The ultimate drone R&D thread

[plazmasoul]

I have an idea. What if they added a module for drones where you could "pair" an AI ship with any other ship, essentially a companion system. What the "paired" AI ship would do is follow the ship its paired with and defend it, maybe even attack targets painted by the main ship.

 

[Loadout]

I have an idea. What if they added a module for drones where you could "pair" an AI ship with any other ship, essentially a companion system. What the "paired" AI ship would do is follow the ship its paired with and defend it, maybe even attack targets painted by the main ship.

Well, you sort of can do this already, albeit partly.

You Can tell AIs of other ships that are friendly to fire on "selected target" which will cause them to focus on whatever you select with the F key. Pretty handy in some respects, but in others not terribly so.

You Can't tell AI to follow you... yet. Key word being yet as it is planned somewhere down the road(or so I've read) that AI will be getting a sort of fleet buff, where they know to group up against you or with you. Presumably this would include a basic following script.

Ideally this wouldn't require an extra module as we're already going to have to add extras to get docking to even work once rails are out. So yeah, the idea is hopefully in the works at this point..

Edit: Your first post is here on R&D? Grats! and welcome to the forums!

 

[Thalanor]

Welcome to drone R&D plazmasoul !
And yes, there will be numerous upgrades incoming for our little drone friends - with the new docking and some Ai in the future, drones will absolutely wreck havoc.

 

[Vakna]

keptick So I just dicovered this thread of yours and I gotta say this drone rack is a thing of beauty. I'd like to ask permission to use your concept in my current build, somewhat modified though, just want to use your design as a template to expand upon if you're okay with that.

The idea I'm cooking up is to use the incoming rail system to build these racks into my multiple hangars but have them hidden in the wall/roof and extend out on rails before spitting out hundreds of viscious little buggers. Will save a lot of hangar space for other stuff that can't be so easily packed away.

 

[Thalanor]

Vakna keptick has made the rack public here. Just credit him and you can use and modify the heck out of it.
Also, yes, rails will probably solve both the storage as well as the ejection problem - think internal rack cartridges, moving the next rack into the bay after the first was fired, probably multiple times in a row! Even more so, the ejection process itself can be made spectacular - with flavory moving parts revealing the previously well hidden drone bays and stuff.

 

[Vakna]

Vakna keptick has made the rack public here. Just credit him and you can use and modify the heck out of it.
Also, yes, rails will probably solve both the storage as well as the ejection problem - think internal rack cartridges, moving the next rack into the bay after the first was fired, probably multiple times in a row! Even more so, the ejection process itself can be made spectacular - with flavory moving parts revealing the previously well hidden drone bays and stuff.

That's exactly what I'm thinking if it turns out to be possible. Like automatic reloading drone launchers hidden in hangar walls, have hull bulkeads sliding back to reveal the mechanism as it's pushed out on a rail, and slides back in after it's finished. Can also do the same with that chaff design keptick made, protect it under a sheet of hull on the outside of the ship that slides away for the chaffs to be launched.

To be honest the rail system completely changes the turret game too, infinite potential there that can bypass the rule of turrets not benefiting from their carrier's shielding.

 

[Loadout]

That's exactly what I'm thinking if it turns out to be possible. Like automatic reloading drone launchers hidden in hangar walls, have hull bulkeads sliding back to reveal the mechanism as it's pushed out on a rail, and slides back in after it's finished. Can also do the same with that chaff design keptick made, protect it under a sheet of hull on the outside of the ship that slides away for the chaffs to be launched.

To be honest the rail system completely changes the turret game too, infinite potential there that can bypass the rule of turrets not benefiting from their carrier's shielding.

Ahhh outer bulkheads, no more logic gated endless lag walls of plex doors anymore. How I have wanted to try this for so long, now with racks it's finally possible. =P

Imagine, sliding turrets that hide inside the hull, move out to fire, and in to reload. Hidden missile silos here we come!:D

 

[epicfacethe3rd]

some bad news guys...
my computer bricked the other day and i lost 50% of my work on my cruiser. i do have the completed bridge dropboxed however, pm me if you want it. i'm still going to work on it, just not at the same feverish pace as before.
on the other hand, i'm working on my own DIY flight sim setup for starmade complete with control panel.
god i wish schema would add an instruments panel option...

 

[TheGeek007]

Greetings fellow Drone Researchers! This thread has been an excellent read, and has inspired me to do my own experiments and drone designs. I wish to list the things I have discovered:

1. Drones respond to anything within their maximum weapon range. This means my Beam drones at 1km range didn't work very well. Even Beam-Beam drones at 3km range didn't work very well. Beams need a range boost before they would work well on drones.
2. Drones stop responding when a target goes out of weapons range. Drones also don't chase very well, meaning drones can be outrun easily.
   
3. Drones orbit the target, slowly drifting out to maximum weapons range. This means that really long range drones such as cannon-beam or missile-beam could wander out into unloaded sectors if attacking pirates. I haven't done too much testing vs other players, but logically this problem shouldn't occur then.
4. BOBBY AI have a strange feature/bug: When activating the AI block while the drone is docked, even if it is set to "ship" it will toggle itself to "turret". This doesn't appear to interfere with the operation of the drone, in fact, if you switch the AI back to "ship" while docked, the drone won't respond when undocked. Its best to leave it alone, as it seems to set itself correctly.

My current drone project is to make "TIE Fighter" Drones: ultra cheap, yet effective at doing damage at their size and mass, and at confusing enemy turrets. My main combat ship is a half-size Star Destroyer (800m long vs 1600m long), and plan on fielding 100+ of these drones.

Its interesting that the TIE Fighter lore says the wings are solar arrays, but I found that putting reactor blocks in the wings greatly increases power output. The cockpit is full of cannons, overdrive modules, and thrusters. Overdrive modules increase the cost, but allow a very low mass drone that is still effective. I'm really impressed with the results.

I even was able to turn a "bug" into a "feature". For this rack, I used the nested docking modules, and a docked ship core for a trigger. In my testing, I found that if you have an area trigger that overlaps the trigger core, the logic is triggered when the rack undocks. I designed this rack around using undocking to trigger the logic: 6 seconds after the rack is undocked (and pushed by push beams) all the drones undock.

I will continue to report back with results, and will make other TIE Models into drones. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

 

[Keptick]

Greetings fellow Drone Researchers! This thread has been an excellent read, and has inspired me to do my own experiments and drone designs. I wish to list the things I have discovered:

1. Drones respond to anything within their maximum weapon range. This means my Beam drones at 1km range didn't work very well. Even Beam-Beam drones at 3km range didn't work very well. Beams need a range boost before they would work well on drones.
2. Drones stop responding when a target goes out of weapons range. Drones also don't chase very well, meaning drones can be outrun easily.
   
3. Drones orbit the target, slowly drifting out to maximum weapons range. This means that really long range drones such as cannon-beam or missile-beam could wander out into unloaded sectors if attacking pirates. I haven't done too much testing vs other players, but logically this problem shouldn't occur then.
4. BOBBY AI have a strange feature/bug: When activating the AI block while the drone is docked, even if it is set to "ship" it will toggle itself to "turret". This doesn't appear to interfere with the operation of the drone, in fact, if you switch the AI back to "ship" while docked, the drone won't respond when undocked. Its best to leave it alone, as it seems to set itself correctly.

My current drone project is to make "TIE Fighter" Drones: ultra cheap, yet effective at doing damage at their size and mass, and at confusing enemy turrets. My main combat ship is a half-size Star Destroyer (800m long vs 1600m long), and plan on fielding 100+ of these drones.

Its interesting that the TIE Fighter lore says the wings are solar arrays, but I found that putting reactor blocks in the wings greatly increases power output. The cockpit is full of cannons, overdrive modules, and thrusters. Overdrive modules increase the cost, but allow a very low mass drone that is still effective. I'm really impressed with the results.

I even was able to turn a "bug" into a "feature". For this rack, I used the nested docking modules, and a docked ship core for a trigger. In my testing, I found that if you have an area trigger that overlaps the trigger core, the logic is triggered when the rack undocks. I designed this rack around using undocking to trigger the logic: 6 seconds after the rack is undocked (and pushed by push beams) all the drones undock.

I will continue to report back with results, and will make other TIE Models into drones. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

I really like the way you transfer the signal from the main ship to the racks. It's definitely an improvement over the system I use. It's simpler, faster and less prone to error. I also love the fact that you're shoving the entire rack out instead of the individual drones, lol.

Thalanor Loadout check this out!

 

[Loadout]

Greetings fellow Drone Researchers! This thread has been an excellent read, and has inspired me to do my own experiments and drone designs. I wish to list the things I have discovered:

1. Drones respond to anything within their maximum weapon range. This means my Beam drones at 1km range didn't work very well. Even Beam-Beam drones at 3km range didn't work very well. Beams need a range boost before they would work well on drones.
2. Drones stop responding when a target goes out of weapons range. Drones also don't chase very well, meaning drones can be outrun easily.
   
3. Drones orbit the target, slowly drifting out to maximum weapons range. This means that really long range drones such as cannon-beam or missile-beam could wander out into unloaded sectors if attacking pirates. I haven't done too much testing vs other players, but logically this problem shouldn't occur then.
4. BOBBY AI have a strange feature/bug: When activating the AI block while the drone is docked, even if it is set to "ship" it will toggle itself to "turret". This doesn't appear to interfere with the operation of the drone, in fact, if you switch the AI back to "ship" while docked, the drone won't respond when undocked. Its best to leave it alone, as it seems to set itself correctly.

1. Beam weapons in general do need some more range. To effectively use the Beam-beam combo you have to deploy the drones a bit closer than usual so they dont wander off so easily.
2. Needs moar thrusters then. My drones tend to chase fairly well, albeit not as well as players but enough so where they don't wander out of range easily.
3. All AI's do this, it's an odd behavior but you can use it to your advantage. A large enough swarm of drones released on a delay will create a sort of cloud effect. Which results in most turrets being confused and ultimately destroyed.
4. I've noticed this as well but it doesn't seem to affect the drones either way. The AI appears to correct itself every-time it detects a dock/undock. It's probably not so much a bug as it is a time saving feature that nobody really mentioned. After all would you really wanna tell 100 turrets to be set to turret mode?

If you're looking to prevent wandering out of range be sure that drone weapons have either similar ranges or your drones are of one weapon type. Beam-beams and missiles appear to have similar ranges so that's a great place to start on your Tie Bombers!

Hope to see those coming soon too. It's great to see a star wars theme to drones. Heck in Star Wars most Ties basically were doing what our drones do now!:D

I really like the way you transfer the signal from the main ship to the racks. It's definitely an improvement over the system I use. It's simpler, faster and less prone to error. I also love the fact that you're shoving the entire rack out instead of the individual drones, lol.

Thalanor Loadout check this out!

Actually been doing this for a while now keptick. ^_^ Still, it's nice to see others making good use of it! Using those on board area triggers really helps with otherwise complicated logic circuits.

 

[Thalanor]

Ye its basically the drone canister technique, which also works quite nice in the catapult version (with the hinge block and the overlapping trigger parts). TheGeek007 welcome to drone R&D! Best part is: all this time we have been doing science with limited methods. With the upcoming docking though, drone R&D may just get such a boost that drone ejection finally becomes a smooth, failsafe process with lots of flavour and efficiency options - compared to that, our current methods of pushing/pulling/smashing/blasting drones or entire racks out into space is rather medieval.

 

[Knack]

About how to clean up after drone use:

Do you guys think it would be possible with the upcoming wireless logic-modules to build a killswitch?

I think about a wireless activation module + warhead


And to the max weapon range, for me it seems like my drones go on max range of the target and not of their self

 

[Thalanor]

I don't killswitch my drones :p they are perfect where they are. If it is enemy territory, its a nice thank-you and ship recycling deterrent, if dumped in your own, you just upped your sector security vs lone battleship attacks (99% of random station attacks) significantly. I also enjoy dumping drones near large-radius planets I plan to mine in the future, so that whoever wants to take it must come in a warship, not a pure salvager.

 

[Knack]

I don't killswitch my drones :p they are perfect where they are.

I worry about server performance. Or isn't there much impact?

 

[Thalanor]

Depends on the server. On EE, a sector that has 200 drones in it and nothing else can count itself lucky.

 

[TheGeek007]

About how to clean up after drone use:

Do you guys think it would be possible with the upcoming wireless logic-modules to build a killswitch?

I think about a wireless activation module + warhead


And to the max weapon range, for me it seems like my drones go on max range of the target and not of their self

LOL! I actually had a "mishap" where in a moment of lag, pressed the launch button while docked at the home base. After about 3 min of 1 FPS, I ended up having to clean up this mess:

A kill switch sure would have come in handy here. *doh*
This is the second time I've had to clean up a mess of accidentally launched drones, so I installed a simple "arming" logic with two activators and an AND gate. This will NOT happen again...

My first version of a TIE Bomber is done, and managed to fit 18 of them on a rack. They turned out quite large, but the variable payload, and extra space for upgrades such as shields will be useful in the future.

I'd like to do TIE Interceptors next, but they are gonna be so blasted long, I'm not going to fit as many of them on a rack, and will be more expensive. I'll do some testing and see if I can make them worth it.

 

[NeonSturm]

This is the second time I've had to clean up a mess of accidentally launched drones, so I installed a simple "arming" logic with two activators and an AND gate. This will NOT happen again...

I previously made a self-d-lock like this:

NAA Non-Accidental Activation:

ActivationMod1+2 -> And1​

ASC Activation-Sequence-Cancellation (yes, I am super-paranoid):

{And1 -> Delay1 -> ...Delay... -> DelayN} -> And2​

SDL Self-D-Lock:

And2 -> Or1 <-> ActivationMod3​

SDE Status-Display-Enabled:

ActivationMod3 -> And3, Lamp:"Active self-d-lock"​

PRS Password-Reset-Module:

PasswordOutput -> And3 -> Not1 -> ActivationMod3​

Trigger:

Trigger + ActivationMod3 = self-d​

You could also link it to push-pulses near doors and mini-drone launchers.

If a block near any area-trigger gets killed, it activates, which makes another thing available:

damage-control -> trigger drone launch.
(You just need 1/5 or 1/9 of your hull made out of area triggers)​

 

[Keptick]

TheGeek007 An arming mechanism is a really good idea. I'm definitely going to add one to my drone racks. Little story; I was loading an internal rack in my titan, the game collisionderped and the rack ended up clipping through the ship a bit. Normally that wouldn't have been so bad, except that the area trigger also clipped with the ship, resulting in all the drones undocking... inside the ship.... the lag was horrible. Luckily I was in sp, so I was able to delete them all with a single command (which took 2 minutes to type in due to the lag). Having that happen on a server would be a pain.

So yea, a safety switch, definitely a good idea.

 

[Thalanor]

Safety switches and paranoia sequence shutdown enforcers are awesome - you still have to handle racks with care, though. Docked stuff colliding with something can sometimes just be blown off the dock (is that a mechanic?).

For instance, if I ram a rack with a ship at very high speeds (note that an accidential rotation of the rack while piloting it into the bay can have the same effect), with no activation triggers in the play (or simply a disarmed rack), then there will most likely be one catastrophic undocking mess. If that is a mechanic, I would really want it to go out of the window.