Easy drone cleanup + Get more from your ship! + Kiddan's Idea Thread

[kiddan]

Just some quick simple tips by me... :p Yea, like the title didn't tell you that!

1. Drone cleaners: Having trouble with drones making you or a server lag? Unleash your own heck of drone-destroying drones that blow up after a crazy amount of time (via wireless logic) and after a while, no drones nearby at all!
2. LShift+V: A few people apparently don't/didn't know about this, you can use LShift+V to connect a whole group to something (such as linking cannons to cannon computers.)
3. Power-Free Pulse Replacement: Why use push pulses on the end of your ship (assuming you have crumby power on it) if you can replace them with super fast rails with a big fist on the end?
4. Warpgate To Nowhere: Make a station with a tiny warpgate that isn't even accessable, just to make the map say there is a gate there. Then make what looks like a huge warpgate that is easily accessable. Make a set of jaws powered by fast rails to grab enemies who fall for the trap!
5. Railgun: Assuming if a ship is un-docked from a rail and keeps its momentum, you could un-dock a warhead from a quickly moving rail to create a efficient railgun.
6. Quicker Turning Theory: Make two tiny rooms in your frigate -one in the back, one in the front- with tiny ships inside, floating freely. Set up buttons that activate push pulses to make the ships push the ship they are in, causing your frigate to turn! With enough push and momentum you could possibly make your ship turn more than 3* faster!
7. Automatic Weapons: Attach all your weapons to area detectors (assuming they detect ships) and make them fire when ships are in the way. Thus allowing you to have more than ten weapons functioning at once!
8. Flip-Open Cockpit: Using rail rotators make a cockpit out of crystal hull instead of weak glass doors!

Update May 5, 2015:

1. Sticky C4: Make a small ship-missile but with warheads everywhere except the tip, set up some plex doors that close on the enemy ship when against it. Now just set up some wireless logic and you can shot volleys of Sticky C4s! You could cover doom-cubes with hundreds and then set them all off at once!
2. Clock With Hands: Make a Big Ben in the middle of your planet base! Have rotators turning the hands at just the right speeds by using speed controllers or changing the weight of the hands.
3. No-Lock-On Turrets: Put the turrets on your station/ship on a rotating ring going crazy fast! This way player can't/have a horrid time locking onto your turrets.
4. Small Ship Trap: Got good shields on your frigate? Great! Now make a cage out of plex doors activated by Onboard Controllers (or whatever they are called :P) and catch small ships!

That's all folks! :D

 

[Comr4de]

Why use push pulses on the end of your ship?

Fixed

 

[Keptick]

Fixed

uh... did you just add a question mark at the end or did he do a sneak edit on his post?

 

[Comr4de]

uh... did you just add a question mark at the end or did he do a sneak edit on his post?

Push pulse propulsion is literally the most inefficient form of propulsion. The power consumption is just too high.

 

[NeonSturm]

What about push effects on docked entities?

Better fix SM physics

 

[AtraUnam]

Push pulse propulsion is literally the most inefficient form of propulsion. The power consumption is just too high.

It has its uses, defensive push on drones can be very useful.

 

[EricBlank]

The self-destruct drones and rotating cockpit both sound awesome to me. The warpgate probably not so much, except as an excuse to set up an ambush for enemies during war. Without the jaws, that's just silly.

 

[NeonSturm]

Warpgate To Nowhere: Make a station with a tiny warpgate that isn't even accessable, just to make the map say there is a gate there. Then make what looks like a huge warpgate that is easily accessable. Make a set of jaws powered by fast rails to grab enemies who fall for the trap!

I see the small one as a beacon for outputting your drone swarm for sector defence.

1. Area triggers trigger cuz of destroyed nearby blocks.

2. If attacked (some turret a bit away from your gate-beacon), notify the drone station which uses rails to push the core of drones through gates (or launches them with undock + push-guns).

How do you notify another station in a maybe unloaded sector?

That's some question which also affects AI dev.

Perhaps one sector can depend upon others to get loaded also.
But only the first reference should get loaded, not the second reference (sec -> ref sec : Yes -> ref sec : No -> ref sec : No) and also each sector should only be allowed to define a limited amount of such reference sectors.

Maybe 1 for ships and 2..4 for stations?​

 

[kiddan]

Updated the thread with more ideas and random stuff that I come up with all the time. :P Includes a (possibly) easier way to destroy doom-cubes!

 

[Comr4de]

No-Lock-On Turrets: Put the turrets on your station/ship on a rotating ring going crazy fast! This way player can't/have a horrid time locking onto your turrets.

friendly reminder that turret AI don't care whether or not the target is moving, it's still gonna get a lock. could be useful against player-fired missiles though

 

[EricBlank]

• Sticky C4: Make a small ship-missile but with warheads everywhere except the tip, set up some plex doors that close on the enemy ship when against it. Now just set up some wireless logic and you can shot volleys of Sticky C4s! You could cover doom-cubes with hundreds and then set them all off at once!

Unfortunately, warheads aren't nearly as effective as they used to be; they no longer bypass shields, for instance. I'm thinking it will turn out to be more efficient in terms of time and materials costs to just load a warship with lock-on missiles, preferably mounted in a very big AI turret, and just wipe the cubist off the map in one volley (assuming you mount enough firepower to actually do that.) Less likely to be killed before your weapons can be brought to bear as well; launching your drones, ensuring they're all in contact with the target, and detonating them will take more time than a fire+forget missile system, which is especially important when dealing with lame doom cubes; the longer an engagement lasts, the more likely you are to be the one that receives critical damage first.

 

[NeonSturm]

Sticky C4, also distracts enemy fire and serves a dual purpose.

There is just 1 CRUCIAL problem : they only damage the triggering entity and their own.

If activated BY LOGIC, they do no damage to other entities (maybe except players) -- dunno if this is fixed since back then.​

I figured this out while trying to make a "2-button, delayed activation" torpedo.



I figured out that the most efficient design is a core + 2 Dis-integrators launched diagonally in a checker-board-style -
- first from a 2x2x2 white field then from a 2x2x2 black field

If you don't want them getting blown up, use 8x8x8 white+black fields and space dis-integrators out, away from the core (opposite positions).