Cruiser Command

Ya i kind of like the idea of drone upgrades
In the begining of the game your just using the drones for refining and mining (maybe help out with science or weapons but that is optional)

Its WAY expensive to keep buying drones when all you want are more miners and a missile drone (unfortunatly the missile drone is broken atm so nobody uses that)

Drones can have 2 levels
~Level 1
You can buy new drones, starts with like 50y 10g and adds 25y 5g for each new drone
-Refining
-Mining
-Missile Loading
-(Maintenance AI?)

~Level 2
If a drone is level one, in that drones spot it will have a button to upgrade that drone for 100b 25g
-Includes all level 1 tasks
-Weapons
-Science
-(Wraith/Corvette AI?)

And it will make drone management a bit more interesting as you dont want to just use your one level 2 drone on mining, you already have 3 level one drones on it ;D
Its not to complex and adds a bit more depth to the AI console

Sharp wrote:They should endure until be better, for now it's easy to be better so it might not be important issue, but how about in future? I think it would be harder than now at least.

my concern is that if you withhold some mechanics from the start, you won't learn to be better, you will only learn to be "good enough" - lets go with the current miner AI's, since those work and there isn't much speculation - if you were to hinder them such that they don't use warp until X upgrade, then any humans that play vs them would become horrible wraith pilots that are unable to actually kill a miner with warp - same goes for crippling a wraith via mechanics. If you want players to have an unfair advantage over wraith AI's, it's simple - upgrade them such that their wraiths do more damage, have more speed, and have more hull - and yes, the other team can do the same, but it's not like the other team would be unable to upgrade the AI abilities as well. And if you want to practice, make some practice mode, assign enemy AI's, do your upgrades such that your superior, etc. - do whatever in practice mode, but don't let it carry over into the real game.

And no, we really don't need different levels of drone AI's, the AI console is complex enough, as most positions have some sort of options (what to mine, arm yamato, fire missiles, etc.) - id be OK with basic upgrades such as health, speed, etc. but not "mechanics changing" upgrades such as now they can spread repair kits, or now wraiths can fire missiles (that already is tied to a specific upgrade)

I like Dreadnought's idea on adding more roles with levels, right now I hardly ever purchase a drone for refining and loading missiles and to a lesser extent, mining. Unless I'm floating in money, otherwise its not really worth it.
Science and weapons are very much required, especially in low-player games.

I would suggest pricing as:
Drone Level 1 - 25/25 (+75/75 for each additional drone) - 100/100 - 175/175 and so on.
Drone Level 2 - 150/30 Flat one time cost for each drone you want to upgrade.

I would prefer this style of pricing, at level 1 teams can easily start filling out roles but quickly becomes more expensive so that teams dont spam a large amount of miners easily.
At level 2 this will help make green more "late game tech resource" as the team develops their Battlecruiser and gives a better sense of pacing. It also gets captains something to do besides sit on upgrades

This will add a nice amount of complexity to the drone console without overly complicating it, since its only 2 levels.
I also would not want drones to become "Better" with a role, like better mining techniques or refining drone that also sprints and removes debris, as it is simply an annoying and generic way to develop the teams drones.