[Railjack] Adding Extractor Drones Ability to Command Intrinsic

[Thundervision]

Got this little idea yesterday when I was collecting loot after a fight in the Railjack mode. Do you remember these Extractor Drones that passively collect loot in planet regions while the player does something else?

They are probably collecting dust for many players, even the Primed Extractors. And this part of the game was always bugging me, it was a perfect idea for another mini-game or companion app with the same effect - gather more resources. And now, with the Railjack mode being released, this is another perfect opportunity to reincorporate the drones in some actual gameplay/activity, not just tapping a hotkey once in a while.

The idea basically is to add the «Command» ability using which will launch drones off the ship to collect dropped resources with a chance of finding some extra ones. Just like the Forge, it would obviously be having a cooldown, so if you get more loot dropped when the drones have just returned, you'll gotta either wait until they become available again or send someone to collect it/fly out on your own, so this feature doesn't remove «collect the loot» activities from the players.

• Ability use:
  • Reach Rank X of the Command intrinsic to unlock this ability;
  • When in the Railjack, open the Tactical/Command menu and select «Dispatch the extractor drones»;
  • Drones are launched to start gathering dropped loot for X-duration.
  • If their time expires or, for example, they get damaged enough to be recalled by Cy, they return to the ship to dump collected resources and receive maintenance.
  • This is when their Cooldown kicks in, so if some additional loot was generated during or after their recall, the player is free to disembark to collect it on their own or wait until the drones repair is over to send those instead.

As for the «but which drone will be sent?» questions... Well, I think the most safest route is to go with the way Warframe buffs work: the most powerful buff overrides the weakest one. In our case, if someone on the ship has Prime Extractors in their possession, those will replace the regular ones. This also reduces the possibility of the «farming» meta ships and stuff.

 

Now, as for effects, there is no need to reinvent the wheel:

Titan Extractor: just collects available resources for X-duration.

Titan Extractor Prime: just collects available resources for doubled Titan's duration.

Distilling Extractor: collects available resources as well as has a chance of finding Uncommon and Rare resources for X-duration.

Distilling Extractor Prime: collects available resources as well as has an increased chance of finding Uncommon and Rare resources for X-duration.

 

Perhaps, the prime ones could have a bit higher Health value, too, or just slightly faster repair rate. And as for their number, there are only 4 Drones in total at the moment, so make it just 4 drones.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Thundervision