The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Loadout]

Has issues, pretty much the moment the ship you teleport into moves, the drone will lag into the hull and then be teleported outside the ship's hitbox. Buuuut nice thinking

assuming you can even get that drone to teleport in the first place. im nowhere near fast enough to enter a core in the .35 sec it takes me to warp. o.o

 

[AtraUnam]

Very old question probably been answered but I'm not reading the whole thread twice, if a drone has a long range and a short range weapon on it, will it ever use the short range one or will it stay at maximum weapon range and only use its longest ranged weapon?

 

[StormWing0]

The AI spams all weapons but flies at max range unless you force it to stay close range with something like a push effect. Planning some drones that are a swarm of close range death if ignored. :P

 

[Loadout]

AtraUnam

It will fire both weapons until it reaches the maximum possible range, at which point it will usually fire only the long range type. This is why in my second video I mentioned that you should stick to one range for your weapons on drones. That said, it's usually best to give drones one good solid weapon instead of two. Cause unless both weapons have the same range, rockets and basic lock-ons for instance, one of the two will rapidly become useless.

StormWing0 Push effect won't really force it to stay close, but it will force it to move haphazardly. Which adds some measure of evasive maneuvers to drones :P

In other news I'm working on a mine launcher based off all this drone tech floating about. Gotta say though, mines are quite a challenge to get down. For the most part they're entirely useless, however they do have some interesting tricks to them...

 

[Tunk]

AtraUnam

It will fire both weapons until it reaches the maximum possible range, at which point it will usually fire only the long range type. This is why in my second video I mentioned that you should stick to one range for your weapons on drones. That said, it's usually best to give drones one good solid weapon instead of two. Cause unless both weapons have the same range, rockets and basic lock-ons for instance, one of the two will rapidly become useless.

StormWing0 Push effect won't really force it to stay close, but it will force it to move haphazardly. Which adds some measure of evasive maneuvers to drones :p

In other news I'm working on a mine launcher based off all this drone tech floating about. Gotta say though, mines are quite a challenge to get down. For the most part they're entirely useless, however they do have some interesting tricks to them...

As a side note, you can use the range of a drones 'Primary' weapon (the longest range weapon on the main body of the drone) to determine its engagement range.
For example, if you want to drone to engage at 3.6 sectors you'd want a missile/beam combo.
If you want the drone to engage at half a sector use a beam weapon.

The drone will attempt to orbit out to its max range, a skoom hybrid can either close or 'hover' if the thrust is designed right, or via a flip-flop counter or EDU close and orbit at the designed range.
Secondary weapons (on turrets or rails) can have any range, but will only fire if in range.

 

[EricBlank]

Must say, I am disappointed I can't pretend my cookie drones which I havent actually made yet won't be an original idea anymore. I was planning a cruiser that could contain stacks of flat cylindrical drones in place of its turrets (which would be inset with cylindrical bases) if needed. Should have gotten off my bum and actually made them. :P

 

[Loadout]

Must say, I am disappointed I can't pretend my cookie drones which I havent actually made yet won't be an original idea anymore. I was planning a cruiser that could contain stacks of flat cylindrical drones in place of its turrets (which would be inset with cylindrical bases) if needed. Should have gotten off my bum and actually made them. :p

Don't be so down, we still don't have cookie packages. I mean oreos do come in small boxes no? In addition to that we also don't have girl scouts yet. Those delicious frosted sugar cookies are still somewhere out there!

Now go forth and craft an empire of cookies based on small children peddling merch!

 

[Asvarduil]

Don't be so down, we still don't have cookie packages. I mean oreos do come in small boxes no? In addition to that we also don't have girl scouts yet. Those delicious frosted sugar cookies are still somewhere out there!

Now go forth and craft an empire of cookies based on small children peddling merch!

Yes, yes! To him you must listen!

You totally need to build a compact Girl Scout™ cookie drone.

 

[EricBlank]

"Girl Scout" sounds like a reasonable name for a drone, I suppose... :p

edit:

Welp, this is what I'd intend to use on that cruiser. It has about 3.6k shields, so the first hit form an inadequate weapon won't necessarily be the end of it, but it won't survive long, and it uses a basic cannon, gets about 9 blocks penetration on unarmored targets. Shields could be dumped altogether for slightly more damage and a couple extra power generators, but the frame can't support much more in the way of generators anyway and the cannon/thrusters use 90% of what it produces as-is.


It does have advanced armor on the front, but maintains that juicy 1:1 thrust/weight ratio. Overall, I'm satisfied. Thinking of mixing in a handful of AMS variants, maybe with single jump inhibitors onboard, to support them.

 

[Loadout]

"Girl Scout" sounds like a reasonable name for a drone, I suppose... :p

edit:

Welp, this is what I'd intend to use on that cruiser. It has about 3.6k shields, so the first hit form an inadequate weapon won't necessarily be the end of it, but it won't survive long, and it uses a basic cannon, gets about 9 blocks penetration on unarmored targets. Shields could be dumped altogether for slightly more damage and a couple extra power generators, but the frame can't support much more in the way of generators anyway and the cannon/thrusters use 90% of what it produces as-is.

View attachment 18136 View attachment 18137
It does have advanced armor on the front, but maintains that juicy 1:1 thrust/weight ratio. Overall, I'm satisfied. Thinking of mixing in a handful of AMS variants, maybe with single jump inhibitors onboard, to support them.

Don't use the jump inhibitors on drones, they eat up 20k energy /second. It's way too costly for drones, you might want to try adding some sprinkles to those girl scouts in the form of inhibitor mines. No AI means it won't get shot up and can be recovered whenever your done fairly easily.

I'm actually in the middle of making a series of mines, among those are inhibitors.

 

[KingofCalamity]

Image filling an area with both pulse stop, pulse ion, and inhibitor mines.... area trigger mines... Gotta get on those. Pill drones for the win. Just gotta modify my drone dropper to hold the pills instead of balls.

 

[Loadout]

A basic inhibitor mine

These guys are easily mass produced and simple to drop and activate. On average you'd only need maybe 3 - 4 of them to completely lock down an area.

KingofCalamity

Rather than go with area trigger mines which are rather unreliable. I went with mines that are always firing, like so..

Because they're always on there is no need to worry about complex circuits lagging out when spawned en-masse. Which I did have issues with when using wireless activation. There's also a 100% chance the mine will turn on, which when I used area triggers was only about 80% on average.

 

[StormWing0]

Oh dear laser mines, Hate to be a cloaker that has to fly through that. O_O

 

[KingofCalamity]

A basic inhibitor mine

These guys are easily mass produced and simple to drop and activate. On average you'd only need maybe 3 - 4 of them to completely lock down an area.

KingofCalamity

Rather than go with area trigger mines which are rather unreliable. I went with mines that are always firing, like so..

Because they're always on there is no need to worry about complex circuits lagging out when spawned en-masse. Which I did have issues with when using wireless activation. There's also a 100% chance the mine will turn on, which when I used area triggers was only about 80% on average.

I'm not worried about them always firing, what I'm building is 5x5x5 mine that acts like a point contact explosive. If shaped charges were possible then I'd make a mag fed logic push rifle. Either way, I'll give both a shot, gotta work on the launch pod though. It works for the first few then seems to jam up because of lag causing the logic to miss. Add that in with three other projects including 1 large build and another train of experimental logic and you get a hell of a hard time getting anything to work. Might need to move the testing yard a few sectors away to cause my slowly gaining in size station to unload and maybe not lag so bad.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

...I step away for a couple weeks to work on videos and writing, and I come back to a glorious new design paradigm for drones. Which is oddly timed, since I just spent the last week juggling everything else with making cookies...

Looks like I'll need to start ramping up for a Starmade series soon...

 

[solarapple]

So I'm currently about to build a drone carrier. I have some questions:

1: How do I make the ejection system? I know the basics of logic stuff, just not how to use it creatively. If anyone has a template or could show me some pictures please do.

2: How do I ensure the drones work as soon as they leave their bays? Do I have to activate them in the rail system collective? Or do I have to select them one by one and activate them?

 

[StormWing0]

Rail System Collective is faster to activating the AI in docked turrets and ships. As for launching them start with a rack that has a built in rail line to send them off with.

 

[Loadout]

solarapple as well anyone else reading that may be interested...

@? #1
The easiest way to start is by having a drone to work with. Once you've got the drone, figure out which way you want it to face when docked. Then you can build a rack. For this example I'll use one of my Fleas..

Once you have the above figured out lay out a long line of blocks and then count the spaces between them.

If you have a drone that will be 7 blocks long(as is the case in my example), you will need 7 blocks between each rail(so 9 blocks total with rails on either end).

Now connect a button to those rails, and push to activate.

That is the EASIEST rail system to work with, and one of my most common types. It's not pretty but it works 100% of the time as long as you don't miscount.

What about long lines of rails you ask? They have a nasty habit of lagging out, breaking, and frequently doing odd things like wandering off for coffee mid-battle. I'd avoid them if you haven't played around with timed logic delays on them for a substantial amount of time.

@? #2
There are two ways of doing what you'd like... the first is as StormWing0 mentioned with the rail collective under the ship panel. The other is to activate them as you dock them to their respective racks and then save that setting when you make a blueprint of the loaded rack. Each has their merits but I prefer the latter, as when I exit my drones I'm almost directly next to the AI block and I like closing the single door to cover up that little core entryway.

Having said all that, drone launching is a rather personal matter honestly. Whichever way you feel is most creative, awe-inspiring, server destroying, fastest, or just plain awesome.

 

[EricBlank]

I do prefer to just dump them from the rail via a logic button myself, but with a time delay for larger quantities. Using those girlscout drones, the Raptor MKII can launch 66 in all from its external docks. Just dumping them all at the same instant would be bad for the server, and I would have no idea what was going on until it stopped freaking out about the collision checks.

Speaking of, I've got to get pics of the raptor! brb!

Here we go!

 

[Keptick]

I do prefer to just dump them from the rail via a logic button myself, but with a time delay for larger quantities. Using those girlscout drones, the Raptor MKII can launch 66 in all from its external docks. Just dumping them all at the same instant would be bad for the server, and I would have no idea what was going on until it stopped freaking out about the collision checks.

Speaking of, I've got to get pics of the raptor! brb!

It also looks cooler :D