Yet Another (?) Scavenger Ideasguy

[Holvr]

I'm here to throw in my 2 coins to the discussion of "How to make X more interesting?" - this time X is our beloved Scavenger. It's gonna be ideasguying in its purest form, and I'm well aware that actually developing a video game is infinitely harder than spitballing "it'd be so cool if..." ideas, but maybe there is a tiny chance that the devs would draw some inspiration from this rant.


The main idea to make the Scav useful mid-flight (well, more useful than just a spare set of hands on the engineer/gunner job, anyway) would be introducing...

Drones.

Perhaps the Scav can be more of a "Drone Specialist", in the sense that the class would operate drones from a dedicated ship module that most ship loadouts would get.

Very rough mental image of the station and drone mechanics (using pre-existing assets and game mechanics to make it as easy to implement as possible) would be a seat similar to one of the manned guns, with an "ammo" slot that takes in fabricated drone crates.

Drone Crates are printed at the Fabricator, and when inserted into the Drone Station, can be retrofitted to perform specific tasks, via a panel (similar to Fabricator's inscription menu). Once a drone leaves the ship, it can dock with it via the external dock that the module provides (similar to life support module, or the scoop). A drone that docks with the ship can be retrofitted again, if there's a need to perform a different job.

Primary job would be to handle the typical EVA stuff remotely, while the Scav is on the ship, so one player doesn't have to get left behind, and can still help in emergencies on board. It'd be capable of carrying items, performing repairs, opening doors etc.

Other drone "loadouts" could make it fit for assisting in battle by equipping it with a small turret, while yet another would give the drone a shield and an embedded Decoy Beacon, to serve as a mobile diversion for incoming fire.
Equipping the Drone Station with different mods would transfer directly to the drones (i.e: damage mod on the station would increase the drone's damage etc).

Now, all this isn't supposed to make Scav's job safe. No - the drones are just vessels to which the Scav Ectype transfers its consciousness in order to control them. It's what Metem uses Ectypes for in the first place, after all.
If a drone takes damage while it is being controlled, so does the controlling Ectype. Scav's perks could reduce the damage the Ectype takes (and pulling back from a drone into Ectype's own body should take like 1-2 seconds, to prevent instant evacuation in danger).

Controlling a drone directly would be done via the Drone Station (duh), and higher tiers would allow more drones (2 at Mk.II, 3 at Mk.III etc.). In case of multiple drones, they could be hopped between by pressing the Reload button while inside the station.

While not directly controlled by Ectype, drones would have some passive behaviour depending on the type - basic EVA drone would just go dormat, awaiting further instructions, while the turret and decoy drones would engage in some basic combat maneuvers, until controlled again.

Most of Scav's perks would have to do with the effectiveness of drones - their maneuverability, energy reserves (they would only have a finite battery before going dark, whereupon they'd need to be manually carried back to the ship, or at least Scooped back).

Instead of the Grappling Hook, the Scav would get Drone Overcharge, making the controlled drone significantly better at its job - being faster, tougher, with higher rate of fire / damage, more shields etc.



Granted, all of this falls apart entirely if the developers plan to enhance the EVA gameplay at some point, to make it more vital and interesting. This is just a rant about how to make Scav more useful to the crew in the current state of the game.

[Ratcharmer]

I like the idea! Was even toying with the idea of posting something similar myself.

A big issue I keep encountering as a Scav is I spend a large portion of the game . . . without any scavenger job to do?

Thus I often end up as a second rate gunner/engineer for a lot of the mission whereupon . . . why didn't I just spec into gunner/engineer? Even when I am going on an EVA I have never run into anything I couldn't handle without Scavenger skills. Many missions literally don't have any job for a scavenger at all, so giving a role during ship combat makes sense.

The part I don't want to do is I don't want to phase out the EVA specialist role altogether--why have an airlock if you never use it? It could also give you too much similarity between gunner and scav/drone operator in terms of gameplay role. The proposed new active skill sounds too similar to Gunner for my taste.

My thoughts would be as follows:
-Drones should generally be not as strong in combat as a fully spec'd gunner, but should be a better option than just have the scav jump on a gun turret

-Give the drones a lengthy respawn timer if shot down/out of fuel. That Way the scav has some down time between drone spawns to run around the ship & be a generalist.

-Skills that increase the EVA O2 supply also boost the drone's fuel supply.

-The skill that boosts turrets not on the ship also boosts the drone's weapons.

-The drone shouldn't be able to do everything an EVA can do--at least not simultaneously. Maybe with interchangeable drone parts you would get to choose 1 weapon and 1 "gadget" (grabber arm to grab loot, welder to repair the hull, afterburner to move fast etc)

This could also leave options open for expanding the EVA missions.

[bl_4u]

If some of the outposts and bases become larger, maybe we will eventually see enemies inside. Something like a gunner drone could be very useful as a tool to escort other Ectypes and protect them from threats that your spaceship can't see while they explore the inside of an abandoned post to do repairs or find loot.