Marker Mage

I think he means being able to take a group of parts and instead of copy and pasting them, save them so that you can paste them later, possibly in another drone. So if you have a particular group of parts that you like using (like a factory block that produce a large missile), you don't have to make it from scratch every time you want to add it to a new drone. If that isn't what he means, then consider adding it anyway, because that will be very useful for those of us that like to reuse ideas/configurations from previous drones.

So I just thought of an alternative that can avoid the problem of multiple beacons. Basically it would be a part or weapon upgrade/ammo that shoots out a beacon that sticks to whatever it hits, whether it be terrain, an object, or an enemy. Each time it is fired, the previous beacon is lost/destroyed. Maybe have it have outputs for if it is attached to enemies, terrain, ore, or something else and an input that causes it to self destruct or deactivate. I can see it being part of a setup where once stuck onto an ore deposit, automated drones will seek it out to gather resources until the ore around it is collected and it drops to some non-ore terrain, whereupon it gives an output that matches its deactivation input.

I've seen suggestions like this before, and it seems like the problem is mostly an issue of the already-existing programming. Maybe eventually they'll figure out a way to connect two already-placed parts with some strut or something that fuel/energy can't run through.

Think a tractor beam part might be a good addition? It could work somewhat like the magnet, but directional. Maybe have it include an adjustable arc for it to affect.

As someone in love with the idea of launching orbital attack satellites to unleash death wherever I click, I support this idea. Especially if it can have the bullet go out the other side of the planet.

Why didn't I think to look up if this game had a kickstarter?😅

Well, I think I HAVE mentioned in another thread the idea of an ammo type that could recharge batteries (might have had some extra about being able to overload them to the point of being temporarily disabled). Maybe you could make fuel guns or even resource guns that use up fuel and resources respectively instead of energy and use THAT to transfer them.

Just a rope/chain to attach a magnet to would allow the creation of a crane... or maybe a wrecking ball... ...which would certainly not be used for hedgehog extermination! 😅

OK, so the drones can fly, but that doesn't mean they don't have to deal with land travel. Instead of having your drone scrape against the ground, why not slap some wheels onto it? Wheels would be able to have 4 basic settings, neutral, brake, rotate clockwise, and rotate counter clockwise. They could also just stick with the first one (or two) if the developers aren't up to having them all. Stop that soaring and let's get rolling! This idea brought to you by my memories of Affordable Space Adventures.

Has any consideration been given to a part that would work like the resource collector, but instead works with fuel/power/resources stored in a drone piece? Just... you've got your little gathering of fuel tanks (We'll call it the "station") decoupled and left somewhere out of the way of trouble and the mobile part of the drone (We'll just call it the "drone") has a non-refueling tank and this fuel collector piece (Calling this one the "collector"). You fly the drone to the station and activate the collector. The collector starts drawing fuel from any nearby sources and spreads it among fuel tanks that are physically connected to it. In this case, it'll be drawing fuel from the tanks in the station. This collector could possibly draw fuel from tanks it's connected to in order to redistribute fuel between connected tanks so that a large, emptied fuel tank could get refilled by smaller tanks to the point that all tanks on the drone reach empty at the same time. It could also see some use with resource collection by having a largish drone make mini resource collecting drones with factory blocks and having them collect resources in much the same way early demos did with the minidrones giving their resources to the main drone.

Mustn't forget the resource tanks for this. Also, what's to keep the batteries/tanks from having the sensor built into them? Just an output for when they're empty and an output for when they're full again. And/Or logic gates could handle totals.

OK, so it turns out I was operating on some misunderstanding of how cameras worked in the game. I thought activating a second camera would deactivate the previous camera, not zoom out to show both. Good thing I started this suggestion with the disclaimer.

Maybe batteries that recharge when hit with a particular elemental ammo? Give a reason to drop the shields and use damage reduction upgrades on a weapon. I rather like the idea of satellite-launching drones too and would love to see them encouraged, even if it's not for the same reasons they were used initially. One of the satellite builds that I'd like to try making once I have access to something that isn't the pre-alpha version is basically an attack satellite with long-range, cursor-aimed weapons and a small ship that is built with just thrusters, a shield, and the fuel tanks and batteries to operate both. Would just use the small, weaponless ship part of it to call in orbital strikes upon my enemies.😈

I suppose that it could require resources, either ones held on the Nimbatus or ones held in the drone's own tanks..

I'd appreciate D-pad compatibility being added. The control sticks could probably be used for directional sensors and weapons as an alternative to the cursor and would be less of a priority.

Let's see if I can exhaust my ideas for awhile. Weapon Techtree Upgrades Laser Upgrade: Orbital Beam: Increases range, damage, and energy usage depending on its altitude. Higher up it is, the farther it goes and the harder it hits. I mostly want to use this to make an attack satellite on a planet with the death star laser transmitter and fly around the surface with a smaller drone section. Just click somewhere and a big laser from off-screen starts burning through the enemy. Fight Fire With Fire: Damage increases while weapon is receiving damage of the same element type or while under the effect caused by that element type. Plasma weapons do more damage when on fire, cryo weapons when frozen, and the others when being pelted with their respective type. Maybe have it get the boost for a short while after being hit Friendly Fire: Hits your own drone parts as well as enemies. I'm thinking it could see some use with a -100% damage upgrade on a plasma or cryo weapon to make an alternative to heaters and coolers. I admittedly don't know if your drone's own plasma and cryo weapon shots heat or cool its parts while travelling through them in the closed alpha or not, but this should be able to cover for that possibility. Would be interesting to see a cryo flamethrower used as a fire extinguisher. Maybe have a detachable line of them that fires in one direction while a drone piece flies over. EDIT: I made a separate topic for this. Batteries Solar Panels Need Altitude: OK, so some of us think that solar panels are the only battery worth using. Maybe that can be dealt with by having their recharge speed based on altitude? More Situational Batteries: How about a thermal generator that works like the solar panel, but only gets its full recharge speed when hot? Dip it into lava for a quick recharge. Maybe have one that works with cold instead. Maybe have a wind-powered one that works with strong winds or when the battery's movement is fighting air resistance. And I just realized that someone is bound to try using the thermal generator and a heater to transfer energy or maybe even a... plasma weapon... And that gives me another idea. Nothing Stopping These From Being Used For A Battery Workshop Techtree: I can already imagine a drone using batteries with more storage capacity and a higher recharge dependent on altitude in a rush to escape a fight in underground tunnels so that it can take to the air and replenish its strength before either going back down or luring the enemies up to where it is. Energy/Fuel/Resource Sensor: A sensor that detects how much energy/fuel/resources the drone or drone section has and gives an output when it is greater than or below a particular amount. Maybe these could even be built into the the individual batteries, fuel tanks, and resource tanks instead. It'd be nice to have certain parts auto-shut down when they start being too costly and then start back up again once you have the energy to spare for them. Also, being able to have an autonomous resource collection drone know when its full or empty is going to be a useful feature. Electrical Elemental Weapons: Can recharge batteries or even overload them, causing them (and everything powered by them) to temporarily cease functioning. Give it a -100% damage upgrade and... *goes back up and adds another suggestion* FRIENDLY FIRE and it becomes a great way to transfer energy between decoupled drone pieces. Or you can just fire it at enemies to disable their ability to shoot at you. They'd still be able to fly around and ram into you just fine though. This will probably be useful for if you ever decide to let planets have thunderstorms. Of Course There'd Have To Be Special Batteries: Maybe a battery that only recharges when hit with an electrical weapon, but it is harder to overload. Emergency Backup Batteries: Maybe have it be possible to have a battery turned off and that'll keep it from being affected by electrical weapons until it's turned on, but until it's turned on, it's useless. Organic Option For Basic Parts: And this is where my imagination seems to be hitting its limit for now. I was thinking of those blocks that now come in heat and cold resistant flavors, but this one looks a bit like terrain or possibly hive material, has less HP, and heals when hit by bio ammo.

Maybe we could have shields that block out-going weaponfire as well as incoming? You'd have to either keep weapons outside of it or turn it off to fire. Give it better stats than the standard shield and players will find a way to use it. They'll probably even want a way to reduce the radius to keep certain ship parts out. Might be worth considering other "blocks more than you want it to" options like... terrain! The shield doesn't let terrain through so the drone just floats above it until the shield is turned off. Have to turn the shield off to fit through tight spaces, and turning it back on while in that tight space can be used as a way of braking. And these shields that would be HP-based and would need to recharge... Would they recharge faster/only when turned off?

I want to see how well my idea for an attack satellite works in the latest build.

I'm sure that once you manage to get the screen split in two, someone will want you to split it into four. Even if you can't make it happen, I suppose I can just keep them connected with a spring to prevent them getting too far away from one another. I also suppose that being able to zoom the camera out could work too. Just gotta be able to keep them both on screen.

Suggestion: Ability to use camera trackers for split screen Reasoning: One of the interesting ideas I've had while drone designing is the realization that there is nothing stopping me from having a friend help control my drone. I could very well let my friend handle navigating the drone with a USB controller while I handle the weapons with a mouse and keyboard. I could even just make a drone that decouples into two drones, one controlled by me and the other by my friend. And then I realized I would need a way to make sure that me and my friend could see both of our decoupled parts of the drone at the same time. And I guess other people might find it useful for multitasking between multiple decoupled drone sections.

I figured that you could handle it the same way you handle multiple camera blocks (the camera is able to point to a specific one of those right?), just having it work with where the weapons and sensors think the cursor is instead of where the camera should go. I could even see using camera blocks as a watered down version of this if the view wouldn't move ahead of the block during movement and the player left the cursor in the middle of the screen. In the pre-alpha, I can even use the drone brain for a watered down version of that watered down version. I wouldn't be surprised if you implement my suggestion by just taking the camera block and giving it a toggle that lets it act as the cursor location instead of the location for the camera to track. Maybe even have it able to be set to different channels so that sensors and weapons could be set to point at different ones (with the default being either the cursor or the drone brain).

Disclaimer: My knowledge of what's in the game so far is based on the pre-alpha build, Lathland's videos, and the patch notes. I would appreciate any youtube videos that go in depth at what the closed alpha has added. I would like to suggest a part that, when activated, is treated as the current location of the cursor. Either that or have directional sensors and weapons able to be set to aim at it. Basically, it would be like the camera block, but for the cursor instead of the camera. I see it being able to be used for sticking onto a target so that weapons can auto-aim or just placed at a location for a drone with a direction sensor to fly towards. And if you don't have distance sensors able to detect the cursor yet, that might be a good idea to implement along with this.