Thoughts on the technician drone?

[Xeonzs]

They feel way too wonky for me to bother using and spending 3 whole upgrade slots on to get the most out of it doesn't feel worth it either, I'd rather just bring a proper useful marine like a sergeant, gunner or recon with the smart hat trait.

[Sharkon]

I got it and never use it really. fooled around with the noise/bait stuff to lure enemies to my sniper but that crap never worked.

[HAL2010]

I like the tech class. My issue with the drone is the amount of times it just gets stuck and cant do anything with it. It can be very useful for the welding/breaking welds so that you can have your whole team fire ready. I dont think the run perk on the drone is all that useful though.

[RobOda]

They can lure stasis aliens into mines without causing detection penalties.

Handy if you want to get into a room that an alien is guarding without triggering a detection alarm.

Also, they can mobile weld rooms for you whilst you're in other rooms, or other locations, allowing you to bypass or lock up areas while you time your exit. An alien won't react to them doing this 9/10 unless you're welding a door in their patrol path. So, it helps with stealth.

[Stranger]

Originally posted by HAL2010:

I like the tech class. My issue with the drone is the amount of times it just gets stuck and cant do anything with it. It can be very useful for the welding/breaking welds so that you can have your whole team fire ready. I dont think the run perk on the drone is all that useful though.

Totally agree. I like the class, and having a little buddy on overwatch while you open containers, or being able to overwatch while it breaks a weld, is useful. I just wish it could hack remotely too, sort of like the ShadowRun games where you can send it into vents to get into other rooms and open doors. Would be nice if it just shimmied through into inaccessible areas, but this game would have to be a hell of a lot more open ended than it is to accommodate that kind of play

[Xeonzs]

I didn't really see the point of spending a point on welding cause usually the only time I'd weld is if I whana make a safe room or get out of the safe room.

What I did try using it for is scouting rooms, so you don't trigger eggs or xenos, but it can't loot boxes so you're still gonna have to go in and trigger eggs / hunt if you want that loot, I had assumed the drone skill would allow you to bypass that, but nope.

Also it just feels really cluncky to use wouldn't you agree?

[Xeonzs]

Originally posted by Mountain Dew Camacho:

Originally posted by HAL2010:

I like the tech class. My issue with the drone is the amount of times it just gets stuck and cant do anything with it. It can be very useful for the welding/breaking welds so that you can have your whole team fire ready. I dont think the run perk on the drone is all that useful though.

Totally agree. I like the class, and having a little buddy on overwatch while you open containers, or being able to overwatch while it breaks a weld, is useful. I just wish it could hack remotely too, sort of like the ShadowRun games where you can send it into vents to get into other rooms and open doors. Would be nice if it just shimmied through, but this game would have to be a hell of a lot more open ended than it is to accommodate that kind of play

That's another thing, I thought remote hacking would be unlocked with the lvl 1 upgrade, but nope :/

[Sharkon]

Originally posted by RobOda:

They can lure stasis aliens into mines without causing detection penalties.

Handy if you want to get into a room that an alien is guarding without triggering a detection alarm.

Also, they can mobile weld rooms for you whilst you're in other rooms, or other locations, allowing you to bypass or lock up areas while you time your exit. An alien won't react to them doing this 9/10 unless you're welding a door in their patrol path. So, it helps with stealth.

hmmm, interesting. might give the drone another go next time but I'm not sure if the perks spent are worth more than accuracy or other useful stuff for the Marine. I never tried the enemy detection with flashlight in a 10m radius. that didn't sound very useful either.

[Xeonzs]

Originally posted by Nokrahs:

Originally posted by RobOda:

They can lure stasis aliens into mines without causing detection penalties.

Handy if you want to get into a room that an alien is guarding without triggering a detection alarm.

Also, they can mobile weld rooms for you whilst you're in other rooms, or other locations, allowing you to bypass or lock up areas while you time your exit. An alien won't react to them doing this 9/10 unless you're welding a door in their patrol path. So, it helps with stealth.

hmmm, interesting. might give the drone another go next time but I'm not sure if the perks spent are worth more than accuracy or other useful stuff for the Marine. I never tried the enemy detection with flashlight in a 10m radius. that didn't sound very useful either.

I also skipped that, the only place where I could see that being useful is if you ALREADY know there's enemies on the other side of the wall and you want to know where exactly they are.

I'd rather just bring accuracy and ammo for sure, mag size too cause it means more mags per bullet = less need for more mags, so that's already 3 slots, on a sergeant that essentially fills them up already cause of double backpack upgrade, sniper takes silencer so got 1 slot left, etc, in many cases I find the "basic" upgrades more useful, the silencer, radiopacks and gunner perks come to mind as exceptions, the medic ones I'm neutral on, most of them are meh, although reanimator can be useful if they actually go coma instead of straight up die.

[DarkPoolz]

What I'm gathering is some of the Drone upgrades might be more trouble than its worth. What about the Tecker's ability to upgrade sentry turrets? I love sentry turrets and was wondering how big of difference when upgraded? I'm seeing the SMG upgrade is good for the Drone as extra firepower and maybe the lure if I can get it to work.

[Xeonzs]

Originally posted by DarkPoolz:

What I'm gathering is some of the Drone upgrades might be more trouble than its worth. What about the Tecker's ability to upgrade sentry turrets? I love sentry turrets and was wondering how big of difference when upgraded? I'm seeing the SMG upgrade is good for the Drone as extra firepower and maybe the lure if I can get it to work.

I've seen the option too, but yet to try it, like what if I upgrade it and then dissassemble it, is it still upgraded? What if I'm carrying multiple sentries, will it deploy first or last? etc.

[Slinkyb]

Drone gets to weld and break welds remotely, gets to attract aliens remotely, you can set your team up on cover outside a door and have the drone go next to the door so it opens so you have a free shot at the enemies inside without have to shove your face into the door and take a bullet or a tail spike to it, and also at max rank the drone gets a submachine gun and starts pew pewing for you as well. I like it.

[Sifer2]

Yeah it's too annoying to use really. Either getting stuck or if your like me your forget you told it to move, and it didn't ever follow then got stuck or destroyed. I bought it, and used it on one mission but I don't think i'll ever get another unless it's reworked. Now the version that shoots might be better.

[[OTS]EchoZenLogos]

Originally posted by Xeonzs:

They feel way too wonky for me to bother using and spending 3 whole upgrade slots on to get the most out of it doesn't feel worth it either, I'd rather just bring a proper useful marine like a sergeant, gunner or recon with the smart hat trait.

It is useful, especially when upgraded, but it would be much better if there was a hotkey you could use to instantly switch between it and your squad - right now you need 2-3 button presses each time and doing so is very awkward (maybe I'm missing something).

I feel like it would be more "meta" on higher difficulties, if I'm being honest. At that point you might need every set of "hands" you can get, and having a drone that can weld doors behind you as you move to buy time or provide a distraction in a pinch when you have no motion sensors could be very useful. On Normal though (all I have played) I find it useful, but far from necessary.

[Nimiria Nova]

Since the drone is bugged in elevators and the game makes no save files anymore when using a marine with a drone it sadly has no use for me at the moment :/

[Xeonzs]

Originally posted by Nimiria Nova:

Since the drone is bugged in elevators and the game makes no save files anymore when using a marine with a drone it sadly has no use for me at the moment :/

I noticed this as well,it spawns in and ontop of walls when using elevators.