We've all had those days. Pinned down, under heavy fire, can't shoot back without getting vital bits shot off. What do you need? Remote drone blasters! -Basics- A remote drone blaster is pretty much what you think it is; a drone that you can use to remotely blast your enemies. All you would need to do is click somewhere. The drone would fly to that location, and then you just drag your mouse in the direction you want it to fire and release the button. The drone fires, and returns. A visual demonstration by the lovely Miss Rose: -Advantages- These drones can blast your enemies while you stay behind cover. You could also spread them around the battlefield and confuse your enemies with fire from all angles. -Disadvantages- Well, for one thing, you do need line-of-sight to the place you're deploying the drone. They also some time to recharge between shots, and they aren't going to have the impact some of your other weapons will have. They're more of a support weapon. -Variations- Drone blasters come in many different varieties. Ranging from drone types, to shot types, to number of drones per control unit. -Drones- Crystal Ball: Eyebots: Totally Tubular: -Shot Types- Dakka Master: Cannonball: Classic Laser: Special unique drone blasters could be found out there, like ones with a spiral shot, or a cross laser. Drone blasters would be mid-to-high-end weapons, due to them needing some practice to use and the advantage they give you on the battlefield. With the right strategy and timing, one could use a 4-unit laser drone blaster to herd an enemy in range of your other weapons, or into a trap. An enemy charging you may miss that drone about to shoot them in the back. Get your remote drone blaster today! Thoughts?
Sounds like a difficult control scheme, but I love it. I had an idea similar to this in my thread about Various Weapon Mod Ideas. The trick is finding a way to make this easy and practical to use.
I think the idea is really well put together and I like it, though the control scheme could be better. Also, there could possibly be a type of drone that's more like a swarm of drones that are all connected to one of the control gloves. The downside would be that because there are so many smaller drones they can't do as much damage as their larger counterparts. EDIT: Derp, just saw the line saying drones also very in how many are controlled by each unit. I still like the idea of dual wielding some swarm control units, it'd look pretty cool.
Honestly, the control scheme's as simple as I could make it, although I am a little technical-minded in some cases. With the right setup one could cover an entire battlefield in bullet hell. inb4 vids of 1cc pvp That being said, I'm welcoming any ideas on how it could be improved. This is one of the things I wanna mod in if it's not already in the game, and, well, who knows what kind of neat ideas could come from this?
Yeah, I read this and immediately thought of bullet hell as well. The controls would be simpler if the drone simply deployed to where you clicked and then fired towards the nearest hostile target. Then drones that had spread fire or homing shots would really open the gates of bullet hell. Being able to deploy the drones quickly and easily would be the biggest obstacle to making them useful, and I think the click and drag method gives you more control at the cost of practicality.
Automatically firing at the nearest target, yeah. That would be a more practical choice, but then it's more like remote turrets. I can see the practical problems, I just figured that being able to pick your targets and intelligently wall in your foes would be a worthy tradeoff. Although homing shots wouldn't need manual aiming, unless you wanted to arc the projectile around a wall...
Yeah, you wouldn't be able to "wall in" foes as easily with drones that fire straight at the nearest foes. However, drones that auto-aim will force the foe to move or they will get hit by your attacks, and they will have to continue moving in that direction because the drone's aim will follow them. This can herd your opponent and end up making them feel trapped anyway, especially once you've deployed several drones. Factoring in drones with spread shots that go in multiple directions or beams that literally create a moving wall of damage and the foe will start feeling very claustrophobic or end up getting hammered from all sides. I guess it just seems to me like it would be more of a bullet hell if the drone aim tracked the target instead of being stationary. Otherwise I imagine an "eye of the storm" happening, where the foe just sits still and most of your attacks go right past them. Either way the idea seems like a strong and entertaining alternative to traditional weapons. Gosh, now I feel like playing Realm of the Mad God.
Said eye of the storm could be a lot more dangerous to the enemy than it seems; you set up what seems like a safe spot, except it's right over a spike pit or land mines. Or right in range of your laser rifle. Hmm. Maybe the two styles could be combined. A single click causes the drone to aim at the nearest enemy, but holding down the button allows you to manually aim the shot.
A combination of different types of drones would probably be best because it allows more options. One possible downside comes from the possibility of items that nullify or reduce hit stun and knock back effects. In Terraria, I once tried using the Demon Scythe to create a wall of damage to prevent my foe from approaching with melee weapons, but in PvP every foe would have the Cobalt Shield and just ran straight through my "wall", often dealing far more DPS than I could in the process. This utter disregard for evading attacks and even ignoring enemy fire is precisely why I'd be biased to a more "fire-and-forget" type of drone that seeks out the nearest target-- Then I could focus on evasion and avoiding my foes while my drones did the offensive work. Of course, I have nothing against any idea that traps the foe while I pound them with super-missiles.
I made a thread about drones about... A gazillion years ago and this post depicts exactly what I wanted to explain. You have triumphed where I failed, +10 for you, my good sir. And I really hope this idea gets implemented, one way or another.
Kind of seems like it would be used like the Rainbow Rod in Terraria, for hitting enemies behind cover.
A month and a half later: "NECRO BUMP!" But seriously this idea is good enough that it deserves a good necro.
Could the drones be more modular? As in, you could mount player weapons/tools, flashlights, shields, sensors and the like. And multiple clicks can send the drone beyond cover, but you'll need sensors on the drone or it won't see anything. It has an internal capacitor that doesn't recharge, though, continually drains a small amount of power, and when it runs out it drops to the ground. Anyone can pick it up, but you need the controller(still in the operator's inventory) to use it.
I think the drones could be controlled like Terraria's Magic Missile sans being able to throw it. I loved that ability. I also think of it more like an automated ally, rather than an extension of your gun, meaning that it picks its own targets and fires at them. The drones would generally have to be stationary to fire. Although some of the lighter varieties can run-n-gun. Some heavy ones have stabilize times between when they stop moving and when they start firing. The drones have health pools, so that you can't just sit there and pew-pew away at a boss from behind a wall. Upon the done reaching 0 hp, it returns to you and it costs more energy than when you just fired it. (If you don't have the energy to pay for the repair, then it'll prevent you from regaining energy until the debt is cleared.) Of course, generally light drones will have 1 hp but will be hard to hit, heavy drones will have more. IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, whether or not it knows that it shouldn't shoot at you) will usually be off. (Though perhaps a rare drone ability could be that it can see that it won't shoot at you) What this means is that instead of being required to have Line of Sight, you need to not have LOS but still a clear path to place it. This will make it better in the situations it's designed for, but not a cure-all that you can use in every fight.
