The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Keptick]

Had a go docking a drone with its CoM on one of the beams, a lot better results but still feels off.
Going to need to remove most of the rails in that case to force drones onto the beam outputs and see how that goes.

Each output is 3x3 b-p-push.

Anyway, enough rambling heres some internals and a gif:

That just looks incredibly awesome!

 

[Sgtwisky]

I highly recommend using damage beams, with a cannon slave with push effect. That seems to give me the best results on most of my launching systems. I have had varying results using other methods, while the damage beam/cannon/push effect seems very consistent. As long as you have it hitting the COM instead of a random point.

An added benefit to this setup is that you can release drones that are in a line, without using rails to move them. You just leave the beam on OR have it reactivate quickly. You don't really have to wait to turn it on again as its beam/cannon. OR optionally leave it on to shoot drones even further... ive had some fly out 2km from my ship by leaving it ON for an extended time.

 

[Tunk]

I'll have a play with stacked outputs tonight to get more hits in, as well as a b-c combo with longer fire time.

All beams have the same tickrate now, so b-p and b-c have the same hit rate per burst of 5/s.

Also going to test disabling beams with no drones docked, logic seems easy enough.

Thanks for the input everyone

 

[Argyle_Ninja]

I hadn't even thought of stacking outputs for push cannons, just seeing if there was a decent way to loop around the 1/2 damage against shielded targets. Maybe undock, first whack with an ion round, then push? I dunno. I'd just hate to cut the survivability in order to boot them out quicker

 

[Tunk]

The stacked/linear concept is a throwback from when punch/pierce wasn't a thing, and you needed to physically arrange the weapons for that effect.
Its a brilliant way of making a very small hole through a very large object, or hitting the same block multiple times.

If I get the conditional firing going I can combine all outputs on the center for larger drones and add smaller ones for nano's.
It won't be a big velcro dock, but still flexible hopefully.

 

[Tunk]

So stacking didn't really change anything, which got me thinking why.
It may be a issue with applying multiple thrust effects within the same thrust tick.

Luckily thrust ticks are pretty damn fast (~33ms) and overlapping beam ticks is easy enough, so can test that tomorrow.
If it works I can go for a 50ms/t stack.

 

[Argyle_Ninja]

I don't know if it was just a fluke, or some combination of how I was testing, but cannon / cannon /push seemed to yield a faster result than using beams, anyone else run across this, or am I just doing it wrong somehow? I'm mostly still in the design phase for the Raiders and the BaseStar, so working out the kinks of launching had been put to the back burner

 

[Loadout]

New Launcher for you all today, has some bugs in it but it otherwise works quite nicely. My goal with this series of launchers is to get all the wiring inside the rack itself, everything mechanical and logical in one tidy package that can be docked and logic'd in one quick package.

This is version 1, it was a bit buggy but it worked out for the most part...

Version 2 Gif;


This version is more proof of concept stage, it will become the same as the larger one size wise, later on. Thankfully it also has more compacted logic and is far less likely to break connections. Unlike the first one where virtually every spawning resulted in at least 1 if not 2 wireless blocks disconnecting. Such is the price to pay though for having 6 wireless connections per drone..

Why did I decide to flip the drones upward? It's for my up and coming Cruiser/Carrier hybrid which needs them to lay flat internally. It saves a bit of space inside that will be better served with otherwise shorter power reactor chains. Among other things...

Side note: the reason that delay block is on the rail is to prevent the part holding the drone from turning into a flipper. Which for some reason works amazingly well, but may throw off launches on actual ships(needs some testing to be sure) instead of stations. Removing it will launch the drone in a straight line about 150m from the rail.

 

[Raisinbat]

I am stuck on this thing Every time i spawn it in, it seems to generate errors completely at random. If somebody feels like taking a look at it that would be nice, but the problems seem to be with the wireless blocks not saving connections properly, or sometimes failing to update completely.

The lines with the drones docked work fine though, its the bay reloading the lines doing the wonky bits.
.sment download: https://www.mediafire.com/?n4ijzp033mw4ken

 

[BrotherLazarus]

New Launcher for you all today, has some bugs in it but it otherwise works quite nicely. My goal with this series of launchers is to get all the wiring inside the rack itself, everything mechanical and logical in one tidy package that can be docked and logic'd in one quick package.

This is version 1, it was a bit buggy but it worked out for the most part...

Version 2 Gif;


This version is more proof of concept stage, it will become the same as the larger one size wise, later on. Thankfully it also has more compacted logic and is far less likely to break connections. Unlike the first one where virtually every spawning resulted in at least 1 if not 2 wireless blocks disconnecting. Such is the price to pay though for having 6 wireless connections per drone..

Why did I decide to flip the drones upward? It's for my up and coming Cruiser/Carrier hybrid which needs them to lay flat internally. It saves a bit of space inside that will be better served with otherwise shorter power reactor chains. Among other things...

Side note: the reason that delay block is on the rail is to prevent the part holding the drone from turning into a flipper. Which for some reason works amazingly well, but may throw off launches on actual ships(needs some testing to be sure) instead of stations. Removing it will launch the drone in a straight line about 150m from the rail.

Just dropping a quick comment on your mic for future recording--got a chance to actually test the Derp Star and unless your dogs are wooly mammoth sized, they're not likely to be able to eat this. The reusable drink cup to the left is a full size 12 ounce so you can see it's absolutely enormous, but it sounds really clear. But the enormity should save it from the pups.

Spoiler: The Derp Star

On-topic: an all in one rack would be a godsend for lazy people like me.

 

[Loadout]

hmm.. was thinking of taking the all in one a step further.

making the rack all in one and then having a shell that's separate from the ship.

it'd be like a tea box... each box holds any number/kind of bags, each bag holds any kind of tea.

So your ship can pick a box that fits whatever style it wants, then you can fit any cartridge or clip into that which is compatible with that style.

Bit complicated but it allows for some crazy customization options on your ships. Want a skeleton ship? put a creepy ribbed shell on there and pick whatever drones you like! Want something armored and sleek? just pop off the old creeper and throw down a nice shiny betty! All without having to make or use a totally different ship.

Of course there are some design issues with this, but I'm already scribbling down notes on how to deal with those in short order.

In the end though you'd have nothing to worry about internally on your ship concerning drones, 2 wireless hookups and you're all set to roll! You could even add all the things needed to launch drones from a non-carrier ship in fairly little time this way. This would mean you'd have various options or styles to choose from and separate ammo clips that could launch in whatever way you wanted.

Gonna go ahead and start building one of these today, maybe I'll get photos up tonight.

 

[Loadout]

This morning I bring to you all a nice basic proof of concept in regards to my earlier post...

Here we have a simple outer shell, and an inner self contained launcher. Flip a switch and it's done. No mess no fuss.

But you can see here we have options available. Either launcher, both self contained, can be used in the same relative space.

So all that's needed for these is a simple hookup between rack and shell, then shell and ship. I imagine docking it would go something like... Rack -> docks to Shell -> connect two side by side wireless modules -> dock shell to ship -> connect shell to ship in the same manner.

The hardest parts in engineering the shell are the following;

1. Fit several kinds of racks
2. Line up the wireless block of the shell to an easily reached part of the ship
3. Removing the spent cartridge or clip

If you can beat those three challenges you can make these work.

 

[Loadout]

I was working on these last night and had an idea for another drone launcher...


Basically make an airlock into a launcher. It'll open the doors to launch and then automatically close them afterwards. It's not an entirely new design, but the idea of keeping the doors closed without user input is pretty good. It means the internals of your carrier won't be quite as exposed after a drone launch.

Also, I'm about to start work on another Drone Catapult, similar to my earlier slide launchers but turret mounted. When finished it should allow you to launch drones at will directly towards the enemy.

Another prototype on my list is a Torpedo Rack for drones, right now it holds 8 Kabutos and will actively push forward for about 12 seconds before it deploys them. This one will serve as a fire and forget rack that you can deploy and not worry about internal stuff moving about.

All of the above ideas are 'Plug-n-Play' with self contained logic.

 

[Tunk]

Has anyone had a play with enemy detection or thought about them on drones yet?

Short range directional detectors can fit in very small packages (I'm thinking about 3x3x3, gotta slap that particular idea together).
The only thing I can think of that might be useful for drones might be dynamic armour deployment or torpedo bombing however.

 

[Loadout]

Has anyone had a play with enemy detection or thought about them on drones yet?

Short range directional detectors can fit in very small packages (I'm thinking about 3x3x3, gotta slap that particular idea together).
The only thing I can think of that might be useful for drones might be dynamic armour deployment or torpedo bombing however.

if you can make a detector that sends out an on signal whenever an enemy is detected by all means please do so!

a great many failures have gone into this exact subject with only minimal success. rather than using it for just bombing though most of us have been trying to use detectors to find enemies and then deploy drones automatically. this would mean ai ships could launch thier own drones!

so yes, we've tried many times to make working detector units... none so far i know of are working though

 

[Tunk]

if you can make a detector that sends out an on signal whenever an enemy is detected by all means please do so!

a great many failures have gone into this exact subject with only minimal success. rather than using it for just bombing though most of us have been trying to use detectors to find enemies and then deploy drones automatically. this would mean ai ships could launch thier own drones!

so yes, we've tried many times to make working detector units... none so far i know of are working though

And here I was thinking they were just interesting toys
EDU's are relatively simple in concept, at the heart of it we are just detecting a change in a known physical system.

For example my miniature enemy detection system relies on the collision of a turret attached to a rotator, this changes the timing of the rotator activation and is used to signal a detection.
Similar concepts can be applied with regular rail systems and turrets in various ways, if any change in the system results in a irregularity on a signal it can be used.

Unfortunately they can be prone to false positives, so several need to be combined to provide a strong positive.

 

[Sgtwisky]

I've been thinking about using some EDU's myself. Have a base concept that would allow 1 (maybe need 2) turrets to actavate a launch. Was planning on using MADER's (Mobile Automated Drone Engagement Racks) along with MTP's (Mobile Turret Platforms) for a bit of area denial. They would come in handy for defending key sectors and locations from enemy hands while I'm logged off or on the other side of the galaxy.

Next day off from work I have, I think I will try and get a proff of concept working on the MADER. Then maybe work out some ideas for the MTP's that will provide support.

 

[StormWing0]

There's several enemy detectors floating around on the content section right now but they've got a ways to go if you want to make sure they don't error out a lot.

 

[Loadout]

So I downloaded some of those EDUs off the community content and will be testing them out soon enough, in the meantime though I've setup the basics of...

The Drone catapult(Beta phase)

This little nuisance will, (hopefully) with an EDU, fire off a weapons platform(Dumb-Bell) which lets turreted drones do their thing with some extra protection. Alternatively it can shoot a Smart-Bell which will track and follow an enemy while allowing the on-board drones to do what they do best. Either way the catapult will take up a medium sized turret slot on a ship.

The benefit of this is allowing an existing battleship to have a drone launcher without having to totally redesign everything. Simply connect an ON switch to it's wireless block and let the drones fly.

Torpedo Rack(Alpha phase)

The Torpedo Rack is based off my old skoom-pedo which for political reasons could not be released. In it's simplest form it allows a player to drop a rack of drones and have them scoot or skoom along towards an enemy for a certain period of time, by default this one goes for about 12 seconds. After said time it will deploy it's drones and stop all activity, so it's easier to recover.

These can effectively bombard an enemy with drones from long distance. Making a great opening move for players who want to flank or distract an enemy.

 

[Fireshock]

I spent a lot of time trying to achieve highest possible drone efficiency. I define effeciency as battle strength/material cost ratio. Reason for focusing on that being that drones are only expensive single time use weapon in starmade.

Current best result is a drone with (103/-/- AMC/-/- single output) offense and (3 layers of standard armor in front, 3 layers of basic hull at sides and 1 layer of basic hull at back) deffense, no shields.
Tests have shown that it is atleast 3 times more cost effective than other drones from this thread. Mainly because nobody updated them after the armor and explosion updates. I didn't even take in to account how rare rammet and sertise are, so this is just a minimal estimate.

I think that shields have no more place on drones. If you want your drones to be even considerable for cost effectivenes you will have to sacrifice their volume and mass(increase both of them) by implementing armor deffense instead of shields.