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Author Topic: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender  (Read 762 times)

Rusty Edge

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The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« on: February 11, 2023, 10:11:12 AM »

The Shepherd is an early game favorite, with its nice logistics features, and it's drone wing that increases frigate survivability.
 Late game, it tends to be dropped because it just can't contribute meaningfully. And this makes sense, it's a civilian ship, easily outclassed by hulls designed for war.

 But the Shepherd plays a nice and unique role on the battlefield, as a fast, long range support that protects it's allies. And it's kind of a shame that there is nothing to properly replace it.

 Why not give the Vigilance a defensive drone wing, and allow it to be the stronger, more expensive bigger brother to the shepherd? Let it keep both mounts, and stay chronically allergic to small amounts of damage.

 Mining pods could work, but I like the idea of special defensive drones designed to body-block vulnerable allies. Fast and tough, but in wings of 3 with nothing but Vulcans, or maybe PD lasers. Something with decent deployment range, that can soak up quite a bit of damage and deter fighters. But with firepower that most frigates can safely ignore.

 By default, the Vigilance AI could automatically target overloaded allies for drone escorts. This would give the Vigilance a strong and useful niche well into the late game, without it robbing the strengths of any of the other frigates.

It could also encourage more use of frigates in the late game, since it could usually keep up and improve frigate survivability.
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Fotsvamp

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2023, 04:15:00 AM »

I second this suggestion, it sounds like a fun niche for a ship that is currently hard to use.
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BCS

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2023, 06:12:15 AM »

I think it would be fun to have a frigate mini-carrier, but I don't know if completely redesigning Vigilance for that is the way to go.
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FooF

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2023, 06:39:46 AM »

We also have the Tempest with its drones. I’m not against the OPs idea but it feels like an answer in search of a problem. The vigilance isn’t a sexy ship by any means but it’s ok.
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Candesce

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2023, 07:07:21 AM »

The vigilance isn’t a sexy ship by any means but it’s ok.
The new selection of stand-off energy missiles will probably do quite a bit for it. The extra ammo for the medium Reaper, too.

But the Vigilance has always been an escort ship rather than a duelist or flanker. It's too slow to close with its peers using short-range weapons and can't keep range or reliably hit them with its long-range ones, so stick it next to a bigger, badder ship so it can apply what it's got to the targets it's got the tools for - other big ships.
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Rusty Edge

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2023, 05:08:33 AM »

We also have the Tempest with its drones. I’m not against the OPs idea but it feels like an answer in search of a problem. The vigilance isn’t a sexy ship by any means but it’s ok.

 But the Terminator drones are designed for offense, and they can't really protect anything other than the parent Tempest.

 The main thing that excited me was the idea of a useful militarized Shepherd.

 The Vigilance, given it's name, almost identical (albiet upscaled) mounts, and player's general confusion on its application, seemed like a good candidate. At very least I think it should be attempted as an optional variant.
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Bulletkin

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2023, 10:14:50 AM »

I agree with this idea. A more 'military' version of the shepherd. Maybe a new kind of drone and a smaller logistical bonus.
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Doctorhealsgood

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Re: The Vigilance would make a good drone tender
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2023, 04:56:19 PM »

Sounds like a pretty cool thing to add to the support frigate.
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