I really think that the "pet bots" need some improvement. It's ridicules that they will attack the ship they're protecting if you bump a station or a roid. They will also attack each other if they bump into you. Here is my suggestion:

1. They should never attack the player that built them.

2. Never attack each other.

3. If you dock at a station they should dock too and auto repair.

4. Add some commands that you can send to them like "Stop attack", "Attack target", "Guard the station"*, "Stay/Guard target/Resume"** and "Location"***.

5. You should be able to take other missions while the bots follow you.

6. If you have a access key to a conquerable station the turrets shouldn't attack the "pet bots".

* If you don't want them to dock at a station.
** They will stay in a sector until or follow/guard some one you tell them to "Resume".
*** If you lost them in a sector.

Couldn't find an other thread about this.

+1 and they also shouldn't just "get lost" while they are supposed to be following you. I've had numerous incidents where my Furies won't jump when I do, and then I'll just wait for them but they don't come. Once I even backtracked but they were not to be found. I think it would be nice if they would group with the player so that you can see there location at all times.

Regarding point #5, as far as I'm aware the furies are handled by the mission system, and you can only have one mission active at a time - thus the restriction. So to make them usable during other missions would probably be a lot of work.

As for getting lost, that applies to any bot that tries to follow you through jumps, not just the furies. Definitely would be nice to see fixed.

+1 but long term due its limited reach.

+2 to #1, seems the simplest to implement providing best improvement.

Those fixes would allow interesting PCC missions regarding escorts, mercs, haulers... heavy work on AI coding.

but also can completely unbalance game. Imagine everybody using pet bots?

#1 and #2 could probably be worked around with an additional command like: "Stop what you're doing!"

#3 might be doable under the current editor, it would just make the mission slightly more complicated and require some additional testing. I would need to reliably detect whether or not the player was docked, because you wouldn't want the furies to begin hanging out around stations aimlessly. Therefore they would have to "know" when the player was leaving so that they could pick up the trail and follow him/her again. I believe this is possible without adding any additional stages, which is good.

Additionally, it would require being able to reference whatever station the player happened to dock with, so that the mission could tell the bots to dock with that particular station. This might create some additional "emergent behavior", such as if the player decides to dock with a cap ship. This would all require further experimentation.

#4 there aren't really that many more interesting things for the bots to do beyond their current behavior under the current editor. Designating a particular target for them to attack that is not tied to the mission is beyond the current editor's capabilities. Probably the most interesting thing I could get the bots to do would be "Hold your position!" (see #1-2) versus "Follow and defend me!" When I wrote this mission, I didn't know the bots would be inclined to attack the player or each other under certain conditions, otherwise I probably would have included this command to begin with.

#5 is not possible, as others have pointed out the pet furies are generated under a mission themselves, and you cannot currently have two simultaneously active missions.

#6 might be able to be worked around by having a "Hold position" command also, it would at least be a temporary solution.

In conclusion, these missions would probably be worth revisiting so that they can be improved. If you have any inclination to help out, definitely check out the PCC. At the very least, we could probably add an additional command to prevent the furies from going rabid on the owner or each other.

#1 and #2 should be fixed in 1.8.204 update.

Thank you very much.

I've discovered some other problems and I have some new suggestions.

1. You can take the mission and then enter a group but if you leave the group the bots disappear. This is very annoying. Not only do they disappear you have to build new pet bots.

2. If you jump to an other sector or system and they are more then 1000m away from you they won't follow you to the next sector or system. To fix this make them faster. I don't know what the current max speed is but I suggest that the max speed should be 220m/s or 225m/s (maybe more?). Maybe they also need to accelerate faster.

3. Remove the self-destruct. If one is destroyed the others will self-destruct. This means that bringing 3 bots into a fight is useless.

An other thing that would be nice is if you got a working key to a conquerable station all turrets and guards will be shown as friendly. This isn't the right thread but I hope it will fix so the turrets won't attack our pet bots.

shit #1 and #2 were what made those furies so nice.
funz spoilers : )

PS: really sweethearts ye dont want i to fix me uit std and wait fer yer newbs with 3 of this killer buds in edras B-11...or in uit

Well if I bring 3 pet bots things would be interesting. These changes would also make them good for escort for traders through gray space.

1+ to all those changes, I really dont get the rationale for letting the rest die when one dies either. It doesnt make any sense. Why don't we wait until they're actually used before we start pressing the O.P button. In order to get there, they need all the above changes and not to die when one of them does.

Thank you! :)