The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Sgtwisky]

SO... Loadout, what method actually launches the drones? or do they just release and get thrown around by the rotation collision? Or are you using push beam or pulse or something?

 

[Loadout]

SO... Loadout, what method actually launches the drones? or do they just release and get thrown around by the rotation collision? Or are you using push beam or pulse or something?

The latter. Release, then collide. Was going to launch them more slowly with a slide-lock-slide mechanism... it was too fiddly and I couldn't get it to work quite right...[Read: damn thing wouldn't detach for w/e reason]

The collision throws them out pretty quickly, although it's not really needed. The whole setup right now I have working without rotation and they just float around the ship and begin attacking en-masse. Actually hiding them behind those plates, it shields them long enough to let them acquire their target and then begin the hunt.

Without some sort of cover or shielding I find most drone releases end up with a few casualties right off the bat. The plates prevent against that, and was really the whole reason I started this deliciously evil project.

The optional version I'll have working hopefully tomorrow afternoon, same principal it just trades the center row for alot of missiles. Great for making mince meat out of enemies and releasing nasty helpers as well. :D

 

[Snk]

Not many new things being posted here lately so I think i'll share my latest launcher.



It's a rotating drone rack with 120 drones on 4 panels. It's also modular and has the option of trading a few drones for 48 missile launchers! =)

Oh god

 

[Keptick]

If only the gif tool wasn't such a laggy mess... You should try recording it Loadout , I want to see what it looks like at normal fps levels :D

 

[AtraUnam]

If only the gif tool wasn't such a laggy mess... You should try recording it Loadout , I want to see what it looks like at normal fps levels :D

I find setting Starmade to real-time priority in task manager and capping the fps at 30 can make the gif recorder work a lot better.

 

[jorgekorke]

I guess you found the solution of the issue of someone jumping away when the drones are released : lag them out. Haha

 

[EricBlank]

Good way to get your ship and all your drones deleted by an admin, to boot.

Any chance of getting an upload of that system to experiment with?

 

[Loadout]

Good way to get your ship and all your drones deleted by an admin, to boot.

Any chance of getting an upload of that system to experiment with?

Ask and ye shall receive...

Have fun with it, I dumped the full rotation cause it was bothersome to get it flush on the Savannah. =/ Another design, albeit smaller is in progress, or at least in the Que. As I'm trying to get beams working again, although they have become bugged. Quite bothersome really, the whole mega power consumption thing.

 

[Loadout]

Spectacular news gents! Drone tech continues to evolve over here at L.S.D. with our latest installment of goodies.



The above is a solution to a problem I have had for some time now. Whenever I try to launch drones one at a time from a rail, the next in line always bumps and rams into the first. This causes a chain reaction and the whole thing usually becomes a large angry mess.

Now in order to correct that, I had to logically force the group of drones that wasn't about to be launched to stop in place. Easiest way to do that? Change the direction of the rail! Thus the slide and lock was born.

But wait, that's not the only problem this solves. When reaching the end of the rail drones had to be pushed upwards, downwards, sideways and basically any which way but forwards! That's kind of annoying, but easy enough to deal with. Earlier today I said I had, had enough of that rubbish, and decided they were going to launch straight forwards no matter what it took. Well after about an hour of mucking about I finally came up with a sliding push beam that does the trick. I tried rotating cause it's faster but the logic is more complicated and a bit too finicky, the slightest off beat and the whole thing breaks. This one is a substantially more robust.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Interesting. I had all but given up on launching drones "in line" like you have done. I tip my hat to you Loadout.

I have a couple of questions for the Drone R&D group.

1. Due to the HP system, is there anything to keep in mind with drones? For example many have noted that having advanced armor in the front of ships is a good idea, does this apply?

2. Has anyone noticed any changes that needed to be made to drones based on the new mass of blocks? Example: Using less thrusters to gain the same thrust:mass ratio as earlier updates.

Just thought I would ask and save myself some time if someone already had the answer.

 

[Loadout]

Interesting. I had all but given up on launching drones "in line" like you have done. I tip my hat to you Loadout.

I have a couple of questions for the Drone R&D group.

1. Due to the HP system, is there anything to keep in mind with drones? For example many have noted that having advanced armor in the front of ships is a good idea, does this apply?

2. Has anyone noticed any changes that needed to be made to drones based on the new mass of blocks? Example: Using less thrusters to gain the same thrust:mass ratio as earlier updates.

Just thought I would ask and save myself some time if someone already had the answer.

As far as I've seen and tested so far...

1. No real difference, having advanced armor slows down some of the weaker shots, but alot of the time they'll be side swiped by missiles and the like. Which makes frontal only armor kind of moot.

1b. As for HP, I've upped my armor to standard to help that, but honestly not much has changed. Core shots will still nuke ships regardless of remaining hp. I've seen it a dozen plus times with larger ships vs drones. When the drones win, there is almost always large amounts of armor and structure hp remaining.

2. For the most part armor weighs the drone down only a little bit, it balances for the most part quite well. Hypothetically if you have a high armor drone you would need extra thrusters to stay at the same ratio, however given how much lighter everything is, and how 80-90% of any drone is going to be systems, it's unlikely that when updating older drones they would need more (or less) thrust.

TLDR;
In all likelihood you won't have to change the thrust on your drones.

Hp and front heavy armor are a bit of a moot point, your drones will still be cored or nuked as usual. Hp is kind of a joke like that.

Just my longwinded two cents. ^_^

 

[Sgtwisky]

Cool, thanks for the info.

NOW, I have also been tinkering with intership logic, effect blocks and drone launching. I have discovered that you can make a drone launch under its own power. I am using a method where the rails act more like the old docking system. I am not moving the drones. When I activate the launch button (inner ship remote) it sends a command to the drone rack vie wireless logic. The drone rack then undocks the drones. Each dock has a wireless logic block, as do my drones. When the drones undock they receive the signal to their clocks that activate the passive push effect. Thus forcing them to take off in the direction the dock is facing. Once I deactivate my inner ship remote it turns off the signal to the rack, which then turns off the signal to the drones and lets the bobby just use thrusters. (if only I could recall them like this!)

Doing it this way I no longer need any push beams or push pulses or any of that stuff. I have yet to test it with a full rack though. Only with a single drone. I plan on beginning construction of the rack now. If all goes well this should create a fairly lag free launch, and allow me to launch the entire rack, or multiple racks (depending on carrier setup) quickly.

Will post an update when I get a working prototype built.

 

[Loadout]

Sgtwisky
Anytime, us Drone-gineers should stick together =)

Hmm... from what it sounds like you're saying I have an older prototype or two that is VERY similar. Albeit without wireless logic. Have you seen my old Dune class ship or Scorpion launchers? They do almost exactly what you're attempting to achieve with a multi-stage launch mechanism. Although both were built like 12 versions ago and haven't got true "wireless" logic to them.

If not I can upload one to my dropbox relatively shortly, just have to track down the old blueprint.

To be honest I would love to see a drone be able to launch itself with little to no interaction from the carrier vessel but I feel there will always need to be something to give them a little shove in the right direction.

This actually gives me another insane idea... off to develop more wacky technology!

 

[ltmauve]

Once I deactivate my inner ship remote it turns off the signal to the rack, which then turns off the signal to the drones and lets the bobby just use thrusters.

Why turn off the push pulse? Last I heard the AI won't use full thrust so using defensive push was good for dodging.

 

[Sgtwisky]

OK results from testing my theory are in. it does work... BUT you can only have 2 entities linked via wireless logic.... whichever drone I connect last is the only one to launch. This is with each drone having their own wireless logic block on them, and near their dock. I'm not connecting them all to 1 block or something. BUT, a person could still use a clock on the drone to force it forward anyway, not sure how that will effect them in combat though. For example if the thrust from the effect is too much will they just collide with the enemy ship? causing a lagstorm?

EDIT:

Wish we could attach a block to a ship that detected weather it was docked or not.

EDIT 2:
I don't remember those prototypes. would love to take a look.

 

[StormWing0]

Hint for those trying to link wifi blocks, single activation block linked into one wifi block for each ship or drone you are launching. Yes it's annoying we can't use just one but it is the only work around I can think of off hand.

 

[Sgtwisky]

wait, so having a separate activation block for each wireless block allows all of them to work? I must test this ! I origionaly was going to do that but thought "I can do it with one and make it smaller!". Guess I shot myself in the foot. Time to continue testing. If all else fails I have a plan B.

EDIT: wait just reread that, Yes each ships has its own set of wireless blocks. it still fails to launch more then one ship. On the rack I have 2 wireless logic blocks, each block is connected to a separate wireless logic block on a drone. so far only the drone I link last to its block will launch. all others will just undock and sit there. From what I have observed in my testing, you can not link more then one drone to a rack. Or rather no matter how many wireless logic blocks you have, you still can only link one entity to one of those blocks. You can then never link another entity to another block or it will remove the link that the first one had.

 

[Loadout]

Yeah that's a bit too much though, having to manually reconnect every single wifi block when reloading. Make sure that the wifi blocks are all on the replaceable rack instead of the main ship. You can tell a separate block on the main ship to goto the rack which then tells each drone. That way it's only a pain once... and whenever you reload a rack, but still you only have to reconnect once.

In other news, my starmade game exploded because of some window position error that randomly popped up. So I probably won't be able to work on my latest idea for some time. Basic premise of it was to detach remotely using the method above and then have panels underneath the drones flip outwards like a pinball bumper and thrust my minions outwards into the depths of space.

*heavy sigh* sadly that won't be happening till much later tonight, around 7 hours from now I imagine.

Sgtwisky The dune was uploaded to community content quite a long time ago, it should still be there... checking...found it! The racks on the back end are extremely old but may provide some inspiration for your own.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Alright. Scrapping current wireless logic design in favor of slightly different system. Concept is pretty simple.
1. All ships undock.
2. Undocking activates mini ships that "bump" into a triger area on each drone.
3. Trigger area does same job wireless logic did before.

Will let you guys know how well it works out. It also has the advantage of not needing to link/relink docks and ships every time you spawn a rack.

 

[Loadout]

Alright. Scrapping current wireless logic design in favor of slightly different system. Concept is pretty simple.
1. All ships undock.
2. Undocking activates mini ships that "bump" into a triger area on each drone.
3. Trigger area does same job wireless logic did before.

Will let you guys know how well it works out. It also has the advantage of not needing to link/relink docks and ships every time you spawn a rack.

You'll be happy to know the bumper idea works out, which would help with the above plan. Granted there's no telling what way they'll end up going, but as long as the AI is on it'll find something to shoot at eventually.:D So adding an area trigger could work, although just having a logic clock (button -> not gate -> back to button) should work with a bit less fuss.

Unless you really only want the one push, though to be honest.... I think you may be wasting space on your drones with this. Something like shield harden or armor harden would be more useful in their survival. The occasional random push isn't going to save them much.

Side note: If the drones are actually exposed on the outside of your ship they'll fly off and attack stuff on their own. Push effect isn't even necessary.

On the crazy idea side...
Had just enough time after re-re-re-redownloading the game to give it a brief once over. End result, the flippers work by pushing the drones out of the way, but it's more effective with the little drones <30 mass. My larger kabuto/gryllos sized drones ~70 mass only spun around a bit in place more or less. I imagine with some extra work though I could get them to launch in a more favorable manner.