I have not written any formal rule proposal for this. However it is an idea that just started kicking around in my head.

I imagine it would be an outgrowth of ECM drones and perhaps sensor Drogues to some extent as well.

Of course it may be best suited for the X or X2 era.

What I am picturing is a type-iv drone (or more specifically a 2 space module) for drones that acts as a control unit for other drones in a given flight. Making it two space limits the usage to just control. Where as a 1 space version could be way to powerful.

The basic idea is that the Control drone would be given a target, and all other drones in a given flight could be controlled by the control drone (the control drone itself would still need to be controlled or have ATG).

The other drones in the flight would have to have the same target as the Control Drone. And would have to be within 1 hex of the control drone to remain controlled.

If the control drone is destroyed control of other drones in it's flight could be transferred to other ships (but never to another control drone).

This would definitely be a restricted item.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 05:00 pm: Edit

I proposed something like this for the X2 rules.

I think I set a control limit of 2 for a 1-space module and 5 for a 2-space.

My memory is hazy though.

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 05:11 pm: Edit

John that could definitely work..... I personally would like to see it as a late general war or immediately there after item.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Can you Lab the drones and figure out which one is the "master"?

Is it known immediately on launch that "that their is a leader drone in the Type-4's? It would be broadcasting something (so it would be known, just not exactly which one it is) Like a Kz CC fires off 4 Drones, 2 Type-4, and 2 Type-1.

By Robert Snook (Verdick) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 05:45 pm: Edit

You could most definitely lab them to find out which ones are the controlling drones. That would be a nice twist by using slow drones. Too bad they're all fast by them time these would come out.

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 05:54 pm: Edit

Scott,

Yes the presence of a control drone would be known immediately. The control drone itself would not be known. Standard ID method's would apply in terms of IDing the Control drone.

I do like John's parallel proposal of different sized modules.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 06:48 pm: Edit

Perhaps for GW or X1 tech we could do single-space controls 1 and 2-space controls 3.

That would give the module and upgrade path and definitely emphasize the 2-space version.

Clearly the controlling drone would need ATG.

For my rules I had it that drones controlled by the module got lent any ECCM generated by the controlling drone, but not ECCM the controlling drone got from the ship that is controlling it.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 06:49 pm: Edit

Scott,

Yes, labbing the controlling drone should tell you it was the "master"

By Hugh Bishop (Wildman) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 07:32 pm: Edit

This is similar to a variant Kzinti race that my Vegas group has experimenting with. This group is a rebellious noble eastward of the Baron who has named himself the "Earl". He has few ships and so has to maximize the drone launching rates of his ships. To that end, he uses what we call "Shepard drones" they guide a group of drones to their target releasing the control channels of the Earls ships to launch more drones. The amount of drones that can be guided depends on the size of the drone leader. TypeI, Shepard =2 Type IV Drover =4, Type H Rancher= 6 Type III Gaucho =3.
Unlike their names the leader drones usually follow the wave or integrate with it as in our game guidance cannot be transfered.
The big issue we have is how to keep this tech from proliferating, and whether the guidance rates are right. Right now it is explained in the following way. The Earl when he set up his nation took over a hegemonic interdicted race. While this race was not allowed to leave it's own system it was allowed to participate in tech R&D developement. The compact systems that allow the leader drones to work are alien in manufacture. The Earl can use them, but not produce them without this alien race. The Earl may not like the set up, but it helps him stay independent of the Kzinti. The whole thing is still in fledgeling developement over here and the last time we used them was months ago. Hopefully we can find the time to keep playtesting the Earldom and the variant tech they use.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 08:53 pm: Edit

In the proposed X2 version, all races get their own divergent version of standard tech. This was a Kzinti-only toy there too.

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 08:57 pm: Edit

Scott,

After rereading the identification rules. I think that ID'ing the Control will indicate that it is the control drone and how many drones are under it's control (as well as whether or not it is controlled or released to it's own ATG). I do not believe it should indicate what other drones it is controlling.

ID'ing a controlled drone will indicate that it was controlled by another drone.

I will have to reread Control tac intel to determine at what range a Control Drone could be detected. As I am begining to think it's presence should not in and of itself be known.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 10:10 pm: Edit

Ed,

Would IDing specifically indicate control by another drone or just that the drone is being controlled?

Does IDing the drone reveal its current controlling unit?

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 11:05 pm: Edit

John,

ID'ing will indicate if ATG is present or not. So I will have to think about (and research) the ramifications of that question. It will depend on what the rules say about what you know about a controlled weapon with and without ID'ing. I am away from my rulebooks at present so I can't look it up now. But if control is known without ID'ing a seeking weapon then my above thoughts are moot. If however a ID attempt is needed to determine the controlling unit then I imagine it would work the same way. Let me get to books tomorrow (they are now at work for a change) and I will see what I can figure out from the rules.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 11:42 pm: Edit

Mine are at home. I'll check when I get there as well.

By Hugh Bishop (Wildman) on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 01:51 am: Edit

Recalling a bit more about the shepard drones, we did not allow them to have atg. We felt that this was too much. A significantly increased drone wave was converted to an ungodly wave when the shepards were allowed to have ATG. The leader drones had a signal connection with their own pack, but were guided to their target by the launching ship. This would create a wave of 18 drones for standard shepards if the guidance rating of the ship was six or 24 if it was 12. With Atg this number is unlimited. of course one could always buy atg for all of his drones. With the Earldom the problem they have is that they just don't have enough ships to provide enough drone launchers to deal with a determined Kzinti attack. So new tech had to be provided to give them a fighting chance. In addition to the shepard drones they developed a replacement for the standard admin shuttle called a "tray" these were disposable mini scatterpacks that could be stacked in the shuttle bay. The version we used carried 3 drones and 6 trays were fitted where the shuttle once was. The typical tray load had one shepard and two "effectives". When they released the ship would take control of the shepards and the effectives would follow the shepards. This left the ships drone racks to deal with enemy waves. The Earl refitted most of the drone racks on his few ships with type D racks allowing for a better variety of response and survivability for his racks.

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 - 11:05 am: Edit

John,

F3.34 states that all players will always know what the controlling unit is.

I think that so long as the Control Drone is being controlled by a ship/fighter/ground base the drones it controls will report as being controlled by the unit controlling the controller (kinda like the way Internet Proxy servers work)....

If the Control drone is released to it's own ATG then it immediately becomes known as the Control Unit (and which units it is controlling).

Obviously if a unit is "controlling" far more units than it normally could the presence of a control drone becomes obvious and the opposing player would be prudent in ID'ing the drones.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 02:27 am: Edit

Ed,

We could make a partial exception to F3.3 and say that drones controlled by the a control module are treated as seeking shuttles. I.e. the identity of the controlling unit is ambiguous until it (or the controlling drone) are IDed.

That would make drones controlled by drone-control modules stand out like a sore thumb but leave the identity of the controlling drone a mystery. Also, I'd prefer the drone-controlling player not give out erroneous data such as misidentifying a controlling ship as a drone's controller.

Besides, it should be easy to ID drone-controlled drones by querying their EW levels so there isn't a lot of mystery there to begin with.

One of the things I wanted to set was that transferring control to a control module is a 1-way process. You can't reclaim the drones controlled by the module. The minor advantage the control module gets for having ambiguous control balances this disadvantage.

By Robert Snook (Verdick) on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 12:28 pm: Edit

I would think that you could not tell which drones were the controlled drones and which are controlled from the ship. They all are recieving an input signal about where to go, so it should not matter where they are getting the signal from.

I also think that the guiding drone could be an exception to F3.34, since IIRC, ECM drones aren't individually detected as being the source of the ECM in a drone swarm. The same could apply here.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 01:17 pm: Edit

Robert,

I can deal with that.

It may be too much of an advantage however.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 04:35 pm: Edit

Robert, but note that ECM lending is different from control. ECM lending is only known to the type of unit, not the actual unit (see the discussions on EWF fighters, and note that scout channels explicitly require announcing additional information).

John, as far as I know, there is no exception that makes the controlling source of a seeking shuttle ambiguous. Thus ANY seeking shuttle launched (possibly excluding ballistic trajectories), must be announced as such. The type of shuttle need not be announced, but the fact that it is a seeking shuttle must be. Manned admin cannot maskerade as scatterpacks...

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 06:11 pm: Edit

David,

Check out (F3.34).

...The controller of a seeking shuttle is never identified until the seeking shuttle is itself identified by the (G4.2) lab procedure...
And a bunch of other prodecures are listed.

Which means:
Yes, you know it's a seeking (and therefore not manned) shuttle but you don't know who's behind the wheel until it's IDed.

I proposed something similar for module-controlled drones: you know that they're controlled by one of the other drones out there somewhere, but don't know which drone until the controlling or controlled drone is labbed.

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 10:46 pm: Edit

Don't some of the mines work sortof like that?

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Friday, May 16, 2003 - 07:29 pm: Edit

John,

I think the exception to F3.34 along the same guidelines as a seeking shuttle would be the best way to go.

I also think that limiting the ability to regain control of a drone that lost it's controller would work as well. I think allowing a scout unit to take control with a Special Sensor would be possible. And a Legendary Weapons Officer may be able to make some sort of die roll to regain control of each controlled drone that lost it's controller (afterall they are Legendary)

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 01:33 am: Edit

Ed,

You mean an *allied* special sensor, right?

It would be like breaking a drone lock on only in reverse.

Since there's no legendary comms Officer, I'd prefer to give the ability to a lesser legendary officer, just to share the wealth. My first choice would be spicing up the Legendary navigator's life, but I can't rationalize it, so I'd suggest the legendary Science officer. legendary Weapons officer would be next in line after that, but he already gets to do lots of cool stuff.

By Ed Grondin (Ensignedg) on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 12:45 pm: Edit

John,

sorry yes an allied Scout... The science officer could work. Perhaps the Science Officer would have a better chance than the Weapons Officer (who may be a little more occupied at the time.)