The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Keptick]

Has anyone found a working workaround for the docking bug until it gets fixed? My little drone has spent the last 40 minutes trying to dock with no success.

Not that I know of

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Has anyone found a working workaround for the docking bug until it gets fixed? My little drone has spent the last 40 minutes trying to dock with no success.

the only one that I could think of is just forcing them to dock by manually stirring the carrier so that the pick up point collides with your drone.

 

[Keptick]

the only one that I could think of is just forcing them to dock by manually stirring the carrier so that the pick up point collides with your drone.

I tried doing that, the AI is unfortunately fast enough to move out of the way lmao. The system would be flawless if it didn't perceive them as collision sources (or whatever is bugging out).

 

[kiraen]

Have you tried placing multiple pickup points? Maybe while trying to avoid one it'll trigger another?

I just know using 4 points for one dock makes it easier for me to park manually.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I tried doing that, the AI is unfortunately fast enough to move out of the way lmao. The system would be flawless if it didn't perceive them as collision sources (or whatever is bugging out).

So smart yet so dumb XD

 

[Keptick]

So smart yet so dumb XD

Hahaha exactly

It's smart enough to avoid collisions and even fly away to try different angles of approach if it can't dock, but it's too stupid to realize that the thing it's trying to dock to doesn't give out collisions in the first place XD

 

[Inspired2150]

Have you tried placing multiple pickup points? Maybe while trying to avoid one it'll trigger another?

I just know using 4 points for one dock makes it easier for me to park manually.

Yeah, I've tried doing that, added a whole lot of them but it seems to collide with them faster and just turns around anyway. Maybe there's some specific way of arranging them, but I couldn't figure it out.

 

[Keptick]

Charon's new drone bays are finished! Now I just have to fill em up and test it (hopefully today). Oooh this will be so awesome >.<

 

[Loadout]

So I'm finally able to post again and now I'm itching to say everything I've wanted too all at once... Wall-o-Text approaching :3

I see a few major categories of problems here with the carrier system as follows;

• Setup
• Recovery
• Limits

Setup
The major issue I have with setup is creating the fleet itself, the "carrier" is actually an entire fleet onto itself, which means I have had to individually add every docked drone on my carrier to the fleet. This is a huge pain, as each ship ends up being something like mothership_14573017434814rl123.

Temporary Solution - a docking rack named after the drones ex: Juga Loading Rack, which only has drones docked to it, this object then feeds the drones into the carrier so you can clearly see which one is actually a drone, and what is just doors and turrets. <_< as those show up too it seems.

Since original idea was created I have also created a working prototype that can fill my Veld carrier.

Spoiler: PICS!

The prototype works flawlessly right now, drones just slide into the bay without a hassle or any awful collision mechanics. Since the rack shares the same name as the drones its also easy to load them into the fleet menu. Another prototype is also underway but is much smaller, and meant to attach itself semi-permanently to the mothership. It's sort of a drone magazine, fire and forget style

Recovery
As many have mentioned recovering drones can be a pain. They do keep bumping into stuff but moreover the rack-less design aspect makes recovering drones themselves a mess. Have to completely redesign so many ships here it's kind of a pain. :/ oh well progress is progress I suppose.

Hopefully they'll fix the collision bug as keptic did post that after I had written this one originally. Also, broken drones have to be manually recovered unless their docker is still in intact.

Limits
There's a few limitations to the whole fleet system that I've been noticing which appear to be inherent with the style chosen. For starters drop down menus are not accurate at all, there's no positions given for docked entities so even if you could understand meaningless alpha-numeric code, it still wouldn't help much. The positions that are given are also fairly meaningless. Then again the whole ship coordinate thing was never really explained, so it's entirely guess and check.

Other Cool stuff since I've been away for almost two weeks now. >_<

Have you ever wanted to "beam me up scotty!" well now you can.

This launcher fires a small telepad disc. Drop it and then teleport down to any planet, asteroid, abandoned station, or middle of your nearest wormhole whenever you like! Also recovery is a breeze with this thing, all you gotta do is use the pull beams to tractor it in. At that point the recovery point will snag it and dock it. Dock it like it's hot.

Had thought of using this for a drone catcher as well, finally that'll actually work.

Also slowly doing updates to all my carriers to include new loading and launching mechanisms.

I would type more but too tired. working the graveyard shift lately so i'll drop back in...maybe 12 hours from now :3

 

[Keptick]

The major issue I have with setup is creating the fleet itself, the "carrier" is actually an entire fleet onto itself, which means I have had to individually add every docked drone on my carrier to the fleet. This is a huge pain, as each ship ends up being something like mothership_14573017434814rl123.

Yea, I'm trying to get the devs to implement something like a mass select option or checklist system in the "add to fleet" menu. I find that adding drones to fleets is a massive fucking pain as well.

Recovery
As many have mentioned recovering drones can be a pain. They do keep bumping into stuff but moreover the rack-less design aspect makes recovering drones themselves a mess. Have to completely redesign so many ships here it's kind of a pain. :/ oh well progress is progress I suppose.

Hopefully they'll fix the collision bug as keptic did post that after I had written this one originally. Also, broken drones have to be manually recovered unless their docker is still in intact.

The bug has been reported (and acknowledged), I'm gonna do some testing to try and help the testers/schema get it sorted out for the next update.

There's a few limitations to the whole fleet system that I've been noticing which appear to be inherent with the style chosen. For starters drop down menus are not accurate at all, there's no positions given for docked entities so even if you could understand meaningless alpha-numeric code, it still wouldn't help much. The positions that are given are also fairly meaningless. Then again the whole ship coordinate thing was never really explained, so it's entirely guess and check.

That's also an issue I find. Assigning coordinates to fleet orders is pretty tedious since you have to look them up and type them down every single time. Definitely not fun.

 

[timmymorrison1]

Charon's new drone bays are fully working. The pickup, sorting and ejection mechanisms/logic are all set up and work very well. All that's left is took mame a trigger mechanism and hook up the launch/return logic to it, and make some rail doors for the entry point. I'm also gonna make a station based mechanism to automatically refill the drone bays in case some drones get destroyed.

Then I tried the recall order.

I hope this gets fixed soon -_-

It seems like that drone is getting jiggy with it

 

[Keptick]

[DOUBLEPOST=1458009186,1458005830][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh yea, I updated my soul drone btw. All the stats are in the content page: "Soul" drone

 

[Keptick]

Aaand it's done! I think that you guys of all people should like this the most:

Charon - A WIP super titan [update 39: New drone system]

Enjoy! :D

 

[Sgtwisky]

That looks pretty sweet. Makes me want to continue work on my super carrier that I abandon due to Life and Laziness. The two great L's that ruin all my projects.

 

[Peekie30]

I made dis drone, no idea if it fares well in battle, but its my first drone so be kind

Spoiler: piccas

It's got a 30/30/3 cannon/cannon/explosive weapon
Doubting to replace all standard armor with hull to make it quicker, will probably do both
Still need a name for it, open for suggestions

 

[Sgtwisky]

Well if you want to know how your new drone may fair. You could always make a quick rack of them, and enter it into the drone competition. Today is the last day for entries.

 

[Peekie30]

Well if you want to know how your new drone may fair. You could always make a quick rack of them, and enter it into the drone competition. Today is the last day for entries.

ill do just that then, I also made a more beefy version, with missile/beam/punch weapons

 

[Keptick]

For those that didn't know, the last update fixed two major issue with fleets/drones.
1) The pickup point bug was fixed, drones dock flawlessly now.
2) It's now possible to add more than one ship to fleets at the same time. You may not have noticed but in the "add to fleet" menu it's possible to select multiple ships and add them all to the fleet at the same time!!!

Those two things make drone carriers MUCH easier to use. Also, I changed my drone pickup system a bit, it retains the sorting ability from the previous system but also has 44 pickup points now, instead of 2 (so drone pickup is 22 times faster). Pickup points are also properly assigned with tbe sorting system (for the initial fill-up). I'll try to get an update post on it done soon.

 

[Keptick]

Gif is 6x speed. It took around 1 minute 30 seconds in-game.

 

[StormWing0]

lol the first time you loaded them I bet it took hours. I'm loving how the many hours long loading times are only a one time thing unless you change your docking points around. XD