The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Gerion]

Cannon/Cannon/pierce turrets? Do those work well against drone swarms?
Also, what kind of weapon do you use for the drones? Missile/pulse might be funny, but power and missiles getting shot down might be a problem there.

Also: Counter drone swarms, since the only way to beat drones is to kill drones with drones... And more drones

 

[Keptick]

Cannon/Cannon/pierce turrets? Do those work well against drone swarms?
Also, what kind of weapon do you use for the drones? Missile/pulse might be funny, but power and missiles getting shot down might be a problem there.

Also: Counter drone swarms, since the only way to beat drones is to kill drones with drones... And more drones

Hard to say, Missiles could be countered fairly easily by equipping the drones with very small anti-missile beam turrets (I'm totally doing that). Beams would probably be the most effective since it has the best accuracy, which is deadly against such small targets.

My current swarm drones are equipped with lock-on missiles since it provides excellent burst damage against turrets. I did have to sacrifice some shielding and thrust for the power storage it requires, though.

 

[Neoclad]

Do we know if the turrets actually shoot missiles down? I haven't tried it yet...

My drones are equipped with canon/canon/effect (not 100% effect though) cause this is the best at taking down shields.
I try to get some variety in the effects in order to have a complementary fleet that is able to use the enemy's weaknesses (power drain will down non efficient builds, stop effect will make fighters easy preys...)

It is very possible to get a 1 missile/ 1 pulse / 1 overdrive for a reasonable amount of power and this thing makes big holes and a lot of damage!

I don't put shields on my drones as they have the "swarm shield" and anyway it would be so weak that it is not very relevant...

On the matter of countering drone swarms, it looks like only swarm missiles are efficient. Relocating the fight can be an option too, drones don't have jump drives.

 

[wolfboyft]

The only automation I would ever support is... turrets. Nothing that can fly.

This is because I think it's wrong to not send out people in spacecraft!

 

[Reilly Reese]

We'll we know who is going to die cuz he has to fly the fighter himself

 

[wolfboyft]

We'll we know who is going to die cuz he has to fly the fighter himself

Awww, ya flapping... caterpillar... brain... thing.

 

[Gerion]

Logic would suggest that every weapon that puts a lot of fire in the sky would work, but with turrets not getting shielded by their ships and stations.... bad business, I see a drony future ahead. Beam/Cannon/punch-through//pierce might work wonders, as long as you can keep your turrets alive. Maybe support cannon/cannon/none turrets to shoot down missiles. Damn, that ship would get ripped apart by anything with bigger cannons....

 

[Keptick]

DRONES FOR THE WIN!!!

I'm totally going to make a drone carrier once I finish my titan, it'll be glorious! Drones are the future, my friends!

Now... about those remote drone controls @schema ...

 

[marcus87]

I dont know if this is intended ... but it almost feels as if drones really balance big ships. Just now I tried one new drone I build against one of my frigates. And the drones did really good.

They were actually intended against other small craft, they had a small turret each. But they devasted my turrets and were able to bring my shields down to about 70%. My ship cost 120 Million and I was attacked by only 30 Million in drones. Now I am currently looking to build more badass drones agains ships :D

You know we should make this the drone thread! So here is the new drone I tested just now.

And here the first generation of drones I tried

They had two strong points. One it fits in a standart docking port and two it looks like a Tie fighter. Sadly it does as much damage as a Tie fighter -.-

I like to use a lot of hull on my builds, the drones look naked in my opinion if they dont have at least a minimum of hull.

But it feels to me as if we need at leas a certain mass to make them actually deadly, to small and they do not enough damage to actually threaten the enemy.

So what are your drone? How big do you make them and what weapons have you found usefull in them?

 

[Keptick]

My soul drone has 118 mass I think @marcus87 . As for the weapons, it really depends on what you intend to use it on :P . My oblivion drone (which I have to remake, seriously) is slightly lighter but it feature two turrets as main armament, so it's really effective against enemy fighters.

 

[Reilly Reese]

My patrol drones are fighter size

 

[Neoclad]

My actual drones are small balls of 11/9/13 mass is 49.6 + 2 turrets = 68.4 total
A lot of thrusters (maybe too much).
Uses hardened hull instead of shield.

I "cheat" by using turrets as this way the weapons have no mass and I can use 2 effects at the same time.
Also Enemies tend to shoot at turrets first ignoring my core (which is not very well protected now that I think of it...)

Features a cockpit if someone is crazy enough to fly the thing by himself.

Eats Isanths breaksfast

 

[marcus87]

It does look cool, just one questions.

Does this not waste space inside the ship? What I mean the turrets do not use all the space inside their docking port, do you not have to make the docking port for the whole drone big enough to fit the complete space of the turrets?

 

[Neoclad]

Nope. I think only the ship's hitbox counts in the docking area but I still make it big enough to include the turrets.

 

[K10wN]

I went overkill:

I just let a few loose every now and then. Change the number on the front each time. They make big holes (this was before they were updated to the new weapons):

 

[Keptick]

I went overkill:

I just let a few loose every now and then. Change the number on the front each time. They make big holes (this was before they were updated to the new weapons):

THAT'S THE DRONE FROM "OBLIVION"!!!! You should make it white :P. Did you smedit the shell btw? Cause that's pretty damn perfect when compared to the original.

Here's an old version of the oblivion based drone I made:

 

[K10wN]

THAT'S THE DRONE FROM "OBLIVION"!!!! You should make it white :p. Did you smedit the shell btw? Cause that's pretty damn perfect when compared to the original.

Yes, it's a RhinoCAD->binvox->SMEdit model. Turrets are made the same way. It's done in yellow as that was my faction colour at the time.

***EDIT: The destroyed cargo is also a CAD import.

 

[Keptick]

Yes, it's a RhinoCAD->binvox->SMEdit model. Turrets are made the same way. It's done in yellow as that was my faction colour at the time.

Those are turrets on the sides? That's even better :P

 

[Stakhanov]

Interesting experiment , I knew drones would eventually catch up in popularity - although this won't be very conclusive without a more rigorous method. What is the ratio of hull blocks on the drones and their target ? I think that linear scaling of modules will favor larger ships , as shield regeneration matters for them. Power storage also benefits them , and power generation issues can be avoided with auxiliary generators (now made much easier to use with automated power supply beams)

Large amounts of small turrets with arrayed rapidfire weapons might counter drones , with shield supply beams to keep them intact throughout the fight.

An important variable is the orbit range of those drones - luring them up close allows wide pulse weapons to get rid of them all at once , but kiting drones staying 1km away and sniping with stop or EMP effect would be very hard to deal with. You could make those drones with only guns , no defense whatsoever - maximizing damage per mass or credit.

 

[NeonSturm]

An important variable is the orbit range of those drones - luring them up close allows wide pulse weapons to get rid of them all at once , but kiting drones staying 1km away and sniping with stop or EMP effect would be very hard to deal with. You could make those drones with only guns , no defense whatsoever - maximizing damage per mass or credit.

Ultra-small ships have two major advantages:

1. They move multiple times their own size in a short time.
2. AI systems aren't that good currently that they can split fire to kill the target in exactly "<2/1 projectile flight time + reload time" seconds (also counting expected hit rate).