The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Loadout]

Actually, I ran into a snag and am going to have to build an aesthetic shell around the rather boxy station and was going to ask some advice... I'm considering building drone racks into the station with a launch command access in the control room that peels back a blast door and lets them swarm out instead of dedicated turrets on a station that is neither intended for being shot at, nor intended to really shoot at anything. Is that something viable, or should I just post a couple carriers nearby?

It's a wonderful idea to include drone racks on your stations. My question though is what launch method you want to use? with stations you have the additional option of using warp gates. These can launch MASSIVE racks of drones across equally MASSIVE areas of space. You could literally use your station as an offensive weapon with those, additionally they can be set to defend the current sector or a nearby sector of space from said gate. Seeing as how you can warp into the same sector and actually have a rack of drones surprise any would be player based assaults.

Also, your next project should be turning those sledges into hammer shapes. That way you can mash a button and say, "It's hammer-time!" or something equally apropos.

Bonus points! Have midgard move a giant disco ball with flickering lights out from behind some obscenely large wall as this happens. :D

 

[BrotherLazarus]

It's a wonderful idea to include drone racks on your stations. My question though is what launch method you want to use? with stations you have the additional option of using warp gates. These can launch MASSIVE racks of drones across equally MASSIVE areas of space. You could literally use your station as an offensive weapon with those, additionally they can be set to defend the current sector or a nearby sector of space from said gate. Seeing as how you can warp into the same sector and actually have a rack of drones surprise any would be player based assaults.

Also, your next project should be turning those sledges into hammer shapes. That way you can mash a button and say, "It's hammer-time!" or something equally apropos.

Bonus points! Have midgard move a giant disco ball with flickering lights out from behind some obscenely large wall as this happens. :D

Honestly, I hadn't even thought that far ahead, when it comes to launch method. I just thought of maybe equipping drone racks to the base instead of turrets, as it doesn't have incredibly high shield regen or power reserves--it's a non-combat research and production yard (RP-wise) and that shows in the stats--just one of my "appropriately sized" turrets would zero out the station's power reserves. Hit the button, detach however many drones are sitting there, allowing a cloud of cranky robot children to go "this is my homebase, there are many like it but this one is mine!"

Irrelevant note: I'm probably not going to upload Midgard Station (the lack of forethought left it somewhat broken), but once I find my graph paper I'm going to build a station designed around roleplaying to upload--I'm having a lot of fun hiding easter eggs on display modules (one of them on the Midgard has the first lines of Zork!) and even though what "furniture" there exists is made mostly of angle cubes, it doesn't look too horrible; and outside of the drone research sharing designs has been at the top of my fun list. That station will have a series of defensive drone hangars that can be launched from the command center... which means I'll probably end up asking around here for contributors to the "universal adaptor allows any drone rack to be mounted in the hangars" bit.

Spoiler: Seriously, Zork

That "bed" is incomplete, the complete model uses angle blocks as well so it looks... a little bit sort of like a bed. Sorta.

This is the opposite recovery ward, and you can see how the angle blocks make them sorta look a little like beds... if you squint just right.

As to that last part about the Sledge... I actually think it would be highly amusing to make a docking stalk after reshaping them a bit to look like a 10 pound sledge, and then a docking stalk that looks like the haft...

 

[Tunk]

Introducing the Stumpy heavy bomber.

Spoiler: almost rhymes with toad?

Look at that ugly little thing.

Note: don't try this when not at home.

Feed your stumpy regularly

The Stumpy is a 12x8x11 heavy bomber drone weighing in at 64.5 mass with 111.5 thrust.
Pretty poor shielding, far less than I would like but this ugly little critter should never be seen up close by your enemy anyway unless you want to offend them.
3795 total shields, 143 regen.

Its primary weapon is a missile - beam - explosive round at 1:1:1 ratio, 55 blocks each.
This drone outputs a 148500 damage missile every 45 seconds on the mark, for a total power usage of 742500 energy per shot.
The power storage is provided via a accumulator array tuned for a 45 second recharge time.

The secondary weapon are two 120 dps cannons along the top, primarily to prevent bobby getting bored between bombs.

Really want to ruin someone's day?
Show them your Stumpy.

 

[Loadout]

Introducing the Stumpy heavy bomber.

Spoiler: almost rhymes with toad?

View attachment 16103
Look at that ugly little thing.
View attachment 16104
Note: don't try this when not at home.
View attachment 16105
Feed your stumpy regularly

The Stumpy is a 12x8x11 heavy bomber drone weighing in at 64.5 mass with 111.5 thrust.
Pretty poor shielding, far less than I would like but this ugly little critter should never be seen up close by your enemy anyway unless you want to offend them.
3795 total shields, 143 regen.

Its primary weapon is a missile - beam - explosive round at 1:1:1 ratio, 55 blocks each.
This drone outputs a 148500 damage missile every 45 seconds on the mark, for a total power usage of 742500 energy per shot.
The power storage is provided via a accumulator array tuned for a 45 second recharge time.

The secondary weapon are two 120 dps cannons along the top, primarily to prevent bobby getting bored between bombs.

Really want to ruin someone's day?
Show them your Stumpy.

Its a nice little drone you got there, that said its more of a blitz drone than an ironclad. Trying to move away from medium/heavy because the names are misleading. For instance keptick 's 1st generation soul drone is 149 mass, but it has about the same shielding as your Stumpy. On the other hand my Kabuto drone is roughly the same mass and has nearly 7x the shielding your drone has. To say they're all heavies would be misleading. Once I post my video regarding this I'll have more of a thorough explanation.

some Little quibbles;

• Cannons and missiles on the same drone won't work well. You will often destroy your own missiles. Try lasers instead!
• regen is too much, it'll eat your power supply and not really help survival at all, try adding more capacitors instead.
• Waaaaaaay too much thrust on that guy, bobby will only use around 1.1:1 at best, you've got almost 2:1 thrust, just a waste of blocks.
• Two colors make stuff two times as awesome.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Two colors make stuff two times as awesome.

Hum...... *adds every color to drone* BEHOLD ! the most awesome drone in history ! *drone gets killed by monocolor drone*

 

[Tunk]

Thanks, first time designing and building a combat drone.
Lots of things to improve on.
Didnt know about the bobby thrust issue so definitly going to take that into account with mkii.

I understand 'heavy' generally being related to armour, I should probably change that to something more appropriate for its oversized weapon.

Never had issues with the drone shooting down its own missiles in testing, had more trouble from nearby ams attached to various things.
Its a non-slaved cannon so it isnt outputting a wall of fire or anything.

The power scheme on this thing is so crazy that I can afford lots more rechargers/thrust, but yeah I was thinking the same last night about the chargers as well.
Couple k more shields is going to be more useful, could probably drop the power output down for even more.

The stumpy is the first in a series of drones Ive had rattling around and I wanted to play with the bomber concept first, you are right that it is a blitz/alpha drone.
I hope to introduce its ugly little brothers soon with lessons learned applied.

 

[Sgtwisky]

One drone idea I was playing around with, was having micro anti-personal drones. Granted, they have very little use atm except for griefing random pilots. One day I hope they will be useful for "invasions" of planets, or entering and fighting inside ships with them. For the moment, they make good chaff for other lock on drones and heat seeking missiles.

Edit:
Another use that I just thought up.... could micro drones be used as AMS drones? a good cloud might improve the survival rate of drones that come under fire from missiles. Maybe even help defend the carrier? Just a random thought I just had. Drones I am using for micro drones are just a 2 block cannon cannon (one block each cannon) the minium computers/AI and a few motherboard blocks to help it look better.

 

[Loadout]

Thanks, first time designing and building a combat drone.
Lots of things to improve on.
Didnt know about the bobby thrust issue so definitly going to take that into account with mkii.

I understand 'heavy' generally being related to armour, I should probably change that to something more appropriate for its oversized weapon.

Never had issues with the drone shooting down its own missiles in testing, had more trouble from nearby ams attached to various things.
Its a non-slaved cannon so it isnt outputting a wall of fire or anything.

The power scheme on this thing is so crazy that I can afford lots more rechargers/thrust, but yeah I was thinking the same last night about the chargers as well.
Couple k more shields is going to be more useful, could probably drop the power output down for even more.

The stumpy is the first in a series of drones Ive had rattling around and I wanted to play with the bomber concept first, you are right that it is a blitz/alpha drone.
I hope to introduce its ugly little brothers soon with lessons learned applied.

Yeah the bobby thrust thing totally took me by surprise too, never realized it till I ran some speed tests with different but same mass drones. It's around 1.1:1 but if you knock it down to an even 1:1 ratio you'll probably never see the difference. The real difference is only in how quickly they get to a dead stop and then move the other way, something drones will rarely do, except on a few occasions... like flying past a random enemy player, and needing to U-turn :P

You probably never saw the issue because you haven't tested them in large groups. It'll become more noticeable in groups of 40. Random missiles will vanish that's when you know its occurring. Try setting the colors to something opposite like blue cannons and red missiles. When the reds vanish you'll know it was your cannons taking them out.

You can also set your ams to ignore friendly missiles in serverconfig text file. Believe it was line 112.

Try not to go too overboard on power generation, you only need enough to move and shoot, any extra could be useful space for other stuff. Remember these guys are cramped little buggars and you gotta be wary of what you can fit and what you'll actually use. I do this all the time so it's a constant battle and not really a rookie mistake or anything. Just one of the challenges we drone designers face.

Glad to hear it, I look forward to its "ugly brothers", although hopefully they'll get some paint on there to look less 'ugly' and more 'OP'.
:D

One drone idea I was playing around with, was having micro anti-personal drones. Granted, they have very little use atm except for griefing random pilots. One day I hope they will be useful for "invasions" of planets, or entering and fighting inside ships with them. For the moment, they make good chaff for other lock on drones and heat seeking missiles.

Edit:
Another use that I just thought up.... could micro drones be used as AMS drones? a good cloud might improve the survival rate of drones that come under fire from missiles. Maybe even help defend the carrier? Just a random thought I just had. Drones I am using for micro drones are just a 2 block cannon cannon (one block each cannon) the minimum computers/AI and a few motherboard blocks to help it look better.

I have something similar floating around my work areas after the great missile fiasco of march '15. Gotta say they're useful little buggars for sure. Its just really tough to make them look awesome. x) like tiny borg cubes that spew ams everywhere. <_< SUPER cost efficient ams though.

 

[Lecic]

Another use that I just thought up.... could micro drones be used as AMS drones?

In Blood and Steel, my team had a carrier of drones we named "Siphlid" drones. Each one had 2 PD turrets. They improved survivability in testing, but were unfortunately not very helpful in the actual fight due enemies who used missiles using swarmers. We still won, though. :P

EDIT- I should clarify these were not PD-only drones. They had cannon/pulse/punch as well. They just had PD for extra survivability.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Here is my micro drone:
It weighs in at just 5.1 mass. So far its only good for pilot killing but I assume with its cannon + cannon it can do a bit of missile defense. Its not the prettiest, but for its size I can't call it ugly ether. Its weapon of course does nothing to anything with a shield. But it was a fun project to see how small of a drone I could make. Its box dimensions are 7 long 3 high and 5 wide.

As a side note, I have found it entertaining to fly around in this, shooting shielded targets. For some reason it feels like I am doing great things XD.

 

[Argyle_Ninja]

http://starmadedock.net/content/cylon-raider.3369/
Older variant, think we've optimized the ol' toaster a few times since, but mostly a proof of concept. I've been having issues with Java, and Java's been having issues with me, sooo if anybody would like to throw 100 of these in the ring with something meaty, lemme know how it goes? haha criticism of all shapes and sizes welcomed, just curious how the ol girl handles.

Spoiler: Raider

 

[Tunk]

AMS drones are actually remarkably simple, can be done in 9 blocks easy as coin drones.

 

[max stripe]

should i upload my jump drone testing platform?

 

[BrotherLazarus]

Here is my micro drone:
It weighs in at just 5.1 mass. So far its only good for pilot killing but I assume with its cannon + cannon it can do a bit of missile defense. Its not the prettiest, but for its size I can't call it ugly ether. Its weapon of course does nothing to anything with a shield. But it was a fun project to see how small of a drone I could make. Its box dimensions are 7 long 3 high and 5 wide.

As a side note, I have found it entertaining to fly around in this, shooting shielded targets. For some reason it feels like I am doing great things XD.

I didn't even think of using the Mainboard blocks as aesthetic hull... that's really awesome. I shall now Steal borrow that and build more drones.

 

[Bee_Ri]

This sounds like a cool Idea

One drone idea I was playing around with, was having micro anti-personal drones. Granted, they have very little use atm except for griefing random pilots. One day I hope they will be useful for "invasions" of planets, or entering and fighting inside ships with them. For the moment, they make good chaff for other lock on drones and heat seeking missiles.

Edit:
Another use that I just thought up.... could micro drones be used as AMS drones? a good cloud might improve the survival rate of drones that come under fire from missiles. Maybe even help defend the carrier? Just a random thought I just had. Drones I am using for micro drones are just a 2 block cannon cannon (one block each cannon) the minium computers/AI and a few motherboard blocks to help it look better.

But I think the reverse might be even better, Counter AMS Drones!
1 core, 1 thruster, 1 power, 1 missile, 1 cannon
Repeat as necessary

I can just imagine launching 30 of them and recreating the arrow scene from 300
with pointless missiles. The best part is that they might even do some damage if the enemy
inst moving too fast or too far away.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

This sounds like a cool Idea



But I think the reverse might be even better, Counter AMS Drones!
1 core, 1 thruster, 1 power, 1 missile, 1 cannon
Repeat as necessary

I can just imagine launching 30 of them and recreating the arrow scene from 300
with pointless missiles. The best part is that they might even do some damage if the enemy
inst moving too fast or too far away.

My Warrior prototype was similar to that on a smaller scale, 4 of the rapid fire dumbfire cannons (it's more of a cannon than a "missile" at that point, really). On singleplayer against AI targets, it's amazingly awesome and just shreds Isanths and stations. On servers in multiplayer... or against player designs... it's just useless missiles that make the server weep tears of broken CPU.

 

[Bee_Ri]

My Warrior prototype was similar to that on a smaller scale, 4 of the rapid fire dumbfire cannons

It would be interesting to see how many missile tubes on could run from a single or double
power reactor. Just thinking that the most expensive part of this setup is the computers
and as of the latest update the increase for multiple groups is significantly lower.
Hence, more missile tubes per drone = cost effectiveness

 

[BrotherLazarus]

It would be interesting to see how many missile tubes on could run from a single or double
power reactor. Just thinking that the most expensive part of this setup is the computers
and as of the latest update the increase for multiple groups is significantly lower.
Hence, more missile tubes per drone = cost effectiveness

All of my drone designs used single-computer group weapon systems instead of multiple for space concerns, then after I read this thread and started commenting I found out that was the right way to go. Using advanced armor was bad though, even though it was just a creative mode kneejerk.

 

[Bee_Ri]

All of my drone designs used single-computer group weapon systems instead of multiple for space concerns, then after I read this thread and started commenting I found out that was the right way to go. Using advanced armor was bad though, even though it was just a creative mode kneejerk.

I expect that in most cases single groups would be the way to go, but in this very
specific purpose, the whole point is to overwhelm AMS, so the answer is:
FIRE ALL THE MISSILES!

In most other situations, single groups is probably better. Thoughts anyone?

 

[BrotherLazarus]

I expect that in most cases single groups would be the way to go, but in this very
specific purpose, the whole point is to overwhelm AMS, so the answer is:
FIRE ALL THE MISSILES!

In most other situations, single groups is probably better. Thoughts anyone?

See, I'm a hard sci-fi fan, I rather enjoy David Weber books and so...

I have to have ALL THE MISSILES! In broadsides if I can, so I can spew out hundreds at a time. My mods in GSB were subsequently highly unpleasant to play against (though damage was scaled and balanced!)... and so my first drone had 4 missiles with one computer, decent damage spread. The Sledge (with Loadout's assistance) now does better and has seeking arrays... but sadly only fires two missiles at once, so I need more of them. A lot more.