StickManTwit
Active member
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2016
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- StickManTwit
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Attack droids, victims of power creep and the perils of AI pathing and targeting code alike. They are better now thanks to the recent Remnants update that improved their behaviour slightly and doubled their effective damage output by dropping two of them, but I think they still need some extra oomph to make them and their constituent ships that use them actually worth it. These suggestions are aimed mainly at making Sniper class ships worth their weight in cryonite primarily in PvP/OTB, but also PVE content.
Suggestion 1: Allow Attack Droids to Use More Items
Attack Droids are reminiscent of enemy Sniper units in many ways, but they lack a lot of the utility that enemy Sniper units have. The addition of a perforated and repair droid skill that ADs have access to that function similarly to enemy Sniper units can make them more effective long term and encourage players to make targeting them a priority. Other kinds of skills could be attached too like secondary blasters or aim scramblers, but I can't imagine the balance consequences that can come from them.
Suggestion 2: Change Attack Droids to Behave Like Mantis Detonators
Mantis Detonators have been the bane of a many pilots since Gemini. Their near-death self detonation mechanic is more difficult to implement reliably than simply allowing Attack Droids to activate perforators on a timer or repair droids on a health threshold, but it would make them a significantly more dangerous target to face. I believe that this self detonation behaviour should activate upon reaching either a health threshold or when the uptime timer for the droid runs out, forcing the droid to barrel towards the nearest enemy in range of its weapons before exploding in a fiery death. For balance reasons, this self detonation would obviously have to be far less effective than a regular aggorobomb, likely less than half the damage since we have two droids now, but it would give a similarly great payoff for its usage in accordance with its long reload time. Allowing repair droids to be dropped any time like they used to be before the Remnant update would introduce very skillful and interesting strategic opportunities to burst down enemy teams in OTB/CQ.
Suggestion 3: Allow Forced Re-targeting of Attack Droids
The idea is simple: pressing the attack droid skill slot whilst its already active would make attack droids return to the pilot's vicinity when no target is selected, or (when a target is selected) force the AD to attack the currently selected target. The execution is hard; NPC behaviour programming in this game is difficult and arduous and introducing a completely new functionality for activating already activated items is another huge layer of difficulty on top. But the level of manual control that such a feature would offer would be remarkably useful and make it one of the best and yet rewarding skills to use and master in the game.
Any of these suggestions would be great, all 3 would probably be overkill. What do others think? Input on why these can/should/shouldn't/cannot be implemented from Splitscreen Staff would also be great.
The new remnant attack droids look awesome (totally not biased), I think they should be feared as much as they are admired for looking cool!
Suggestion 1: Allow Attack Droids to Use More Items
Attack Droids are reminiscent of enemy Sniper units in many ways, but they lack a lot of the utility that enemy Sniper units have. The addition of a perforated and repair droid skill that ADs have access to that function similarly to enemy Sniper units can make them more effective long term and encourage players to make targeting them a priority. Other kinds of skills could be attached too like secondary blasters or aim scramblers, but I can't imagine the balance consequences that can come from them.
Suggestion 2: Change Attack Droids to Behave Like Mantis Detonators
Mantis Detonators have been the bane of a many pilots since Gemini. Their near-death self detonation mechanic is more difficult to implement reliably than simply allowing Attack Droids to activate perforators on a timer or repair droids on a health threshold, but it would make them a significantly more dangerous target to face. I believe that this self detonation behaviour should activate upon reaching either a health threshold or when the uptime timer for the droid runs out, forcing the droid to barrel towards the nearest enemy in range of its weapons before exploding in a fiery death. For balance reasons, this self detonation would obviously have to be far less effective than a regular aggorobomb, likely less than half the damage since we have two droids now, but it would give a similarly great payoff for its usage in accordance with its long reload time. Allowing repair droids to be dropped any time like they used to be before the Remnant update would introduce very skillful and interesting strategic opportunities to burst down enemy teams in OTB/CQ.
Suggestion 3: Allow Forced Re-targeting of Attack Droids
The idea is simple: pressing the attack droid skill slot whilst its already active would make attack droids return to the pilot's vicinity when no target is selected, or (when a target is selected) force the AD to attack the currently selected target. The execution is hard; NPC behaviour programming in this game is difficult and arduous and introducing a completely new functionality for activating already activated items is another huge layer of difficulty on top. But the level of manual control that such a feature would offer would be remarkably useful and make it one of the best and yet rewarding skills to use and master in the game.
Any of these suggestions would be great, all 3 would probably be overkill. What do others think? Input on why these can/should/shouldn't/cannot be implemented from Splitscreen Staff would also be great.
The new remnant attack droids look awesome (totally not biased), I think they should be feared as much as they are admired for looking cool!