Forums » Suggestions

Scavengers

May 13, 2004 Spider link
Well, the cargo timeout has reduced pretty badly, bad enough to be noticeable when you are botting and try to gain the cargo (while being interrupted by bots all the time)


The idea of a scavenge bot struck me, its a trader (centaur?) in the homesectors that simply scavenge all crates it can find. it roams about, and when its full "does something" .. or perhaps its never full but always carries 8 pieces, good trade boost for players who can find it ;)

Might be hard to implement in a short time, but overall I don't doubt that the engine supports it. ;)
May 13, 2004 MonkRX link
haha, have the scavenge bot look like a scrap peice of metal... burning a bit, and never found with a perfect/undamaged hull.


But in general, the Idea sounds OK, but it would get annoying when you find out that the Scavenge bot stole your cargo.
May 13, 2004 RelayeR link
I agree with Spider...a scavenger bot would be great but it should hold 50+ cargo, be extremely fast and very deadly to anyone that 1) fires on it _AND_ 2) is within 1000m. When it is full, it docks and unloads/repairs.

Players would take group combat missions that instructed them to find and kill a 'scavenger' along with the normal list of baddies. The 'scavenger' would have to be teamed though because it is just too hard for one pilot to kill.

One 'scavenger' in s6, s4 and s12 and 2 'scavengers' in each combat sector.

MonkRX...One way to keep the 'scavenger' from getting your cargo is to pick it up as you make a kill. :-)
May 13, 2004 harvestmouse link
ta-da... It's the Amazing Flying Deadly Frig!
I think the Frig holds 50 cargo... I would love to see a frig-type scavenger zooming around (doesn't have to be the frig ship. but lots of cargo, deadly is still the idea)
May 13, 2004 Arolte link
One of the devs, I believe a1k0n, actually said they might build a scavenger bot to pick up all the excess cargo. And this was like right after 3.4 was released. The timeout on cargo was quickened simply because the sector started getting way too cluttered up and laggy.
May 13, 2004 Spider link
Arolte: Yeah, I understand that reasoning.

RelayeR: No, lets not overdo it. 50 cargo is too much. Give it a Centaur and Swarmers + Adv.Gatling + gemini Thats leathal enough for 16 scrap metal.

For normal sectors there isn't that much cargo around, since people keep valuing it enough to save, so thats not such a bad thing that there aren't any.
May 13, 2004 RelayeR link
OK...16 for the homies but 50 for the combat sectors. The addition of the drone IIs to those sectors makes it awful hard to collect cargo while doing combat missions and they get awful messy.