Thalanor
CEO Snataris Colonial Fleetyards
ltmauve In the above case, it works flawlessly with two beam outputs - since the docked drones hover 0.5m above the ground, I have one beam hit 0.5m below the core and one 0.5m above. The drones have exactly the same mass distribution on any side.
Note that a moving ship will have the skoomdrones spinning a little on launch. Although this means they do not launch in a straight line as cleanly as in above gif in that case, this is no problem because:
- The push beam is only there to prevent the tube getting clogged, and since the drones are roughly spherical they will not get stuck. They may spin as wildly as they can and will still leave the tube.
- Once they are out of the tube, the initial firing direction does not matter. The defensive push hooked to a clock will cause them to fly at maximum speed in the direction of whatever their target is. In the gif, they had no target and as such flew in a straight line. In a combat scenario, they will immediately face a hostile on exit and thus quickly change their path. Note that the skoomdrones have barely any trust - all their propulsion comes from the defensive push.
Of course, if one were to launch the skoomdrones while moving and without a hostile near, they will fly off into very random directions. Skoomdrones, despite their small size, are extremely valuable though, because of the LARGE amount of computers contained in a mere 12 mass drone (there is a faction module, a bobby AI, 3 cannon computers, 2 push pulse computers and 2 defensive push effect computers. That is 7 computers and faction module + AI... per drone). Because of this, it is not advisable to launch skoomdrones without any hostiles near anyways (if you do not move at all, you can fire them in a straight line ahead though as shown in the gif, and they will infinitely continue to fly - so you can start a long range assault with good aim and some luck.
If you just have one torpedo per launch tube, you do not need push beams at all, a defensive push system is sufficient (just have it activate immediately on undock with the "half buried trigger block" technique). The only reason I use them is because there are multiple entities in one tube, and I can avoid collisions or stuff clogging up that way.
Skoom drone launch tubes - finally a reason for a Big Red Button!
Note that a moving ship will have the skoomdrones spinning a little on launch. Although this means they do not launch in a straight line as cleanly as in above gif in that case, this is no problem because:
- The push beam is only there to prevent the tube getting clogged, and since the drones are roughly spherical they will not get stuck. They may spin as wildly as they can and will still leave the tube.
- Once they are out of the tube, the initial firing direction does not matter. The defensive push hooked to a clock will cause them to fly at maximum speed in the direction of whatever their target is. In the gif, they had no target and as such flew in a straight line. In a combat scenario, they will immediately face a hostile on exit and thus quickly change their path. Note that the skoomdrones have barely any trust - all their propulsion comes from the defensive push.
Of course, if one were to launch the skoomdrones while moving and without a hostile near, they will fly off into very random directions. Skoomdrones, despite their small size, are extremely valuable though, because of the LARGE amount of computers contained in a mere 12 mass drone (there is a faction module, a bobby AI, 3 cannon computers, 2 push pulse computers and 2 defensive push effect computers. That is 7 computers and faction module + AI... per drone). Because of this, it is not advisable to launch skoomdrones without any hostiles near anyways (if you do not move at all, you can fire them in a straight line ahead though as shown in the gif, and they will infinitely continue to fly - so you can start a long range assault with good aim and some luck.
If you just have one torpedo per launch tube, you do not need push beams at all, a defensive push system is sufficient (just have it activate immediately on undock with the "half buried trigger block" technique). The only reason I use them is because there are multiple entities in one tube, and I can avoid collisions or stuff clogging up that way.
Skoom drone launch tubes - finally a reason for a Big Red Button!