Broadside mounted PD turret and AMS

[Jaybeanstalk]

I want to mount a few anti-drone turrets on the side of my corvette, does anyone have a good design for one?

 

[Panpiper]

Please be more specific as to what threat you are trying to defend against. What do you mean when you say 'drone'? How large of a threat are you dealing with, what sort of armor might they be carrying? Also, what do you mean when you say 'corvette'? How big is the ship and what is the mass/size limit for the turret? How much power can you make available to these turrets, or do you want for these turrets to be self powered?

My own version of an anti-drone turret uses a cannon/cannon/overdrive system doing 20K DPS, so that each shot doing 2000 damage can break a fresh advanced armor block on a small AI controlled ship that is not using pierce passive defense. It also has 150 modules in a cannon/cannon/stop weapon mounted coaxially so as to stop such threats from moving, making it easier for subsequent shots to connect. I use a docked power source to power them, else an overdrive system would use too much power to be justified. Built the way I did, I was able to house the entire weapon in a ball turret a mere 15 blocks in diameter. The ship that carries such weapons however is frankly a battleship pushing into titan territory.

Spoiler

The tiny turrets on this thing are point defense turrets. The large turrets are heavy, offensive turrets meant to punch holes in battleships and titans. The midsized domes are the anti-drone turrets, twenty of them.

That said, I did mount two such weapons on a 5K mass ship not all that long ago, which is in the ballpark of corvette sized, depending on how you classify ships.

 

[Jaybeanstalk]

By drones I mean small ships with low shields around 100 mass

 

[Panpiper]

By drones I mean small ships with low shields around 100 mass

You did not answer my other questions;

"Also, what do you mean when you say 'corvette'? How big is the ship and what is the mass/size limit for the turret? How much power can you make available to these turrets, or do you want for these turrets to be self powered?"

I cannot make suggestions without knowing these things.

 

[Jaybeanstalk]

Sorry! It is like 90-100 meters long maybe 20 wide and there hsould not be any power problem, I can easily work some more in,

 

[Panpiper]

Sorry! It is like 90-100 meters long maybe 20 wide and there hsould not be any power problem, I can easily work some more in,

Well, my overdrive cannon use 400K power each turret. I seriously doubt you have that to spare or can simply generate it on a corvette, unless you build it from the ground up with the intent of mounting a couple.

At this point I am thinking that the best way to deal with it for you would be to have two or more small missile turrets. Make them missile/beam/pierce missiles, but only give the beam computer 10% or 20% of the modules. this will keep it firing fairly fast, keep the energy costs relatively low for missile/beam weapons anyway, and keep the range close enough that they won't start firing at longer range targets. Give it 150 missile modules, 15 beam modules and 150 pierce modules, and you could probably squeeze it into a ball turret no larger than 13 blocks diameter. Such a missile would very likely wreck any such 100 mass drone it hit.

It will use about 600K power every 18 seconds, which is both easy to build in terms of capacitors and easy to generate. Add a couple (or more) decoys in with it built with the same ratio of 10 missile, 1 beam, and 10 pierce (you could omit the pierce on the decoys). These are mostly there to decoy any point defense the drone might carry. (I build drones with PD turrets.) Have them fire just ahead of the main missile, by placing their fire ports a few blocks forward of the main missile's firing port.

 

[StarWars1981]

Well, my overdrive cannon use 400K power each turret. I seriously doubt you have that to spare or can simply generate it on a corvette, unless you build it from the ground up with the intent of mounting a couple.

At this point I am thinking that the best way to deal with it for you would be to have two or more small missile turrets. Make them missile/beam/pierce missiles, but only give the beam computer 10% or 20% of the modules. this will keep it firing fairly fast, keep the energy costs relatively low for missile/beam weapons anyway, and keep the range close enough that they won't start firing at longer range targets. Give it 150 missile modules, 15 beam modules and 150 pierce modules, and you could probably squeeze it into a ball turret no larger than 13 blocks diameter. Such a missile would very likely wreck any such 100 mass drone it hit.

It will use about 600K power every 18 seconds, which is both easy to build in terms of capacitors and easy to generate. Add a couple (or more) decoys in with it built with the same ratio of 10 missile, 1 beam, and 10 pierce (you could omit the pierce on the decoys). These are mostly there to decoy any point defense the drone might carry. (I build drones with PD turrets.) Have them fire just ahead of the main missile, by placing their fire ports a few blocks forward of the main missile's firing port.

Actually, a 20/20/20-block Missile/Beam/Explosive is fully capable of turning a compact 100 mass drone into powder in one hit. I have a set of approximately 60/60/60 block M/B/Es that turn half a 150k block ship (or so) into a gaping crater (very compact ship) with just six rounds; a 100 mass ship would absolutely disappear.
And yes, you do indeed want decoys with the same speed and range, and in fact you may want them slightly faster and longer-ranged to shoot first. Slightly - you do want the other missiles to use them as cover, not as a distraction.

 

[DrTarDIS]

If I were you, I'd Think of what combination of weapons I considered to be anti-fighter, and divide that up among a few axis-rotating turrets.
EG
+anti-shield DPS
+a big, fat, block-killer missile
->2 turrets (mght get away with one)

find the effective "center" of your ship (1/2 height and half width.) , place a turret-dock there.

find the important "cliping dimension" of your ship by drawing a circle around that dock with build helper(2/3 of the largest between height and width is usually a safe bet for a radius)
create dock on that turret xis, move the core out to that build-helper circle, face it up or down., switch to that entity.
set new build helper orgin at the docker, build turret-base anywhere outside that ring. mass enhancers power etc, you can use symmetry to keep the sides looking the same. Place the turret rotator for "up/down" in relation to the base anywhere 1-5 blocks forward of the base's core. create the turret barrel off that rotator, if you like symmetry and multiple missile-lock beacons around your ship, place it's core on the OPPOSITE SIDE. create barrel weapons systems, decide if you want it to shoot from both sides and use convergence, or from one side for a nice tight spray.

Use one weapon compute per weapon output. Humans don't use this thing, so it's totally fine to have 20 different weapon computers with a variety of effects, but they should all be the same projectile speed. this means ALL yer cannons are the same ratio, you can't mix cannon-cannon and cann-beam and cannon-missile with any hope of accuracy. lockon missiles MIGHT be an exception to this, as they don't care about travel time, but they MIGHT screw up your other weapon's lead-time