Changes: Reaper Drone

Revision as of 16:43, 14 March 2009

"Oh God, there suckin' up the civies!" -anonymous Marine.

The Reaper Drone is the Hierarchy's resource collector/processor unit.

General

Unlike Novus and the Masari, who's resource collectors are stationary, the Hierarchy's Reaper Drones are able to wander about the map, collecting raw materials from Civilian Structures, vehicles, and even the civilians themselves.

The Reaper Drone is for all intents and purposes a mobile teleporter, breaking down materials and beaming them up to orbiting supply ships. Each Reaper Drone possesses a limited AI that will allow it to wander about on it's own to collect resources, but it is not intelligent enough to distinguish between valuable, easy to break down resources (such as cows) or more difficult to break down objects such as scrap metal or structures. The Reaper Drones beam may also be used as a light anti-ground weapon, dealing damage over time and eventually sucking the object into the Reaper to be teleported to the command ship.

Campaign

Naturally, being a resource harvester means the Reaper Drone is encountered in practically every mission involving a Hierarchy Base. They are first met on the first tutorial mission, performing their standard task of beaming up any resource they come across, including screaming civilians. They are first used during the second Hierarchy mission where they are used to harvest a large amount of "lucrative" cattle.

Tactical Application

The Reaper Drone will collect resources automatically once it lands, but in order to maximize its harvesting potential it should be manually controlled to gather certain objects (such as cars, telephone poles, electric poles, humans, and especially cows) that are instantly harvested for a large resource gain. By default, the Reaper will collect resources at the rate of 18 per second, but this may be upgraded with a metal or by harvesting the aforementioned instantly harvested items.

Production

Method: Built by Glyph Carver

Prerequisites: Arrival Site

Cost: 1,200

Time: 0:35

Pop: 3

Limit: 7

Special Abilities

Auto-Gather On/Off

Effect: Toggles between having the Reaper seek out resources on its own or stand still and harvest whatever happens to be nearby

Cooldown: None

Upgrades

Fast Ordering

Effect: Glyphs carve 25% faster

Method: Research Quantum Branch Suite 2

Volatile Reactors

Effect: Creates radioactive cloud when destroyed

Method: Research Mutagen Branch Suite 1

Triva and Tips

Reaper Drones do not prioritize "instagrabs" over standard resource piles. Micromanagement is necessary to maximize resource gain.
It is occasionally a good idea to toggle Reaper Drones to not move if they are in an area that humans tend to run through. With auto-harvest off, they will simply grab whatever happens to be nearby.
Amusingly, Reaper Drones do not set off a Matter Engine's death explosion if they destroy one, making them ideal as "bomb squads".

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Image:Reap.jpg|Reaper Drones harvesting Cattle.|right|thumb|200px]]
-:''"Oh God, there suckin' up the civies!"'' -unnamed Marine.
+:''"Oh God, there suckin' up the civies!"'' -anonymous Marine.
-The '''Reaper Drone''' is the Heirarchy's resource collector/processor unit.
+The '''Reaper Drone''' is the Hierarchy's resource collector/processor unit.
 ==General==
-Unlike Novus and the Masari, who's resource collectors are stationary, the Hierarchy's Reaper Drones are able to wander about the map, collecting raw materials from civlian structures, vehicles, and even the civlians themselves.  The Reaper Drone is for all intents and purposes a mobile teleporter, breaking down materials and beaming them up to orbiting supply ships. Each Reaper Drone possesses a limited AI that will allow it to wander about on it's own to collect resources, but it is not intelligent enough to distinguish between valuable, easy to break down resources (such as cows) or more difficult to break down objects such as scrap metal or structures. The Reaper Drones beam may also be used as a light anti-ground weapon, dealing damage over time and eventually sucking the object into the Reaper to be teleported to the command ship.
+Unlike Novus and the Masari, who's resource collectors are stationary, the Hierarchy's Reaper Drones are able to wander about the map, collecting raw materials from [[Civilian Structures]], vehicles, and even the [[humans|civilians]] themselves.<br />
+The Reaper Drone is for all intents and purposes a mobile teleporter, breaking down materials and beaming them up to orbiting supply ships. Each Reaper Drone possesses a limited AI that will allow it to wander about on it's own to collect resources, but it is not intelligent enough to distinguish between valuable, easy to break down resources (such as cows) or more difficult to break down objects such as scrap metal or structures. The Reaper Drones beam may also be used as a light anti-ground weapon, dealing damage over time and eventually sucking the object into the Reaper to be teleported to the command ship. <br />
 ==Campaign==
-Naturally, being a resource harvester means the Reaper Drone is encountered in practically every mission involving a Hierarchy Base. They are first met on the first tutorial mission, performing their standard task of beaming up any resource they come across, including screaming civilians fleeing the incoming aliens. They are first used during the second Hierarchy mission where they are used to harvest a large amount of "lucrative" cattle.
+Naturally, being a resource harvester means the Reaper Drone is encountered in practically every mission involving a Hierarchy Base. They are first met on the first tutorial mission, performing their standard task of beaming up any resource they come across, including screaming civilians. They are first used during the second Hierarchy mission where they are used to harvest a large amount of "lucrative" cattle.<br />
 ==Tactical Application==
-The Reaper Drone will collect resources automatically once it lands, but in order to maximize its harvesting potential it should be manually controlled to gather certain objects (such as cars, telephone poles, electric poles, humans, and especially cows) that are instantly harvested for a large resource gain.  By default, the Reaper will collect resources at the rate of 18 per second, but this may be upgraded with a metal or by harvesting the aforementioned instant harvested items.
+The Reaper Drone will collect resources automatically once it lands, but in order to maximize its harvesting potential it should be manually controlled to gather certain objects (such as cars, telephone poles, electric poles, humans, and especially cows) that are instantly harvested for a large resource gain.  By default, the Reaper will collect resources at the rate of 18 per second, but this may be upgraded with a metal or by harvesting the aforementioned instantly harvested items.<br />