more drones or better: more automation
Avestator
Join Date: 2016-10-10 Member: 223030Members
Join Date: 2016-10-10 Member: 223030Members
i would love to have some different drone types that will take care of simple tasks in late game. you would be able to craft something like the vehicle bay but for drones also you need a docking bay for them to reload or they will suddenly go out in the ocean and need their power cell replaced. ideas for drones would be:
1. mowing drone: a drone that floats closely above the ground to "mow" seagrass and bring it to the docking bay so it could be used for the biogenerator (upgradeable in efficiency in mowing and energy)
2. garding drone: similar to number one but quite different... this drone would care of your plants in your growing bed (more with upgrade) by planting them waiting until they're fully grown and then harvest them (storage upgradeable) (maybe determined to one species of plants by a probe)
3. collector drone: does what the name says it collects one specific type of ressource from the ground in some radius (upgradeable) but you have to enter a "probe" of the ressource so it can only gather ressources that you already found (also upgradeable in energy efficiency gathering efficiency and storage)
4. fishing drone: same as collector but smaller and thiner for gathering fish (hunting only one species determined by a probe) (upgradeable in radius being able to gather to species being able to hold 1 up to 4 fish in storage before driving home to bay and in efficiency)
5. mineral scanning drone: drives around in a radius and determines basalt ore sandstone chunks (and so on) to a specific ressource this information can be used by the player or by the....
6. chopping drone: big brother of collector, goes for one specific type of chunk (again by a probe) and collects the ressources (upgradeable in radius energy efficiency and storage)
7. mining drone: even bigger brother of chopper: has a drill and goes for mining.. do i have to say more?
8. personal assistant: very simple it follows you around and carry staff you give to it upgradeable in storage and energy efficiency. just like lydia in skyrim but not immortal and without the ability to fight... and because less good looking...
9. *edited* mapping drone: comes with a new module, like the scanner room but bigger so a bigger map can fit in it the mapping drone drives slowly in growing circles around it an reveals the map
10. battery replacer: also very simple a little guy that swims around and replaces the batteries of your floodlights
11. restoring drone: can be remotely activated it will dock to the cyclops from where it was activated (maybe in the vehicle bay? maybe somewhere else) so you can put items into it and it will bring them to your base and you can put your energycells into it and it will recharge them with your habitat energy ( but you need very expensive fast charging powercells ORE a very expensive fast drone charging bay)
12. transfering drone: comes with a new habitat module the transfer post here you can plan transfering routes of ressources and set drones to it these drones will drive between the posts and transfer ressources that are stored in them. with an upgrade you can determine an amount of ressources that you want in your outpost so the drones only drive if you need them. *edited* (idea of "nocommonsense" not mine but i loved it!) the pathes of the drones are marked with a special type of buoy that (in placement-mode) are connected by a beam to make sure there are no obstacles.
in addition a system of programmable connection in your base would be very useful my to ideas would be:
1.pipes: you can put a "logistic pipe module" on every multipurpose room (maybe a little thing at the side or on top? or a ring pipe around the roof?) this module can be connected to the storages and modules (like generators or chargers) inside the room so the modules can access it and it can be connected to the modules of other roomes through either an upgrade if normal walkways (maybe a visible transporter moving in the floor or in the ceiling?) or with an extra pipe that can either be placed at the hallways or alone.
2.mouse droids! thats what i would call it
do you remember these little droids driving through the hallways of the death star doing whatever they're doing (maybe delivering crack). the other system would be something similar little droids driving, running, flying or whatever through your base and delivering items from storages to the modules where they are needed.
2.5 similar but quite different more like a hybrid every room can get an upgrade so every module in the room can access the same inventory but to deliver items between rooms you use little drones driving through the water but you have to build a module in the room that is placed in the wall and will give the little drone the ability to dock
The ultimate goal is to make crafting and powering your base as automated as possible, of course after a very high input of ressources you build for example three bases
1.in the grand reef
2.in the active lava zone
3.somewhere where you like it where you could have a happy life
Now you have collectors in the grand reef collecting uranite that is transferred to your homebase with a transfering drone another transfering drone delivers your empty energycells into the active lava zone where they are charged using the geothermal activity
To achieve the automation even more it would also be possible to make upgraded versions of crafters that can craft without player input so the crafting of nuclear rods is automized just like the cooking of fish, to nerf this it would need to be very expensive and the crafters can be more specific.. one thing that cooks one thing that makes nuclear rods and so one
to make my inspirations clear: i have this love to automization and thought especially about factorio and the minecraft mods like buildcraft. for the drones my inspiration is the personal assistant from Osiris: New Dawn but i don't know what it is really doing i was just stunned by the look of it slowly floating around (the mowing drone idea is from this look) i think would fit perfectly into the subnautica style the idea for the mouse droids is obviously inspired by star wars' mouse droids and by the robots in planetbase (that drive around and carry shit.. maybe also crack like their little brothers on the death star) and at last some factorys in anno 2205 use drones floating around their plants (garding drone) and i think their style of sci-fi is very similar to subnauticas
last but not least i'm very sorry for my bad english and would be happy to hear feedback and ideas!!! i don't know if posts are editable but if they are maybe i'll add more drones if i have more ideas
1. mowing drone: a drone that floats closely above the ground to "mow" seagrass and bring it to the docking bay so it could be used for the biogenerator (upgradeable in efficiency in mowing and energy)
2. garding drone: similar to number one but quite different... this drone would care of your plants in your growing bed (more with upgrade) by planting them waiting until they're fully grown and then harvest them (storage upgradeable) (maybe determined to one species of plants by a probe)
3. collector drone: does what the name says it collects one specific type of ressource from the ground in some radius (upgradeable) but you have to enter a "probe" of the ressource so it can only gather ressources that you already found (also upgradeable in energy efficiency gathering efficiency and storage)
4. fishing drone: same as collector but smaller and thiner for gathering fish (hunting only one species determined by a probe) (upgradeable in radius being able to gather to species being able to hold 1 up to 4 fish in storage before driving home to bay and in efficiency)
5. mineral scanning drone: drives around in a radius and determines basalt ore sandstone chunks (and so on) to a specific ressource this information can be used by the player or by the....
6. chopping drone: big brother of collector, goes for one specific type of chunk (again by a probe) and collects the ressources (upgradeable in radius energy efficiency and storage)
7. mining drone: even bigger brother of chopper: has a drill and goes for mining.. do i have to say more?
8. personal assistant: very simple it follows you around and carry staff you give to it upgradeable in storage and energy efficiency. just like lydia in skyrim but not immortal and without the ability to fight... and because less good looking...
9. *edited* mapping drone: comes with a new module, like the scanner room but bigger so a bigger map can fit in it the mapping drone drives slowly in growing circles around it an reveals the map
10. battery replacer: also very simple a little guy that swims around and replaces the batteries of your floodlights
11. restoring drone: can be remotely activated it will dock to the cyclops from where it was activated (maybe in the vehicle bay? maybe somewhere else) so you can put items into it and it will bring them to your base and you can put your energycells into it and it will recharge them with your habitat energy ( but you need very expensive fast charging powercells ORE a very expensive fast drone charging bay)
12. transfering drone: comes with a new habitat module the transfer post here you can plan transfering routes of ressources and set drones to it these drones will drive between the posts and transfer ressources that are stored in them. with an upgrade you can determine an amount of ressources that you want in your outpost so the drones only drive if you need them. *edited* (idea of "nocommonsense" not mine but i loved it!) the pathes of the drones are marked with a special type of buoy that (in placement-mode) are connected by a beam to make sure there are no obstacles.
in addition a system of programmable connection in your base would be very useful my to ideas would be:
1.pipes: you can put a "logistic pipe module" on every multipurpose room (maybe a little thing at the side or on top? or a ring pipe around the roof?) this module can be connected to the storages and modules (like generators or chargers) inside the room so the modules can access it and it can be connected to the modules of other roomes through either an upgrade if normal walkways (maybe a visible transporter moving in the floor or in the ceiling?) or with an extra pipe that can either be placed at the hallways or alone.
2.mouse droids! thats what i would call it
do you remember these little droids driving through the hallways of the death star doing whatever they're doing (maybe delivering crack). the other system would be something similar little droids driving, running, flying or whatever through your base and delivering items from storages to the modules where they are needed.2.5 similar but quite different more like a hybrid every room can get an upgrade so every module in the room can access the same inventory but to deliver items between rooms you use little drones driving through the water but you have to build a module in the room that is placed in the wall and will give the little drone the ability to dock
The ultimate goal is to make crafting and powering your base as automated as possible, of course after a very high input of ressources you build for example three bases
1.in the grand reef
2.in the active lava zone
3.somewhere where you like it where you could have a happy life
Now you have collectors in the grand reef collecting uranite that is transferred to your homebase with a transfering drone another transfering drone delivers your empty energycells into the active lava zone where they are charged using the geothermal activity
To achieve the automation even more it would also be possible to make upgraded versions of crafters that can craft without player input so the crafting of nuclear rods is automized just like the cooking of fish, to nerf this it would need to be very expensive and the crafters can be more specific.. one thing that cooks one thing that makes nuclear rods and so one
to make my inspirations clear: i have this love to automization and thought especially about factorio and the minecraft mods like buildcraft. for the drones my inspiration is the personal assistant from Osiris: New Dawn but i don't know what it is really doing i was just stunned by the look of it slowly floating around (the mowing drone idea is from this look) i think would fit perfectly into the subnautica style the idea for the mouse droids is obviously inspired by star wars' mouse droids and by the robots in planetbase (that drive around and carry shit.. maybe also crack like their little brothers on the death star) and at last some factorys in anno 2205 use drones floating around their plants (garding drone) and i think their style of sci-fi is very similar to subnauticas
last but not least i'm very sorry for my bad english and would be happy to hear feedback and ideas!!! i don't know if posts are editable but if they are maybe i'll add more drones if i have more ideas
Comments
I don't think the resources system really lends itself to this in SN. I've played modded Minecraft, someone used the phrase "mad scientist" on seeing my base for the first time, the automation was that heavy and exposed...
But this? Drones couldn't really be expected to path-find properly from any given base location to any other given base location. Teleportation is a possibility, but the levels of resources required for stuff isn't really that bad.
Base-tending drones could work? Stuff to tend reactor and bioreactor, and maybe base defense and repair drones.
I do love automation but I think a path to get there sooner would be for devs to put in dependent base structures that feed directly into each other or use the same mechanic as the power transmitter. They could use that to flesh out a larger tech tree that's more infrastructure intensive. If building the rocket is identical to building a cyclops, just with a bigger construction platform and more hand fed resources, I'll be disappointed.