Or you could do a quick redesign and have the rack be made vertically. Then everything is in alignment but simply a 1/2 block further out the door. Had to do that with several tube designs, in the end was worth the effort though as it allowed a much smoother "gliding"-motion out the door.Aaaaaaand shit.... The reason that beams will pass through docked entities is because they are perfectly level to the separation between blocks, meaning that they don't hit anything until it undocks, at which point it's not perfectly centered anymore and the entity can be pushed. The problem with that is that since my drones are on a rack they aren't at that perfect height anymore... I didn't expect that
One thing I could do is to dock the racks to an other docked entity so that the beams are once again aligned with the splits, but that would mean that the drones won't match the exit port anymore. An other thing I could do is the mount the beams themselves on a dock so that they become level with the drones, but that also causes complications and problems....
No worries though, I have some ideas in case simply shoving 5 drones out at the same time doesn't work due to sticky collisions :p
what about the Drone flippy thing? or rotating whirly-gig of dron-i-ness? Nah... DCS is simpler... though everytime I say it aloud I keep hearing DC-F (department of children and families) which is strange. Do drones come in families? Nay I say! Nay! Err...maybe?Ok guys, im naming the system DCS (Drone Catapult System) unless anyone has a better name :p
No, they come in racks. They dont have families, they only know barely contained rage, hate and disgust. Also patience, but that they dont control.... Can... someone tell us if drones come in families!?
lmfao XDNo, they come in racks. They dont have families, they only know barely contained rage, hate and disgust. Also patience, but that they dont control.
Also, fuck fleet action, apparently. Swarm missiles on every ship, turret, station, planet, platform, animal, star, tree and asteroid I can find. Because 220 drones keptick ? Thats just cruel.
Actually, missile system that have to be fired manually on stations would actually be a neat addition to the game. A reward for being at the base during an attack.
Funny you mentioned this, as I had already laid out a framework for a 360 drone carrier yesterday before looking here....lmfao XD
You could always use MOAR drones against me
It's not impossible to do this, but like you mentioned larger racks would require about 1 turret per drone or per 2 drones. Given the average racks around here seem to carry about 20 or so... you're looking at alot of turrets.So I stumbled across an interesting idea. Drone racks are technically modular right? They still have a ship dock they need to dock to. Can't you put other things on that dock if you don't need/want drones? (inb4 "lol as if there are alternatives to drones")
...img...
This is a turret. GUI is kept on, so I can point out the 3 parts involved. The bottom signature would be your main ship and the ship dock your drone rack is on. The middle one, your drone rack. In this case, it's just a fancy turret dock for the third signature; a turret! So there you have it, you can effectively interchange drone racks with turrets! This idea wouldn't work so great with larger, longer drone racks though...
My system is doing exactly that. I have module points on my ship/station that can have different roles. Drone rack, Capital Turret, PDT turret array, Corvette hanger, Missile launcher, and so on. So, for example, after using your drones and head back to base you can change the role of the ship to a long range attack vehicle. These modules might not offer the raw capabilities of a dedicated combat ship, but are more flexible and save on resources.So I stumbled across an interesting idea. Drone racks are technically modular right? They still have a ship dock they need to dock to. Can't you put other things on that dock if you don't need/want drones? (inb4 "lol as if there are alternatives to drones")
This is a turret. GUI is kept on, so I can point out the 3 parts involved. The bottom signature would be your main ship and the ship dock your drone rack is on. The middle one, your drone rack. In this case, it's just a fancy turret dock for the third signature; a turret! So there you have it, you can effectively interchange drone racks with turrets! This idea wouldn't work so great with larger, longer drone racks though...
Sounds eerily similar to my drone canister idea from way back when. A rod shaped structure which simply deploys drones without any beams/push required. Pretty much sums up the concept, works great too! Regardless of rack size all you need is to move the rack away from the ship, then tell the rack to launch. =)ASM with assault containers, do you mean like "throwaway carrier modules"? e.g., a ship consisting almost entirely of docked assault containers, which contain drones. The ship would undock the container and immediately jump away. Then each assault container would just undock everything without any beams needed (if the drones are for example arranged in a circular pattern around a rod structure), and the enemy could have fun with it.
I have something in mind that I wish was more useful, because it is fun. Push-pulse AI-less drone torpedoes for planetary assault :D
The idea is to undock the torpedoes from your ship, they would then use the onboard push-clock to approach the planetary surface, and once they hit the ground they would spill a crapload of drones onto the surface. While home planets are protected, players walking around the surface would be attacked by the drones lying around everywhere.