Discussion: Should Zoanthropes be less suicidal?

[Song]

So we know a little more about the Zo's these days, thanks to George's fantastic Ascension Ceremony piece.

Zo's will always look towards their master. And the player can usurp the Dwarg to take that spot, via killing the annoying EMP-spamming Dwarg ships, blowing up stations, and otherwise Conducting Diplomacy upon them. But Zo's have never been that useful....even more so than autons, they're incredibly suicidal. Not only can they not be ordered (not inherently a bad thing), they do not formate around the player, and instead fly right in front of the player's guns at every opportunity (definitely inherently a bad thing). Thus the little ships tend to die in seconds, and the larger ships suffer through raw stupidity as well. Which is odd, because while the Zoanthropes are subservient, they're not stupid, and can supposedly fly quite well. Their closest equivalents, the Ferians, certainly seem to do quite well. But the Zo's are complete morons when they're serving the player.

This isn't a bug, since it's currently the intended behaviour. But I'd like to hear if there's any way we can come up with to make them more than just "Oh hey, they're following me OH WHOOPS I killed them all" typ cannon-fodder. Personally I'd love to see them keep some of their slightly odd flying behaviour, but still keep behind the player to avoid getting blown up. A really basic command system would also be neat, but not essential.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

Since they have swivel weapons, one possibility that immediately springs to mind would be to make them attack in passes, rather than all running straight for the enemy. If you wanted to get sophisticated, they could automatically form a long line of individual ships behind the player, giving you a "tail" to run past the enemy.

I feel like they are intended to be only situationally and temporarily useful, since they don't heal. It might make sense to build on that. For example, give chiton armor the same particle reflecting ability that catropic and holochroal armor have. If you wanted to attack a strong Sung target, it would definitely be worth your while to go take out a Dwarg master or some colonies and use the raiders against the Sung.

Additionally, it would make sense for all zooanthrope raiders to be neutral to one another- your raiders shouldn't target hostile raiders and vice versa. That way, flipped raiders wouldn't instantly get killed by their old comrades.

[FourFire]

I agree that they are currently mostly useless, but I don't know how to fix this beyond giving them stronger (and regenerating) armor (improved AI, tails and such could help, but I don't know about feasibility on that end) also a simple [R]etreat (or [R]eturn to ship) command would be useful for those moments where you just caused an angry cloud of death and want to bait it into a trap, except your dumb as rocks "servant" ships go to meet them at their base.

[pixelfck]

If they would just fly to the sides of the player ship (and attempt to stay at that position) they should die a lot less I guess. The other option would be to have them charge ahead, but try to stay outside a stroke directly in front of the player ship. They should still be able to attack things with their swivel guns.

Also, I would indeed like to see them be neutral to other Dwarg ships, regardless of their disposition to the player.

~Pixelfck