This is my first released mod. It's had a very slow development over a long time. I've made several versions of it before now, starting back at around build 13. That's easily six years. It's been exactly two since the previous update. As of this writing It's accrued a total of 10768 downloads.

Now at version 1.8, due to the introduction of two new teams to CC and the ability to switch between them, the fundamental glitch that this mod used to operate on no longer works as intended. I've spent many nights rebuilding how everything works to retain the same base functionality but remain team independent. Using my own not-so-reliable scripting, with no ability to make a context sensitive buy menu, or moderate the loadouts the AI uses in campaign, It's been quite a hurdle for my brain. (Yes, you can play as or against them in campaign now). Playing alongside comes at a heftier oz price than I'd like, which is partly why most of the assets are cheaper than they probably should be. To balance this, the campaign faction has a hard time earning money, with brains having a high premium cost, and only being given a light digger.

Instructions

These drones are primarily a support tool. They're a thrown device you buy from the bombs menu and deploy via troop (or craft) onto the battlefield. After they take a few seconds to boot up, they will automatically seek out and attempt to destroy the enemy brain.



As of 1.8 there are no more "direct control capable" variants, as now they all operate like regular controllable actors.

Skirmish:

Prior to deploying a drone, targeting parameters must be set accordingly. In the event you are shot dead while holding reserve drones in your inventory, their self preservation software suites will perform a fast boot and make them begin shooting at everything that can be considered a target.

Correct targeting parameters can be permanently set simply by holding the drone prior to deployment tossing it indifferently at the ground. To set up all the drones you're holding, just scroll through all of them in your inventory until you get back to the start. This guarantees you don't release a rogue army on yourself in case your life ends abruptly upon encountering a high speed projectile. If you die while holding pre-programmed drones, they will activate and correctly target enemies.

Unfortunately singular drones cannot be placed during base building. This is partly due to an AddInventory bug.

Campaign:

R.E.T.A.R.D.S. is now a tech, and can be used in the metagame. By using one of our newest assets, the Armoured Remote Synaptic Encasement (see below), you can field an army made entirely of R.E.T.A.R.D.S. tech with considerably higher discounts than what other techs offer on similarly capable equipment.

There is a bug to note (again to do with AddInventory). When ordering from the loadouts menu, do not have control of the craft as it dumps cargo. The drone's gun has a chance of exploding. I have no idea what the real cause of this is.

Mission:

This comes with a mission! Available in Skirmish activities, this is a base assault taking place on an ice lake. (Don't bother digging under the ice in search of water, you'll just be met with disappointment). Initially it comes irritatingly close to tipping the MO limit, so try not to spawn yourself more than 2 guys at once before you're actually in the base.


Equipment

Drones:

Prime Drone:



The first to be developed, the Prime is both a capable soldier and sapper (the latter means it comes with an assault digger). Its gun, a sort of handheld repeating gauss that utilizes plasma, is accurate and powerful at medium range with a relatively low rate of fire. Its thermal assault digger can melt through the hardest of bunker walls, but as the name digger wouldn't suggest, it's absolutely terrible at mining gold. Don't depend on it for this. It has virtually no armour, other than the casing on its chassis. It's fast and agile but will not stand up long under direct fire.


Micro Variant:



This is a miniaturized variety of drone with a smaller plasma launcher and no digger. It's gun has a shorter range and charge capacity, but fires much faster, able to be fully discharged in less than a second on an unsuspecting enemy. It can fly farther and for longer, is faster, and can fit in tighter spaces. We guarantee it has more battle value than a grenade, even though it may be rendered inoperable by one well placed shot.

Micro 'Punter' Edition:



After realizing the regular micro is largely useless in a confrontation with an armoured foe, we developed the 'Punter' cannon. Made from a modified assault digger (literally), the punter is a one shot CQC weapon that is capable of vaporizing practically any armour, subsequently turning your enemies into wall decorations. This drone is intended for fast close in strikes, as beyond approximately 15m it only shoots a warm breeze.

Longbow Variant:



The Longbow boasts the ability to decapitate enemy infantry in a single shot across incredibly long ranges. It's refined form of plasma launcher fires a single, incredibly hot and dense bolt - capable of punching through bunker walls - over enormous distances. During testing, repeatedly falling victim to its gun's recharge time has necessitated a forward armour plate. It's capable of stopping a modest amount of small arms fire.

Heavy Variant:



Capable of both direct and indirect fire, the Heavy uses a gun, not too dissimilar to a Longbow's, to fire kinetic slugs that fragment spectacularly on impact. Slugs are loaded in rotary 4 round magazines, enabling a quick burst fire to respond to any immediate contacts.

Rocket Variant:



This is the heaviest and most armoured of all the drones. It fires a HEAP warhead capable of compromising practically any armoured unit or defensive emplacement. It's slow, but heavily armoured on all sides. The missile can also be shot down in flight - scatter shot weapons are particularly good at doing this.

Craft:

Deployer:



An army in a box! Call this down onto the field, open its doors, and it will periodically deploy drones to support your army. It contains approximately 12 drones. Once it runs out, it will automatically return to the Tradestar.

Drop Cradles:



Small disposable landing craft containing ready-made squads of robots. First contains 4 micro drones, second contains 2 primes, and the third is left empty, to satisfy a specialized, heavier deployment.

There is little to no on board guidance, so the destination you choose to land at is an approximation at best.

Support:

Armoured Remote Synaptic Encasement:



Using the A.R.S.E. you can store a virtualised copy of your brain that operates just like the real thing, in a computer! It's encased in insane amounts of armour and can even defend itself with an embedded Punter discharge cannon. The hardware is new, and also really expensive. There is a high premium cost, but we guarantee it pays for itself with the light digger we sort of jerry-rigged onto it.

Static Armoured Remote Synaptic Encasement:



The S.A.R.S.E. is a regular A.R.S.E. unit turned into a permanent fixture. It's armour is roughly doubled and its stronger mounting point makes room for an experimental and highly dangerous rotary punter cannon.


'Thumper' Defensive Emplacement:



The Thumper is a heavily armoured defensive gun. It has two barrels, side by side, which each fire a multi-purpose round that contains a 12kg AP penetrator surrounded by clusters of flechettes. The gun produces results no matter what the target, be it tanks, infantry or aircraft. Surrounded by multiple plates of composite armour, it is an incredibly effective base defender. Pricey, too. A minimum deposit of 600 oz must be made on base construction in order to build a Thumper.








Changelog:

This is really quite extraordinary.
How did you get them to attack the enemy brain? I can't see any Lua anywhere.

A couple of things that might want changing;
You should change the SharpStanceOffset's of the weapons to the same as the StanceOffset. It looks a little odd as they raise their weapon at the moment.
You should give the module a name and use the icon you have.
That is it, really.

This is a keeper, I think. Very unique and awesome.

Edit:
On maps with a lot of actors, deploying a drone can cause the MOID limit to be exceeded, which will then gib a random actor. You might want to use Lua to add a check for that, and perhaps have it wait until there are less MOIDs on screen before deployment.

I really appreciate this mod for its originality. Those things are cute and deadly.

One thing that bugs me though is the sfx. The start up and death sound should be electronic beeps, not car engine sound and moans of a dying elephant.

Fairly fun mod. Could be more polished though.

Epic name of mod is epic

yourmodisveryinsensitivetothementallyhandicappedandsdkljsdhiksnkdasrniljdshurpderp

Anyways, it's fairly good in general, but the hovering feels mediocre and gimmicky, because of the noticeable patterns that are clearly just masked walking. I think it also hurts it in this regard that it has a fairly standard function of jetpack, gun, and digger, separate from the hovering, which is just further reminding us that at its core the mod is pretty standard. The final blow to the hovering looking good in the context of B23 is that most people know that it could be done better with legitimate and smooth hovering through Lua.
The whole deployable actors thing hasn't been done much though, so that's something kinda special.

Overall, egh, kinda neat, not a tremendously new or interesting mod, but at least it's something a little different.


His screams are 300dB, and they only intimidate the enemy? Is he fighting the bloody moon? http://www.makeitlouder.com/Decibel%20Level%20Chart.txt
Maybe that figure should be toned down to the 125 range? More along the lines of a rock concert, instead of knocking down houses 600 miles away?

No it's not, it's saying that mentally handicapped people are awesome hovercraft people and that they love hunting brains because they need new ones.

"sdkljsdhiksnkdasrniljdshurpderp"
Clearly a very serious conclusion to an argument taking a super serious stance of offense.

...Wait...Why would they hunt brains by tracking them down and pulverizing them if they need new ones, presumably to replace their own...?
Oh, right, retards are retarded, I wasn't considering that factor for a moment.

LOL yes. But as demonstrated by this mod, they find strength (and to some extent a collective intelligence) in numbers.

Awwwww they're so cute :3

lol 1000 nuclear bombs a second, mo like intsta KO.

Anyways, so these little doo hickies attacked my brain while they remained outside of my bunker. Also, you could get a better delivery system like instant activation after you release the thing. The weapons could be better and I suggest getting rid of the digger because it randomly switches to it and digs at air.

This makes it so when I enter a level, my comp pops a window up and says "Cortex Command.exe has stopped working"

EDIT: Okay its fixed, but where is that drone? I can't find him

EDIT2: two problems. One, In the roundcount, its not Count, its RoundCount
Two, He forgot to put Buyable = 1 on each of them.

EDIT3: Okay its count, sorry

How come this is called RETARD when it's smarter than all
AI atm?

Because they're retards and they don't know that

I haven't laughed that hard since Sleeper. God bless you.

On the mod: I agree with Azukki. It's just a standard or possibly substandard deployable actor with invisible legs. However, it's done very well, so until someone writes the lua it's a keeper.