The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Reilly Reese]

Is that two waves?

 

[Thalanor]

Yes, its even, then 1s, then odd as I have read here, makes the entire process spool up very fast

Both sides can be triggered individually either from buttons next to the core or buttons all over the ship for crew to easily reach.

 

[Reilly Reese]

I hope you have the buttons labelled :p

 

[Thalanor]

Ye, I absolutely need to put display modules everywhere during construction already, because logic overflow (not only for the drones :p) in this ship xD
It was quite hard to hide all this wiring from the normal interior so far, but worked out (the image is from the stern logic room WIP; only when the ship is 100% done Ill be filling up the entire logic room with shields, as there is no reason to access it ever)

 

[Reilly Reese]

It's funny. I don't think you have a shipyard thread. I want to see this ship of yours

 

[Thalanor]

I originally wanted to just upload it when it's done, but now that I add stuff after stuff to it I shall open one (tomorrow the latest) and keep it updated
Best part of it so far is the CIC with the damage indicator holo, that one also takes the most logic so far.

 

[Gerion]

They are not mounted to a rack, are they? Because if the launcher is wired to your ship, you dont need a rack. Cuts down the cost a bit but has the added inconvinience of you having to replace the drones manually.

Its also future proof, as we will get AI improvements at one point and you can just tell 20 drones "dock at ship".

 

[Thalanor]

The are rack mounted for easy replacement at the moment, that is the (and was @keptick 's) point for us lazy droners Especially with the launcher being wired to the ship itself, the rack is so cheap I can just throw it away when empty (rack without drones is way below 100k in cost I think) With the trigger area bell technique the entire thing hardly takes space at all, so that when we get the AI improvements, I can update the ship within 5-10 minutes and can just delete the logic with the replacement filter through the outer hull :D

Until then, it is rack swapping time (if I even finish the ship before the AI update comes along) - pay for convenience The limits of drone racks are partially the size of the drones; if we get true AI minions one day I might refit the ship quickly to hold 12 medium fighters instead of 24 drones. These would then survive longer, which makes sense if you have a way to recall them.

 

[Keptick]

Exactly! I'd rather pay the price of an extra drone to avoid docking every single one of my 44 drones individually.

 

[CuriousCurse]

Well now that I've read this whole thing, what about making the rack itself into a weapon you can eject with the drones and have it be a kind of support vessel or even a torpedo to make up for some of the drone's short comings. For example, if someone used a bunch logistical beams (shield transfer, repair, power supply, ect) to beef up turrets or insane armor/shields, a rack that acts like a big hole puncher weapon floating in space would not only make user controlled turrets and main cannons have something better to shoot at than you, but would serve to give your drones that extra firepower they need.

 

[Thalanor]

That's actually a great idea for specialized carriers
I am a huge friend of @keptick 's "cartridge" type drone racks for style reasons (also because they barely cost anything empty and the drones can actually be ejected by force with enough beam push arrays), but maybe the ejection process could also undock two "support sattelites" for the drones, one for each side.

 

[Keptick]

Well now that I've read this whole thing, what about making the rack itself into a weapon you can eject with the drones and have it be a kind of support vessel or even a torpedo to make up for some of the drone's short comings. For example, if someone used a bunch logistical beams (shield transfer, repair, power supply, ect) to beef up turrets or insane armor/shields, a rack that acts like a big hole puncher weapon floating in space would not only make user controlled turrets and main cannons have something better to shoot at than you, but would serve to give your drones that extra firepower they need.

Hehehehehe, that's already what I was planning to do! The racks on my ship are loaded and unloaded from the front. Which also means that I can shoot them out :D.

Firing two hollow 300m slugs at the enemy, it'll be hilarious with collision damage.

 

[Gerion]

Man, with collision damage the chaff idea gets a whole new purpose... "Oh, fighters flying towards me? EAT METAL CUBES, PUNKS"

 

[Thalanor]

Oh yes, pure dumb cubes of high mass cheap blocks hurled towards the target :D

 

[Gerion]

At that point we can just ditch the normal weapon system... 300 m slugs, metal cube shotguns, selfguided planet destroying missiles

/edit: We would also rename this thread to "(il-)logical weapons RnD" and throw out mass murder devices every day.

And the question asked at the start of the thread has a clear answer: "To drone or not to drone?". "Drone. Always. As much as possible on both sides"

 

[Thalanor]

In the spirit of illogical weapons RnD - drone mine racks! Little drone racks idling in space with a turret placed so that when it even moves the slightest, an activation area is triggered and the drone swarm released from the rack. Makes one navigation diamond turn into hundreds when anything hostile is within (turret range) :D

Can also be used as yellow alert trigger on ships (proximity alert) but has the drawback of being tedious to reset.

 

[Gerion]

In the spirit of illogical weapons RnD - drone mine racks! Little drone racks idling in space with a turret placed so that when it even moves the slightest, an activation area is triggered and the drone swarm released from the rack. Makes one navigation diamond turn into hundreds when anything hostile is within (turret range) :D

Can also be used as yellow alert trigger on ships (proximity alert) but has the drawback of being tedious to reset.

If even a pirate comes close to that, its triggered... Might work on servers without AI enemies though. Also, dont have "consider neutrals enemies" enabled when you leave those lying around, That might have "diplomatic consequences".

 

[Thalanor]

Ye, might not be the best to let every sloppy machine have a trigger. True :D

However, there is another application of tech that might be possible:
Using a turret and activation blocks in "clock" formation, there could be a directional pointer where current hostiles are (where the one turret points to) - a sort of low-tech radar that can be used to light some lamps or set code yellow when position changed after code yellow was last reset . Actual rotodomes with rotating dome parts in a radar dome on the ship, oh yes!

 

[Reilly Reese]

Ooh stealing that idea for Sleeper Drones on my server!

 

[Thalanor]

Still researching if it is possible at all :D would be neat. Current can't get the activation blocks to trigger, trying other forms..

EDIT: Damn, even chain-docking does not help: activation blocks placed on entities won't be triggered by stuff docked to that entity.