surveillance planes??

[actheman]

After I push the biter bases back to beyond the pollution zone they of coarse come back in and resettle. Radars have a very limited radius for "live surveillance". And it would be handy to have planes to patrol around the base beyond the wall. They would show newly spawned biter bases that have settled... The planes could also be used to travel between bases as well... Not sure if this has already been suggested, my apologies if it has.

[ssilk]

Radars already rescan the chunks after a while.

[Kazuar]

Planes are slightly problematic, I think, since "plane" implies the requirement of an actual airstrip. Helicopters might work, though, but so would a "patrol robot" that you could just put into your roboport.

For surveillance of your perimeters, we already have everything we'd need; you might have observed your radars as they uncover the surrounding, unknown area. What's less obvious is that, once everything in range is uncovered, radars begin searching again, in the same pattern, slowly re-revealing every change since the last scan (i.e. new biter bases). Unfortunately, this re-scan is not really well communicated by the UI, and in my opinion, the 'flash' you see on your map borders when an area is revealed should also be shown when a sector is re-scanned.

Of course, a single radar is like really, really slow, so feel free to just spam them in order to see developments on your perimeters sooner (a single, electric substation can provide coverage fo 24 radars, for example).

[hoho]

Radars are boring.
Planes that you need to refuel, provide with patrol paths (set up some waypoints on ground, possibly something powered) and that can be shot down are much more fun

[Alfdaur]

Yeah, I agree. Planes that need to be given a rout,keep feuled and that can be shot down are way more interesting as the radar. The radar for has a too low range for the constant vision and a too low range for long range vision.

[Dakkanor]

scout drones? which upgrade to assault drones and bomber drones later? (attack would use bullets for ammo and bombers would hold a rocket) add a combat drone bay and any drones put in it would automatically patrol that area, it could even be an upgraded form of radar

[Rahjital]

Planes that could be shot down would be pretty much useless to scout biter nests, though. Even if you disallowed the meelee biters to attack it, there are still worms. I agree that having a plane that has to return to base for refueling (as long as it can be automated by inserters) would be much more interesting than radars. Ideally, both the plane and radars would have their own role; radars would keep their current sight radius and would serve to keep you informed about what's happening in the base, while the planes would explore the black areas on map or would patrol around your base to search for new biter bases.

I really think the search pattern should be automated, though. Currently the radars do it great by searching the longest un-seen chunks first. Perhaps there should be an option to make a manual path in case you want to patrol a narrow chokepoint or something, but having to set up all the patrol drones manually would be tedious.

[hoho]

Planes that could be shot down would be pretty much useless to scout biter nests, though.

That's sort of the point
Planes would explore fast but have high chance of being blown out of the sky.

it would be nice to be able to specify no-fly zones to prevent planes from getting too close to nests but I think that would need the RTS mode be more advanced.

[Rahjital]

That's sort of the point
Planes would explore fast but have high chance of being blown out of the sky.

Oh. Considering how frequent biter bases are on standard settings, that would leave radars as the only actually useful option for exploring, unless you want to explore oceans for some strange reason.