner to expand the range of missions I can do). I always carry a full set of defence drones & at times they've been literal life savers. They give enemy forces something else to shoot at & have seen a swarm of them take out M ships (e.g. SCA Minotaur) all by themselves. The cumulative firepower of a dozen or so mk1 pulse lasers should not be underestimated. Have also learnt the hard way not to underestimate what a really big swarm of them can do to a capital ship. They may not be able to pierce L or XL shields, however they can trash every other subsystem on the ship leaving it completely unable to defend itself should anything bigger turn up.

User avatar
mr.WHO
Posts: 8549
Joined: Thu, 12. Oct 06, 17:19
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by mr.WHO » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 10:30

Do you launch them manually and micromanage them?

GCU Grey Area
Posts: 7777
Joined: Sat, 14. Feb 04, 23:07
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 10:41

mr.WHO wrote:
Thu, 20. Jan 22, 10:30
Do you launch them manually and micromanage them?
Yes, I use the 'toggle drone launch' key to launch them. As for micro-management, don't have many options for that with drones (they're nowhere near as good as proper fighters in that regard). For drones it's really just a matter of what behaviour they're set to. I usually leave them on 'attack all enemies' (I consider that distract mode) & if I want them to focus fire on a specific target I switch them to 'attack my current enemy'.

af_2017
Posts: 696
Joined: Sun, 7. Oct 18, 19:55
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by af_2017 » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 15:01

I have them in their default role, I guess that is "defend".
As you said there are no user giant swarms of drones.
I can see them flying during combats in IS, did not pay attention though, seems like aux ships launch them more. The destroyer or frigate I control can launches couple of the drones automatically.
But I still find them useful since they can move away attention from main ship for some time.
I find that loosing drones is easier to accept (at least for me), because with every dead 3 star captain something dies inside me too.

Seems that with the ability to carry and launch much more drones reasoning to use fleets of small combat ships will just disappear.
Nobody will need the fleets because ships will be able launch drones/lose them/restock them without regrets.
X4 is not a destination. It's a journey. Unfortunately in a wrong direction.

Maebius
Posts: 214
Joined: Tue, 20. Oct 20, 15:43

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by Maebius » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 15:11

Only useful as a distraction and their semi-constant fire, prohibits shield regen and entering travel mode.

abisha1980
Posts: 561
Joined: Tue, 11. Dec 18, 18:25
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by abisha1980 » Thu, 20. Jan 22, 22:20

been suggesting drone launch pads for ages now (swappable landing pads)

if you could launch 4 drones at the time with some better scripts (and faster moving +better tracking) they would make a lot more sense
but now they not worth a damn don't even bother with them.

best case repair drones tops.
Retail investor, η+18,9% 2022 (η+7.1% 2023) (η+0,74 2024) 95% in bonds.
Young people don't be freaking stupid invest also (not in BTC but in real stocks)

Insects
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed, 5. Jan 22, 04:12
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by Insects » Fri, 21. Jan 22, 01:15

abisha1980 wrote:
Thu, 20. Jan 22, 22:20
been suggesting drone launch pads for ages now (swappable landing pads)

if you could launch 4 drones at the time with some better scripts (and faster moving +better tracking) they would make a lot more sense
but now they not worth a damn don't even bother with them.
They shouldn't even need the pad.
Should just open the pad doors and then they swarm out/in from the cavity within.

User avatar
KextV8
Posts: 843
Joined: Wed, 13. Oct 10, 06:42
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by KextV8 » Fri, 21. Jan 22, 03:30

Not imo. For the only ship class they would be useful for(Frigates), they launch way too slow. You're better off stuffing repair drones in there to repair up after the fight instead.

Dreamora
Posts: 81
Joined: Tue, 6. Dec 05, 15:41
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by Dreamora » Fri, 21. Jan 22, 04:25

mr.WHO wrote:
Thu, 20. Jan 22, 10:14
In my 500+ hours of play I fail to see or apply any use of combat drones.


With the exception of Xenon Shipyard and Wharf, that are able to launch a giant swarm of drones, I don't see any other ships (both NPC and mine) to use drones in any noticable way when I'm IS.
I mean they launch an ocasional drone or a few, but that's all.


It seem that even lasertowers are less useless than these.

M and L ships don't have enough launch capacity to be able to launch them.
As for XL ships, other than Auxilary Ship, they don't have capacity to use them (I mean only 20 drones for a carrier? are you serious?).
Only Axulary ship seems to have both capacity and launch ports to use drones, but again, I never saw any of them launch a drone swarm on it's own.

Frigates supose to be a class that was build on the drone feature, but they are actually crappy with drones and would rather benefit from getting rid of drones in favor of better firepower and armor. Not to mention I'm yet to see a single NPC frigate that actually use drones in combat when I'm IS.

I think drones need a serious overhaul, both balance and script wise.
IMO if there should be dedicated drone ship, it should be an L-size ship.
I don't use them but I have in the past. They are useful as distractions during combat, for instance, if a single Cerberus engages a wing of fighters the drones can harass the wing until the Cerberus can kill them.

in larger engagements, they can be used to harras capitals and distract their turrets from shooting you or your fighters. essentially cheep cannon fodder.

User avatar
mr.WHO
Posts: 8549
Joined: Thu, 12. Oct 06, 17:19
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 22. Jan 22, 22:14

In the past I read somewhere that you need engineering ship on crew/captain in order to AI to automatically launch more drones during IS combat.

Can someone test this?

Given that engineering is only trained on service crew and not on captain it would explain why nobody in universe launch more than handful fo drones during IS combat.

GCU Grey Area
Posts: 7777
Joined: Sat, 14. Feb 04, 23:07
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 22. Jan 22, 23:21

mr.WHO wrote:
Sat, 22. Jan 22, 22:14
In the past I read somewhere that you need engineering ship on crew/captain in order to AI to automatically launch more drones during IS combat.

Can someone test this?

Given that engineering is only trained on service crew and not on captain it would explain why nobody in universe launch more than handful fo drones during IS combat.
I was under the impression that it was Piloting & Management that were the relevant skills for drones launching from ships & stations, respectively.

Can't confirm the Management side of things, my stations are rarely positioned where they're going to be regularly attacked. However have definitely seen my demolition fleet destroyers launch drones in response to nearby hostile ships & they invariably have the very best captains I can get for them (4* Piloting/4* Morale minimum). Although, to be frank, it's normally a mistake on my part if they do. Normally like to keep destroyer's drones on disarmed status, only to be activated as a last resort on my specific orders. Otherwise they constantly pester my auxiliaries for a resupply if they lose any. However sometimes I forget that particular setting when commissioning a new ship & only find out when it starts launching drones.

gorgofdoom
Posts: 196
Joined: Wed, 5. Dec 18, 18:48
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by gorgofdoom » Sat, 22. Jan 22, 23:36

Yep. My newest fleet is a Zeus E carrying 12 osprey's with 17 drones each.

204 drones is really hard to argue with. With a complement of 24 torpedo pulsars on hand this makes short work of enemy stations.

Resupply ships can also dump their 100 drone complement into the battlefield very fast with launch tubes.

User avatar
mr.WHO
Posts: 8549
Joined: Thu, 12. Oct 06, 17:19
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 22. Jan 22, 23:59

gorgofdoom wrote:
Sat, 22. Jan 22, 23:36
Resupply ships can also dump their 100 drone complement into the battlefield very fast with launch tubes.
But do they automatically launch 100 drones by AI on it's own, or do you need to manually launch them all?

gorgofdoom
Posts: 196
Joined: Wed, 5. Dec 18, 18:48
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by gorgofdoom » Sun, 23. Jan 22, 00:23

mr.WHO wrote:
Sat, 22. Jan 22, 23:59
But do they automatically launch 100 drones by AI on it's own, or do you need to manually launch them all?
Depends on the settings. If you put the launch/docked toggle to 'docked'... yes, you'll have to manually launch them. With them set to 'escort, defend, attack, or intercept', in a launched state, no. we don't have to tell them to launch.

Keep in mind, OOS combat calculations compounds drone stats with the carrier without launching them. This means the time it takes them to launch/recover OOS is effectively zero-- but you won't see them flying around on the map.

Raptor34
Posts: 2475
Joined: Sat, 12. Jun 10, 04:43
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by Raptor34 » Mon, 24. Jan 22, 12:19

gorgofdoom wrote:
Sat, 22. Jan 22, 23:36
Yep. My newest fleet is a Zeus E carrying 12 osprey's with 17 drones each.

204 drones is really hard to argue with. With a complement of 24 torpedo pulsars on hand this makes short work of enemy stations.

Resupply ships can also dump their 100 drone complement into the battlefield very fast with launch tubes.
A recent change? Because I used to try to keep the Scale Plate pirate HQ alive once and keeping an eye on it they weren't able to do much against a single faction destroyer.
60 drones or so iirc? I was expecting them to kill subsystems at least.

gorgofdoom
Posts: 196
Joined: Wed, 5. Dec 18, 18:48
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by gorgofdoom » Fri, 4. Feb 22, 04:00

There was a time back in 3.2 where i used a cerberus to take out SCA destroyers. granted it was a lot of micro-- launch drones with escort then put them on attack my target and cycle thru surface elements... but it did work with just one cerberus' drones without entering weapons range whatsoever.

It's better now i think, easier to keep the drones deployed. but also turret improvements many make drones less effective. will have to play with it in the beta to really tell ya.

budforceuk
Posts: 228
Joined: Wed, 4. Jan 06, 19:49
x4

Re: Combat Drones - are they useful at all?

Post by budforceuk » Mon, 7. Feb 22, 10:08

I don't bother with them personally, as mentioned you have to watch out for them on the Xenon stations as they can really mess your destroyer up.

Post Reply

Return to “X4: Foundations”