The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Loadout]

I never liked beer to my lasagne... But then again, I dont like beer in general...

Angry Orchard Hard Cider, I never liked beer, still don't but that stuff is amazing. Anywho, it was a nod to @Thalanor who mentioned earlier he had Lasagna and Beer nearby. You could easily replace it with my favored donut + espresso combo. Which is yummy and invigorating.:p

The faction points thing got me thinking too. And my solution is going to be --
200 mass (including turrets) heavy drones (still WIP, these) deployed in masses as sector defense (randomly floating around). Either a sleeper rack with a proximity activator (if there is any way to do this, like maybe a bobby-core-pulse comp nanoship in a hollow cube made of activation blocks) or just buy racks and dump their contents around my base.
They could be positioned to cover all the sector(s) the station turrets won't reach :D Also, their design will include turrets that blend in well with the actual drone so that when the turrets begin to turn, the drone looks like it "unpacks" itself from it's boxed transportation state.


PS:
"This is the XO -- we have now commenced acceleration. Snacks and drinks will be served once we have approached cruising speed in about four hours!"

I actually had something like this happen sort of.... what actually happened was a bit of an accident while I was trying to make a multistage single tube launcher... the result was a drone got catapulted over 4000 meters in about 8 seconds. xD how's that for a sleeper?

My ideal first responder ship would be a perma-cloaker equipped with jump drive and scanner (and maybe some missiles in case the intruder is small and easily disposed of); so that I can check out the intruder/s and follow them (while reporting everything back to the other faction members) without the intruder/s knowing.

Note: Jump drive can be used while cloaked, and (by setting your base's coordinates in the nav. computer) is an extremely fast way to return to base if you need to get into a larger warship quickly.

My problem with perma-cloakers is they're generally too small to put up a fight against much of anything , as well as most players (I've fought against), seem to be able to spot them on a consistent basis. Jammers on the other hand are very useful against AI and would make pirate fights easy. Mind you, if your turrets and what have you are not jammed as well, then there is really no point since the AI will just aim for them. Other than that though, you've got everything on my list on your ship too. :D

Yeah, I have a system on my cruiser with 450 tubes. It does 30 missiles per second because I have no blocks under the secondary. When I first built it, I had full secondaries, and it froze the server in a second. The new version also has better logic.

Proximity-fused missiles, hmmm....

I don't even wanna know how terrifyingly horrible that power consumption must be <_< 449*.1 = 44.9x more power for each tube.

Proximity explosion secondary was planned for the minelayer weapon, but that got never finished. Would have been nice for flak cannons. Although i would like it more for as an effect block. Scattercannon with prox-charges, swarm missiles exploding in a drone swarm... Oh, the dreams

As an effect block would definitely be a huge help, although for those that don't have an explosive radius by default it'd probably have to give a small one... then again it's hard to get smaller than 1 block. I wonder if they couldn't just add it onto the explosive effect already? It'd certainly make it a little more worthwhile as opposed to basically any other offensive effect.

So? Go my minions! Flood his coms with 10yo COD addict frustration!

Troll Drone 1: You mad brah? You mad brah? You mad brah?

Player: Oh god, its on repeat...

Troll drones, oh yes. In fact, I have found drones are an excellent source not only of damage, but also of (hostile) frustration. Currently experimenting with EMP effect beams as support weapons on drones. A large group of drones would theoretically slow down regen of a big target enough to make it run into power issues over time if average usage per second had been matched well to power regen during the target's construction process. The swarm would slowly dry out your batteries while pestering you with missiles. Oh the fun.

I attempted EMP weapons but I have to say they're seriously underwhelming. The amount of firepower to try and combat a larger ship (generally they have 2million regen/per sec or greater) is staggering. With that much firepower you're better off just blowing them up. Unless you're planning to board their ship and pirate it for yourself.

Arrrrr, yah feelin lucky?

 

[Keptick]

Has anyone tried a system like the Skoomdrone with damage pulse? Seriously, damage pulse can have impressive damage per block without the additional power cost. Having it on homing drone would mostly nullify the range and delivery problems

 

[Loadout]

Has anyone tried a system like the Skoomdrone with damage pulse? Seriously, damage pulse can have impressive damage per block without the additional power cost. Having it on homing drone would mostly nullify the range and delivery problems

I've attempted but the AI never seems to get close enough to understand what's going on. Could just be a problem with my logic circuits but I prefer mines. Set the logic to repeat and activate on launch, give it enough oomph and it'll fire out without hitting you. They're quite effective with ion effects as well which multiply the damage by 20.

 

[Gerion]

Has anyone tried a system like the Skoomdrone with damage pulse? Seriously, damage pulse can have impressive damage per block without the additional power cost. Having it on homing drone would mostly nullify the range and delivery problems

Sadly, it doesnt completely. When i tested crash-bobby, it rammed the ship, then backed up, circled for a second, then made another half-arsed crash attempt which went nowhere. Not effective enough for pulse i guess.
Even if our attachment system worked (without killing the server in the process) damage pulse wouldnt be a great option, as it would destroy the bit of hull the parasite is latched on to.

And I do like cider. Like cherry mead and mead beer more though.

 

[Keptick]

I've attempted but the AI never seems to get close enough to understand what's going on. Could just be a problem with my logic circuits but I prefer mines. Set the logic to repeat and activate on launch, give it enough oomph and it'll fire out without hitting you. They're quite effective with ion effects as well which multiply the damage by 20.

That's what the skoomdrone is.... The only thing the AI does is turn towards the target and accelerate. The booster system and pulse are logic activated.

 

[Loadout]

That's what the skoomdrone is.... The only thing the AI does is turn towards the target and accelerate. The booster system and pulse are logic activated.

Would you happen to have one I could take apart? Would love to see the logic behind that, and possibly add in a good pulse weapon too.

 

[Thalanor]

Yes @Loadout , couldn't get EMP to work with any good results, especially on a support weapon

But alas, there is hope! I have instead equipped the drone with an additional missile/cannon dumbfire pair.
And the development on this one is finished - meet the "Harbinger" drone! I wanted to create something mean looking, I hope it worked out well :D

Stats: 136 mass, 146 thrust, 9x10x19
155k power @ 14.6k/s
10.7k shields @ 230/s
2x guided missile (4875 dmg each)
2x dumbfire at 100% cannon support (900 dmg each)

Power is adjusted so it can permafire the rapidfire dumb missiles and still always use the guided missiles when they are ready. A small capacity reserve is there for small inconsistencies in power calculations and shield regen.

It's performance seems to be very much worth the price of 410k.

 

[Gerion]

Yes @Loadout , couldn't get EMP to work with any good results, especially on a support weapon

But alas, there is hope! I have instead equipped the drone with an additional missile/cannon dumbfire pair.
And the development on this one is finished - meet the "Harbinger" drone! I wanted to create something mean looking, I hope it worked out well :D

Stats: 136 mass, 146 thrust, 9x10x19
155k power @ 14.6k/s
10.7k shields @ 230/s
2x guided missile (4875 dmg each)
2x dumbfire at 100% cannon support (750 dmg each)

Power is adjusted so it can permafire the rapidfire dumb missiles and still always use the guided missiles when they are ready. A small capacity reserve is there for small inconsistencies in power calculations and shield regen.

It's performance seems to be very much worth the price of 410k.

The drone itself doesnt look that mean, rather cute, actually.

But the stats..... Oh, the stats..... The horror....

 

[Keptick]

Yes @Loadout , couldn't get EMP to work with any good results, especially on a support weapon

But alas, there is hope! I have instead equipped the drone with an additional missile/cannon dumbfire pair.
And the development on this one is finished - meet the "Harbinger" drone! I wanted to create something mean looking, I hope it worked out well :D

Stats: 136 mass, 146 thrust, 9x10x19
155k power @ 14.6k/s
10.7k shields @ 230/s
2x guided missile (4875 dmg each)
2x dumbfire at 100% cannon support (750 dmg each)

Power is adjusted so it can permafire the rapidfire dumb missiles and still always use the guided missiles when they are ready. A small capacity reserve is there for small inconsistencies in power calculations and shield regen.

It's performance seems to be very much worth the price of 410k.

Holy f*ck... THE STATS!!!

 

[Thalanor]

The shield makes it survive some punishment from other drones and because of the dumbfire interval it is quite good at clearing the sector of its own kind :D

 

[Qweesdy]

My problem with perma-cloakers is they're generally too small to put up a fight against much of anything , as well as most players (I've fought against), seem to be able to spot them on a consistent basis. Jammers on the other hand are very useful against AI and would make pirate fights easy. Mind you, if your turrets and what have you are not jammed as well, then there is really no point since the AI will just aim for them. Other than that though, you've got everything on my list on your ship too. :D

You don't put turrets on perma-cloakers (it defeats the purpose of cloaking). You also don't use them as battleships (they're scouts not warriors).

The basic idea is to find out the intruder's capabilities so you can make a good decision about what type of ship/s to send to deal with it. In most cases, I'd assume the best course of action is to just follow them and find out what they're up to. If they're a warship heading for your sector's faction module, let them get close to your heavily defended base so they have to fight your faction member's ships and your station's turrets. If they're a mining ship (come to salvage all your asteroids) then send something appropriate (just one frigate?). If it's the first ship of a large fleet of titans, then maybe you want to set traps and evacuate (and come back later when you've gathered allied factions).

 

[ltmauve]

I don't even wanna know how terrifyingly horrible that power consumption must be <_< 449*.1 = 44.9x more power for each tube.

Actually, it's 30 different computers. Each is wired to only 14 or 16 tubes. They are on a logic clock, and fire sequentially every half second. With the two reactors, the ship is power-stable while spamming swarmers everywhere.

 

[Argyle_Ninja]

Just how short a delay can you set to sequentially fire off weapon computers? I have yet to test out a ton of the logic block configurations, and that just gave me an evil laugh sort of moment regarding weapon design.

 

[Keptick]

Just how short a delay can you set to sequentially fire off weapon computers? I have yet to test out a ton of the logic block configurations, and that just gave me an evil laugh sort of moment regarding weapon design.

0.5 seconds.

 

[ltmauve]

Just in case 30 missiles per second is not enough missiles to make your server explode for you, I am planning an entire cruiser (400-500m) that is nothing but those logic-clocked swarmers and lots and lots of turrets for the purpose of screening carriers and battleships from attack wings.

 

[Loadout]

You don't put turrets on perma-cloakers (it defeats the purpose of cloaking). You also don't use them as battleships (they're scouts not warriors).

The basic idea is to find out the intruder's capabilities so you can make a good decision about what type of ship/s to send to deal with it. In most cases, I'd assume the best course of action is to just follow them and find out what they're up to. If they're a warship heading for your sector's faction module, let them get close to your heavily defended base so they have to fight your faction member's ships and your station's turrets. If they're a mining ship (come to salvage all your asteroids) then send something appropriate (just one frigate?). If it's the first ship of a large fleet of titans, then maybe you want to set traps and evacuate (and come back later when you've gathered allied factions).

True, although Jammer ships can fire while jamming. It does not appear to break the jam effect from what I've seen against the AI so far. Cloaking ships on the other hand do break cloak the moment they fire.

Generally if your goal is take out pirates (unless they're Isanths), you'll most likely need either turrets or drones to effectively combat them. Assuming your ship has any combat capacity, which all ships should have a little. Not battleship class mind you, but enough to at least nuke a few dozen Isanths before getting cored is preferable. Heck if your stealth ship could take down that marauding salvage vessel even better, why waste time and resources calling in the big guns?

Actually drone ships would be preferable here since you don't lose cloak if you just undock a vessel. One could effectively hide and let the drones suddenly appear out of nowhere. Canisters would probably be best for this, as you only need the canister to fire push beams against your ship so they can push themselves away. Which of course means you never uncloak while your drones are deployed. Unless getting hit by a push beam would uncloak you? Not sure never been hit while cloaked before....

Actually, it's 30 different computers. Each is wired to only 14 or 16 tubes. They are on a logic clock, and fire sequentially every half second. With the two reactors, the ship is power-stable while spamming swarmers everywhere.

30 computers is certainly better than one. Phew, I was thinking you'd be spending something along the lines of 1 trillion energy every 15 seconds. :p

Yes @Loadout , couldn't get EMP to work with any good results, especially on a support weapon

But alas, there is hope! I have instead equipped the drone with an additional missile/cannon dumbfire pair.
And the development on this one is finished - meet the "Harbinger" drone! I wanted to create something mean looking, I hope it worked out well :D

Stats: 136 mass, 146 thrust, 9x10x19
155k power @ 14.6k/s
10.7k shields @ 230/s
2x guided missile (4875 dmg each)
2x dumbfire at 100% cannon support (900 dmg each)

Power is adjusted so it can permafire the rapidfire dumb missiles and still always use the guided missiles when they are ready. A small capacity reserve is there for small inconsistencies in power calculations and shield regen.

It's performance seems to be very much worth the price of 410k.

Those stats @_@... yummy... too bad it costs 410k... that's almost the price of 16 fleas. Pretty sure both would be well matched though. 10k is amazing for that size but still is gonna get chewed up pretty quickly. I was thinking instead of guided to use dumbfire rockets on my fleas earlier, have you had any luck with those in testing yet? I like the rapid fire option more than the guided missile one honestly... although space.... sigh.

I'll do some quantity based tests to see how well emp slows down larger ships.

 

[Thalanor]

I think I got sleeper racks to work. Basically, they are "drone mines" you bring to a destination (for example spots around your station). These drone mines are basically drone racks, but the main difference is that they have a mesh like structure (a hollow cube with holes) made of activation blocks. The mesh cube is 9x9x9 and contains a docked 5x5x5 "nanodrone" that just has a bobby ai, a pulse computer, a thruster and a power block (and faction computer). When the drone mine is deployed at the target location, you activate fixed docking AI in the drone mine via the structure tab, then you leave the core and press a button that undocks the nanodrone. When anything hostile is close, the nanodrone will pursue it and pass the activation block mesh, which will trigger logic to undock all drones on the sleeper rack and detonate disintegrators that will destroy the rack (the same disintegrators also make sure everything undocks when the rack takes even the slightest bit of damage).

Advantages over just deploying a ton of drones manually:
- You get the transportation carrier built-in with every mine
- It only shows as 1 hostile target in navigation instead of like 16-32
- It only counts as one floating entity while inactive in case your server of choice doesn't like too many for them.
- It spawns red diamonds in your enemy's face (rule of cool).

Spoiler: WIP drone mine

@Loadout ye but trust me the 410k are worth it My old drone already was able to wreck larger ships pretty ok, and the boom per buck has increased over the old drone :D
BTW, missile/cannon on drones = awesome vs AI and larger targets in general
combine it with missile/beam and the drone will also be able to harm players in small fighters as well as do even more damage to anything.

 

[ltmauve]

I think I got sleeper racks to work. Basically, they are "drone mines" you bring to a destination (for example spots around your station). These drone mines are basically drone racks, but the main difference is that they have a mesh like structure (a hollow cube with holes) made of activation blocks. The mesh cube is 9x9x9 and contains a docked 5x5x5 "nanodrone" that just has a bobby ai, a pulse computer, a thruster and a power block (and faction computer). When the drone mine is deployed at the target location, you activate fixed docking AI in the drone mine via the structure tab, then you leave the core and press a button that undocks the nanodrone. When anything hostile is close, the nanodrone will pursue it and pass the activation block mesh, which will trigger logic to undock all drones on the sleeper rack and detonate disintegrators that will destroy the rack (the same disintegrators also make sure everything undocks when the rack takes even the slightest bit of damage).

Advantages over just deploying a ton of drones manually:
- You get the transportation carrier built-in with every mine
- It only shows as 1 hostile target in navigation instead of like 16-32
- It only counts as one floating entity while inactive in case your server of choice doesn't like too many for them.
- It spawns red diamonds in your enemy's face (rule of cool).

Spoiler: WIP drone mine

@Loadout ye but trust me the 410k are worth it My old drone already was able to wreck larger ships pretty ok, and the boom per buck has increased over the old drone :D
BTW, missile/cannon on drones = awesome vs AI and larger targets in general
combine it with missile/beam and the drone will also be able to harm players in small fighters as well as do even more damage to anything.

Why not have a drone in the activator mesh instead? More dakka per rack!

 

[Thalanor]

Because not having a multiple of 4 total drones cannot possibly ever be with this type of rack design :D

Dakka should be fine. Given that one of these racks will likely carry 32 drones, and they are quite heavy ones, then its pewpew all over the screen >: D Such large arrays also cannot be cleared in one missile shot, so a substantial amount will undock unharmed when something hits the rack. Colliding with the rack also activates it :D

 

[Neon_42]

Could we get this thread pinned? It is awesome.