Get me a vetinarian; my wolfhound has the mange!

[frdnwsm]

So, I finally decided to try a pure rigger build. I finally got the cash and skill levels to get a Steel Lynx. Not a bad little drone, although the accuracy even with Drone Combat 6 left something to be desired. I didn't bother with any support drone at that time; with only 2 AP I really couldn't control 2 drones without simking into complete immobility. Instead I grabbed Quickness and Ranged skills and bought a Semopal assault rifle. I pumped my ranged skill up to 6, and got myself an Alpha cybereye; my accuracy was pretty decent.

Then the big day came! 3 AP! Hurrah! I rushed out and bought up a Guardian and a Wolfhound. Now, the Guardian was a clear step up from the Lynx; faster, more mobile, and with greater accuracy. Nice. The Wolfhound, however, was a big disappointment.

OK, it's got 5 grenades and a healing kit, which certainly isn't bad, except for the fact that it takes 2 AP to toss a grenade. Really? By game end Eiger can throw a grenade and it takes 1 AP. A drone with electronic reflexes and impulses traveling at the speed of light takes 2? Heck, it should be able to toss TWO grenades per AP.

It's primary weapon, the so-called mortar, is supposed to be an AOE weapon. During APEX Rising and the run to free Firewing I must have fired off several hundred rounds, and not ONCE did I hit a second target with one. Also, the accuracy was not a bit better than the Lynx, and I had to reload every 4th round of combat.The Lynx carried something like 11 or 12 shots worth of ammo. Are a couple of grenades really worth having to reload 3x as often? OK, it's a support drone, and I could live with the reloading bit if it's accuracy were better than the rather awful 50-55% that I was getting. That's with Drone COmbat skill of 8, btw.

The Wolfhound also has an extra empty item slot, which, however, you cannot fill unless you find a medikit or a grenade lying around somewhere during tactical combat. And if you do manage to grab one, and don't use it right away, it vanishes at the start of the next run. Doh!

Luckily, I didn't sell the Lynx. I'm going to do both runs over again using a Guardian and a Steel Lynx, to compare the combat effectiveness of the Lynx vs the Wolfhound.

[frdnwsm]

OK, I re-ran APEX Rising with each drone. It's sort of a toss up, IMO. The Lynx is a bit more fragile than the Wolfhound, having 6 armor vs 8 for the class S drone. The Wolfhound can be fairly liberal in its use of grenades on this run, since the scenario is relatively short (by comparison to the run vs Firewing, which is around 5x as long).

The hit probability is approximately the same for each drone, namely around 15% less than the Guardian. This varies a bit from target to target, of course. The Lynx does have the aimed shot option, althugh only every 4 rounds, which significantly improves its hit %. The factor that really evens things out, though, is that the Lynx has essentially unlimited ammunition, whereas the Wolfhound has to reload every 4th round. Thus, the Lynx is outshooting the Wolfhound by a 4:3 margin.

So, I'll call it pretty much a toss up in APEX Rising run. For the underground scenario, I am going to give the nod to the Lynx by a small margin. The scenario is so long, the Wofhound has to be far more frugal in its use of grenades, especially if you want to have a couple of flashbangs left over for the final confrontation with Audran. (Yeah, you can find a few lying around, but you have to be in combat mode to pick any up, which is annoying and not always possible). And during such a long run, the Lynx is likely going to fire off al least 100 more shots than the Wolfhound overall.

[post apocalypse otter boi]

Personally I prefer the shooty drones. Also having a doc drone means you can have more inv space for drugs and nades ( and fetishes if you playing a hybrid shaman.)

[frdnwsm]

Support drones would be OK if you could actually choose their loadout, the way you can loan gear to the NPC crewmembers before the start of each mission. Not being able to do so is a real pain, and diminishes their usefulness; giving them crappy aim with their weapon on top of that just adds insult to injury. Either give them better aim with their primary weapon, or let me adjust what they are carrying without going through contortions.

Fox example, there's a supply cache in the APEX Rising mission, with boxes with medikits and a grenade, but initially you are not in combat mode so only your own PC can grab them. I left them there, and then once combat started I sent the Wolfhound back to grab the loot, ducking cultists all the way. It took 3 rounds to get there and grab the medikit, and three more to get back to the control room where the fight was. A good 6 rounds where it was out of combat.

As it happens I didn't use the medikit just then, so I left it in the drone for the run against Firewing. At the start of that mission, I found that it had vanished! Apparently, the program considered it a "loaned" item and sent it to my stash or something. Doh! I was royally annoyed.

[post apocalypse otter boi]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

Support drones would be OK if you could actually choose their loadout, the way you can loan gear to the NPC crewmembers before the start of each mission. Not being able to do so is a real pain, and diminishes their usefulness; giving them crappy aim with their weapon on top of that just adds insult to injury. Either give them better aim with their primary weapon, or let me adjust what they are carrying without going through contortions.

Fox example, there's a supply cache in the APEX Rising mission, with boxes with medikits and a grenade, but initially you are not in combat mode so only your own PC can grab them. I left them there, and then once combat started I sent the Wolfhound back to grab the loot, ducking cultists all the way. It took 3 rounds to get there and grab the medikit, and three more to get back to the control room where the fight was. A good 6 rounds where it was out of combat.

As it happens I didn't need the medikit just then, so I left it in the drone for the run against Firewing. At the start of that mission, it had vanished!. Doh! I was royally annoyed.

Yeah I see what you mean. Iirc song Kong allowed you to transfer stuff between players even during a mission without combat (you can go into Com at mode whenever) and I wish that was ported to dragon fall.

[frdnwsm]

One final note: I thought the Wolfhound had 8 armor like the Guardian. I was wrong; it only has 6, same as the Lynx. So, the two drones are equally armored, and have the same accuracy. The Wolfhound is a little faster and has a couple of grenades, but only fires 3/4 as often due to the need to reload frequently. Just my personal preference, but I'll go for the more frequent firing.