The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Tunk]

I've got a idea for a aams drone thats a bit more than spew missiles at a target.
Ams is effective against missiles heading directly towards or away, but are pretty poor when they are travelling at odd angles near the ams, ams will target a missile until it is dead.
Drones tend to orbit and aim directly at a target, so are in the perfect position to fire rockets at odd angles near the ams systems of the target.

A chaff canister should be doable in a 3x3x5, 4-8 rockets/second at semi-random angles.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

I've got a idea for a aams drone thats a bit more than spew missiles at a target.
Ams is effective against missiles heading directly towards or away, but are pretty poor when they are travelling at odd angles near the ams, ams will target a missile until it is dead.
Drones tend to orbit and aim directly at a target, so are in the perfect position to fire rockets at odd angles near the ams systems of the target.

A chaff canister should be doable in a 3x3x5, 4-8 rockets/second at semi-random angles.

Oooh. Porcupine... angle the launchers to fire to the left and right broadside-style so that they loop out, and the AMS does have issues with that... so it's like a little tiny missile submarine. This is a good idea, I shall have to attempt this (as an actual damaging mechanism rather than simply overwhelming AMS).

 

[Loadout]

I've got a idea for a aams drone thats a bit more than spew missiles at a target.
Ams is effective against missiles heading directly towards or away, but are pretty poor when they are travelling at odd angles near the ams, ams will target a missile until it is dead.
Drones tend to orbit and aim directly at a target, so are in the perfect position to fire rockets at odd angles near the ams systems of the target.

A chaff canister should be doable in a 3x3x5, 4-8 rockets/second at semi-random angles.

The problem with Counter-AMS systems is that you're not actually countering the ams at all, most times a player designed AMS with eat through it all and take your drone with it. This is cause most players understand the value of not using bobby's ams setting and instead go for high volume projectiles to naturally counter missiles.

In other words, spray and pray.

See Gryllos. Idea is multiple shotguns firing a wall of projectiles, firing rockets everywhere only accomplishes the goal of not hitting the Gryllos and allowing it to eat your drones.

The most effective way of countering AMS? Kill it, with white hot lasery beams of firey dooO_Ooom! Otherwise just don't use missiles, they're over rated anyways.

BrotherLazarus
It doesn't work too well on drones, more so on larger ships. You will end up hitting your own drones if you fire laterally. Vertically though is worth a shot. For some reason that generally works better.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

The problem with Counter-AMS systems is that you're not actually countering the ams at all, most times a player designed AMS with eat through it all and take your drone with it. This is cause most players understand the value of not using bobby's ams setting and instead go for high volume projectiles to naturally counter missiles.

In other words, spray and pray.

See Gryllos. Idea is multiple shotguns firing a wall of projectiles, firing rockets everywhere only accomplishes the goal of not hitting the Gryllos and allowing it to eat your drones.

The most effective way of countering AMS? Kill it, with white hot lasery beams of firey dooO_Ooom! Otherwise just don't use missiles, they're over rated anyways.

BrotherLazarus
It doesn't work too well on drones, more so on larger ships. You will end up hitting your own drones if you fire laterally. Vertically though is worth a shot. For some reason that generally works better.

Ahh, yeah. Good point. But vertical launch missile sub knockoff might be amusing, especially if it's an assault drone of some kind with a forward facing weapon as well. Not efficient, but cool looking.

 

[Loadout]

Ahh, yeah. Good point. But vertical launch missile sub knockoff might be amusing, especially if it's an assault drone of some kind with a forward facing weapon as well. Not efficient, but cool looking.

Its actually a very effective launch method, as are negative launch missiles (downwards facing). You lose a bit of distance but they move far enough away from most fire that they rarely get shotgunned by indirect fire. As for efficient missiles in general are not very efficient, cannons are by far the most efficient weapons group.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

Its actually a very effective launch method, as are negative launch missiles (downwards facing). You lose a bit of distance but they move far enough away from most fire that they rarely get shotgunned by indirect fire. As for efficient missiles in general are not very efficient, cannons are by far the most efficient weapons group.

They're efficient compared to the hand-held rocket launcher!

 

[Loadout]

They're efficient compared to the hand-held rocket launcher!

lol'd

Small cannons are highly efficient because they cannot be shot down, hit with relatively immediate velocity (good speed + ai rarely misses), cost very little to operate, and prove exceptionally useful in a wide variety of circumstances. Missiles on the other hand will readily be shot down, move rather slowly, and often require large sums of power to fire (meaning you need to spend resources on power storage units). Not to mention they only achieve at most 1/2 to 2/3 of their maximum potential against an enemy hull. The last bit is because the explosion is a sphere and half the sphere hits dead space instead of hull, usually.

I have to say after a ton of testing over and over, cannons are always at the top of the list. Its a close follow up with beams as well, but missiles, as cool as they are, tend to trail behind both of them cause of their hefty drawbacks and poor scaling. At this point in time, beams are actually much better than missiles, which feels kinda strange imo.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

lol'd

Small cannons are highly efficient because they cannot be shot down, hit with relatively immediate velocity (good speed + ai rarely misses), cost very little to operate, and prove exceptionally useful in a wide variety of circumstances. Missiles on the other hand will readily be shot down, move rather slowly, and often require large sums of power to fire (meaning you need to spend resources on power storage units). Not to mention they only achieve at most 1/2 to 2/3 of their maximum potential against an enemy hull. The last bit is because the explosion is a sphere and half the sphere hits dead space instead of hull, usually.

I have to say after a ton of testing over and over, cannons are always at the top of the list. Its a close follow up with beams as well, but missiles, as cool as they are, tend to trail behind both of them cause of their hefty drawbacks and poor scaling. At this point in time, beams are actually much better than missiles, which feels kinda strange imo.

They might generally be more effective, but I've found that a good turret battery using the dumbfire and/or unslaved missile is a pretty impressive specialist siege cannon setup. My Resolute class hull has 4 tri-barrel unslaved missile "cannon" batteries, and then 8 more rapid dumbfire missile "cannon" batteries (each with 8 "barrels" IIRC), and as part of a specialized setup they do some frankly amazing damage. My initial strike damage is usually enough to instantly nuke about 2 million shield strength and then maybe 20% of the (generally 4-6 million) armor hitpoints on player craft/pirate stations. It also turns quickly enough to be brought to bear on corvette on up. It just takes a staggeringly large missile array to be worth it (though seriously, with overdrive and big enough "cannons" you're gouging out 6 block radius spheres with each impact which just chews the hell out of hull), making my main ship guns totally worthless for drones.

I think a lot more of the worth for some of these does come down to player proficiency, as I'm frankly terrible with rapid fire cannons but I'm great with the siege "cannon" setups like that.

 

[Loadout]

They might generally be more effective, but I've found that a good turret battery using the dumbfire and/or unslaved missile is a pretty impressive specialist siege cannon setup. My Resolute class hull has 4 tri-barrel unslaved missile "cannon" batteries, and then 8 more rapid dumbfire missile "cannon" batteries (each with 8 "barrels" IIRC), and as part of a specialized setup they do some frankly amazing damage. My initial strike damage is usually enough to instantly nuke about 2 million shield strength and then maybe 20% of the (generally 4-6 million) armor hitpoints on player craft/pirate stations. It also turns quickly enough to be brought to bear on corvette on up. It just takes a staggeringly large missile array to be worth it (though seriously, with overdrive and big enough "cannons" you're gouging out 6 block radius spheres with each impact which just chews the hell out of hull), making my main ship guns totally worthless for drones.

I think a lot more of the worth for some of these does come down to player proficiency, as I'm frankly terrible with rapid fire cannons but I'm great with the siege "cannon" setups like that.

they take chunks for sure, but only around 15 or so blocks, an equivalent cannon setup would likely punch through most of that enemies hull.

cannon cannon is better in smaller groups the large ones arent terribly impressive, try cannon damage pulse 1:1 instead of your dumbfire turrets. at the same size you should notice some impressive killing potential. most dont see the terrifying internal damage cannons do and only pay attention to the outside hull. when i get home ill post some photos of my glass test dummy with cannons vs missiles, that should shed some light on their marvels.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

they take chunks for sure, but only around 15 or so blocks, an equivalent cannon setup would likely punch through most of that enemies hull.

cannon cannon is better in smaller groups the large ones arent terribly impressive, try cannon damage pulse 1:1 instead of your dumbfire turrets. at the same size you should notice some impressive killing potential. most dont see the terrifying internal damage cannons do and only pay attention to the outside hull. when i get home ill post some photos of my glass test dummy with cannons vs missiles, that should shed some light on their marvels.

See, in all of my testing, my siege cannons (which is that cannon/pulse combo) did bugger all for damage because they shot through in a straight line and out the other side, while my "cannons" instead ate huge chunks out of internals and thus knocked stuff into Overheat faster. I'm thinking in large setups it really comes down to preference (while with big enough craft, the piercing effect might be great, on almost everything I make/shoot at the huge scoops tend to be more efficient overall) and what you encounter/build.

Same for my siege beams, etc... although I've -seen- some awesome arrays (picture to follow from a friend's beam-ship) I just haven't built one that impressive and imposing yet.

Spoiler: He's a'firin his laaazooor!

Everyone else seems to build better not-missile stuff than I do, but the only effective weapons I've built in Starmade at all are missile-based.

 

[Loadout]

See, in all of my testing, my siege cannons (which is that cannon/pulse combo) did bugger all for damage because they shot through in a straight line and out the other side, while my "cannons" instead ate huge chunks out of internals and thus knocked stuff into Overheat faster. I'm thinking in large setups it really comes down to preference (while with big enough craft, the piercing effect might be great, on almost everything I make/shoot at the huge scoops tend to be more efficient overall) and what you encounter/build.

Same for my siege beams, etc... although I've -seen- some awesome arrays (picture to follow from a friend's beam-ship) I just haven't built one that impressive and imposing yet.

Spoiler: He's a'firin his laaazooor!

Everyone else seems to build better not-missile stuff than I do, but the only effective weapons I've built in Starmade at all are missile-based.

Those lasers are always a sight to behold, if the problem is the ships you face aren't large enough try what your friend did with his lasers. More shots over a wider area as opposed to just one shot. Building a really nice weapon is always a matter of practice just like building good looking drones.

In fact, it's really just a try try try try again thing. A great many iterations or run-throughs go into it before you ever get it looking good. Just look at my Phaser fleas, it took 37 finished drones to get it to where it is now. Baby steps :P

PS. your friend most likely has his beams setup like this....

C = cannon, P = pulse...

P C P
P C P C P
C P C P C
P C P C P
P C P

That's a fairly simple setup and will fire off 9 shots, with the added advantage of not needing to find additional space for the slave modules. Assuming this setup you can gouge large hull portions just like a missile without the drawbacks. I'll post some pics in a bit...

 

[BrotherLazarus]

Those lasers are always a sight to behold, if the problem is the ships you face aren't large enough try what your friend did with his lasers. More shots over a wider area as opposed to just one shot. Building a really nice weapon is always a matter of practice just like building good looking drones.

In fact, it's really just a try try try try again thing. A great many iterations or run-throughs go into it before you ever get it looking good. Just look at my Phaser fleas, it took 37 finished drones to get it to where it is now. Baby steps :p

PS. your friend most likely has his beams setup like this....

C = cannon, P = pulse...

P C P
P C P C P
C P C P C
P C P C P
P C P

That's a fairly simple setup and will fire off 9 shots, with the added advantage of not needing to find additional space for the slave modules. Assuming this setup you can gouge large hull portions just like a missile without the drawbacks. I'll post some pics in a bit...

It's not really a size issue, I build things really densely (also I use that layout for my salvage beams, but I just can't seem to get the same damage per impact out of anything other than missile grids, I mean I'm really bad with everything else >.>; ) and my shots tend to just breeze through bulkheads when the ship is less than 40 blocks wide, so while it took about 30 minutes to knock out my Dauntless class frame with the siege beams (beams which blew up a planet easily >.<), with my Resolute class frame it was a matter of about 45 seconds. More practice is needed, but my time is currently spent between keeping my weekly updates on the 2vN facebook/youtube pages, catching up on trying all of the survival-sandbox-crafty games that I own on Steam (nevermind OFF of Steam), and then working on the two space stations in StarMade... I don't really have the time to build anything but the weapons systems I am good at making. *shrug*

Kind of a YMMV really. I may not be as efficient with my arrays, but what they lack in finesse they make up for in raw dakka.

Plus bringing an 80 missile broadside to bear and firing just -looks- cool.

 

[Loadout]

That's one missile group at about 540 modules. Only about 30 blocks were affected.

25 cannon groups, checkerboard style about 250 modules. Total blocks affected is approaching 50.

You can see the cannons chew through quite a bit more, although because there's a huge number of groups the cost is prohibitive, except on larger ships. However with drones and groups of 3-5 cannons the cost isn't as prohibitive but the benefits are still there. and the above shape was supposed to be more hexagon shaped but the spaces got removed...bleh <_<

 

[BrotherLazarus]

That's one missile group at about 540 modules. Only about 30 blocks were affected.

25 cannon groups, checkerboard style about 250 modules. Total blocks affected is approaching 50.

You can see the cannons chew through quite a bit more, although because there's a huge number of groups the cost is prohibitive, except on larger ships. However with drones and groups of 3-5 cannons the cost isn't as prohibitive but the benefits are still there. and the above shape was supposed to be more hexagon shaped but the spaces got removed...bleh <_<

Aha! That's why mine aren't effective... most of my siege cannons and such are single-barrel weapons. I only array missiles and salvage gear.

 

[Loadout]

Aha! That's why mine aren't effective... most of my siege cannons and such are single-barrel weapons. I only array missiles and salvage gear.

it's the single barrel that kills most ultra huge weapons. Split the barrels into around 4-5 and voila, but you already knew that. :P

 

[BrotherLazarus]

it's the single barrel that kills most ultra huge weapons. Split the barrels into around 4-5 and voila, but you already knew that. :p

I don't know why I didn't think of it before, since I knew it worked from my rocket and dumbfire spam arrays.

Now I'm gonna have to build a cannon broadside craft... or a broadside on each side of homing missiles, and then a spinal mounted 10-barrel siege cannon with explosive effect.

Edit: for some reason it keep guessing I'm using emotes, or using the wrong ones.

 

[Loadout]

I don't know why I didn't think of it before, since I knew it worked from my rocket and dumbfire spam arrays.

Now I'm gonna have to build a cannon broadside craft... or a broadside on each side of homing missiles, and then a spinal mounted 10-barrel siege cannon with explosive effect.

Edit: for some reason it keep guessing I'm using emotes, or using the wrong ones.

Overdrive > Explosive or if you're looking for FUN use Ion so your mini dumbfires can splat some armor.

Personally I'd put vertical missiles on the spine so they dont get in the way then use cannon turrets on the sides. You can limit their firing angles by putting stuff in the way so they can't turn. That way you've still got broadsides of a sort, they just don't miss as much. x)

 

[BrotherLazarus]

Overdrive > Explosive or if you're looking for FUN use Ion so your mini dumbfires can splat some armor.

Personally I'd put vertical missiles on the spine so they dont get in the way then use cannon turrets on the sides. You can limit their firing angles by putting stuff in the way so they can't turn. That way you've still got broadsides of a sort, they just don't miss as much. x)

I can probably do all of the above, since most of my spinal mounted artillery ends up running along the bottom of the ship. I might start doing something similar with my drones, making a generic base hull for each variant with a weapon shaped "slot" that I can put whatever weapon I want into it...

 

[Bee_Ri]

So apart from roleplay and fun, is there really any legitimate reason to use missiles
instead of cannons or beams? It seems that they are less powerful with less chance
to hit (courtesy of missing or AMS)

 

[BrotherLazarus]

So apart from roleplay and fun, is there really any legitimate reason to use missiles
instead of cannons or beams? It seems that they are less powerful with less chance
to hit (courtesy of missing or AMS)

Well, I have a (relatively) small nuke array grouping on one of my ships that does 300k damage across something like 40 blocks. In specialized setups missiles are still hugely effective--pick off their point defense first, and you can cripple a ship with nukes easily.