Drones
I'm in a few games I am using Drones as well as others. I'm starting to think they are too powerful in relation to their cost.
Overpowered:
1. Reduced maint cost.
2. Cheap to build.
3. High defense bonus.
4. Use any weapon
5. Restricted on what weapons can target them.
In my opinion you could take 30 Drones versus 30 Ships and the drones would win. A lot of the problem lies in that a drone can carry any weapon a ship can carry with targeting restrictions other than the weapon's limits. While a ship can carry the same weapons as a Drone, but certain ship weapons cannot target the drone. For example if you have a fleet of Missle armed ships you will be in a big hurt if you run accross missle armed Drones as the drones can shoot you, but you can't shoot them.
Many will say that Point Defense is needed, but against a Missle armed Drone your Point Defense must defend against incoming missles AND fire at the Drones. The Point Defense becomes overwhelmed.
Others will say you need fighters to counter Drones, but Drones can mount anti-fighter weapons. I can take a Drone with a Proton Beam that can move faster than fighters and stay at max range killing off the fighters without any return fire.
I can take a stack of 50 Drones with Plasma missles and kill about aything that crosses my Path whether its Battleships or Frigates. My ships longest range weapon is the Anti-Proton Beam at roughly 100 parsecs. The Drone's Plasma missles reach out over 200 parsecs. Set the Drones to Max weapon ranges and watch them kill 500 Battle ships as the Battleships Plasma's can't target the Drones and the Battleship's Protons can't get in range.
Possible Fixes?
1. Let all weapons target Drones?
2. Limit Drones to Warheads only?
3. Increase Drone requirements (Other Technology dependencies)?
4. Better Drone specific point defenses for ships, platforms, etc?
5. Increase Drone Maint costs to limit their numbers?
I lean towards the easy fix of making any weapon able to target Drones, so at least the ships can match weapon ranges with them. This also creates the Dynamic that the Drones would need point Defense to be effective and not be able to mount as many weapons.
(Posting this here and main SEV site)
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