Has anyone ever gotten the Free Drones' Revolt 75% ability to work?

[Yitzi]

As far as I can tell, it's a complete dud, with the result that if Industry weren't so overpowered, the Drones would be horribly underpowered.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've never seen it happen.

[Kirov]

I'm quite sure I saw this happen, in the sense that a revolting base usually goes to the nearest neighbor, but that one time it went to the Drones who were farther. But even then, bases revolt so seldom that this feature wins my Useless Ability Award hands down.

[Yitzi]

I think what's supposed to happen is as Kirov said: When a base is revolting already (which happens if it has drone riots for a long time), then it has a high chance of joining the Free Drones rather than another faction.  In any case, it's weak enough to be essentially useless except for flavor, meaning that if Industry is weakened (as it must be if the game is to be balanced), the Drones will have a net +0 social engineering modifier with no major boosts beyond that, meaning they'll probably need some sort of boost, though that'd need playtesting.  Perhaps robust POLICE (same idea as having 1 less drone)?

[Green1]

I have seen it. The thing is, most experienced players will do everything in thier power to take the base out of revolt.

The last time it happened, I was playing Morgan and got a little carried away with Free Market and units outside my territory. I thought I could cope with a base in revolt for a turn or two. I was wrong and saw a good production city throw up the banner of the Drones.

[Kirov]

I have seen it. The thing is, most experienced players will do everything in thier power to take the base out of revolt.

The last time it happened, I was playing Morgan and got a little carried away with Free Market and units outside my territory. I thought I could cope with a base in revolt for a turn or two. I was wrong and saw a good production city throw up the banner of the Drones.

Yeah, I saw it only a few times in my life and the first time was after a couple of years of playing. It happened in a MP game to a friend of mine exactly as you said, Morgan+FM.  I remember I was laughing my head off, when shortly thereafter it happened to me...  . I swear it couldn't be more than 3 turns worth of riots, and I think it was just two. Since then I'd rather starve an unruly base to 1pop and go negative mins rather than risk a revolt, so I can't see how that Drones perk comes useful.

[Kilkakon]

I've only ever had one city revolt myself, and yeah, as people say, it's such a rare occurance that it can't be relied upon.

[Pickly]

I think what's supposed to happen is as Kirov said: When a base is revolting already (which happens if it has drone riots for a long time), then it has a high chance of joining the Free Drones rather than another faction.  In any case, it's weak enough to be essentially useless except for flavor, meaning that if Industry is weakened (as it must be if the game is to be balanced), the Drones will have a net +0 social engineering modifier with no major boosts beyond that, meaning they'll probably need some sort of boost, though that'd need playtesting.  Perhaps robust POLICE (same idea as having 1 less drone)?

Is this thoughts for an executable patch, or more random ideas, out of curiosity?

I could think of a few ideas for adjusting drones in this case  (+3/+4 industry, extra growth from unhappiness in other empires, less unhappiness themselves, perhaps.)

[Yitzi]

Is this thoughts for an executable patch, or more random ideas, out of curiosity?

It's thoughts for a mod that will require an executable patch I'm in the middle of, though the part relevant to this discussion will make very little if any use of the executable patch, being more a crawler-depowering update.

Although it occurred to me that it would be advisable to turn mid- and late-game projects into more than "whoever gets the required tech first", and naturally the remainder of the determination of who gets a project would be primarily an INDUSTRY issue; INDUSTRY would still not be as powerful as it is now, but would be enough to possibly make the Drones competitive as-is.

(As for how I plan to do that: Increase project costs substantially; the early ones would still be only 200, but the last ones would go as high as 2000, with 6000 for the Ascent.  Then add in a rule that only two bases can build crawlers for any given project, and those crawlers must start being built after the project is (and of course cannot be rushed or hurried).)

I could think of a few ideas for adjusting drones in this case  (+3/+4 industry

+3 to something would probably be too much.

extra growth from unhappiness in other empires

Too difficult to code; it'd essentially be a whole new faction ability.

less unhappiness themselves

That could work; simply increase the strength of their "free drones" ability.

[JarlWolf]

I've seen it happen by both the AI and I've personally used it as a strategy.

The base has to be in revolt already, but you can do this by inciting drone riots. The use of probe teams (and probe happy policies help too, ex. Fundamentalism during wartime.)

It is a lot harder to do. I would suggest buffing it, as it takes effort to get it to work, which involves sieging a base and targeting facilities to make the populace unhappy. Not surprisingly, the faction that this is most effective against is the Hive. Morganites as well if its a larger base, and the Spartans and Believers(surprisingly) are also candidates. The others you will rarely if at all ever get a base this way.

[Kirov]

I've seen it happen by both the AI and I've personally used it as a strategy.

You used it as a strategy?  I'm quite sure that the AI doesn't follow our mechanics of riots. It can have drone riots at the same base for many years and nothing happens, neither revolt nor even riot intensification (i.e. destruction of buildings). Sometimes I had an impression that AI keeps even building stuff in rioting bases, although I'm probably wrong here.

And as far as I remember, inciting drone riots works only once at a time, i.e. you reduce PSYCH by 2 and that's it. I don't know how long it lasts, maybe 10 turns or something like that? I find AI bases usually very policed and there's nothing you can do about that (other than kill the police, I mean). So even if you sabotage all drone buildings and add incite drone riots on the top of that, the base in question can still be quite fine.

[JarlWolf]

Hence why its hard to do, but if you do it just right you can pull it off. It works best with cities already in drone riots, for example heavily contested cities that swap owners from time to time. You have to be quick to act about it to boot too.

[ete]

hm, it seems my SMAX factions are missing a lot of special abilities, including the Drone's riot ability. Have you checked your text files to make sure they've got it?

[Kirov]

hm, it seems my SMAX factions are missing a lot of special abilities, including the Drone's riot ability. Have you checked your text files to make sure they've got it?

It seems you need the official patch, it updates not only exe, but also some other files.