Any good fleet tutorials?

[aRottenKomquat]

I created my first fleet, just a few small mining drones so I could figure out the system and start working towards a mining fleet. I built four drones, created the fleet, ordered them to move to a sector...and nothing. They continued to idle.

Is this a bug, or me not knowing what I'm doing? Any good tutorials or videos out there I should look to? Any gotchas that keep the system from working?

 

[megashub]

I dont claim to be anything remotely resembling a master ship builder, but I just got done building the core essentials of a big mining carrier that fully works. It's got almost no interior yet, the drone AI gets in its own way a lot, but there's room to breathe for looking at the logic. If it'd help you to have an example, meager as it may be, I'll upload the blueprint for you.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

Well I think I got it working...must have been lag? I logged in a couple days later and my fleet had moved to where I ordered it...

Now I'm trying to work on a drone carrier to carry mining drones, but they won't stay docked, even if I manually pilot them to dock them. I have a pickup point connected to a pickup rail, leading to a single rail basic, leading to shootout rails. I have an activation block connected to the rail basic so I can turn it on/off to undock things, but whenever anything docks it passes right through to the shootout rail and is ejected. Any ideas?

 

[SkylordLuke]

also make sure your drones have storage connected to the salvage computer,and that storage block must have atleast few cargo areas/blocks connected to it.
Othervise they will listen to orders,but they wont actually mine

 

[kiraen]

I have an activation block connected to the rail basic so I can turn it on/off to undock things

I'm tired and may be wrong, but I think that trick is for the rail docker, not the rail basic.

Anyway, I usually use a speed controller with one activator. The rail needs to be two long, but then you can just hook up a button to the activator.
Another trick is to aim the rail sideways, then use logic to turn it forward for a moment before turning back. Tis way tends to cause more lag, tho.

 

[splatthecat]

I'm tired and may be wrong, but I think that trick is for the rail docker, not the rail basic.

It does work on the rail basic too. I have my public USDs set up with an undock button (c-button v-rail) and this will undock ships attached.

Depending upon the orientation of your drone rack you could try changing the direction of the rail the drone is attached to to help move the drone out.

It also appears that you can link an activation module to the pick up point and disable it for launch, just add that to your launch sequence logic. I don't know if it is a bug or an intentional feature but the texture changes when you do and you cannot use them in the "off" state it would appear.

I have noticed a weird anomaly that may help. My station is aligned to galactic north and my mining drone carrier is docked on the same orientation. When you arrive in the sector you wish to mine, realign to galactic north again and launch the drones. Once they have completed their mission, make sure you realign the carrier to galactic north again before issuing the carrier recall command. I'm not saying it will be perfect, but they seem to be able to find their docking points far easier for some reason. It also helps if each drone has its own set of pickup rails as they are not all trying to get to the same point.

Finally, with mining drones. I have often been caught out with there not actually being any asteroids in the sector to mine. The number of times i have been thinking to myself..."but there is an asteroid THERE!" Another 50m and you are in another sector and suddenly they burst into life.

Hope all that helps?

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I tried the rail speed controller and that didn't work, but it was a one-length rail. Then I set it up to point the rail in an invalid direction and use logic to momentarily change in the right direction for launch, and that works great.

Now my problem is that the drones don't get a docking cooldown and my shootout rail is way too close to the pickup point. The drones all immediately dock after launch. Easy problem to fix though, I just gotta rip out all my pickup/shootout rails and keep them more separated.

 

[splatthecat]

If you put the launch sequence on a timer, you should be able to get the drone beyond the pickup point before it resets to the docking position.

On my carrier the drones launch sideways. The rail basic is normally set to 90 degrees to the pickup rail. I have 8 pickup rail blocks leading up to the physical rail pointing into the carrier. The launch sequence changes these to shoot out rails and the pickup point is "deactivated". I have a chain of 2 or 3 delays in the circuit before the whole thing resets.

My drones are 5x5x5. I don't know what their mass is without looking but it isn't that high. If you have large drones, it may be worth you adding a few rail mass enhancers to the carrier to allow for the weight, maybe that is why they are slow to move away and get recaptured.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

My drones are pretty small. I'm not at my game right now, but I think they were about 5x4x10. The carrier can hold 14 of them. I'm mostly trying to figure out all the mechanics before building something actually useful, though I expect this one carrier to be decent for asteroid mining operations.

 

[splatthecat]

You should be fine with that size and you normally get a message to say the ship is too heavy.