Remote-Control Robots: Endgame Turret Replacement

[Anonemuss]

Endgame turrets have a problem. Either the player has already cleared out all nearby enemy bases, and so the turrets have no purpose, or the player has played defensively and has too many laser turrets draining power, leading to power issues during biter attacks.

So, my solution is this: Robots that can be remote-controlled from a building or with an item, that lets the player temporarily play as the robot. It would basically be a mix between a portable turret and modular power armor. Players could add the same things to the robot that they could add to their armor. When it is not being controlled, the robot would remain stationary and use a laser to attack nearby enemies, as laser turrets do. The difference, is that it would use power from equipped fusion reactors and batteries, rather than using the power grid. This would allow players in the endgame to have a more dynamic factory perimeter: By completely replacing turrets with these robots, players could move the robots directly, instead of having to travel all the way to their border and manually move a bunch of turrets. The best part is: while this idea adds an aspect of autonomy to the game's combat, it adds no pathing, which means there's likely none of the issues that adding AI robots would cause.

As a side note, the robots would likely have to have a naming system, so players could easily identify which robots they want to control. Also, although the player can control the robot and possibly use it to take out enemy bases, it probably shouldn't be able to craft or access inventories, or else players would simply treat it as an extra life.

Edit: I'd like to point out that rather than robots, the mechanics of my suggestion are closer to a mix between turrets and the player. The "robot" part of the title is from player control, not from any kind of automated movement. Automation of mobile machines would be, in my opinion, a drain on the CPU and overall unnecessary coding, and so when not controlled by the player, the robots would essentially be laser turrets with different graphics and a new optional power source.

[TuckJohn]

This is an interesting idea. I would like to see something like this except with an automation feature, although it would hard to do "right".

[ssilk]

I see a problem with the game target: automate everything. This described game mechanism is a hero-system. The heroes are the robots.

Taking over the hero or the robot is no big difference. The problem I see is, that in my opinion the target is not to fight but to let fight.

See games like Siedler 2: the target is to understand under which conditions the bots will fight for you.


EDIT: I forgot about this post: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=16603 Combat robot target

[nobodx]

Ihmo screw the idea with the playable drones, just add a classic rts-interface and lets command (*ahem* and conquer with) them.

[ssilk]

As you already said : it's then a "Command and Conquer" and not Factorio.

On the other hand I think these elements might come with the next releases. With the Fat Controller mod you're already able to command a train for example.

What I really mean is, that it is a sharpe edge between this two game genres.

[nobodx]

I don't think those genres exclude themselves.
Even with the RTS-Interface in the endgame, it would still be a factory-builder game. You can just guide your automated forces against the native fauna.
And I f you have to research a command center, people can decide, if they want to go that way.

[vampiricdust]

I would love to see a Defense Network. Basically, they would be like the logistic network, but would respond to any attack on a player structure within their range. I would use a threat map that monitors attacks over time. This map would act like pollution does to control how many combat drones each "hot spot" (areas in which turrets engaged enemies, players entities damaged, or destroyed) would call out of the total available combat drones. This would automate defenses so that areas constantly hit would keep a heavier force as well as create a distribution of combat drones over the entire Defense Network using threat levels to call a percentage of drones.

I'll call these structures Robobases. They would like like Roboports in that when connected, they create a network that has it's own threat map. If there are two Robobases, Robobase A has a threat level 4 and B has a threat level 1, then 4/5 of the combat drones will be called to respond to an attack inside of A's coverage area. Potentially, the Robobases could actively redistribute themselves as threat levels change over time.