Drone Behavior.

[burguertime]

Simple:

Why some drones just wander around an area and never leave it, while others actively seek new target

On some Nexus, the drones stay around forever, while in others they rush to you.

What makes them behave like that, and is this something I can use in the map maker?

[florrat]

As far as I know, when a drone can reach one of your units or buildings they will choose one at random, and move to it. If they cannot reach any unit or building, then they go to some random spot which they can reach (which will look like "wandering around").

Is this what you mean, or do you see drones wandering around even while they can get to your units?

[J]

You have 2 kinds of drones:
- Normal drones (gateway), which will go to any random building they can reach or else go to any random spot they can reach. These will rush to you shortly after you open the cave.
- Drones in special mode (nexus), they'll try to stick together as much as possible, while still discovering the caves around. These won't rush to you directly when you open the cave, but when they do, they'll go together.

[Grauniad]

Interesting you should ask. :) It reinforces the concept of synchronicity.

Virgil recently expounded on the behavior of Nexus drones as follows:

I remember that I added a special "nexus defense" mode to the drones.  When in that mode they move around the nexus.  The idea being that they shield it from dark beams and other weapons.  When I did it I thought about electrons around atoms.  Consequently, I added a "half-life" to a drones. Each has some chance to leave defense mode and enter the normal seek mode.  So if you let the nexus build and then just wait, eventually most all of the drones will leave defense mode and become seekers.

Defense drones simply move around the nexus in concentric squares.  This makes it more difficult to get weapons and conversion bombs close to the core without taking out the drones.  I have played this mission by building 4 different beams and firing them straight in to the nexus.  Of course you have to defend those dark beams with plenty of blasters.

Hope this helps.