New types of robot: Defender Robots (not capsules)

[Mooncat]

To keep it short:
They are like the Combat Robotics in MoCombat, but act more vanilla-like.
Why? Because who don't enjoy watching two massive forces (robots vs enemies) fighting each others?

Long version:
Why I post this idea here:
As I said, the combat robots in MoCombat doesn't really behave what I expected. They require an additional modded Roboport. And they don't have return animation. They just disappear after roaming, like the enemies, for a few seconds. But I expected the combat robots to use the vanilla Roboports, and have the same return animation as Logistic Robot and Construction Robot (i.e. fly into the hole of Roboport). I guess the author wanted to do that too, but it seems the modding API doesn't support to do so. Therefore, I put the idea here as an suggestion to the official dev team.

How it will work:
Each Roboport acts like a turret. It has a range for detecting enemies. When enemies enter this range, all Roboports in the same logistic network will send Defender Robots to attack the enemies. If no enemy is detected, the Robots will go back to the nearest Roboport just like a normal robot.
In my mind, there are different types of Defender Robots which are correspond to the existing Capsules:

• Basic Defender Robot: low cost, low power consumption (among all Defender Robots), deal physical damage to the enemies
• Laser Defender Robot: high cost, high power consumption, deal laser damage to the enemies
• Slowdown Defender Robot: this one is fun, it can't kill enemies along. What it can do is to fly on top of the enemies and spray icy gas, slowing enemy movement and attack speed. It should have higher HP since it is short ranged.
• Poison Defender Robot: I'm not sure about this, since the toxic gas can hurt players.

To reduce redundancy with the existing Capsules, Defender Robots cannot go inside the Personal Roboport (because they require the radar on standard Roboport to search for enemies ). In this way, they can only passively defense and cannot be used for actively attacking the enemies (unless you build a Roboport near their spawners and drop Defender Robots before the Roboport is destroyed).

Also, please expand the modding API so that modders can go crazy with more robot types

(I have more ideas for this amazing game. If this format is appropriate, I will use it again for the next idea)

[Klonan]

Something like this?
viewtopic.php?f=93&t=23559

[bobingabout]

I've actually used a drone mine in my mod. there also exists a drone launching module for personal armor, but no recipe to make it.

The big issue I noticed though is the game crashs if a weapon fires any drone that has been set to follow the player.

[Mooncat]

Something like this?
viewtopic.php?f=93&t=23559

Wow, didn't realize this mod exists. Seems quite promising. I will try that out, thanks.
Tho what I am looking for is new robots that use the Roboport instead of a new structure/item, because I don't like redundancy xD

[bobingabout]

I know the feeling. I personally would like the combat roboport robots over a combat robot gun, but that's what we have.

Klonan, how do you make the drones live forever? last time I tried to make a robot drone for the gun, it said the time to live tag had to exist.

[Mooncat]

Something like this?
viewtopic.php?f=93&t=23559

Unfortunately, after testing the mod, I have to say it is not what I expected.
I don't want the robots to fly forever. I want them to return to the Roboport once the enemies have been cleared.
In your mod, the units don't return to where they were spawned. So if they find an enemy, they fly further. Eventually, they will be so far away from the base.
Another problem is that when I accidentally damaged a building, all the units treated me as an enemy and killed me lol

[bobingabout]

I looked at the mod code, I see what you did now, it's not a robot at all, it's a "unit", the same entity type as biters and spitters.

I've heard problems with those though, in that my robotic tank in my warfare mod causes desyncs. (unit's with no home base)

[Klonan]

I looked at the mod code, I see what you did now, it's not a robot at all, it's a "unit", the same entity type as biters and spitters.

I've heard problems with those though, in that my robotic tank in my warfare mod causes desyncs. (unit's with no home base)

I've been playing with them in a MP game and haven't had any desyncs as of yet,
I sort of had the idea from seeing your tanks in a video, and while i was working on another capsule mod, i realized that capsules are boring and it became this mod

So if they find an enemy, they fly further. Eventually, they will be so far away from the base.

Thats actually what i think is the coolest feature,
Eventually the bots will be led along by engagements with biters back to the spawner, and then automatically take out the attacking base

[bobingabout]

I sort of had the idea from seeing your tanks in a video

My mod was inspiration? wonderful!

[FOTUWSST]

yes, we need something like this. either a standalone, dedicated "attack drone" that hide in the roboports untill theyre needed. or go with a worker bee strategy, and give the logistics drones a personal laser defense that only fires whn not carrying anything, and is more a passive thing, as the logistics drones will prioritise their own job over hunting enemies, and only do so when absolutely nessisairy (like when your base is under attack)