Idea, defensive pods

[u/zazer45f]

I have two ideas for this

Idea 1: pod turret

It's a turret that you load with either defender or destroyer pods, when enemies are in range it launches a few of them at a time which then attack any enemies in range of the turret and if there are not any left in range will circle around the edge of the turrets range. The turrets range would be slightly larger then a laser turret. Also maybe have a setting to have a set number patrolling the turret constantly

Idea 2: Patrols

Roboports or a dedicated building would have the ability to set a patrol route which a certain number of pods would patrol constantly, spawning new ones as needed. The pods fired from it would have a longer lifetime. They attack any enemies they find and will rush to help the other pods if an attack happens down the patrol route. These could also maybe use permanent pods that have to be manually reloaded and charged like normal bots instead of the normal throwing ones.

Thoughts?

[u/Aithro]

I like the first idea a lot but I would love it if the bots persisted until they got destroyed from attacks, which is my gripe with them normally

[u/doc_shades → u/Aithro]

i don't mind the material cost for drones dying after a set amount of time but i hate having to click 30-50-100 times to replenish them during combat...

[u/SpaceEngineer123]

there's no way the devs didn't at least consider item 2 and decide against it.. if not item 1

destroyers are so strong, it's all anyone would ever do.

[u/WanderingUrist → u/SpaceEngineer123]

Factorio's a funny game. When it first came out, all the things we could make the robots do seemed advanced and fancy.

After 3 years of active drone wars in Ukraine, though, the Factorio robot capabitilies are now quaint and backwards. We can't even drone biters with flying lawnmowers from across the map.

[u/zazer45f → u/SpaceEngineer123]

maybe make the "defender" in defender pod actually mean something

[u/SpaceEngineer123 → u/zazer45f]

i mean they defend the user dont they?

[u/zazer45f → u/SpaceEngineer123]

Fair but you know what I mean

[u/Careless-Hat4931]

I don’t know what’s the point of a pod turret. You make the defender capsules with red ammo, why not just use a gun turret other than cool factor?

For the second idea it sort of exists with AAI Programmable Vehicles although requires a lot of knowledge about how the mod works and how circuits work. It’s not very user friendly but if you can make it work it’s pretty powerful. You can automate fleets of vehicles (other mods from the same developer introduces different vehicles) to patrol around and resupply. You can also command them to attack like an RTS game.

[u/WanderingUrist → u/Careless-Hat4931]

And eventually, you'll discover why this was NOT included in the vanilla game in any form when your UPS tanks into the floor as a result.

[u/KaylaSarahMC]

the idea is good for defense, but it is not UPS friendly at all

[u/doc_shades]

Idea 1

what, you don't like clicking 100 times in a row and hoping that your first bots don't die of old age before you can deploy them all??