declined Could drones be activated using a key rather than automatically on respawn?

[kmbensley 1]

When I respawn in my area the drone becomes active straight away and then by the time I travel all the way to the enemy area my drone is just about to run out of time so it is no real use.  It would be much better if when I respawn the drone is there waiting to be activated, I could travel to the enemy and then activate it with a key press.

[NikmanGT 4,491]

Valid
Declined

Definitely a good suggestion, then the battery consumption time has to be worked all over again. 
Currently, as soon as you load into a battle with a drone equipped, the supply gets consumed from the minute one.  With the current change, when you use the drone, then for the particular duration, the battery will start getting used up. Would save the supply too.

[Me0w_XP 523]

From OP's description, I would assume that they are talking about Trooper drone, though this is just speculation. I feel like many drones have their certain parameters due to being situational tools in the first place. Take Trooper as an example. The supply active time was reduced to only 5 or so seconds due to the drone's intended usage being protection against spawn-killers, I believe.

[artc 1,119]

I think this should be an option. Like in the setting have an on/off option for it

[belege 21]

2 problems

Battery brings revenue for devs and separate buyers from f2p.

No drones means no supply boost. So you can t have brutus for free. Battery assure you get drone boost for supply.  

[Maf 32,338]

Ok, let's take a look at the list of drones:

• Brutus, Hyperion, Crisis — no reason to have an activation button, since the bonus is passive and there is no drone cooldown.
• Driver — cooldown is 3 seconds, and besides, there is no reason why you wouldn't want to get additional OD charge from a kill
• Sprinter — cooldown is 9 seconds, and there are very few situations where you would want to prevent the drone activating, despite having the opportunity.
• Assault, Blaster, Saboteur, Miner — no reason to ever turn off the drone's ability.
• Booster and Defender — this would have been relevant back when its effect lasted for 5 seconds, but now it lasts 30 seconds and you can activate another DD/DA right afterwards. Similar with Trickster.
• Lifeguard — It could have used this ability when the cooldown was 30 seconds, but with a current cooldown of 9 seconds, there's never a situation when you respawn and the drone is still on cooldown.
• Trooper — this one could benefit from an activation button, but then it loses its meaning. The whole point of the drone is to protect you when you spawn in, and, similar to Lifeguard, a recharge of 3 seconds means the drone is always ready when you respawn.
• Engineer, Supplier, Mechanic — recharge time of 3 seconds, so extremely rare to have a situation where you wouldn't want to use it.

So, as you can see, Trooper is the only drone that could benefit from an activation button, but that doesn't fit into its design. Developers are very much against adding new controls unless absolutely necessary, and there's no way they're adding a new button for a single drone.

Status changed to declined.

[alkyng 3,081]

On 8/23/2022 at 11:05 AM, Maf said:

Ok, let's take a look at the list of drones:

• Brutus, Hyperion, Crisis — no reason to have an activation button, since the bonus is passive and there is no drone cooldown.
• Driver — cooldown is 3 seconds, and besides, there is no reason why you wouldn't want to get additional OD charge from a kill
• Sprinter — cooldown is 9 seconds, and there are very few situations where you would want to prevent the drone activating, despite having the opportunity.
• Assault, Blaster, Lifeguard, Saboteur, Miner — no reason to ever turn off the drone's ability.
• Booster and Defender — this would have been relevant back when its effect lasted for 5 seconds, but now it lasts 30 seconds and you can activate another DD/DA right afterwards. Similar with Trickster.
• Trooper — this one could benefit from an activation button, but then it loses its meaning. The whole point of the drone is to protect you when you spawn in, and with a recharge time of 3 seconds, you never have a situation where you respawn and the drone is still on cooldown.
• Engineer, Supplier, Mechanic — recharge time of 3 seconds, so extremely rare to have a situation where you wouldn't want to use it.

So, as you can see, Trooper is the only drone that could benefit from an activation button, but that doesn't fit into its design. Developers are very much against adding new controls unless absolutely necessary, and there's no way they're adding a new button for a single drone.

Status changed to declined.

You're just too criticizing for the idea, you missed the whole point of the topic (economical) to use the drone at the most efficiency.   So you wont use the drone except at the crucial moments, other than that nope.  In example for Lifeguard, you mayn't want to use it except in the gold bell (meteor events).

[Maf 32,338]

On 8/23/2022 at 2:53 PM, firety31 said:

you missed the whole point of the topic (economical) to use the drone at the most efficiency. 

So just for saving batteries then? That means it's an idea to make drones cheaper to use, which is against I&S rules (reducing items' prices).

[Cor7y 13,862]

On 8/23/2022 at 1:35 PM, Maf said:

Developers are very much against adding new controls unless absolutely necessary

laughs in Jack in the box

[Maf 32,338]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:33 PM, Cor7y said:

laughs in Jack in the box

wat

"Jack in the box" is just what they're calling the turrets flying off feature, right? What does it have to do with drones or controls?

[Cor7y 13,862]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:06 PM, Maf said:

wat

Devs added Jack in the box effect, something completely unnecessary and unasked for. Also annoys pretty much every Tanki player.

[Okami 3,041]

On 8/23/2022 at 6:37 AM, Cor7y said:

Devs added Jack in the box effect, something completely unnecessary and unasked for. Also annoys pretty much every Tanki player.

The original post was “Developers are against adding new controls”.

[Me0w_XP 523]

On 8/23/2022 at 8:09 PM, Okami said:

The original post was “Developers are against adding new controls”.

This here. Jack-In-The-Box is just a new effect. Though I am somewhat against it.