The ultimate drone R&D thread

[ltmauve]

Removing it will launch the drone in a straight line about 150m from the rail.

And why don't you want that? I though seperation from the mothership was a good idea immediately after launch.

 

[Loadout]

And why don't you want that? I though seperation from the mothership was a good idea immediately after launch.

the collision will, unless the mother-ship is easily 20,000 x the mass of the total drones, throw it severely off balance. Even then it'll probably still get chucked around, generally it's best to avoid collision launchers as the mechanics behind collisions are unpredictable at best. Usually what happens is the drone will detach, get stuck for a moment, and then spin around wildly out of control, and the mother ship will do the same as well until both are clear of each other.

This also comes with significant lag, so doing it with many drones is almost certain to kill your server.

Fireshock

Efficiency is such a loaded statement... that said, your missing a couple of important factors here.

To the victor go the spoils - In any battle, whomever wins can expect a huge payday. In the case of a drone war the winner can expect around 70-80% of their investment back. It may take a while, but recovering all those drones means you won't have to harvest all those mats again.

Ease of materials - end game, materials are so plentiful there's really no need to have a cost efficiency aspect to drones. The main premise of being cheap is not because of material difficulties in replacement, it's more of a time saving thing when getting started. Once built, your horde of drones can easily expect to be recovered after any successful engagement. Should you lose the entire horde, you can easily grab a world eater and make a few thousand more!

Out of date- A vast number of the drones under CC are so far out of date they really need to be redone, combine this with things labeled as drones but not really drones and you've got a hot mess. I myself have only recently updated one of four main drone designs under CC. The rest are all internal builds that I really should get around to releasing.


Side note; if you're having trouble finding a certain material, go search some asteroid belts nearby, each specific belt contains only four types of asteroids. Belt don't got the one you want? try another, once you've found it, it will always respawn in said belt. So Rammet and Sertise are actually fairly easy to get. Just keep on looking.

Now to update all my drones in CC cause they're really really old..

 

[BrotherLazarus]

the collision will, unless the mother-ship is easily 20,000 x the mass of the total drones, throw it severely off balance. Even then it'll probably still get chucked around, generally it's best to avoid collision launchers as the mechanics behind collisions are unpredictable at best. Usually what happens is the drone will detach, get stuck for a moment, and then spin around wildly out of control, and the mother ship will do the same as well until both are clear of each other.

This also comes with significant lag, so doing it with many drones is almost certain to kill your server.

Fireshock

Efficiency is such a loaded statement... that said, your missing a couple of important factors here.

To the victor go the spoils - In any battle, whomever wins can expect a huge payday. In the case of a drone war the winner can expect around 70-80% of their investment back. It may take a while, but recovering all those drones means you won't have to harvest all those mats again.

Ease of materials - end game, materials are so plentiful there's really no need to have a cost efficiency aspect to drones. The main premise of being cheap is not because of material difficulties in replacement, it's more of a time saving thing when getting started. Once built, your horde of drones can easily expect to be recovered after any successful engagement. Should you lose the entire horde, you can easily grab a world eater and make a few thousand more!

Out of date- A vast number of the drones under CC are so far out of date they really need to be redone, combine this with things labeled as drones but not really drones and you've got a hot mess. I myself have only recently updated one of four main drone designs under CC. The rest are all internal builds that I really should get around to releasing.


Side note; if you're having trouble finding a certain material, go search some asteroid belts nearby, each specific belt contains only four types of asteroids. Belt don't got the one you want? try another, once you've found it, it will always respawn in said belt. So Rammet and Sertise are actually fairly easy to get. Just keep on looking.

Now to update all my drones in CC cause they're really really old..

Your comment about efficiency beat me to the punch... my refined designs, while still ugly, are far more efficient with shield gens than they were with raw armor... maybe not as cost effective as most of the stuff here, but the Sledge is still absurdly powerful for what it is, how light it is, and how much it costs compared to the same tonnage of my turreted weapon systems.

 

[Tunk]

Introducing the DESU (directional enemy sensory unit)
Or you can go with DEDU.

Spoiler: No relation to a heterochromatic doll

This little fellow measures 3x3x3, requiring (LtR) 3x3,4x3,4x5 space to operate.
Can be modified to run in 3x3x2 + 4x5 at the cost of reliability.

I plan on using this in a torpedo bomber, bonus of also being a clock and low pass filter if you want to save space in other areas.

 

[Fireshock]

Side note; if you're having trouble finding a certain material, go search some asteroid belts nearby, each specific belt contains only four types of asteroids. Belt don't got the one you want? try another, once you've found it, it will always respawn in said belt. So Rammet and Sertise are actually fairly easy to get. Just keep on looking.

I have taken in to account asteroid belts. Rammet and Sertise spawn on blue asteroids(Larimar) which are so rare that you can give up on finding them reliably. Their only source are planets. That combined with a fact they are used to make shield capacitators which of you can never put enough on a ship is why I said shields shouldn't be on cost effective drones. My example drone only uses Canons. Which are made from Hylat. Which spawns on Ice Asteroids(Dolom). Which can be farmed in huge amounts at any time because they are very common in far outer asteroid belts.

You'r right here. I completly forgot to take in to account spoils of battle, enemy ship could easily outweigh cost of destroyed drones. But that's only if you win.
Still 3 times more effective is a lot. It's not just a made up number. I actualy counted material cost of all blocks single drone is made of and then spawned same material worth of drones against a flock of test opponent drones and later against solo ship and carefully compared the results.

If you want to compres the size of your drones to fit more of them on to a carrier even at a much higher material cost then shields are definetly way to go. Even though you could of made bigger carrier for same firepower while still being far cheaper. Effeciency is nothing to laugh at, if we both had same resources, carrier with my drones would be far more powerfull.

 

[TomW1605]

How would drones react if they didn't have a faction module? Would thay still work or would thay only work against factions with nutral as enemy?

Also would it work to make drones with no thrusters that would act as stasonety turrets?

 

[StormWing0]

They'll work just fine against pirates but that's about it.

 

[TomW1605]

And the no thrusters thing? Will that work?

 

[StormWing0]

If you have no thrusters and no other means of movement the AI will just sit there and spin but not move out from where it is. So yes this type of drone is as some call it a Satellite. Very handy for guarding things that don't get much traffic.

 

[Loadout]

Fireshock

the first part... how long is your reset time? once you clear a sector of asteroids and it unloads, it will respawn more of its ilk (instantly). you can literally fly around a belt until the end of time with the default reset timer. which means these asteroids are not at all rare in the least bit. They'll be in every sector of that asteroid belt... forever.

I have to wonder whether you're not used to asteroid farming in general, or if you're just a once and you're done sort of fellow. In any case, the asteroids which you have mentioned are very easy to find, if you know how to obtain them. I think your cost analysis may be a bit premature because of this.

that being said, cost efficiency is a negligible factor in carriers. by building any capital ship you're acknowledging there will be a substantial upkeep. the only major concerns you should have are how many drones and when to deploy them. Since cost effectively making a drone has nothing to do with how much you can cram into a single space, you have to look at not just costs, but returns on your investment.

This is why efficiency is a loaded word. A situation analysis is required on top of just cost, as well as results in their optimal AND sub optimal situations, with a weighted scale required to properly judge. Basically cost isn't the only factor here, even if A costs less than B how do we know that A performs better than B across the board in EVERY situation. Answer: we don't, judging purely by cost isn't effective in itself.

to say mine are cheaper! boom i win! cannot work as a definitive method. Your carrier is no more powerful than mine just cause your drones are lower cost. It may be easier to produce initially but that means little in the long run. The actual case may be quite the opposite really, I wouldn't know until I compare both carriers in action.

not to say that i haven't considered cost effectiveness, but I've come to the conclusion that the cost of the drones themselves is almost nothing after combat. Assuming you lose the combat you're out a ton of resources no matter what you were using, carrier, drones, battleship, etc. Since replacing an entire carrier is a costly endeavor the required mats for the drones will be substantially less, to the point where you don't even notice it anymore.

In the end of the combat you have to ask yourself, was my 1,000,000 credits worth of drones worth killing that 120,000,000 credit battleship? Or was it more acceptable losing 800,000 credits worth of drones because they couldn't get the job done.

 

[Fireshock]

I'm definetly once and done sort of fellow, lazy. I have no idea what respawn timer is on when I play on servers and big harvesters make them lag aswell. Could you please teach me how to find blue asteroids?

I'm building my personal flagship which will have 1/3 of it's space used for drones. Even without them it should be legit warship. So I gues you could call it a carrier. It will have around 12 heavy drones which I mean to use as expendable material. 12 because I dont want it to cause lag when used. I'm too lazy to pick them up and want to be able to not care about them surviving after I decide to deploy them. Ship is suposed to sacrifice some of it's firepower for greater mobility. So leaving drones after my retreat would fit with that theme.

That straight clip on bottom is where racks will go. Drones will sit almost completly flush with the ship. Then they will be moved in to position with rails before launch. 1 rack on each side. I will ofcourse work on visual apperiance of the drone later.

 

[lilheartless]

Fireshock

the first part... how long is your reset time? once you clear a sector of asteroids and it unloads, it will respawn more of its ilk (instantly). you can literally fly around a belt until the end of time with the default reset timer. which means these asteroids are not at all rare in the least bit. They'll be in every sector of that asteroid belt... forever.

I have to wonder whether you're not used to asteroid farming in general, or if you're just a once and you're done sort of fellow. In any case, the asteroids which you have mentioned are very easy to find, if you know how to obtain them. I think your cost analysis may be a bit premature because of this.

that being said, cost efficiency is a negligible factor in carriers. by building any capital ship you're acknowledging there will be a substantial upkeep. the only major concerns you should have are how many drones and when to deploy them. Since cost effectively making a drone has nothing to do with how much you can cram into a single space, you have to look at not just costs, but returns on your investment.

This is why efficiency is a loaded word. A situation analysis is required on top of just cost, as well as results in their optimal AND sub optimal situations, with a weighted scale required to properly judge. Basically cost isn't the only factor here, even if A costs less than B how do we know that A performs better than B across the board in EVERY situation. Answer: we don't, judging purely by cost isn't effective in itself.

to say mine are cheaper! boom i win! cannot work as a definitive method. Your carrier is no more powerful than mine just cause your drones are lower cost. It may be easier to produce initially but that means little in the long run. The actual case may be quite the opposite really, I wouldn't know until I compare both carriers in action.

not to say that i haven't considered cost effectiveness, but I've come to the conclusion that the cost of the drones themselves is almost nothing after combat. Assuming you lose the combat you're out a ton of resources no matter what you were using, carrier, drones, battleship, etc. Since replacing an entire carrier is a costly endeavor the required mats for the drones will be substantially less, to the point where you don't even notice it anymore.

In the end of the combat you have to ask yourself, was my 1,000,000 credits worth of drones worth killing that 120,000,000 credit battleship? Or was it more acceptable losing 800,000 credits worth of drones because they couldn't get the job done.

unless things have changed within like the last week or so asteroids no longer respawn like at all.

 

[Loadout]

From Changelog 0.19361:

T173 Completely mined asteroids not properly saved / respawn of half mined asteroids

Apparently asteroid respawn was a bug? Which seems rather stupid, respawning only makes logical sense given the massive requirements of ships in general...

After doing some digging on phab I found this....

"___ changed Last tested (version) from 0.19266 (Dev) to 0.19337 (Dev).
Fixed - salvaged Asteroids do no longer respawn"

So now anything post 0.19266 will no longer respawn asteroids.

That does change things, although given how numerous asteroids are, we just need to fly further away now. Kinda nasty how they sneaked this one past us. Now I suppose you'll just have to go hunting more often to find diamonds Larimar.

 

[Tunk]

I was bored working on my torp bomber and I decided to test a new concept.
JUMP SLEDS.


As you can see the sled went to plaid.

Still needs lots of testing to find all the kinks and the logic on the test bed is deliberately bulky to handle a couple of overclock circuits for charging.
Final result should be a nice compact 3x3x2 device for delivering lots of little problems from large distances.

[edit]
Screw it, this concept is too cool not to try in extreme measures.
Time to build a carrier based around long range force projection.

 

[TomW1605]

I was bored working on my torp bomber and I decided to test a new concept.
JUMP SLEDS.


As you can see the sled went to plaid.

Still needs lots of testing to find all the kinks and the logic on the test bed is deliberately bulky to handle a couple of overclock circuits for charging.
Final result should be a nice compact 3x3x2 device for delivering lots of little problems from large distances.

[edit]
Screw it, this concept is too cool not to try in extreme measures.
Time to build a carrier based around long range force projection.

could you pleas explain what that dose and its uses in mod detail as i am a littal confused

 

[Tunk]

It is a sled that you dock something to, you then dock the sled to your desired mothership or launching platform.

The sled charges its jump drive with power from the mothership/launching platform, when you undock it it will immediately launch into a jump.
After it is done with its jump it will undock whatever you docked to it, allowing it to go about its business.

Pretty much its a jump drive you can slap onto anything.

 

[TomW1605]

It is a sled that you dock something to, you then dock the sled to your desired mothership or launching platform.

The sled charges its jump drive with power from the mothership/launching platform, when you undock it it will immediately launch into a jump.
After it is done with its jump it will undock whatever you docked to it, allowing it to go about its business.

cool idea

 

[Knack]

Aiming with that is a little bit tricky I suppose?

 

[Tunk]

In short, yes.

Part of the working kinks out bit, if it works as I expect you should be able to drop stuff almost on a dime (barring collision boxes) via some simple math though.

 

[StormWing0]

So logic jump drives can fire while docked? Normally if a jump drive is fired while you are docked to something nothing happens.