The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Thalanor]

Damnit, the patch changed something :D Drone ejection speed dropped by about 60% with push pulses.
Well, they still get out, just very sloppily now... I must live with it, the work is too far already :D

 

[Keptick]

Damnit, the patch changed something :D Drone ejection speed dropped by about 60% with push pulses.
Well, they still get out, just very sloppily now... I must live with it, the work is too far already :D

Good thing I doubled the power on mine :P

 

[Thalanor]

Well, push pulses are off the list now xD No way in hell Ill ever get these to have enough power now without crashing the server drawing 100000 spherical effects :D

Looks like I have to go beam now, too. Which also means that I have to transfer the ejection system to the ship, as the rack can never ever have enough power to fire 24 beams in short succession :p

 

[Reilly Reese]

Must have been the ppl complaining about the stop effect :P

 

[kiwionthemoon]

Well, push pulses are off the list now xD No way in hell Ill ever get these to have enough power now without crashing the server drawing 100000 spherical effects :D

Looks like I have to go beam now, too. Which also means that I have to transfer the ejection system to the ship, as the rack can never ever have enough power to fire 24 beams in short succession :p

The TE tested push pulse drones a while back, we found two problems:
1. The drone cannot activate the weapon
2. If we do manage to get the drone to fire, what stop it imobilizing the carrier?
Furthermore, the effective use of these drones would require optimal coordination in order to focus fire imobilized enemy ships..
If you do manage to make them work, we would be interested to see your results, or have i messed up and your using push pulse as an ejection system?

 

[Thalanor]

Yes, I used push pulse to give the drones initial momentum away from the ship (out of the hangar). The momentum given was drastically weakened after the patch, so the drones barely leave the hangar where they have been literally "pushed out" before.

It has never been an elegant method, but VERY effective before. Going to switch ejection technique now

EDIT: Good point Thadius. Must have something to do with momentum effects on other entities. I'd be interested if @keptick 's ejection system has suffered, too, or if push effect + beam are still the same (I have no comparison).

 

[Lecic]

Why were push pulses nerfed in the first place? @Calbiri? @schema?

Push pulses can't have tertiary effects, correct? Perhaps this should be changed. As they don't do damage, there are a lot of effects that wouldn't have any use, but giving extra push ability to push pulses would be nice.

 

[Thalanor]

Thats kind of what I would wish to know - where push pulses nerfed specifically, or momentum effects on other entities in general?
The latter would make redoing all the science unavoidable (so much work :D)

 

[Lecic]

I've been working on a new fighter/drone design today. It's a larger fighter, current dimensions at 25x8x17. It has two wings, each of which hold what I'm calling a "pancake drone." They're 7x3x7, equipped with quad rapid overdrive cannons, and are released upon arrival at combat to provide additional assistance to the main pilot. They can also function as AI controlled hardpoint guns if the pilot decides to not release them.

It's currently a work in progress, but the main concept looks promising. I'll upload some pictures and upload the ship later, when it's done.

You can also swap out the pancakes for a collection of 7x1x1 "pole drones," which are less effective at being additional fighters and more-so at drawing fire, but can still deal out a tad of fire power when 2 full wings are released.

 

[Keptick]

I've been working on a new fighter/drone design today. It's a larger fighter, current dimensions at 25x8x17. It has two wings, each of which hold what I'm calling a "pancake drone." They're 7x3x7, equipped with quad rapid overdrive cannons, and are released upon arrival at combat to provide additional assistance to the main pilot. They can also function as AI controlled hardpoint guns if the pilot decides to not release them.

It's currently a work in progress, but the main concept looks promising. I'll upload some pictures and upload the ship later, when it's done.

You can also swap out the pancakes for a collection of 7x1x1 "pole drones," which are less effective at being additional fighters and more-so at drawing fire, but can still deal out a tad of fire power when 2 full wings are released.

A very interesting concept indeed! I'll have to check it out.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I thought we knew to always use turret hardpoints?

 

[Gerion]

hm... You could actually build a counter-measure launcher with one of those racks. Standart cube (7x7x7 if memory serves) with the core in the middle and armour all around. Draws fire from enemy turrets, clogs up their hud, are cheap as f*** and deters swarm missiles. Dont even need thrusters necessarily as long as you launch them toward the enemy. Turrets target the nearest enemy, swarm missiles target whatever the hell they target and enemy players might accidently shoot them instead of you.

Or maybe you need to have AI active in these blocks in order for them to be targeted... That would bumb the price up a bit....

 

[Keptick]

hm... You could actually build a counter-measure launcher with one of those racks. Standart cube (7x7x7 if memory serves) with the core in the middle and armour all around. Draws fire from enemy turrets, clogs up their hud, are cheap as f*** and deters swarm missiles. Dont even need thrusters necessarily as long as you launch them toward the enemy. Turrets target the nearest enemy, swarm missiles target whatever the hell they target and enemy players might accidently shoot them instead of you.

Or maybe you need to have AI active in these blocks in order for them to be targeted... That would bumb the price up a bit....

It would work really well with something @NeonSturm suggested earlier. Basically, you could have a thin rack of 5x5x5 cube drones like you said. The entire thing would be contained inside the ship (no doors on the outside) or be held on the side. On activation, the ENTIRE rack gets pushed out/detatched from the ship. From there, the rack is sinqed to then individually eject all the drones/decoys once it has cleared the main ship.

This could also be applied to normal drones, but I find that the risk of getting the rack shot and deactivated during the activation process isn't worth it. However, it would work great with decoys since the goal is to create debris and because only a single opening/door is required on the main ship. It's a very interesting (and promising) concept that i'll have to try out in my spare time

 

[Thalanor]

I haven't been able to get my drone ejection working after the hotfix with a satisfying result yet. The drones are barely faster than if I just undocked them and let the AI find their way out -
as such I might just join in on trying to have chaff functionality on my destroyer instead of normal drones, if I can't get the latter to work correctly.

EDIT: My current idea on chaff. Best part is, it doesn't even require a core launcher.

1. Chaff rack is undocked and maybe slightly pushed (although barely any effect anyways)
2. On leaving the ship, the chaff rack's activation area passes through something on the main ship
3. chaff rack has an activation signal without a core launcher

 

[Keptick]

I haven't been able to get my drone ejection working after the hotfix with a satisfying result yet. The drones are barely faster than if I just undocked them and let the AI find their way out -
as such I might just join in on trying to have chaff functionality on my destroyer instead of normal drones, if I can't get the latter to work correctly.

*whisper*
Use the power of the push beeeeeeeeaaaaaaammmmmmmsssss

 

[Thalanor]

Hm Ill now devote my afternoon to doing push beams, as drones > chaff in awesomeness :D
Also check my above edit for an idea about easier chaff racks.

Maybe I can fit both techniques on the destroyer - sophisticated drone hangar and belly-mounted chaff clusters.

 

[Keptick]

Hm Ill now devote my afternoon to doing push beams, as drones > chaff in awesomeness :D
Also check my above edit for an idea about easier chaff racks.

Maybe I can fit both techniques on the destroyer - sophisticated drone hangar and belly-mounted chaff clusters.

Indeed! I had something similar in mind to the content of your edit. I just wouldn't know where to put them on my ship (ok, that's a big fat lie, I just thought of an ideal place while writing this).

 

[Gerion]

Activation by use of storage trigger? As in: You take an item out of a storage on board the ship (can be done from the players inventory without leaving the core), that triggers the activator and throws out the drones.

Does that work? Is it viable? Easier then using the normal core launcher/undock-and-push mechanic?

 

[Thalanor]

Most definitely worth the science @Gerion !
Although at some point in time Ill just have to stick with a method, as I have had zero progress on the actual ship for a week now :P

 

[NeonSturm]

Another nice idea is to use inertia to launch the drones.
Just undock an increase|decrease speed.

I don't think the rack will get killed 0.5 seconds after the launch - that is the time you need for ejecting the rack and undocking the drones.

The advantage of ejected racks is that they can push drones in 2 steps only with combined push pulses.. First all even, then all odd.