The ultimate drone R&D thread

[Loadout]

The remaining swarm drones in the area would be left there. to kill any flying by hostiles
im going to look into creating suicide drones
to do better damage

Generally by "clean up the mess" I was making the assumption that you'd pick up your drones to save on materials rather than leave them floating about. It can be very pricey to do what Thalanor does with 300 some odd drones.

oh... my... god...

Yup, you need to upgrade the drone carrier's max capacity now keptick. Of course, I think we all do, I just can't be bothered to make a super massive titan carrier. I prefer mine to be smaller but... geeeeezz now I gotta make a massive carrier.

..and I only just (semi) finished this one...

 

[Thalanor]

This thread - is the like-farm of the drone cartel :D

 

[Dzuari]

So what exactly is the most efficient/best way to activate the dock to eject the drones? I'm new to SM but I've managed to make my own drone rack but once the rack is docked to the mother ship i can't figure out a better way to activate the logic on the rack other than ejecting a core over a trigger area.

 

[Loadout]

So what exactly is the most efficient/best way to activate the dock to eject the drones? I'm new to SM but I've managed to make my own drone rack but once the rack is docked to the mother ship i can't figure out a better way to activate the logic on the rack other than ejecting a core over a trigger area.

Glad you asked, there's about a billion different ways to activate drone launches and nobody here seems to have a "best" way. Mostly just personal preference, so I'll try to list as many as I can think of and you can go from there...

• Trigger Area(s)
  • Pass a core through them as you mentioned is a totally valid way of activating a logic circuit. I even use it for my modular drone launchers(once the launcher is activated it turns on a different sequence)
  • Pass the area block itself - another common method, the area block(s) move over some jutting out or specially walled section of the mothership and then activate the launch sequence.
• Core Beams
  • It's entirely possible for the core docking beam on your mothership to activate the logic blocks on your drone racks. You can use cameras to face the blocks on the racks and once detached activate them at will.
• Blow up the rack!
  • I don't really suggest this method, but it does work exceptionally well. You only have to be concerned with A) hitting the drones, and B) the time it takes for the rack to vanish(usually a minute or two). This does make a great delayed launch mechanism, but those aren't always the best way to go about launching drones. Maybe mines or skooms though...

Those are all I can think of atm, but they encompass at least 2 dozen different methods I've run across so far. Seeing as how you can literally move the rack anyway you want with beams, pulses, and other push/pull mechanisms anything that is rack based can work in almost any way you can imagine. Experiment with moving your rack over a certain area of your mothership's hull and see what you can come up with.

 

[ltmauve]

A bunch of people tip the rack using a push beam on one side and a pull beam on the other. The platform is elevated a block above the bottom so that there can be area triggers on the side with the pull beam that get set off by the tilting.
It also disperses the drones a bit more than just undocking them.

 

[Thalanor]

Yes, the catapult technique seems to be the current state-of-the-art, as it is the most robust and lag-free method as of now.
Of course nothing beats the coolness of drone bays, but a dedicated carrier surely can have nice looking catapults on it.

Until we have the rail system, all docking tech should be considered temporary though.

 

[Dzuari]

I'm having trouble with the core beam activating the logic. I build a ship with it's own drone ejection(no rack) and when i try to hit the activation module with a camera it does nothing? Does it only activate logic on a docked ship?

 

[Gerion]

I'm having trouble with the core beam activating the logic. I build a ship with it's own drone ejection(no rack) and when i try to hit the activation module with a camera it does nothing? Does it only activate logic on a docked ship?

Yes, you cant hit your own ship, hence the racks (and for added convience).

 

[Dzuari]

Yes, you cant hit your own ship, hence the racks (and for added convience).

Someone also suggested to me to just use edit mode, seems to work really well

Is there any community downloads of really good drones? What is a good block count/weapon blocks for drones? right now i have some 57 block micro drones with standard armor and 2x 4 block cannons but they don't seem to do much other than draw fire. I'm building a permacloaked light carrier with 4x 38block missles/beam so block count is my biggest issue. Right now I have 14 drones so 57(blocks) * 150(permacloak e/sec) = 8550 * 14 = 119,700 e/sec to perma cloak the drones. I still have another 200k e/sec available to use for the ship or drones and back figuring that calculation gives me about 95 more block per drone i can add.

 

[Thalanor]

Dzuari you can find the Soul drone, the R&D standard and baseline drone for all comparisons, here:
http://starmadedock.net/content/drone-rack.1376/ (made by keptick )
In order for you to experience the true greatness of drones, yours should not be much less effective than these. An ingame test is the best way to find out

 

[Loadout]

Dzuari, while the soul drone is the standard issue, its entirely missile based. If you're looking for a bit more variety, some special effects like Stop, or you'd like to see how drones have progressed, try out some of mine as well. I've got all the old editions uploaded as well as the new ones, so you can clearly see how and why my drones have evolved. It just might provide some insight into what you want your own drones to do.

Missiles and Overdrive Beams? Try the Kabuto
Stop Effect? Try the updated Kuwaga
Wanna have some fun with cannons and turrets? Then give the Ju Ga(Gun Moth) a whirl

Feel free to leave your feedback here too. I mean this is the major drone discussion area, so talking about drones is sort of.. our niche.:D Perhaps we can help you(or anyone else for that matter) develop and optimize your own purpose built drones.

 

[Gerion]

New Version is up, Changelog doesnt suggest any changes affecting drone efficency. Any significant drone-related bugs fixed? Dont know, investigating.

 

[Loadout]

New Version is up, Changelog doesnt suggest any changes affecting drone efficency. Any significant drone-related bugs fixed? Dont know, investigating.

Nothing new affects drones as far as I can tell. AI is the same, only real difference that seems meaningful is the trashcan in the inventory...

Trash-Drones? We could call them Wall-Eem's. :p

 

[Keptick]

Guuuuuuuuys, I figured out how to do a oneshot logic activation from the hotbar!!!! More on that when I actually make a prototype (but the concept is sound). This will be perfect for drone launches!

 

[Sgtwisky]

Well I've been away for a while due to work but am glad this thread is still going ! Thought I would post a few pics of my drones and my carrier (The Tsunami Tendenko) Which is very much a WIP. Currently the Tsunami is designed to hold 180 drones in 10 drone racks. 2/10 currently working.

The Drones themselves are 9x9x11. I modeled them off of the Soul drone. I currently have 2 models. A missile model and a cannon model.
Mass = 63.5
Cannon Model DPS = 280
Missile Model Alpha Damage = 4 missiles x 1200 damage each for a total of 4800.

Cannon Model Shields = 5149
Missile Model Shields = 3480

I must say... I am really glad this thread was made or I would still think that carrier or drone ships would never work (too time consuming to dock everything). SO I want to send a big thanks to everyone that has been developing new drone based ideas.

 

[Keptick]

Well I've been away for a while due to work but am glad this thread is still going ! Thought I would post a few pics of my drones and my carrier (The Tsunami Tendenko) Which is very much a WIP. Currently the Tsunami is designed to hold 180 drones in 10 drone racks. 2/10 currently working.

The Drones themselves are 9x9x11. I modeled them off of the Soul drone. I currently have 2 models. A missile model and a cannon model.
Mass = 63.5
Cannon Model DPS = 280
Missile Model Alpha Damage = 4 missiles x 1200 damage each for a total of 4800.

Cannon Model Shields = 5149
Missile Model Shields = 3480

I must say... I am really glad this thread was made or I would still think that carrier or drone ships would never work (too time consuming to dock everything). SO I want to send a big thanks to everyone that has been developing new drone based ideas.

Oh man, that is looking pretty amazing!

 

[Snk]

This should be stickied

 

[Thalanor]

We have been requesting sticky for months now :D

 

[Gerion]

Sticky or drone swarm attack!

Anyway, removing myself from drone development for a bit, creating my first cruiser class vessel. Swarm missiles included.

 

[MacThule]

I'm excited to find out if rails can rail-launch drones towards the enemy for super-fast deployment.