Subset Games Forum

My drones often die, in fact I have often lost two or three drones in a single battle. This happens in any environment. Seems that the opponent ship is occasionally shooting my drones down. But I can't ever shoot theirs and I don't ever seen to destroy theirs. They never seem to lose drones, even in a long battle where I struggle to get past their high shields and defense drone. THE DRONE NEVER DIES!!

Is there some way to kill drones that I'm missing? Cause it would be really nice to be able to destroy enemy drones.

Also, on a slightly unrelated note, I'm pretty much convinced that the Defense drone mk II is worthless. It may shoot faster than a Defense mk I, but it will shoot at lasers when there are missiles coming at you, so it VERY often fails to protect you from missiles. I think if it would consider missiles to be a higher priority, it would be more useful, but even then I'd only be willing to spend that much energy on it because I only have two drone slots on most ships. I found that using both a defense mk I and defense mk II at the same time greatly increased my missile safety over having just the mk II. It was......like having only a mk I! Because that was the one shooting the missiles most of the time anyway!

On the other hand, when the enemy uses a defense mk II, it seems to be able to shoot down 3 missiles at a time. I was using two launchers on the final boss, one was the double shot launcher, and failed to get a single hit in after about 5 volleys. I went from about 40 missiles to zero in that fight (thinking initially I'd have an easy victory) and didn't get past the second stage.

Any projectiles that impact a drone will destroy the drone. The enemy has been getting very lucky in this case.
And for the record, yes, the Def. Drone Mk II is kind of crap. I refuse to use them. Too much power wastage for what I want to do, which is protect against missiles. If it shot down missiles before other projectiles, then it would be okay. BUT NO.

I can shoot an enemy drone when it flies in front of my guns, but the other ship ones I cant as the approach from digferent sides. They are so scarce too that I have a fit when they destroy me one

thereaverofdarkness wrote:On the other hand, when the enemy uses a defense mk II, it seems to be able to shoot down 3 missiles at a time. I was using two launchers on the final boss, one was the double shot launcher, and failed to get a single hit in after about 5 volleys. I went from about 40 missiles to zero in that fight (thinking initially I'd have an easy victory) and didn't get past the second stage.

It seem that your drones are killed (or distracted) by enemies relying on firestorm of weak projectiles (lasers), while you are relying on small amount of powerful projectiles (missiles). Def2 has no problems shooting down TWO projectiles at once, and it recharges quite quickly for next 2 (you can see it on the drone's green/red indicator light).

def2 capabilities can be easily oversaturated with harmless lasers, I agree that mk1 simply does it's job better.

Using weak lasers give you better chances of shooting down enemy drones.

BTW, I had this situation when enemy and I both launched missiles at the same time - and neither of them reached target. I think they had to collide midway and got destroyed. It seems the rule is that everything can collide with (and shoot down) everything.

Also, the Defense Mk2 goes completely bananas against boarding drones.

The defense mk I is good at shooting those down too. The enemy ship will often keep firing them at you rapidly until they run out of drone parts. Much easier than trying to fight them in a breached room, only to have the enemy toss another one at you.

Agent_L: since youre knowledgeable about the game, do you have any insight about the direction your lasers come fromz when they reach the enemy? It changes. Knowing it would make easier to kill enemy defense drones.

Ethaniel wrote:Also, the Defense Mk2 goes completely bananas against boarding drones.

Indeed, I would rather choose two defense mk 1 at this point.

xdiesp wrote:Agent_L:do you have any insight about the direction your lasers come fromz when they reach the enemy? It changes.

Sorry, I have no clue. Even when firing a synchronized volley (like from the Red Tail) they land on enemy from different directions. I guess it's randomized independently for every weapon firing.

Perhaps the projectiles are supposedly going away from the camera to hit the ship, and since it's 2-D they simply go toward the vanishing point--their target. That way they can come in from any direction.

I've played with it a bit and it seems difficult to do but possible to shoot down drones that are near your ship if you time the lasers to fire when the drone is almost in front of it, so that the bolt intersects with the drone. It seems to not always actually hit, but it often does hit if you time it right.