Standard tech drones can purchase Active Terminal Guidance (ATG) as an upgrade and X-tech drones come with this as a standard capability. But ATG does not, in either standard tech or X-tech, allow a drone to be launched ballistically and then autonomously acquire a target while in flight. Only Type-III (using "tame boar" procedures) and Type-IIIXX (using "wild boar" procedures) can do this. I am proposing an Autonomous Target Acquisition (ATA) capability that can be purchased as an upgrade for Type-VII and Type-VIII X-tech drones.

ATA gives the Type-VII and Type-VIII drones a capability comparable to the "tame boar" capability of Type-III drones. These drones still could not use "wild boar" procedures. Only Type-IIIXX could use "wild boar", unless an X-tech counterpart to the Type-III is ever published.

Non-X drones can not purchase ATA, though of course Type-III and Type-IIIXX already have the capability. An XP-upgraded ship that has been modified so that it can use X-tech drones (which would require both the XR5.0 drone rack upgrade and the XR2.34 fire control upgrade) can purchase ATA for any Type-VII or Type-VIII drones, subject to availability. ATA is restricted availability for X-ships and XP-upgraded DB ships. It is limited availability for XP-ships which are not DB.

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Friday, January 07, 2011 - 09:57 am: Edit

Sounds reasonable from a technology standpoint, though I don't know what it would do to game balance.
Perhaps a half-space forward-mounted payload module for the tracking systems to live in? That would give you a trade-off between the tactical flexibility of not using a control channel and the extra explosive power of the X-drone (bringing you down to non-X warhead strength).

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, January 07, 2011 - 11:46 am: Edit

The ability for a drone to find its own target is a very special ability. Not really comparable to ATG at all. With ATG, you are telling the drone, "see this warp signature here? Follow that. Go." With Wild/Tame Boar, you are telling the drone, "Find your own target within these criteria..." which would require a lot more artificial intelligence (and therefore, more computing power on board the drone itself).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, January 07, 2011 - 03:00 pm: Edit

A reasonable upgrade, but it would need an availability restriction. I'd suggest Limited. I forget. That's the rarer of the two, right?

It would also be classed as an improvement to the bus, which is actually a lot more restrictive than make it an installable 1/2 space module.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 07:39 pm: Edit

I meant to get back to this topic earlier, but didn't get around to it until today.

Troy,

When I was thinking about this idea, prior to posting, I came up with some ways I thought it would be useful. But it didn't seem so powerful to me that it would destroy game balance. But one of the reasons we post proposals online is to see if someone else can come up with a way in which the proposal is broken. Before downgrading the capability, via something like your "... half-space forward-mounted payload module for the tracking systems to live in" suggestion, I would like to see some tactic suggested, demonstrating that it really does wreck game balance in some way. Absent that, I prefer to keep the proposal as is.

Terry,

But note that I am not inventing a completely new capability here. Type-III and Type-IIIXX drones could do this (and better, in the case of the Type-IIIXX) for years before X-tech became available. I am suggesting that with X-tech electronics, it's easier to do this and it becomes viable for some non-III/IIIXX drones to have it, though they are still under availability restrictions.

John,

Note that I did specify availability restrictions in my original post. See the last two sentences.