Drone Wars Competition , Season 2

[Master_Artificer]

Well, I will not be using the Wash Escort Version, LOL

Got some awesome gifs from the small ship test though!

Spoiler: Sir they are moving in to attack!

Spoiler: INBOUND MISSILES BANK LEFT BANK LEFT!

Spoiler: Taking heavy damage here... sir.. we are not going to make it...

and now some normal .png's

Still took forever to kill, battle was over 10 minutes long, but the X wing fire was too accurate, the Wash simply could not hit these pencils with its quad machine gun. And when it did it over-penetrated, the bullets passing though the ship without delivering its full damage.

 

[StarWars1981]

Set it up with explosive rounds to deal more damage to small targets. Nice X-Wings. I gotta make some myself, one of these days. I've got a TIE Fighter and Y-Wing Bomber (made by Madman but we work together), and a Republic Frigate (more or less to scale, the length is right but I think the bridge is too wide. However, I'm not giving it up because in meter squared blockworld we can't subdivide a 5-block-wide hallway into a lot of good looking compartments without looking ridiculous.). But my favorite has to be the X-Wing. It's just so awesome. As for drones... time to get crackin'.

 

[Vader_is_Bored]

Will the rack be judged as part of the design/systems/features scores, or just the drones themselves?
(aka, Is it worth making the rack pretty?)

 

[Drakkart]

Will the rack be judged as part of the design/systems/features scores, or just the drones themselves?
(aka, Is it worth making the rack pretty?)

It will not affect systems but it is necessary for the mechanics rating and dal loves nicely designed racks to so you want a hnorable mention that might be a way to go

 

[StarWars1981]

A 2500 mass ship, optimized for performance against lighter, smaller targets, may be the way to go ... or a 500 mass ship, so you get 5 of'em. Maybe 3 different versions: anti-missile point defense ship, your own missile ship with a few good-sized tracker missiles in the nose, and a cannon vessel with multiple computers - differing only in ion effect vs explosive effect. You could also replace one of them with a beam ship, designed just to burn valuable components fast. Oh the ideas...

 

[Drakkart]

i did a drone i would have sent into the tournement maybe you are interested in it. Discreet Shipyards Inc. Type-BD Predator Battle Drone
Due to the fold out ams turret it would have swept the floor with the the season one racks. just as inspiration guys ; ) no worries you won't meet any judge material in the competition.

 

[StormWing0]

lol might want to set a min drone count limit if you don't want any single ship drones turning up. XD Like say 3 to 5 drones min, max whatever you can fit into 2500 mass. :P

 

[Sgtwisky]

Well, glad I have been working on my drones up till now. Still got more messing around to do, but have 3 basic designs ready for my drone fleet.

I am hoping that by the time the drone wars starts, I will have a carrier for my drones. I understand that you don't want the racks to be capable of anything but launching. Would my carrier be OK to use as long as I remove weapons computers and turrets? or would I have to remove all the weapon blocks as well? Just wondering if I should build a separate rack or use the carrier I'm building.

P.S. WOO ! Drone Wars Season 2 is announced

 

[Drakkart]

lol might want to set a min drone count limit if you don't want any single ship drones turning up. XD Like say 3 to 5 drones min, max whatever you can fit into 2500 mass. :p

nothing to lol about read the op again but if you must try it out.

Well, glad I have been working on my drones up till now. Still got more messing around to do, but have 3 basic designs ready for my drone fleet.

I am hoping that by the time the drone wars starts, I will have a carrier for my drones. I understand that you don't want the racks to be capable of anything but launching. Would my carrier be OK to use as long as I remove weapons computers and turrets? or would I have to remove all the weapon blocks as well? Just wondering if I should build a separate rack or use the carrier I'm building.

P.S. WOO ! Drone Wars Season 2 is announced

Actually your drones will get launched and then the rack removed while the sector is protected so theoretically your carrier could not fire anyways. So yeah actually please deliver the entire thing. I at least will enjoy checking it out

Rules altered thaks for asking

 

[Sgtwisky]

Cool. time to devote more time to starmade so I can finish it LOL.

 

[Madman198237]

Well, the thing is that, without a human pilot, larger ships are more inefficient, because of the 50% health cutoff.
Generally, ships go over the cutoff when destroyed.

This means that 100 25-block fighters can suffer more BLOCKS LOST than a 2500-block warship, while still having units active and capable of combat.
This is beneficial in combat, because as soon as that 50% cutoff is reached, ALL blocks remaining on the ship are no longer useful in drone warfare.

Overall, my point is that the person who continues fighting the longest wins. One large ship loses a lot more blocks if it's knocked offline, because there's more blocks that can remain intact while the ship itself is still in one piece. The 2500-block ship will lose 1250 blocks and then stop functioning, a complete waste of the remaining 1250.

100 25-block ships can each lose 13 blocks, leaving only 1200 blocks inactive AT WORST. Most likely, ships will be sent over the limit. However, this means that you can lose, before combat ceases, 2488 blocks, assuming that once a ship overheats its remaining blocks are considered "destroyed". Which, honestly, they might as well be destroyed.



TL;DR: Small drones are more advantageous than single large drones, because they are more efficient with block use/loss in combat.
So no, we will almost certainly NOT see any lone wolf win this Drone War, because they're gonna get destroyed by multiple smaller vessels.


If you want proof, try taking down an Isanth from the inside with a handgun, and see just how much of the physical armor and structure is left when you're done with the soft insides. It's really quite incredible, the amount of potentially functional systems a large ship will go down with.

 

[GalactusX]

Well, the thing is that, without a human pilot, larger ships are more inefficient, because of the 50% health cutoff.
Generally, ships go over the cutoff when destroyed.

This means that 100 25-block fighters can suffer more BLOCKS LOST than a 2500-block warship, while still having units active and capable of combat.
This is beneficial in combat, because as soon as that 50% cutoff is reached, ALL blocks remaining on the ship are no longer useful in drone warfare.

Overall, my point is that the person who continues fighting the longest wins. One large ship loses a lot more blocks if it's knocked offline, because there's more blocks that can remain intact while the ship itself is still in one piece. The 2500-block ship will lose 1250 blocks and then stop functioning, a complete waste of the remaining 1250.

100 25-block ships can each lose 13 blocks, leaving only 1200 blocks inactive AT WORST. Most likely, ships will be sent over the limit. However, this means that you can lose, before combat ceases, 2488 blocks, assuming that once a ship overheats its remaining blocks are considered "destroyed". Which, honestly, they might as well be destroyed.



TL;DR: Small drones are more advantageous than single large drones, because they are more efficient with block use/loss in combat.
So no, we will almost certainly NOT see any lone wolf win this Drone War, because they're gonna get destroyed by multiple smaller vessels.


If you want proof, try taking down an Isanth from the inside with a handgun, and see just how much of the physical armor and structure is left when you're done with the soft insides. It's really quite incredible, the amount of potentially functional systems a large ship will go down with.

Exactly mate, who has more drones, can withstand more because the loss of blocks to stop it is less, apart you can have more potential for harm, is not the same one ship that can do 50,000 damage every X time, than a group of smaller ships, they are shooting all the time for example 6,000 damage, in the end, the biggest ship can not withstand the constant damage of the smaller ships and here being exceeded.

 

[Madman198237]

Also, one 50000000000 damage cannon is just fine....but in order to fire it, you're gonna have to have one output, most likely. And then you're gonna do, well, not much, to a small vessel, Your large weapon can shoot STRAIGHT THROUGH one enemy fighter....wasting a lot of power. The fighters' weapons don't have that problem, they get 100% efficiency up until your larger ship looks like Swiss cheese. At which point, of course, the larger ship has stopped fighting.

 

[Drakkart]

Well a bigger craft can house more systems within less hull blocks than many small craft but it also has to suffer that all small targets pick a single big ship as their target and it can only fight back against one opponent effectively at a time.

 

[Madman198237]

Yes, but housing more systems in less hull means less armor per block and, also, as I stated earlier, one larger craft will lose half its blocks and be out of the running, permanently, a dozen smaller craft can lose 11 complete craft, 11/12ths of the whole complement of blocks, and still be fighting.

 

[StormWing0]

hmm 4 AMS Drone Carriers, 4 Multi-directional Rocket Boats, and 2 Pulse Gunships sounds like a good way to mess with people. XD

 

[GalactusX]

Also, one 50000000000 damage cannon is just fine....but in order to fire it, you're gonna have to have one output, most likely. And then you're gonna do, well, not much, to a small vessel, Your large weapon can shoot STRAIGHT THROUGH one enemy fighter....wasting a lot of power. The fighters' weapons don't have that problem, they get 100% efficiency up until your larger ship looks like Swiss cheese. At which point, of course, the larger ship has stopped fighting.

Yeah mate, that´s i mean

so.... anyone have any drone desing ready to show?

Spoiler: here one of the drones i´m working

 

[Madman198237]

Well, I'll get some pictures. I've not purpose-built drones yet, but I've got a few vessels for drone use....including a Z-95 Clone Headhunter and a TIE Fighter...made out of advanced armor.

 

[AtraUnam]

This is what I'm currently planning to submit:

 

[StarWars1981]

He who has more drones, perhaps cannot kill a larger drone based around survivability.
Say you base your drone off of shield recharge and an amount of capacity sufficient to withstand most single impacts from alpha damage drones. The recharge will then be capable of charging it in 3-4 seconds, so probably 2500 recharge if at all possible, plus 15K cap maybe, so 6 seconds.
This way, you can out do any DPM vessels, and survive any alpha strike vessels' shots. Plus, you're returning fire with a LOT of small weapons (turrets, mainly) against these drones, to minimize the issue of drone inaccuracy while maximizing their issues.

Tangential thought: What if you were to build a drone with a logic-activated push effect ... so it HAD to constantly move fast. That'd be its main propulsion, forwards; if not, then strafing side to side, with the AI in charge of only weaponry. As soon as it is dropped from the mothership, it's activated and moving. Lol, that'd be awesome - can't touch the skidding wonders!