Carrier Construction:?

[Dire Venom]

Hi all ^_^!
Coming back to Starmade after half a year has really re-kindled my desire to build a functioning carrier.
With the changes to weapon recharging it seems like you could "charge" up the drones on the carrier, release them, have them fire, then return to re-fill.
However looking at that it seems like just putting them as turrets would be the superior option -_-... or even just as one big detachable cannon not a squad of strike-craft.

Still, is there anyway to make a functioning carrier at this point, or will we just have to wait until some dedicated mechanics are introduced:?

 

[Aesthetics]

At present, carriers are as useless as missile cruisers. Wait until after the weapons update, at least, before you start building anything along those lines.

 

[JinM]

When I played on Brierie last week some dude proudly presented me the detatching and docking of his mining drones. Redocking happend slowly, took around one minute for 10 drones.

I like your idea though, and if you make the docking points correctly (far away from the ship hull), you should lower the redocking time.

The weapons update will not update the AI for fleet docking, so I think wether or not you can build a carrier should be tested by yourself, and can be judged by you right now instead of waiting for the update.

So wether or not carriers work is up to your judgement, on wether or not a one minute for redocking your drones is fast enough.


Reloading drones can work imo. They can go close and fire a high damage weapon.

But. Your idea lacks one thing to make them usefull: An actual close combat weapon so your drones make sense. I can think of no weapon setup right now that actually make sense for your drones. There is no weapon that releads one minute, and also is designated for close combat. I mean the longest charging weapons are smart missiles and they have such a high range that using drones for them would be inefficient.


So in short drones as you want them make no real sense, as right now there is no weapon combo that efficiently outweights the benefit of the free ship recharge+shield+hull-repair.

 

[Zekester81]

Depends on your definition of functional. If you mean build one that works(does what it's designed to do), heck yeah you can. If you mean build one thats useful in pvp or something, i'll leave that to someone else. Your idea about the drones is neat though, even if you might not be able to get them to reload their weapons by docking.

In the very slow process of building one but my fighter queue/storage system may be a bit heavy on the logic. Might have to tinker around with a lift pad/storage bay if I can get one to work while the ship is moving. The ship is being gutted for new power, but the launch and landing all works great. The damn thing is huge because I made full pilotable fighters for it and it basically carries it's own fleet(@120 ships). Leaving all practicality aside, totally works.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Frankly, as long as BP spawning is still an option, racks are a way better option. Un-fleeted ships have less issues scattering to try to maintain formation and you don't need to dedicate any space on your ship for them. That way you can fly a proper warship (or shuttle if you wish), and just deploy a squad of self launching fighters from your pocket.

 

[JinM]

I have one good suggestion for a carrier though: You can use shield and energy recharge beams from your carrier to your drones. I am not sure how to make it work, but maybe it works if you manually aim weapons via turret control.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I actually had an idea to make a line of turret/fighter hybrid ships some time ago. I already have some designs worked out but im waiting to see what the weapon update holds to start building them.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Hybrid was good power 1.0 (ie: self powered turrets.), but in 2.0 you want one or the other because turrets with reactors are just dead weight.

PS: I found out by accident that my docked hull plates were fully functional warships if. They had thrust, shields, power, and their own weapons systems: all for unrelated reasons.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Hybrid was good power 1.0 (ie: self powered turrets.), but in 2.0 you want one or the other because turrets with reactors are just dead weight.

PS: I found out by accident that my docked hull plates were fully functional warships if. They had thrust, shields, power, and their own weapons systems: all for unrelated reasons.

I was thinking more along the lines of a fighter that can auto-convert into a turret when it is called back to its dock/ a turret that can detach and become a drone if the need arises. This is all the cool factor anyways.

 

[Zekester81]

I have one good suggestion for a carrier though: You can use shield and energy recharge beams from your carrier to your drones. I am not sure how to make it work, but maybe it works if you manually aim weapons via turret control.

Pretty sure that was mentioned in the q&a post, and that that would be possible with manual aiming. I think the drones would probably be hard to hit unless they were sitting still though. It's probably waiting for the weapons update.

 

[Dire Venom]

I was thinking more along the lines of a fighter that can auto-convert into a turret when it is called back to its dock/ a turret that can detach and become a drone if the need arises. This is all the cool factor anyways.

This^^^

I was thinking along similar lines as well.
One way to do that could be to have a base entity with a reactor/shields with the turret mounted on it, then have the base dock/undock.
If the turret is a ball turret you could have it all mounted internally as well :3

Would require for spcialised designs, but could be quite cool.

Another option could be to have the docking point for the drones on another turret, as they will still beable to shoot forward with a decent firing arc even when docked.
E.g the drones dock to the turret, turret turns and aims at an enemy, bringing it into the docked drones limited field of fire who then shoot at it :3

That all assumes that the horrid AI targeting bugs are fixed, as turrets are kinda broken atm and can't aim or target anything.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

This^^^

I was thinking along similar lines as well.
One way to do that could be to have a base entity with a reactor/shields with the turret mounted on it, then have the base dock/undock.
If the turret is a ball turret you could have it all mounted internally as well :3

Would require for spcialised designs, but could be quite cool.

Another option could be to have the docking point for the drones on another turret, as they will still beable to shoot forward with a decent firing arc even when docked.
E.g the drones dock to the turret, turret turns and aims at an enemy, bringing it into the docked drones limited field of fire who then shoot at it :3

That all assumes that the horrid AI targeting bugs are fixed, as turrets are kinda broken atm and can't aim or target anything.

Was thinking the same thing. except that my design would be more flashy.

When the turret ship converts to turret mode the "turret" part of the ship, which when in ship mode acts as the bow but is actually facing backwards, will physically extend from the base and flip 90 degrees upward so that it is perpendicular to the base. The actual turret part is attached to this and will then have free range of movement to attack.

The only problem with this design is making sure that the turret part resets before the ship base undocks, retracting the turret segment. If the turret doesnt resets then it could screw up the rail logic. This is particularly problematic as the only way for turrets to reset automatically is if the AI is activated and has no target.

 

[Dire Venom]

Was thinking the same thing. except that my design would be more flashy.

When the turret ship converts to turret mode the "turret" part of the ship, which when in ship mode acts as the bow but is actually facing backwards, will physically extend from the base and flip 90 degrees upward so that it is perpendicular to the base. The actual turret part is attached to this and will then have free range of movement to attack.

The only problem with this design is making sure that the turret part resets before the ship base undocks, retracting the turret segment. If the turret doesnt resets then it could screw up the rail logic. This is particularly problematic as the only way for turrets to reset automatically is if the AI is activated and has no target.

Ah good point!
That's why I love ball turrets, rotation doesn't matter :P

I quite like that concept, a ship built out of other ships :3
Hm..... now if you could assign different docking parts per entity you could make a transformer XD

 

[Scypio]

The only one "good" way of building a carrier was that i attached racks of drones to my ship on the exterior. Like a giant stick with docking point and drones all along and then launched the drones and racks when deciding to fight then use your ship as a normal ship.

Forget your normal way of building carriers, this will never work.