Just noticed an interesting situation.

Launched a beholder a few turns ago. When I look at the last turn orders for the system I noticed the drone didn't move. When I click on it I get the message "Move route truncated to avoid landing on Deegarado IX".

Can't actually see the planet, so it looks like the beholder drone and the planet are occupying the same hex.

I would guess what has happened is that the beholder has been moved then the planet has moved as part of it's orbit and both are now in the same space.

Oops.

Yep this 'feature' also works with scramblers for ultimate drone stopping power.

This is still happening, so just thought I'd raise it again.

The problem is that unless the drone has enough movement points to move two hexes in the grav well it can't move ever. Can't stop on the planets hex so move is being truncated.

I guess this will also be a problem with stationary drones in grav hexes.

Only fix I can see for this is rather than truncating a drones move due to an occupied hex it instead tries to move to an unoccupied hex in a clockwise direction. This ought to allow drones to navigate (albeit slowly) around obstacles without getting stuck.

Thats funny, I'm in deegarado and I havent seen any beholders being fired at all, at least not that I didnt fire. Are you achkin?

I'm Ynar, and I'm not actually in Deegardo anymore. That system has opened again since I was fighting in it.

I'd be tempted to say the drone should be destroyed if it can't move due to truncation.

I'd like that, I've a couple of attack drones sitting stationary in a gravity well. Not enough power to move forward, but the moment I move from my current location they'll start homing in on me again.

Right. Don't particularly have a problem with that. But If the drone would be destroyed, then can we have the game client modified to show the intended path of the drone when you select it's target.

So you can see whether something like this would happened and adjust your shot to try and avoid it.

I don't like the idea that drones that can't move because of truncation should be destroyed. Otherwise it is too easy to destroy massive attack drones by manouvering them into the centre of a grav well. Even if they are big enough to move in a power 7 gravwell it is unlikely that they can move 2 in the well. So almost any attack drone will be killed. If they just get truncated then people can hide from attack drones behind a planet but if they are forced sideways then the drone is released to track them again.

Lets not make it too easy to destroy attack drones otherwise people again may be more likely to use mines over attack drones.

Actually it's not just planets that can block drones. Beholders in grav fields will do just as well, as nothing can stop on top of them and they can't be destroyed.