BUILD CHALLENGE: Torpedoes, launchers, magazines!

[Dr. Whammy]

Now THIS is my kind of thread... Good old R&D.

This unit was purpose built for my ship's cargo/fighter bays. When all 3 bays are equipped with one of these units, I can carry 48 torpedoes internally. The rounds are unguided but extremely accurate if you are stationary and not rotating (holding the "V" key is crucial).

In combat, the large rail gun is centered over the bays. When I need to use the bays to launch fighters, torpedoes, special equipment or power suit infantry The gun can slide to the left to reveal the bay doors. Rail operated pylons will lower the docked unit through the bay doors; making it ready for use.

16x Multiple launch system.
Combined mass: 92
Dimensions: Length 11m, Width 11m, Height 6m
Features:
- Arm/disarm deployment: opens logic controlled blast screen and loads 4 torpedoes. Retracts them and closes the blast screen for storage.
- 4 auto-reloading pylons: 4 shots per vertical stack; repeat firing.
- 4 round burst (one from each stack)
- Reverse load (clears jams to prevent internal detonation)

[DOUBLEPOST=1443674687,1443674150][/DOUBLEPOST]
SB-39 E. an ultralight torpedo bomber small enough to be carried in the fighter bay. Equipped with a light cannon to pierce armor and missiles to hold fighters at bay. It carries dual 2 round auto loading torpedo racks.




A prototype torpedo cruiser with dual magazine fed launchers. 20 rounds total capacity, able to clear jams and reasonably reliable. Accurate beyond 2800m while stationary (Use the "V" key). This ship is going to be refit with more energy efficient turrets to compensate for its low spec. power grid.

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

those are some crazy torpedo launchers :D
It's weird to me that they aren't guided.. any particular reason for that? Also, it seems that recently it's almost impossible to use warheads due to some kind of nerf that makes it so a single warhead does almost no damage.. I have to use a 3x3 cube just to break through standard armor... Is there some type of setting change that I can make that increases the damage & radius of warheads?
In any case, is there any chance you could upload the circuitry for your cannons? I'm very interested to see how you used the logic to fire the missiles in order, and what you meant by "able to clear jams." When the V2 for my prototype is completed, Id enjoy trading notes

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Now THIS is my kind of thread... Good old R&D.

This unit was purpose built for my ship's cargo/fighter bays. When all 3 bays are equipped with one of these units, I can carry 48 torpedoes internally. The rounds are unguided but extremely accurate if you are stationary and not rotating (holding the "V" key is crucial).

In combat, the large rail gun is centered over the bays. When I need to use the bays to launch fighters, torpedoes, special equipment or power suit infantry The gun can slide to the left to reveal the bay doors. Rail operated pylons will lower the docked unit through the bay doors; making it ready for use.

16x Multiple launch system.
Combined mass: 92
Dimensions: Length 11m, Width 11m, Height 6m
Features:
- Arm/disarm deployment: opens logic controlled blast screen and loads 4 torpedoes. Retracts them and closes the blast screen for storage.
- 4 auto-reloading pylons: 4 shots per vertical stack; repeat firing.
- 4 round burst (one from each stack)
- Reverse load (clears jams to prevent internal detonation)

[DOUBLEPOST=1443674687,1443674150][/DOUBLEPOST]View attachment 16444
SB-39 E. an ultralight torpedo bomber small enough to be carried in the fighter bay. Equipped with a light cannon to piece armor and missiles to hold fighters at bay. It carries dual 2 round auto loading torpedo racks.



View attachment 16445 View attachment 16446
A prototype torpedo cruiser with dual magazine fed launchers. 20 rounds total capacity, able to clear jams and reasonably reliable. Accurate beyond 2800m while stationary (Use the "V" key). This ship is going to be refit with more energy efficient turrets to compensate for its low spec. power grid.

OH GOD YES. This is what I love to see!

 

[Gasboy]

those are some crazy torpedo launchers :D
It's weird to me that they aren't guided.. any particular reason for that?

How do you make torpedoes guided?

 

[hzzzln]

Now THIS is my kind of thread... Good old R&D.

This unit was purpose built for my ship's cargo/fighter bays. When all 3 bays are equipped with one of these units, I can carry 48 torpedoes internally. The rounds are unguided but extremely accurate if you are stationary and not rotating (holding the "V" key is crucial).

In combat, the large rail gun is centered over the bays. When I need to use the bays to launch fighters, torpedoes, special equipment or power suit infantry The gun can slide to the left to reveal the bay doors. Rail operated pylons will lower the docked unit through the bay doors; making it ready for use.

16x Multiple launch system.
Combined mass: 92
Dimensions: Length 11m, Width 11m, Height 6m
Features:
- Arm/disarm deployment: opens logic controlled blast screen and loads 4 torpedoes. Retracts them and closes the blast screen for storage.
- 4 auto-reloading pylons: 4 shots per vertical stack; repeat firing.
- 4 round burst (one from each stack)
- Reverse load (clears jams to prevent internal detonation)

[DOUBLEPOST=1443674687,1443674150][/DOUBLEPOST]View attachment 16444
SB-39 E. an ultralight torpedo bomber small enough to be carried in the fighter bay. Equipped with a light cannon to piece armor and missiles to hold fighters at bay. It carries dual 2 round auto loading torpedo racks.



View attachment 16445 View attachment 16446
A prototype torpedo cruiser with dual magazine fed launchers. 20 rounds total capacity, able to clear jams and reasonably reliable. Accurate beyond 2800m while stationary (Use the "V" key). This ship is going to be refit with more energy efficient turrets to compensate for its low spec. power grid.

And I thought your ships only looked amazing.

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

hey, I didn't get any praise for MY design (guess I need more flashy pictures and cool builds)
Since it's a little boring for me to make really detailed ships, I recently have only been focusing on the logic aspect of starmade, like this doohickey I made early this year (IIRC):

This GIF is sped up about 10 times though, because the huge amount of logic to make a Conways Game of Life Circuit this small was making the game REALLY slow on my 10G of allocated ram and decent video card / CPU.

Obvious bias against people of starmadian descent aside (jk), Those builds are very well detailed, and the torpedo designs are nice as well. Really hope that warheads get buffed though because in vanilla starmade, those torpedos would probably be barely powerful enough to pierce light armor.

How do you make torpedoes guided?

To do that, you just need to add a bobby AI module to the torpedo and make sure to set it as a ship. You can also set it to attack any or selected and it should work fine, although I'm not entirely sure if the bug with the "selected" option got fixed.. At one point early this year I made a torpedo launching ship, but for whatever reason when I had the AI of the torps set to "selected" they all decided to fly into ME instead of their target...*shudder*

EDIT: miss spelled doohickey

 

[Dr. Whammy]

those are some crazy torpedo launchers :D
It's weird to me that they aren't guided.. any particular reason for that? Also, it seems that recently it's almost impossible to use warheads due to some kind of nerf that makes it so a single warhead does almost no damage.. I have to use a 3x3 cube just to break through standard armor... Is there some type of setting change that I can make that increases the damage & radius of warheads?
In any case, is there any chance you could upload the circuitry for your cannons? I'm very interested to see how you used the logic to fire the missiles in order, and what you meant by "able to clear jams." When the V2 for my prototype is completed, Id enjoy trading notes

Thanks,

I had previously tried to make guided torpedoes but as of now, AI isn't smart enough for me to be comfortable letting it fly around with a shield piercing high explosive destructo thingie on it.

Warheads haven't been nerfed per se but when the new explosion mechanic was released, it made a lot of the blast energy from missiles, pulses and warheads go to waste so now, their effects are greatly reduced against thick armor. This can be changed modifying the block behavior config file.

Here are the steps to tweak the explosive blocks in windows:
- Find "blockBehaviorConfig.xml" in StarMade\data\config\
- Make a copy of the file as a backup with a slightly different name, (just in case...)
- Using a text editor (I use word pad), open "blockBehaviorConfig.xml"
- On your keyboard, hold your control key and hit "F"; a "find" dialogue box will open.
- Type the word "explosive". The first entry listed will be the warheads
- Modify the damage and blast radius as you see fit.
- Save the file
- Open StarMade and blow crap up...
I have my warheads tweaked to 500,000 damage with a 25m radius. It's not an insta-kill weapon but it's a lot more powerful than most missiles. Here is an example of a what the torpedo strikes look like against standard armor. Keep in mind these weapons pass right through shields. That's why I don't risk AI control.

I was even able to do limited 'dog fighting' inside of 500 meters with some trick piloting (lead the target then hold the "V" key to stabilize then fire).

 

[Dr. Whammy]

...is there any chance you could upload the circuitry for your cannons? I'm very interested to see how you used the logic to fire the missiles in order, and what you meant by "able to clear jams." When the V2 for my prototype is completed, Id enjoy trading notes

Sure.

This is my first magazine model. 10 Rounder... It's the most stable/reliable one I've built so far. I have to test the 16x more extensively before I put it into the community content. It's custom designed for my ship so I'm going to test the living hell out of it. This is my first content submission so I want to make sure I don't blow someone's ship up. On the other hand, the 16x is basically 4 of these scaled down to 4-rounders and arranged vertically. I have a mechanical trigger system for the 4 round auto burst rather than pure logic but it works well so far. It triggers a sequential launch from each of the 4 magazines.

Be sure to let me know if you find any flaws in this design, as I am new to logic and somewhat limited in complexity. If I keep getting consistent results with the 16x, I upload it as well.

Happy Torpedoing...

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Awesome! thanks for the upload. Ill take a look at it tonight and test it out. Here's what I've come up with so far for a breadboard. It's still got a lot of flaws and improvements to be made, however.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

UPDATE...

6-shot repeat fire cannon (mine thrower).

- Uses a beam with 100% push effect to throw warheads toward a target.
- Auto-loading/repeat fire. Respectable fire rate for a weapon this size. Has anti-jam/reverse feed.
- VERY accurate. Tested to 2km but projectiles will travel beyond 4km. The beam continues to push the warhead in its original launch direction, giving it full acceleration and a consistent flight path.
- Can be used while mobile; at slow speed/moderate rotation. Obviously not for high speed maneuvers but sufficient for fighting heavier/slower ships at closer ranges.


Also, given that I tweak the warheads to 500,000 damage, these things did a disturbing amount of damage from what appeared to be just 2 hits...


Your thoughts gentlemen?

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Another nice build, Dr. Whammy! I took a look at your missile launcher, really minimized design! I think that with a bit of extra logic on that delay block we could make it so the thing wont fire unless the barrel is empty, meaning no more miss-fires. I'll work at getting some sort of breadboard that incorporates your design and my logical safety. I honestly never thought of doing what you did, lol. Should be able to upload it shortly.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Another nice build, Dr. Whammy! I took a look at your missile launcher, really minimized design! I think that with a bit of extra logic on that delay block we could make it so the thing wont fire unless the barrel is empty, meaning no more miss-fires. I'll work at getting some sort of breadboard that incorporates your design and my logical safety. I honestly never thought of doing what you did, lol. Should be able to upload it shortly.

Thank you Fellow Starmadian,

I was going for a bare-bones set up on this model. Having only limited logic knowledge, I wanted to know what the absolute minimum requirement is to make a repeat fire launcher. My design is very simple but I'm pretty happy with the results. In any case, I look forward to seeing any improvements you have in mind. The mechanical nature of the rails is more up my alley. I can't wait to perfect the 16x launcher so you can see my mechanical auto-burst trigger. It's a good alternative for players with limited logic skill. In the future, I'll make a full-auto launcher/cannon using a similar trigger type. Then I can spam warheads until the mags run dry.

I took a look at your breadboard and it's amazing, to say the least. It really makes me wish I had more electronics training in school. I'll be taking a long hard look at it to try to understand its workings. Maybe I can create a miniaturized add-on that can make my launchers a little safer.

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Here you go, I think the logic improvement will be to your liking. unless something happens, I put the description in display modules on the ship, with a mini breadboard displaying what I changed. It seemed to work for the 10 or so minutes I tested it, but I'm not sure yet. Basically all I did was add a few gates that made it so whenever there is a missile where it is not supposed to be, it just pushes the whole stack back until the extra missile is back in place.
I totally over thunk my project, I had logic to make sure there was a half second delay before the next missile even started moving down the rail.. lol. It does basically the same thing this system does, but with a LOT more logic for simple things that don't really matter on a disposable torpedo magazine.
[DOUBLEPOST=1443758527,1443758471][/DOUBLEPOST]I posted about 1 second after you XD
[DOUBLEPOST=1443758825][/DOUBLEPOST]wait, did I forget to upload the actual ship?! Whoops.. here you go, lol.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Impressive.

Wow, I haven't touched boolean logic in over 13 years and back then it was just an intro course. Well, now is as good a time as any to learn, right? At first glance, this circuit can easily be added to the launcher without making it too bulky. Who knows what madness would ensue if I put it on that cannon above.

Thank you for sharing this. Right now, I think I get the gist, but when I truly understand the 'how' and 'why' behind this system, I have a funny feeling that some diabolical plans are going to go into action shortly afterward...

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I've compared the upgraded launcher to the original and reverse engineered the process. I think I'm starting to understand now...

- You used the buttons that normally detect a torpedo on the last segments of the launch side of the rail to send a high/on signal to the "OR", whenever a torpedo touches their rail.
- The "OR" sends a high/on signal to an "AND".
- You replaced the button on the launch rail segment with a regular activation block which turns on when a torpedo reaches it; in which case, it sends an additional high/on signal to the above mentioned "AND", causing it to hit my "clear jam" button and cycle the rounds in reverse.
- The "AND" also sends a high/on signal to a "NOT", which inverts the signal and sends it as a low/off signal to another "AND".
- The second "AND" receives a second low/off signal from the wireless block which is already not in use, which causes it to trigger one last button that cycles all the rounds except the one on the launch rail in reverse.

Hopefully, I'm interpreting this correctly but in any case, this is an amazing lesson and you have my thanks for that.

I did make one modification to the design; I left the "clear jam" in its original state to allow for manual "disarming" of the launcher and I linked the last "AND" to the button you added on the far right and let that one control the auto anti-jam function. Now the system protects itself from failure and allows you to disarm.

If I'm not mistaken, you also showed me how to get the unit to fire with 1 click instead of 2.

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Yessir, that's about it I'm glad I taught you something
I guess I missed that logical error regarding the clear jam function, sorry about that! I'll have to look at the circuit and see what I missed. If you could upload the modified Mag with the modification pointed out, I could have a clearer picture of what you mean (I cant figure it out, lol). And if you hadn't shown me that there was a much simpler way to make the torpedoes stop between shots, I would have made a monster of a logic system, thanks!

Now all I need to do is use this magazine design and build some kind of agile destroyer to utilize it. I think the big challenge now is to figure out how to have guided torpedoes that don't immediately flip out and blow everything up.. maybe a strong push from a torpedo that is sitting well away from the hull of the ship? they'd have to aim for a selected target, too.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Awesome!

Here's the modified magazine. I refitted a copy of my original following your method. Everything has moved slightly to the right but the layout is otherwise, the same. In this mod, the "manual jam clearing" button effects all of the rails; including the launch rail; allowing you to 'unchamber' or 'disarm' the launcher. I used the button/rail combo on the right for the automatic jam prevention mechanism you designed.

For guided weapons, we're going to have to wait until they make the Bobby AI smarter. It's too much of a liability in its current state.

...Although, I am planning on making a turret based launcher for use on capital ships.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I've uploaded the new version to community content to replace the old one. Spread the word if you know anyone wanting to test out this sort of thing.

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Saw your update to the torpedo launcher in the shipyard, thanks for the creds man! I'll take a look at your updated magazine in a bit and see what you improved

Instead of making a ship that can fire these torpedoes, I mucked about all day upgrading the magazine and seeing what I could fit into the 10 x 3 x 3 space that matt_bradock restricted us to. I made a couple interesting torpedo designs of dubious effectiveness, and are listed inside the spoiler. The new magazine holds 8 missiles, and has a rail at the end for pushing the torpedoes forwards, making it more feasible to have the whole magazine incased in hull from the main ship.

Spoiler: new designs

Max Speed for my single player game is set to 200M/s, for reference.

Spoiler: anti missile

This torpedo is the first I came up with, and aims at missiles. it only activates it's push computer once, so it drifts slowly. Along with targeting missiles itself, it also launches 4 drones that float slowly through space providing a curtain of missile protection.
accelerates at about 60M/s.

Spoiler: interceptor

This one is an interceptor torpedo, meant for more mobile targets. It is comprised mostly of push modules. this means that it goes more directly towards it's target, making it more accurate.
accelerates at 150M/s.

Spoiler: decoy

This is the decoy torpedo. it carries the same payload of the interceptor, but is slightly slower, accelerating to about 120m/s. This one, however, fires 16 decoy ships out from the main ship, making targeting it with any type of missile besides dumb fire almost impossible, as long as the ship strafes slightly to avoid a lock-on from the opposing ship.
Accelerates at 110M/s.

With decoy flares deployed: (kinda hard to see without the hud visible, sorry.)

Spoiler: standard

And finally, with an extremely heavy payload, is the standard torpedo.
accelerates at about 70M/s.

Spoiler: how to fire my torpedoes

As of right now the only way to test the function of the torpedoes is to use the small ship provided in the ZIP folder to dock a single torpedo and fire with the in-ship button after connecting the wireless block and activating the AI.

They seem to have the tendancy to confuse me as an enemy for about two seconds, giving them plenty of time to fly back at me if I'm not careful... Hopefully that will be fixed soon, but besides that the system works like a charm... lol. See what you meant by them being "unreliable" now Dr. whammy. :D
Since they have to be dumb fire to not slam into you, the decoy torpedo won't be accurate at all, since it cant target anything and gets jostled a bit by the undocking of all the flares.

Let me know what you guys think of my heavy torpedo variants!

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Hell yeah! Now that is three dimensional thinking... I can't wait for the AI to smarten up a bit. Then I'll go all D.A.R.P.A. on this place. :D

I've got a new trick too. Remember my 16x torpedo launcher? I gave it the same anti-jam fail-safes as the 10-rounder. Due to logic glitches, it tends to hiccup between salvos but the anti-jam keeps it from blowing up. It's not perfect but it IS fun to see 4 torpedoes at a time go speeding off toward a distant target.

Also, I've constructed a new 25 round launcher with the exact same dimensions as the 16x as well as the auto anti-jam. It's kind of logic heavy and the feed system is ridiculous; it makes my head hurt when I look at it. Absolutely no space was wasted. I have one last thing to work out (prevent the unit from firing with the blast door closed) then this will be one of the smallest high capacity launchers around.