The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Thalanor]

My current testing using push effect modules in a clock on torpedoes is VERY promising. Fast and AI-less unguided torpedoes that aren't targeted by turrets. They are also very, very cheap. The only issue is disintegrators themselves; they don't really profit from large counts at all.

The most efficient torpedo right now I have come up with is a core with one disintegrator in the front and a clock, a push computer and some push modules in the back. A true doomstick!

 

[Reilly Reese]

I don't think so. Everyone has always complained that they wanted to make stuff that rams ships

 

[Thalanor]

Hm, you are right, while the logic works, the disintegrators themselves are so underwhelming (they were about a year ago, looks like not much has changed )

I might test "drone torpedoes". These would deliver drones over a large distance so that when you arrive, a drone swarm taking the turret fire is already there (stationary assault purposes).

 

[NeonSturm]

just make a turret with 1 (dis-integrator, ship-core, dis-integrator) each 2x2 m corner sticking out of a turret using 5 push-cannons.

Let the cannons trigger by a button adjacent to the dock.
Let the odd/even docks separately undock to trigger all dis-integrators in parallel.

Watch the destruction your cloaked ship causes.

 

[Reilly Reese]

While our disintergrator is underwhelming SEs mines are overwhelming.

LLLLLAAAAAGGGGGGYYYYYYY is the best description for them

 

[Thalanor]

Oh yes... the lag. Made me scratch disintegrators for what I intended to do (which actually worked, but causes a three second freeze in that small scale already

- dis-core-dis "shrapnel" docked in large quantities to a warhead (thx, was the most efficient pattern yet)
- push pulse activated by the warhead being close to the enemy (activation trigger blocks in front)
- shrapnel gets fired in a true shotgun fashion
- server freezes for an eternity
- large target plate is covered in holes :p





EDIT: This is fun stuff. Clock+push modules and active AI at the same time. Extremely erratic flight pattern, constant super fast maneuvering, target circling at maximum speed, hostile Ai is absolutely unable to land even a single hit! this is awesome. My drones will be getting this. Fear my drone swarm on steroids :D

EDIT2: damn. mass. too. high :/ far less amazig with actual drones

 

[Reilly Reese]

You cant put unguided high yield missiles on drones.

Maybe bombers but not tiny little drones.

 

[Thalanor]

Actually meant using push module+ clock on drones themselves, sorry didn't clarify
If these effects were stronger, the flight pattern of drones could be made far more "swarmier". Stops working at about 20 mass though, and I don't want 1/3 of the internal drone systems to be push modules either :D

 

[Gerion]

Im gonna stay with my first choice of drone weaponry: Missile/pulse. High damage and you only have to skimp defenses (which dont work well anyway against most weapons) to make it work.
If you want to crash a server btw, you equip your drones with multibarrel swarm missiles. 20 5x5x5 cubes spewing forth 30 missiles each is just nice... Just not for the server. Its also crap weaponry, dont use it for anything serious.

 

[Keptick]

Im gonna stay with my first choice of drone weaponry: Missile/pulse. High damage and you only have to skimp defenses (which dont work well anyway against most weapons) to make it work.
If you want to crash a server btw, you equip your drones with multibarrel swarm missiles. 20 5x5x5 cubes spewing forth 30 missiles each is just nice... Just not for the server. Its also crap weaponry, dont use it for anything serious.

I imagine the server screaming from agony. I also imagine 70% of the missiles going after the drones XD

 

[Thalanor]

Well that was one fun science day with disintegrators. My current results: even with a taste for experimental weaponry, they are... not amazing when used as torpedoes instead of stationary (cloaked?) minefields. That is too bad, I had some ideas for multi-stage torpedoes with all kinds of shits (first stage has them just approach the target with push module + clock, second stage releases microdrones as decoy from the torpedo, third stage push-pulses shrapnel disintegrators in a shotgun pattern into the target, fourth stage has the torpedo itself crash into the target doing collision damage, and triggering a single disintegrator line to overheat the core of the torpedo, so the blueprint doesn't float around in space forever).

So I'll be backtracking to normal drones again, but redo the entire thing with push beams and ALOT of them - after all the main ship has enough power to support some rather enormous beam groups

At the same time, Ill have smaller racks of specific chaff drones somewhere if I can get the activation mechanism to work at such a small scale - these would use the push module + clock method to drive any hostile AI (and even the player!) nuts with their erratic flight behavior. It is just far too fun to watch microdrones dance around their targets like a lunatic witch around a field of glowing mushrooms.

 

[Reilly Reese]

What you wanted is to complicated for the current system Thal

 

[Thalanor]

Had alot of fun trying it though
If it is possible one day I will attempt it again. Multi-stage torpedoes... nothing feels more like a strategic weapon, no 5M damage ion cannon shot feels as 'capital' as these.

Actual torpedo bombers where the ship itself is dirt cheap and swappable torpedo racks would make refitting according to the situation possible... one can dream

 

[SilentRider_14]

Complexity isn't much of an issue because it requires your missile/torpedo/mine to be bigger to incorporate more logic, power, thrust, weapons etc.. . A bigger problem would be the entity spam as each individual part would require another ship core. My smallest torpedo required two cores warhead and main body; since plex doors and trigger area blocks absorbed explosion damage, undocked disintegrators would explode from light touching.

 

[Thalanor]

The entity spam is at least mid term controllable, since a torpedo system can be configured to overheat all cores if there are disintegrator lines and similar. But complexity has the drawback of relying on too many variables - to make them reliable enough usually requires quite a bunch of logic and block overhead, and in the end neither cost efficiency nor usability are anywhere near acceptable for a pvp capable concept

Fortunately that doesn't apply to everything. Drones are very effective, and maybe there are some changes coming to disintegrators some time into the future
My proposal would be for one to not make them chain-explode when grouped together, but rather make the first collision trigger a single explosion (also far less lag!) whose radius and damage depends on the amount of disintegrators. Right now every disintegrator explodes for itself, making all but the closest to impact ones worthless and as such, massive warheads rather ineffective.

 

[Keptick]

My proposal would be for one to not make them chain-explode when grouped together, but rather make the first collision trigger a single explosion (also far less lag!) whose radius and damage depends on the amount of disintegrators. Right now every disintegrator explodes for itself, making all but the closest to impact ones worthless and as such, massive warheads rather ineffective.

Post that in suggestions! It's a good idea.

 

[Gerion]

If @Thalanor goes through with his dodge drones (dodge chaff?) all I put into my turrets will be beams. Hitscan, f*** your drones.

I would really like to put together some field testing with bigger ships against drones... Im gonna head off to the download section, lets get some ships.

 

[Thalanor]

This game is pretty neat if there is a counter for everything
Once there were just turrets. Now you have to bother with turrets, anti-drone turrets, anti-chaff turrets, manned turrets against unmanned AI-less torpedoes... all the good stuff!
Making progress on the drone overhaul. Already have new (larger, they are now 13x9x7) drones, drone racks that are no twin racks anymore (hold 12 in total now and two are docked on the ship) and the near finished ejection system that uses such an insane amount of beam modules in the push beam arrays that the drones come to a halt in 1.2km distance of the ship if there are no hostiles :D

The cost of one rack is 2.5 million only including 12 drones. It has minimum shielding to not make every stray shot damage the rack itself.Drones are covered with standard armor, except an area in the front that uses advanced armor.

The new rack also has a far less erratic core transmitter method. Using overlapping docking areas, the core is docked so that when the rack is docked too, activation blocks form a "bell" around the core, so it cannot possibly not trigger the process immediately, regardless of how and where the ship moves (not advised to be too fast though for the launch process)

 

[Gerion]

I have done more testing.

Again, I am assuming that the main weapons of ships will not be a decisive factor against drone swarms. These recommendations are for turrets. Equip your ship with the biggest gun possible to kill the enemy capital ships while your AI companions ward off the drones... Or die trying. If you have to decide between more turrets or more firepower, choose more turrets. You need to fill the sky with fire to get as many drones as possible, as your turrets will only shoot at one target at a time.

Beams: My first test was a combination of theory and limited combat (drones spawned directly against the turrets). A new test involved the trading guild sending a patrol over to deal with the pirates. After the pirates won, they attacked the beam turrets... And utterly trashed them. They just stayed out of range and wittled them down. Maybe use on stations if you expect drones and chaff to be thrown towards you or on ships if you can (and want to) maneuver into the swarm. Favourite is Beam/Cannon for faster reload.

Cannons: Remain viable as ever. Cannon/Cannon with punch-through is the best solution and helps against drones greatly. Still gets overwhelmed, but takes many drones with it. Second best on ships (beams are better) and best on stations.

Missiles: Work, but have long reload times and are a bit unreliable due to being able to be shot down. Added bonus of having enough punch to hurt the mother ship or its escorts if those decide to join the fun and to mostly one-shot drones. In the first case, use missile/pulse. If you use it against drones you (again) take cannon as slave (and hope the turret aims good enough) or just a single beam block to give it lock on capability. Avoid swarm missiles, as said before.

Pulse: Im gonna laugh.... Thats ok, right? It might work in principle, but getting close to enough drones to pull it off will be too difficult.

Added advice: If you design a bomber or a missile turret: Dont stick a cannon on the same thing. The cannons shoot down their own missiles if they intersect, which they will. Beams and pulses are bad slaves against drones. Missile slaves would be good but are unreliable at range and wont hit the core as reliably as their focused brethren.

 

[Thalanor]

Finally! The overhaul has been completed. Not only is the new implementation extremely robust, it is also fast :D