I was thinking earlier today that the Reef would be interesting if it gained more utility and flexibility and felt that this might be an interesting new set of capabilities:
1) It deploys different kinds of drones and could be toggled between them depending on battlefield conditions:
a) The Gull is reworked into an anti-submarine/amph helicopter. It trades its EMG for a gauss (perhaps 150 damage, 2sec ROF, maybe a bit more range than the EMG if it needs it (not sure it does), and gains sonar to go fishing. 8 75 DPS gauss is 600DPS, not far behind the theoretical ability of the EMG, but more flexible. It probably also wants more HP (400 or so?)
b) The Seal is a new drone that actually lives underwater but otherwise works similarly to a Puppy (except without self replication). It has 185 HP and when it activates, it hits its target for 900 damage and an area effect similar to a Scallop's depth charges or an Urchin's torpedoes. Why 185HP? This is midway between the damage done by Scallop charges (according to wiki) and Urchin torps (it just survives the former, it dies to to the latter), which for a free bomb from a moderately expensive strider hub unit feels about right to me, but numbers are always negotiable. 900 damage means the Reef could potentially smite 4 unescorted Claymores before needing to rearm but you still need two to take mid weight amph fac stuff and you'll need two for Ducks or Seawolves - 1 to eat the shot, the other to kill.
c) The Sea Viper is just a viper drone that lives underwater so doesn't get eaten by light AA. It has highest raw DPS of the stable and the slow ability, essentially like having a small group of free Seawolves. It probably needs to lose range compared to the flying version though, since otherwise it would endlessly kite scallops and actual Seawolves (though would that necessarily be a bad thing?)
2) It trades its manual disarm missile for a 500 elmo range disarm torpedo with 10sec ROF, 3250 disarm power and 8 sec disarm and AOE equal to a Claymore depth charge (the disarm numbers are 1/3 better than those of a Racketeer). Possibly it could also gain real damage comparable as a proportion of disarm power to that of a Cutter (so 650 damage each volley).
3) It gains a caretaker's worth of build power, but no ability to initiate builds itself (maybe it could retain terraform like caretaker as well). It won't hoover up reclaim like a Funnelweb, but it can defend the field with its underwater drones.
Cost, HP and air repair abilities are all retained, the latter possibly moderately buffed, though this might be unneeded since it has the caretaker BP anyway for repair assist. Perhaps to make them more attractive than air repair pads, they could have a 50% faster reload cycle.
The different drone options allow it to switch between air support with anti-sub sidearm (the Gull), anti heavy capability (the Seal) and underwater area denial (Sea Viper). It can closely support a a naval push, and in particular make Claymore counter attack much less scary. Of course, that utility comes with a strider price tag.
In fact, maybe Fireflies and Vipers could get a toggle whereby if their mothership is in the water, they turn into mini submarines. A commander investing in drones could then be the only comm in the game able to defend itself underwater.
