The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Reilly Reese]

You wish it was that fast though :p

 

[Keptick]

You wish it was that fast though :p

It would be epic!!! I can actually make them eject out at that speed but not make the delay between them that fast

 

[Keptick]

Damn, the drones are getting stuck during the ejection process

Edit: Actually.... wtf did I do with the doors :p . They aren't big enough.

Edit x2 : RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, I had a row of black hull BEHIND the plex doors that was blocking the drones, wtf is that doing there???

 

[Thalanor]

That is the way of the drone rack engineer. At least changing - testing - changing - testing is alot easier these days. When I first tried starmade, blueprints would only carry over like 25% of all docked units, and you had to fiddle with the ATTACHED_ folders for hours :D

What speed can you still eject "most" of the drones? I found that going forward/backward allows some slight movement, what is absolutely deadly and causes mass collision lag is roll :p

 

[NeonSturm]

Why do you guys not make a rack with just docking modules and a systems?

The host ship could have the structure (hull blocks currently) made out of plex-doors.
The Plex-Doors are first open. After you dock the rack, they close. When undocking the rack, open all Plex-Doors first. When opening the door, open some Plex-Doors first.

 

[Gerion]

Why do you guys not make a rack with just docking modules and a systems?

The host ship could have the structure (hull blocks currently) made out of plex-doors.
The Plex-Doors are first open. After you dock the rack, they close. When undocking the rack, open all Plex-Doors first. When opening the door, open some Plex-Doors first.

That´d be too easy, who are you, some sort of fun and overcomplicity hating engineer?

 

[Thalanor]

Yes! Same reason why you absolutely positively have to have an enormous blob of logic that sometimes transmits signals between docked units. After all, you want experimental weapon technologies to look and feel experimental :D

 

[Keptick]

Why do you guys not make a rack with just docking modules and a systems?

The host ship could have the structure (hull blocks currently) made out of plex-doors.
The Plex-Doors are first open. After you dock the rack, they close. When undocking the rack, open all Plex-Doors first. When opening the door, open some Plex-Doors first.

Because it would be less trouble, probably look really ugly and wouldn't look nearly as cool :p

 

[Thalanor]

On the subject of missile drones: I found they are far more useful than main ship missiles against non automated point defense. My ships now all have a proper shotgun flak, missiles inbound from the front are easily (to the point of invulnerability) taken care of. Drone swarms - they are far less predictable.. and put holes in random places not covered by forward facing flak arrays.

But I also like cannon drones with rapidfire, they look so epic all firing, looks like a cinematic space battle... choices :/

 

[Keptick]

@Thalanor Have a mix of both? :D

Small progress update: I made the doors bigger, made them open longer and fixed a problem with the activation of the drone rack's undocking. With this I managed to get most of the drones out after activating the ejection system about 7 times... Still progress :p

The main problem that I'm noticing is that logic suffers from lag induced latency, so I'll have to take that into account. There's also the fact that the drones don't seem to stay in place after undocking, they randomly float away bit just a bit which still causes jams. I'll have to sync the rack undocking and the ejection beams better. This might also be caused by the fact that during my tests, the undocking would only activate the second time an entity goes through the area trigger (I think that it's because the core bounces out before the half adder has even finished it's operation, so it just doesn't work. I realized that the half adder isn't even needed, removing it should fix the problem). Lastly, I'll be doubling the power of the push beams (or doubling their activation time by making them beam-amc-push instead of beam-push, which will allow me to set the time I want). So in case of a collision or jam, the beam should have sufficient force to shove the drone out.

 

[Thalanor]

I was only able to achieve a 100% ejection rate while standing still and having no struts or obstacles in the rack hangar - it basically only gets more spacious the closer to the exit, not less. Unfortunately that meant no doors or concave decorations for me. The ship hull will have to make up for it :/ at least the drones make it all out.

 

[Keptick]

I was only able to achieve a 100% ejection rate while standing still and having no struts or obstacles in the rack hangar - it basically only gets more spacious the closer to the exit, not less. Unfortunately that meant no doors or concave decorations for me. The ship hull will have to make up for it :/ at least the drones make it all out.

I gave myself space between the drones for that exact reason :P . Weirdly enough, the drones on my other rack (the one with systems) get stuck when I dock the rack... Even though they can't possibly get stuck (smooth insides). It's all very weird.

Either way, I'm going to be upgrading the push beams enough to freaking push them through anything that could be blocking them.

 

[NeonSturm]

Because it would be less trouble, probably look really ugly and wouldn't look nearly as cool :p

Maybe true, I somewhat hate the fact that you have to throw away and buy a dock because you want to replace the content of it very efficiently.

Planed Obsolescence !!! Burn the capital-extremists

 

[Keptick]

Maybe true, I somewhat hate the fact that you have to throw away and buy a dock because you want to replace the content of it very efficiently.

Planed Obsolescence !!! Burn the capital-extremists

Correction: I salvage the very small amount of materials that the dock is composed of. The only expense here is the drones. And at ~230k credit per drones it's nothing.

There's also no other way of doing it apart from manually redocking the drones that weren't damaged and buying new ones to replace those that were. And I personally refuse to waste my time doing that :P

 

[NeonSturm]

Correction: I salvage the very small amount of materials that the dock is composed of. The only expense here is the drones. And at ~230k credit per drones it's nothing.

Buy with blocks? lucky you, you who are able to fit all different required blocks for buying ships into your inventory.

 

[Keptick]

Buy with blocks? lucky you, you who are able to fit all different required blocks for buying ships into your inventory.

What? You confused me there. In case you're wondering I just sell those blocks to get the credits back.

But seriously, do you have any viable alternative?

 

[Thalanor]

Wait, how are your drones that affordable? my twin rack of 24 total is 17million :D but my drones are armored with hardened hull, makes them hella effective vs other drones. And I figured I will encounter a hostile drone swarm someday xD

I guess I will have an "economy" rack with unarmored drones, and a "navy issue" one with armored antidrone-drones. You never know

 

[Keptick]

Wait, how are your drones that affordable? my twin rack of 24 total is 17million :D but my drones are armored with hardened hull, makes them hella effective vs other drones. And I figured I will encounter a hostile drone swarm someday xD

I guess I will have an "economy" rack with unarmored drones, and a "navy issue" one with armored antidrone-drones. You never know

Because I made them out of normal hull and because the rack has zero systems on it (since I transferred everything to the ship). I have used a similar-ish drone made out of hardened hull a lot and it just doesn't make a difference. My current rack's price (22 drones) is 5.5 million :P

 

[Malacodor]

and because the rack has zero systems on it (since I transferred everything to the ship).

Spotted the clever guy.

 

[Thalanor]

That settles it then, drones will just get normal hull - that about halves their price

Until the HP system there does not seem to be much of a point to hardened hulls. I thought drones at least might profit some from them. Then again it probably is not too wise to waste
1,5k per block on throwaway AI units, true

The ejection systems on the whole rack are only the price of one drone, though. The hull factor definitely was the problem. No more armor for you, drone minions!