Warp Drive Autopilot!

[Stormraven]

So I'm playing around with a fun new idea.

The roughest part about Chain Drives is that if you're not paying close attention, you can easily end up overshooting your target. Well, what if there was a way to set up your Chain Drive to take you to your destination of choice, and then STOP, even while you're afk.

Well, I think I came up with an answer.

This tiny thing is a wireless homing beacon. As long as it is loaded, it will send out a wireless signal to whatever ship you set it too. It has a built-in logic clock, a wireless receiver which will connect to your shipboard logic clock, and a wireless output, which will be connected to the shipboard receiver.

This would be the shipboard receiver. If you toggle the activation module, then the receiver will wait for the first pulse from the beacon and activate as soon as it "hears" one. It will then remain activated (without pulsing) until you toggle it off again.

My theory is this:
If you place the beacon on a station, and the receiver on a ship, connecting the receiver to your chain drive's rail clock, then as soon as the station is in range to be loaded, your chain drive should deactivate.

You could use a secondary logic system to save predetermined coordinates (toggling different wireless receivers), enter in your target into the nav system, start up your chain drive, and walk away. As soon as you're within 3 sectors, the beacon will deactivate your drive and leave you sitting peacefully in friendly space!

 

[splatthecat]

Sounds impressive. When I read the title I was expecting the following...

Display block input of destination coordinates. Using a sensor block check to see if the current location (from the sector variable) is equal to the destination one. A simple IF ELSE loop to switch it on and off.

You could set your waypoint as normal. Enter the destination into the "computer" and off you go!

Would that work?

 

[Jaaskinal]

This is totally possible, the reason people don't use it is the set up requirement and the issue of having people at your HB accidentally messing with your chaindrive.

 

[happahappa]

I was thinking of a different solution to the same problem. you could use display modules to enter the amount of jumps the chain drive should do.
so you can have a easy approximate calculation by taking totalDistance/averageJumpDistance = amountOfJunps. this would also have some nice RP value.

 

[Stormraven]

Sounds impressive. When I read the title I was expecting the following...

Display block input of destination coordinates. Using a sensor block check to see if the current location (from the sector variable) is equal to the destination one. A simple IF ELSE loop to switch it on and off.

You could set your waypoint as normal. Enter the destination into the "computer" and off you go!

Would that work?

Sadly it would not. While the sector might be displayed on the screen, all the sensor sees is the command [sector].
I know, I was so sad to find this out too.

This is totally possible, the reason people don't use it is the set up requirement and the issue of having people at your HB accidentally messing with your chaindrive.

There is that. It requires the destination to be unloaded, otherwise it'll just trigger no matter where you are and hitting 'home' will take you nowhere. XD

Theoretically this could still be used in multiplayer servers though. Just put the beacon on a satellite a little ways out from home base in an empty region people are unlikely to pass through often. It'll still get you close and you don't have to worry about people being in the base.
At least, with this design, people being in the base wouldn't accidentally trigger or deactivate your drive unless you were specifically setting your autopilot to go there. Manual piloting would still work fine.

I was thinking of a different solution to the same problem. you could use display modules to enter the amount of jumps the chain drive should do.
so you can have a easy approximate calculation by taking totalDistance/averageJumpDistance = amountOfJunps. this would also have some nice RP value.

That's... That's bloody brilliant.
I wonder how best to set that up. It sounds like it would be rediculously complicated to build.
It also wouldn't be usable on the fly, you'd need to know exactly where you are and how far away your destination is EVERY TIME.
[doublepost=1486127201,1486127007][/doublepost]

This is totally possible, the reason people don't use it is the set up requirement and the issue of having people at your HB accidentally messing with your chaindrive.

Completely unrelated note: it just occurred to me that this same tech could be used in really interesting ways for detecting other players within a 3 sector radius... Just hook each beacon up to a display on your ship with a sector attached so you know where people are. You could even set up tiny detectors in asteroid belts and the like...

 

[Heillos]

Completely unrelated note: it just occurred to me that this same tech could be used in really interesting ways for detecting other players within a 3 sector radius... Just hook each beacon up to a display on your ship with a sector attached so you know where people are. You could even set up tiny detectors in asteroid belts and the like...

This idea has been around a bit (albeit not very publicly), although mostly with the concept of an entire grid of sensors. The problem there, of course, is that the quantity of sensors required is too hard to maintain, both due to setup time, physical damage by pirates or players, and random connection loss due to bugs.

As a system focused on specific landmarks (let's say, shops, NPC stations, maybe planets if you like), that certainly has some merit; the greatly decreased number of sensors would be easier to maintain, and the information would still be somewhat practical (eg. is a certain shop safe to visit).

 

[happahappa]

well, as soon as you enter the coordinates, you already know the distance. you just have to calculate the amount of jumps. for which you probably want to use a calculator . i always have one on my desk, so ... and many times, you actually have to wait for the jump drives to load anyway. would be nice, if you could preload the chain jump drive independantly of actually jumping. now you got a fixed amount of jump drives and logic over them, that magically turns them into a chain jump drive. if you see it like a loop, in which those chain drives are being activated in sequence, where this sequence begins anew, when you hit the last jump drive, you could bind the activation of each drive to a condition, that is given by a jump counter. if that condition is met, stop the loop right away. not sure, if that actually works, but that is how i would conceive of it.

 

[Stormraven]

well, as soon as you enter the coordinates, you already know the distance. you just have to calculate the amount of jumps. for which you probably want to use a calculator . i always have one on my desk, so ... and many times, you actually have to wait for the jump drives to load anyway. would be nice, if you could preload the chain jump drive independantly of actually jumping. now you got a fixed amount of jump drives and logic over them, that magically turns them into a chain jump drive. if you see it like a loop, in which those chain drives are being activated in sequence, where this sequence begins anew, when you hit the last jump drive, you could bind the activation of each drive to a condition, that is given by a jump counter. if that condition is met, stop the loop right away. not sure, if that actually works, but that is how i would conceive of it.

You actually can set up your chain drive to charge without jumping. I build a "charge chain drive" feature into all of my ships as part of the core computer.
Making AI more interesting

The issue is that the sensors seem to have trouble detecting Zero. So detecting when a drive has FIRED is out. So I think what would need to be done is detect when a certain number of drives have reached 100% and deactivate the rail clock at that point. Trouble is, if there are already drives at full charge when you start the process, they won't register.... You'd need a display with the number of fully primed drives which you could subtract from your total. That way if you charge while docked, it won't fubar your nav system.
[doublepost=1486133384,1486130843][/doublepost]

I was thinking of a different solution to the same problem. you could use display modules to enter the amount of jumps the chain drive should do.
so you can have a easy approximate calculation by taking totalDistance/averageJumpDistance = amountOfJunps. this would also have some nice RP value.

RIGHT THEN!
So I did some experiments!
Detecting for zero doesn't work, so you need to detect for a 100% charge. This works in theory, but not in application. You need a sensor connected to each individual block which will add 1 to a display screen connected to your input via sensor.
It works fine for manual charge (which is pointless) but for a chain drive that mostly charges everything semi simultaneously, it often adds up to fast to trigger the command sensor at all.

So I had to go back to square 1. How can I make sure only a specific number of drives can charge and fire?
I found a possible answer in the Moosemade Data Suit
Useing a rail to select a number within a limited range, one could use AND gates to select exactly how many drives are charging.
The same sensor setup from before can now be used without fear of flooding the receiver and missing the mark.
So basically, set up your drive charger, and use some up and down buttons to select a number of drives. Have the charger set to deactivate the signal of any drive that reaches 95% or more, then activate at your leisure.
So say you collect some ore and you're 5 jumps from home.
Use the buttons to set the drive to 5, and hit charge. Once it's ready, have a pop-up signal you so you can override the safety with your inner ship remote and take off.
5 jumps later, in theory, your counter should detect a match and deactivate your rail clock.
Boom. Measured chain jumping.

(Limitations)
1- You could only set up a predetermined number of jumps </= your number of jump drive computers.
2- The longer your sequence of jumps, the more likely you are to get an error and "miss" due to selected drives having sufficient time to recharge before the final drive fires.

(Compensation?)

You could do multiple smaller jump sequences for greater accuracy. (Possibly annoying, but probably less so than missing your target.)

You could wire up the jump computers to only charge once per sequence. (This is now getting into seriously bulky logic engine territory)

 

[happahappa]

say you preload all computers up to ~95% and then stop for further user interaction.
you could then connect to the 'star jumping' button the activation of another sensor array, that checks if each jump computer hits something smaller then 95%, which would ultimatly mean, that after the preloading, a paritcular computer hitting a value smaller then 95% must have been fired since then. then use that info to change the state of a flip flop that feed into an and-gate that is the condition for that computer to be further loaded. the payoff would be, that no computer is going to be charged, after it has been fired, until you go to preloading again, where you would have to reset those flip flops again.

 

[Stormraven]

I'm much better with visuals than text, so I'll have to try what you're saying to fully wrap my brain around it, but it sounds viable!

 

[Stormraven]

Okay, so I drew it all out on paper to review your idea.

I found one problem.
So the original sensor can already deactivate the charger upon hitting 95%, which is what your circuit would do, while ensuring that it could not be reactivated. The issue is that this would also prevent the manual inner ship remote from being able to turn the drives on when it came time to jump. Circumventing the circuit for the manual activator just makes it so that the circuit does nothing at all. Ever.
I'm still tumbling this about in my brain, I'll post something if I find a functional workaround.

 

[Tydeth]

Sensor's output goes into a NOT.
NOT goes into an OR.
Inner Ship Remote for actually jumping goes into the same OR.
OR goes into an AND.
Clock output for charging the drive goes into the same AND, as well as the sensor.
AND goes into the Jump computer.

End result: If the jump charge < X% (where X is configured by the sensor's linked activation modules) or the manual jump ISR is active, and the clock is running, apply logic charge/jump to the drive.

For 100% accuracy, you may want one of those setups for each logic drive in your chaindrive. That way, if 3 out of 4 drives are charged to X%, it will still charge the 4th until it's reached the threshold.

 

[Jaaskinal]

This idea has been around a bit (albeit not very publicly), although mostly with the concept of an entire grid of sensors. The problem there, of course, is that the quantity of sensors required is too hard to maintain, both due to setup time, physical damage by pirates or players, and random connection loss due to bugs.

As a system focused on specific landmarks (let's say, shops, NPC stations, maybe planets if you like), that certainly has some merit; the greatly decreased number of sensors would be easier to maintain, and the information would still be somewhat practical (eg. is a certain shop safe to visit).

That being said, that sensor idea got a huge boost in viability with the addition of fleets. Now, you can send your sensor wherever you want, it just takes a little time.

 

[Stormraven]

Sensor's output goes into a NOT.
NOT goes into an OR.
Inner Ship Remote for actually jumping goes into the same OR.
OR goes into an AND.
Clock output for charging the drive goes into the same AND, as well as the sensor.
AND goes into the Jump computer.

End result: If the jump charge < X% (where X is configured by the sensor's linked activation modules) or the manual jump ISR is active, and the clock is running, apply logic charge/jump to the drive.

For 100% accuracy, you may want one of those setups for each logic drive in your chaindrive. That way, if 3 out of 4 drives are charged to X%, it will still charge the 4th until it's reached the threshold.

Nice!!

 

[Stormraven]

Sensor's output goes into a NOT.
NOT goes into an OR.
Inner Ship Remote for actually jumping goes into the same OR.
OR goes into an AND.
Clock output for charging the drive goes into the same AND, as well as the sensor.
AND goes into the Jump computer.

End result: If the jump charge < X% (where X is configured by the sensor's linked activation modules) or the manual jump ISR is active, and the clock is running, apply logic charge/jump to the drive.

For 100% accuracy, you may want one of those setups for each logic drive in your chaindrive. That way, if 3 out of 4 drives are charged to X%, it will still charge the 4th until it's reached the threshold.

Upon review, this actually still had the same issue regarding longer jump sequences, since there's nothing to stop a computer from charging up again after it's discharged.

 

[Tydeth]

The idea behind that particular setup is that it handles the jump drive charging portion, allowing ships to have the drive ready as soon as possible when you need it.

A NavComp for the jump drives would be a separate logic circuit, but the NOT signal would be key to such a device. Since the logic pulse that makes the drive jump also goes into the sensor, the ship will jump when it's fully charged and the sensor will read that the charge % is then < X%, turning on the NOT.

The NOT(s) could then output to a binary counter or a regex display decremental circuit to count down the jumps left, which in turn could turn off the jump ISR automatically when the # of jumps remaining hits 0.

 

[Stormraven]

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

No seriously! I got the programmable chain warp drive to work!! It's HUGE, and probably expensive, but it totally works. The image above is a single cell. 25 of these are lined up to make a programmable warp drive.

TAADAA!
The front sensor detects the input, while the rear sensor detects the percentage of each warp computer's charge. That display in the front lets you type in any number between 1 and 25.
Any number you type in (25 for example) will activate the associated cell, which will activate every cell ahead of it in line. So 25 will activate the entire drive while 3 will only light up the first three modules, like you see above.

Case and point: the module says 3, and three cells are active. ONLY these three cells will charge when the rail clock is engaged.

As each computer reaches a 95% charge, the sensor will turn on, and that cell will stop receiving any pulses while the other active cells continue to charge.

Now we're ready to rock! Just use the 'Inner Ship Remote' and the safety will be disengaged, but ONLY on the active cells! Meaning they'll quickly charge up that last 5% and then launch you on EXACTLY 3 warp jumps. As each cell fires, it resets to it's starting position, and cannot be re-engaged until you reset the system. (Clear out the entry display. close it. Then reopen it and put in your new jump number.)
Rinse, Repeat.

For those who want a jumpstart on the math regarding "how many jumps do I need to get home" Default sector size (at least on single player) appears to be 2 km, with each full jump going up to 16 km. So just set your waypoint, divide the distance in KM by 16, and round down to the nearest whole number. Boom, there's your jump number. Now we never have to overshoot home base again!
[doublepost=1486162822,1486162735][/doublepost]Quick afterthought: Yes, there is an emergency "Oh (@$#&@" button which can turn ALL of the cells on or off instantly, without having to enter any numbers.

 

[happahappa]

holy moly, why didnt i get a notification for this :D
GOOD JOOB!

please upload that to the dock

 

[Stormraven]

holy moly, why didnt i get a notification for this :D
GOOD JOOB!

please upload that to the dock

I am away from my computer, and have been busy all day. But I'm happy to say that (baring unforseen disaster) Hrolfsson Heavy Industries will be putting up a fully finished and oppetational Mk1 Public Access Logic Core sometime tonight.

"Let the games begin!"

 

[Stormraven]

holy moly, why didnt i get a notification for this :D
GOOD JOOB!

please upload that to the dock

BOOM
Well, you asked for it, and there it is. Your own personal Logic Core awaits you!