Drone hover altitude

[Elixz89]

My dream would be that the drone - if capable - would hover one block higher than she does now. I occasionally have when I'm in combat that she floats though zombies heads missing my headshots and getting me killed.
Usually when I'm in combat I just put the drone in my pocket but I'm not always able to do this.

 

[RipClaw]

It would be great if it could hover one block higher. However, I'm afraid it would hit the ceiling at most residential POIs.
Fortunately, players can't damage the drone. Otherwise, I would have destroyed it many times by accident during battles.

 

[zombiehunter]

The drone pathing is awful. It is always getting in your way, and the worst time is what you described; getting in your line of sight with a gaggle of Zs coming at you. It makes me wonder if the devs even play-tested it. I was hoping they would address this in the latest update but clearly they did not.

I think a good solution would be to have it passively follow you, not always trying to get in your face, and when you need it, have a key you press on the keyboard (PC), or controller button (Console), that brings it front and center.

 

[Riamus]

It rarely gets in front of me when fighting unless I'm backing up or I turn around. Otherwise, it tends to stay behind me. It's more of a problem with getting in the way when building or mining, but even then it is usually not in my way. My only real complaint with it is that it won't stay put if I try turning to fact it when it hasn't fully stopped and it keeps trying to get behind me. In any case, I do agree that a button to make it come in front of you would be a good addition. I think it does a decent job staying behind you normally. The issue is that if you are only moving small distances or turning around or backing up, or if there just isn't much space for it to maneuver (like in a mine) it causes problems. More adjustments to it could help fix those, but it is definitely better than in the past now that it tries to stay behind you instead of always stopping in front of you.

 

[zombiehunter]

It rarely gets in front of me when fighting unless I'm backing up or I turn around. Otherwise, it tends to stay behind me. It's more of a problem with getting in the way when building or mining, but even then it is usually not in my way. My only real complaint with it is that it won't stay put if I try turning to fact it when it hasn't fully stopped and it keeps trying to get behind me. In any case, I do agree that a button to make it come in front of you would be a good addition. I think it does a decent job staying behind you normally. The issue is that if you are only moving small distances or turning around or backing up, or if there just isn't much space for it to maneuver (like in a mine) it causes problems. More adjustments to it could help fix those, but it is definitely better than in the past now that it tries to stay behind you instead of always stopping in front of you.

Agreed that it is slightly better than it was, but it is still very annoying. Have you ever been in a situation where you've got Zs coming at you from the left, front, and right, so that you're constantly turning left and right to fight them? All the while, the drone gets confused as it's always trying to get behind you, but the result is it is always flying left to right, right to left, in front of you, during the fight. Talk about aggravating!

I can appreciate it must be difficult to program the pathing, but if they can do it to where it is now, I think they could change the behavior to something like what I suggested earlier. Or something else that someone else suggested. I wouldn't care, as long as the drone worked better.

Do you use the drone for more than just more inventory slots?

 

[Riamus]

Agreed that it is slightly better than it was, but it is still very annoying. Have you ever been in a situation where you've got Zs coming at you from the left, front, and right, so that you're constantly turning left and right to fight them? All the while, the drone gets confused as it's always trying to get behind you, but the result is it is always flying left to right, right to left, in front of you, during the fight. Talk about aggravating!

I can appreciate it must be difficult to program the pathing, but if they can do it to where it is now, I think they could change the behavior to something like what I suggested earlier. Or something else that someone else suggested. I wouldn't care, as long as the drone worked better.

Do you use the drone for more than just more inventory slots?

I rarely put myself in a position where I have to cover 3 directions (or 4) at once. In any case, I've had the drone get in the way now and then. A little movement makes it get out of the way, though. I agree that improvements to it would be good. I was just mentioning that the only thing that really bothers me personally was trying to get into it when it won't stay put if I try to face it before it stops moving.

It gets in front of me more often when building because I'm often facing multiple directions or backing up and walking sideways in short amounts, which causes it to have problems staying out of the way. If it starts to bug me too much, I just tell it to stay in one place. Or I pick it up, but I normally don't do that. That can be a pain in a POI as you might forget to tell it to follow you again, or you don't get it to stay before an unexpected group of zombies attacks. So it's not the best solution for fighting. But it is an option.

And, no. I don't use it for anything except storage. None of the other options are really any use to me. Supposedly healing has gotten better than it used to be. The one time I tried it, it was wasting my stuff, so I never used it for that again. But even if it works better now, I rarely have a situation where I need help with healing. It happens sometimes, where I'll be low health and get a bleed debuff and trying to get to the bandages takes too long since I won't put them on my tool belt, but that's very rare. And the morale thing is kind of pointless, imo.

 

[seven]

Slightly better than terrible is still terrible. It's always getting in the way when fighting. And then when you actually want to interact with it, it swings around behind you. I don't want to stand still for several seconds for it to pause. I use a drone remote control mod that adds the drone radial functions to the normal radial menu.

 

[Space4Ace]

It would be great if it could hover one block higher. However, I'm afraid it would hit the ceiling at most residential POIs.
Fortunately, players can't damage the drone. Otherwise, I would have destroyed it many times by accident during battles.

The drone could have a default height of 3 blocks, but adjust when blocks are in the way.

 

[Riamus]

Slightly better than terrible is still terrible. It's always getting in the way when fighting. And then when you actually want to interact with it, it swings around behind you. I don't want to stand still for several seconds for it to pause. I use a drone remote control mod that adds the drone radial functions to the normal radial menu.

Yeah. It was suggested here and I've seen it suggested before to have a button to make it move directly in front of you when pressed. I think that would be helpful at least for trying to get to it, though it doesn't help with keeping it from being in front of you when you're fighting or building or mining.

 

[seven]

Yeah. It was suggested here and I've seen it suggested before to have a button to make it move directly in front of you when pressed. I think that would be helpful at least for trying to get to it, though it doesn't help with keeping it from being in front of you when you're fighting or building or mining.

What would be a better button is one that would toggle stay/follow. Tell it to stay and it stops where it is so you can easily interact with it. And for combat, tell it to stay as you walk in the front door. That wouldn't work for the healing mod but I've never used that.

 

[Riamus]

What would be a better button is one that would toggle stay/follow. Tell it to stay and it stops where it is so you can easily interact with it. And for combat, tell it to stay as you walk in the front door. That wouldn't work for the healing mod but I've never used that.

A button is okay for that, but since you can already do that, I'm not really sure it's necessary unless you plan to constantly tell it to stay and follow.

 

[seven]

A button is okay for that, but since you can already do that, I'm not really sure it's necessary unless you plan to constantly tell it to stay and follow.

You can do that with the radial menu, but you have to catch the ■■■■ thing first. I mentioned I use a remote control mod. I go to clear a POI. At the entrance I tell the drone to stay. If my inventory starts filling up, I call it to me and dump some stuff in it, and tell it to stay again. I continue on with the drone still out of my way. Maybe I do this again a few times. When I leave I just tell it to follow. Much more convenient than running back to where I left it repeatedly, or having it in my face.

OK, to be honest, I usually just access the drone storage remotely with the mod, but a simple stay/follow hotkey would work well for what I described. The drone talks to us. Think of this as us talking to it, giving it commands.

 

[zombiehunter]

What would be a better button is one that would toggle stay/follow. Tell it to stay and it stops where it is so you can easily interact with it. And for combat, tell it to stay as you walk in the front door. That wouldn't work for the healing mod but I've never used that.

I think if it just passively follows you, say 5 to 10 meters behind you so it is always out of the way, would work. Then have a button that calls it to you when you need it. After that, it goes back to passively following you.