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No, I used spawned in racks of 40 drones to load it, it'd take way too long to do it manually hahaha
The ultimate drone R&D thread
- Thread starter Keptick
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so kiddies, i think the drone r&d thread should also focus on bigger drones. i've been doing some work with some fighter drones in a video i made and feel like there should be discussions on here of hangars n stuff.
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Are you thinking the size that you may have as support/escort ships when using fleets? If so I think I can get behind it. After all we basically have "Drone Fleets" now. Anything on your mind that you want to discuss regarding them in particular?
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well i really just want to focus on hangars for "fighter class" drones (fighter class drones are what i define as larger than 1k, usually 1k-3k. regular drones sit under 1k for me). starmade logic gates are a bit strange, probably because im used to meinkraft's redstone. which is why i wanna see if anyone else could probably start developing on the idea of "cycle" hangars, where fighters are lined up and ejected on the same ejection rail. then all the fighters board the ship on the same recall rail, and get back in line, kind of like stacking where the first fighter takes the farthest spot (closest to ejection point), second fighter gets behind, etc.
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Ive got a rack that is very similar to that, only thing it doesn't have is the new rails on it. but you can "collect" the drones by bumping them just right with the front of the rack (magnetic docking). Then they slide to their positions. I didn't have any kind of rail launch though. I just undock them and shoot em all off the rack with push beams. I can upload it for you to take a look at if you want.
The basic logic is pretty basic. when the first ship reaches its dock, that rail sends an "On" signal to an activation block that is touching that rail. That block does 2 things. It gets inverted to tell a rail speed controller to stop that dock (to reduce lag). And then it sends a signal to change the direction of the rail for the next ship, so that it won't pass by its dock. I'm basically rotating the dock so that it doesn't point down the line.
The basic logic is pretty basic. when the first ship reaches its dock, that rail sends an "On" signal to an activation block that is touching that rail. That block does 2 things. It gets inverted to tell a rail speed controller to stop that dock (to reduce lag). And then it sends a signal to change the direction of the rail for the next ship, so that it won't pass by its dock. I'm basically rotating the dock so that it doesn't point down the line.
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Like that?
All the drones came in through 1 rail and exited in groups of five. I had to change the system because it took way too long for all the drones to get back on the ship. It would work with a smaller amount of drones, though.
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NOICE. more details please, as in the logic behind it and more. also i'm just gonna be using groups of 6. maybe.
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So 6 drones in a line that launch/return in the same spot? If so, I can explain that pretty easily.
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Lol. I'm currently working (with Madman198237, as usual) on a pair of drone racks for my new cruiser under construction. The racks are ugly as heck, just these giant boxes hanging off the sides, but whatever. They each contain about 10 drones based off the Z-95 Headhunter. Very, very lightweight, not too powerful but they can move quickly and they're built out of standard armor so they should absorb any anti-fighter defenses long enough to distract turrets. Also... it carries 20 of them. Auto-launch rails and all. Haven't tested them against other drones yet though. Gotta whip out the Isanths and see what happens...
So here's the question: Does anyone have what they think to be awesome ideas on hangar shape or drone deployment tactics? i.e. when they should be deployed or not? Just to throw some new conversation in here.
In my opinion, any time combat begins, the drones are hurled out the airlock. This way, no matter the damage sustained by the hangar's logic systems or the hangar itself, the drones are external and cannot be jammed inside when the pirates spawn more Isanths or the enemy player jump in more backup and deploying them becomes necessary. Beyond that, drones are left to their own devices. Also, retrieving them while battling anything large or well-armed with AMS systems or PDTs is going to be almost certainly a no-go, because this cruiser may have upwards of several dozen "silos" for a full shotgun effect heatseeking AMS-distraction-scenario doomsday computer melter to get the main missile through defenses to cause some hull damage.
So here's the question: Does anyone have what they think to be awesome ideas on hangar shape or drone deployment tactics? i.e. when they should be deployed or not? Just to throw some new conversation in here.
In my opinion, any time combat begins, the drones are hurled out the airlock. This way, no matter the damage sustained by the hangar's logic systems or the hangar itself, the drones are external and cannot be jammed inside when the pirates spawn more Isanths or the enemy player jump in more backup and deploying them becomes necessary. Beyond that, drones are left to their own devices. Also, retrieving them while battling anything large or well-armed with AMS systems or PDTs is going to be almost certainly a no-go, because this cruiser may have upwards of several dozen "silos" for a full shotgun effect heatseeking AMS-distraction-scenario doomsday computer melter to get the main missile through defenses to cause some hull damage.
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I'm aliiiiiive... well sort of, broke my hand so its been rough trying to work on starmade for some time now. But having just come back I saw this post...
PICS!
The ship pictured here is actually a (unfinished) jump stick that holds 3 escort carriers. Basically missile cruisers with drones. By docking them all to the jump stick I can make one mothership that houses 3 small carriers. Drone-ception at it's finest.
I have, since early january, takes forever with a borked hand to place blocks >_< been working on my latest ship idea.
PICS!
The ship pictured here is actually a (unfinished) jump stick that holds 3 escort carriers. Basically missile cruisers with drones. By docking them all to the jump stick I can make one mothership that houses 3 small carriers. Drone-ception at it's finest.
Oh, beautiful. However, I'd park escort cruisers or something similar on there, carriers are no good unless they're piloted because they'd need to be separately fleeted to carry their own drones. Which precludes docking them. But nice idea, looks SWEET!
StormWing0
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Hopefully the devs resolve that little snag so we're able to have multiple carriers per fleet.
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You're sort of right but not quite... There can be only 1 master ship, however we can chain dock as many carriers to that as we can reasonably sustain.
Ya see, they're all slaved to the master ship, so when you tell the fleet to return home it recalls both the cruisers AND their drones back to their original positions. A neat little docking trick with fleets.. where there is technically only the one carrier... there are actually 3.
I prepared a gif demo for you all.. hope you enjoy my madness :D
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Your GIF not only doesn't show multiple carriers landing and collecting drones, but it also nearly crashed my browser.
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Oh, I see. So the drones get recalled to their pickup points, even if those points aren't on the fleet's mothership. That's pretty neat :DYou're sort of right but not quite... There can be only 1 master ship, however we can chain dock as many carriers to that as we can reasonably sustain.
Ya see, they're all slaved to the master ship, so when you tell the fleet to return home it recalls both the cruisers AND their drones back to their original positions. A neat little docking trick with fleets.. where there is technically only the one carrier... there are actually 3.
I prepared a gif demo for you all.. hope you enjoy my madness :D
Could do interesting stuff with multiple carriers and wireless logic to launch their drones!
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You kinda missed the point... but if you'd like I can take panoramic screenies and combine them into a server crashing gif for yah. =)
Main reason I showed one in the Gif was cause that's about ~30 photos, I'd have to zoom Waaaaaaaaay out, or go panoramic to fit all three at once. It's a tech demo anyways, not a finished product. I'll shoot a video whenever I finish it and make it pretty. =3
Exactly right. Cause of the chain docking we can hold multiple carriers as long as everything is slaved properly. There's also a number of possibilities involved with this, the whole drone-ception thing is actually doable with small ships so long as everything has a docker in the correct location. The main limit right now is the primary dock can't move when it connects. Has to be stationary or the drones will hover xxx distance behind the ship waiting to dock.
My observations thus far lead me to believe everything is relative to the previous pickup point, not the final location. With some development this could be a really interesting tech. I'm imagining honeycomb drones that all attach to a center pylon and then each other as they spiral outwards. It'd pack them incredibly tightly and they'd all reconnect back to the same point simultaneously.
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Yea, I was thinking more along the lines of having a carrier group and have all the carriers be normal fleet ships (meaning that they don't dock to anything). A good idea would be to use enemy detectors on the carriers, that way they could even launch all the drones automatically :D
Wouldn't really server a purpose at the moment since you could just order the swarm around as well as the carriers. But once fleets can use jump drives, you could carry the drones in the jump-equipped carriers to move them around!
Has anyone had cause or opportunity to test a true use of the carrier/drone combat model?
What I mean by this is that the true strength of the modern surface fleet (aka: IRL) is the aircraft carrier, and the fact that two ships can have a battle without having seen each other by line of sight.
To further frame the question I have already posed: in my opinion, the strength of the carrier design is that we can effectively engage a large direct battle type vessel because high numbers of drones effectively negate the strength of super-weapon based ships with massive damage and reload times. You shed this advantage by presenting your expensive carrier to the enemy battleship to fire on at their leisure.
This forum has succeeded in convincing us of the usefulness of drones, and the various modes of transport, delivery, and recovery of said drones. There is little talk of the most damaging use of drones. I submit that you could park a carrier on an asteroid in a system, use a cloaked 'scout' to find the enemy, return, launch your drones, and issue an attack on sector command. Follow your drones to the sight of battle, observe from a position of relative safety, and adjust tactics from there. Granted, you can do little but order a retreat or movement, but you could preserve the relative safety of your carrier while directing the majority or even the entirety of your combat power to a target.
With this sort of combat model, fast delivery systems become a matter of convenience. You can order your force of 100's of drones to launch and wait as long as you like for them all to do so, and attack en masse with no concern for the speed of their delivery. You could instead revert your efforts to a sort of system that could detect (using activation blocks) a system that detects missing blocks on a docking drone and diverts them to a repair bay or a counter for you to have an indicator of your combat power after each battle.
What I mean by this is that the true strength of the modern surface fleet (aka: IRL) is the aircraft carrier, and the fact that two ships can have a battle without having seen each other by line of sight.
To further frame the question I have already posed: in my opinion, the strength of the carrier design is that we can effectively engage a large direct battle type vessel because high numbers of drones effectively negate the strength of super-weapon based ships with massive damage and reload times. You shed this advantage by presenting your expensive carrier to the enemy battleship to fire on at their leisure.
This forum has succeeded in convincing us of the usefulness of drones, and the various modes of transport, delivery, and recovery of said drones. There is little talk of the most damaging use of drones. I submit that you could park a carrier on an asteroid in a system, use a cloaked 'scout' to find the enemy, return, launch your drones, and issue an attack on sector command. Follow your drones to the sight of battle, observe from a position of relative safety, and adjust tactics from there. Granted, you can do little but order a retreat or movement, but you could preserve the relative safety of your carrier while directing the majority or even the entirety of your combat power to a target.
With this sort of combat model, fast delivery systems become a matter of convenience. You can order your force of 100's of drones to launch and wait as long as you like for them all to do so, and attack en masse with no concern for the speed of their delivery. You could instead revert your efforts to a sort of system that could detect (using activation blocks) a system that detects missing blocks on a docking drone and diverts them to a repair bay or a counter for you to have an indicator of your combat power after each battle.