The ultimate drone R&D thread

[alterintel]

Interesting thought but I'm not sure that would work. Since the ship core attaches to the ship yard not a rail docker.

ah, Good point. My bad

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I haven't played around with Shipyards much at all, would it be possible to put the logic ship side, so when the ship is built it the undocking logic kicks in?

 

[nightrune]

I haven't played around with Shipyards much at all, would it be possible to put the logic ship side, so when the ship is built it the undocking logic kicks in?

The problem is it's docked to the core not a rail docker. You can't logic undock a core as far as I'm aware.

 

[Keptick]

The problem is it's docked to the core not a rail docker. You can't logic undock a core as far as I'm aware.

In addition, you'd have to manually link wireless logic to be able to activate the ship-side logic.... So it wouldn't be any better than manually undocking.

 

[Loadout]

So in other news, I released a new drone carrier. It's built up of about 85% prefabricated parts. The whole thing took only about a week to complete. I included some great features with this carrier including;

• easy drone deployment - racks will automatically undock drones without wireless signals
• simplistic but very reliable launch mechanism - drones will never get stuck in tubes, 100% launch rate
• easy to use control setup
• loads of cameras to see everything going on inside and out

You can find the Veld under CC here.

My next project is to attempt the creation of a prefab Hangar part. One that can be copy-pasted to make quick and easy hangars that are also detailed. That would allow me to rapidly build a hangar for drones and spend far less time on it than I currently do, which is a considerable amount [of time].

 

[Sgtwisky]

Just wondering Loadout, how do you launch the drones without wireless logic? Do you use collision from another docked entities? That's the method I use currently after finding wireless to be derpy sometimes.

 

[StormWing0]

Push beams are one way to do it.

 

[Sgtwisky]

How would a push beam from the mother ship activate something on a rack?

Edit: I said "Launch" I meant "Undock"

 

[Loadout]

Just wondering Loadout, how do you launch the drones without wireless logic? Do you use collision from another docked entities? That's the method I use currently after finding wireless to be derpy sometimes.

It's actually really simple. Nothing fancy at all, there's a timer connected to an activation block. While the rack is docked the block is active, after it undocks it triggers the timer and then a NOT gate at the end un-docks all the drones. In my testing so far, it's 100% reliable. No messy collisions, and no crazy wireless that breaks itself whenever too many are around.

If you'd like to see it in action you can download the Veld in the CC area of the site and give it a looksy. The whole thing is mind-blowingly easy to setup. Not to mention versatile and reliable.

 

[Keptick]

FLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETS soon™

I can't wait :D

 

[Sgtwisky]

My only regret is it makes some of our R&D obsolete. Painful the march of technology and science can be.

But... FLEETS ! Hell to the Yes !

 

[Top 4ce]

My only regret is it makes some of our R&D obsolete. Painful the march of technology and science can be.

But... FLEETS ! Hell to the Yes !

But it's a whole new chapter of R&D! It's like you guys been training for this...

 

[Keptick]

But it's a whole new chapter of R&D! It's like you guys been training for this...

Yea!!!! Still, drone racks will probably become obsolete with the update. o7 you served us well oh little contraption.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Well, I could see racks serving a good purpose still. If you lost most of your drones, it would be faster to build them and the minimal rack, in order to load them back onto the ship. OR maybe just a "Loading Rack" that releases drones into the "capture zone" of the carrier. So basically drone loaders instead of pure racks. That way we don't have to produce each drone and fly it to the ship if they got wreaked.

 

[Keptick]

Well, I could see racks serving a good purpose still. If you lost most of your drones, it would be faster to build them and the minimal rack, in order to load them back onto the ship. OR maybe just a "Loading Rack" that releases drones into the "capture zone" of the carrier. So basically drone loaders instead of pure racks. That way we don't have to produce each drone and fly it to the ship if they got wreaked.

Yea, that's pretty much the only reason I could see for using racks. It all depends if we can undock stuff from shipyards automatically or not (because if we can then racks will become unnecessary)

 

[StormWing0]

lol you guys could use the drone racks as carriers. Launch a whole rack into space as a defensive platform the drones come and go from.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Depending on how fast the new rails are drone racks may still have a use, undocking large groups using rails still takes a while.

On a side note now that we have an actual system for carriers confirmed I don't have an excuse not to bother fixing the logic in the one I've been working on. Good news all round.

 

[kiraen]

I thought drone racks were for launching.
The new ai guide rails are for landing.
Even so, wouldn't you just be able to replace the old rails with the new rails to get the racks working better?

(I really have no idea what I'm talking about, so ignore me if I'm being stupid )

 

[Pacific_Jim]

We don't really know too much about the system currently in the works, other than it using an invisible, massless rail block, so it's hard to say. Pure speculation, but I would imagine you'd use it to return ships straight back to wherever they were originally docked, which would make racks a bit impractical.

 

[nightrune]

We don't really know too much about the system currently in the works, other than it using an invisible, massless rail block, so it's hard to say. Pure speculation, but I would imagine you'd use it to return ships straight back to wherever they were originally docked, which would make racks a bit impractical.

I don't think it'll make them impractical just a bit harder to use.