Submitted by matthiaskrgr
via IRC:

15:33 < Pumba> (I just cranked up my hacking skill at Kevin's before going into the desert, it's quite easy to 
               hack the Harvesters with 5 charges... I've got an army of Harvesters following me into other groups 
               of bots but I don't benefit much from the fighting - I may be in the middle of it all hacking at 
               the Harvesters with a wrench but as far as I can tell it would be more beneficial to just hack them 
               all...)
15:34 < matthiaskrgr> hmm, yes
15:34 < matthiaskrgr> with pure combat, you just gain a lot more experience points
15:35 < matthiaskrgr> if you got the full XP for a bot killed by hacked (allied) bots, that would be too easy
15:35 < Pumba> yep ... but some fights are a lot easier with some "own" bots to catch some of the damage; with the 
               disadvantage of maybe not getting anything but, say, 50 Circuits
15:36 < Pumba> what about something like total experience divided by (number of allied bots on the map or within a 
               certain radius)?
15:36 < matthiaskrgr> perhaps the amount of a bots takeover charges should depend on its health
15:37 < matthiaskrgr> so you can damage a bot first and than hack it easier, repair it and let it fight for you
15:37 < Pumba> that would be a nice thing, especially with the repair function
15:37 < matthiaskrgr> after that, you hack the next bot


Amount of a bots charges and its HPs shouldn't be proportional. I think if  50% HP affects  -25% takeover charges for the bot   (or a little more)   it may be ok.

You would be able to first weaken the bot with melee attacks or spells, and than hack it easier.
The hacked bot can than be used to weaken more bots which will be easier to take over then, too.

Posted by ahuillet
It seems like a complex gameplay rule to me. I don't think we should add rules this lightly.

Personally, I like the idea. If a bot starts with 6 charges at full health and 
I've already damaged it 50%, I expect it to be easier to hack since it won't 
live as long as my ally. In this scenario, I would expect it to have about 4 or 
5 charges. As matthias said, at 50% health, it should have 25% of the charges 
(rounding up to higher number of charges of course). In fact, I expected this 
on my first playthrough.

While I understand the hesitancy to add something of this caliber, I also think 
that I should bring up a game that has had huge success with this type of 
feature -- Pokemon.

While I understand that it's considerably different than FDRPG, the idea 
remains the same -- you get rewarded for the work you do. In FDRPG I think this 
is even more important than in Pokemon because, as I said a moment ago in this 
comment, the weaker a bot is, the less helpful it will be for you.

We can leave out the "repair the bots" (*That* may get pretty complex, not to 
mention throw off all balance in the game with other combat skills -- "Melee? 
guns? Pfft, just hack everything to create an army of droids!"), but I feel 
damage -> charges correlation is necessary.

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:24:44 +0000
Robert Robinson - Roundup <bugs@freedroid.org> wrote:

> Personally, I like the idea. If a bot starts with 6 charges at full health
> and I've already damaged it 50%, I expect it to be easier to hack since it
> won't live as long as my ally. In this scenario, I would expect it to have
> about 4 or 5 charges. 

In other words, 75% of the charges at 50% health....

> As matthias said, at 50% health, it should have 25% of
> the charges (rounding up to higher number of charges of course). 

... and now 25%?

> While I understand that it's considerably different than FDRPG, the idea 
> remains the same -- you get rewarded for the work you do. In FDRPG I think
> this is even more important than in Pokemon because, as I said a moment ago
> in this comment, the weaker a bot is, the less helpful it will be for you.

I think it makes sense.
Do note that we already have a feature to repair damaged bots.