they aren't is the thing. you saying this makes me think you most likely have never done meta combat, or maybe even PVP and just tested things against pve targets, which are not a good representation at all of actual combat. i've fought multiple drone carriers already with my gdrive meta brick (9 layers armor, 48 railguns, nonscripted, 4/8 gatling turrets 4/0 missile turrets). if you are a competent pilot and dodge, the drone AI is drunk and can't hit. they also can't keep up with a gdrive either, and just tend to fly straight at me until they get shot down while i shoot the main ship, or if hit an run they get hit on the way in and out. generally, hit and run is not good for meta, in fact drones aren't good at all for previously mentioned reasons. small grid drones especially are very pcu inefficient too among other things. missiles don't work to well for the reason of everyone has the same speed limit, so if you just go max speed they cant run into you and get shot down. also, drones are horribly material inefficient in survival compared to just firing artillery or railguns. another tactic is just to rush the mothership with your meta brick and take it out before they launch more than a few drones. also ramming the drones with meta bricks is a thing. small grid just disentigrates.
As someone who plays a lot of single player this new update is a game changer. Before this update the thought of building a whole fleet of large grid ships in my survival world was fairly pointless since I would only be able to fly one at a time, but now I can set the ships to follow the player and move an entire fleet by myself. Plus some of the harder AI encounters were also fairly daunting as a solo player. However, now that I can build an army of drones to assist me they seem much more manageable. I love that my success won't be hindered as much by playing solo and will instead be determined more so by my ability to design and build things that function in the way that I need them to.
The AI fighter thing will be pretty nice to see in-game. Plus now this makes "drone battles" a whole lot more interesting because now you can set them up for the server according to what you want, rather than need players or admins to control them
You could also use timers on each drone fighter to activate a thrust override to get away from the ship for a few seconds to prevent the AI from getting stuck due to collision avoidance. Of course, you'd also need one to turn it off.
If you dont care about looking nice you could make the carier more like a rocket shaped with drones on all 4 sides, if you roll the carrier the drones will be thrown away from the carrier by centrifugal force. Means you can launch 4 drones at once, with a little delay you can launch the next 4 you could probably launch 20 drones in 1 second with decent spacing in a helix formation. That would be very effectiv.
@@jonasstahl9826Or if you're feeling fancy you could have Babylon 5-style cobra bays on a rotating section. Might be tempting Clang but it'd look cool.
@@WulfgarOpenthroat I am not into fancy designs, I will try the rolling rocket type of carrier, eject all the attack drones and crash the carrier in the target or park it near the target as bulletsponge.
I guess you could set a timer to set the ai block to intercept mode after a certain amount of time. How ever long it takes for the drone to use up all its ammo.
@@evinbraley No need for a timer... it would be much better to use an event controller block. Set it to check the cargo capacity of your drone, and set it to trigger the intercept AI block and arm the warhead once it runs out of ammo.
A good idea for drone recovery could be to have them fly to a set location far away from your main base that way the location of the carrier and your base isn’t given away when they run out of ammo ready to be collected for grinding
@@Yukimaru0 the whole idea is the drones aren’t worth as much resources as a recovery ship the carrier or your base so it’s better to just leave them in the middle of nowhere to be picked up later
@@Yukimaru0 it could be possible with a complex set of timers and sensors but that would be more resources in the firing line then it’s worth to recover the drones still
@@ethanthompson4198 Maybe for the first drone. And the second. And the third. What about the 19,746th drone tho? What if you could even Automate it? Is there Sensor Blocks, and can the AI interact with them? If you could get the AI Drones to fly to the hidden garbage carrier, land in a specific spot on it, which triggers a Sensor. Then have the Carrier able detect when all Sensors are triggered and thus 'Full', and warp back to base untraceably? Well then, you have an Automated isolated system that works, and needs no oversight or changing. A background Routine you can always use for any and all drone collection needs.
Just use an event timer to command the used drones to fly back to a grinding pit on the rear of a carrier. Gravity genorator to pull them in once engines are off. Printers on a carrier to print new drones. Keep em small and nimble. Rinse & repeat
I was exploring that today and i found that using a flight recorder referencing a small grid dock beacon you could make 4 drones connected to this grid and replicate it by only changing the reference beacon name on the duplicated one in the flight ai basic and the flight recorder . Once updated the drone will be able to return to their respective dock essentially creating a deployable 4 ship squadron that can go back to the deployed docking grid using the event controller to check for ammo, damage or charge . So basically set up once then all you do is print and change a name and you have a deployable autonomous squadron .
4:20 If you could force them to do a 1-5 seconds one directional burn after activation, they would be better at clearing the deck. Like they would be launched for a Catapult or Galactica Launch Tube. This could also allow you to launch the waves closer together. But for that, you may want to organize them a crescent formation, so they always give each other space once they "fanned out".
Fun thought; use gravity and artificial mass blocks to launch fighters. This could just be kicking them off the deck, or you could get fancy and put them in downwards-facing cells with timer-activated doors freeing the top for guns(alternatively, launch sideways battlestar-style). Or you could get really fancy with launch tubes/internal flight deck and 2 pairs of opposed grav gens constraining the fighter to the middle while a fifth throws it out into space. Just remember to use timers to turn the mass blocks off after if you're worried about enemy grav gens messing with them.
SE has been stalled for many years in my opinion, but in the last couple years, Keen really put work into it. It is going in the right way, and I can't wait to see more about SE2 and the new VRage 3 engine!
Battles are going to be a lot more chaotic and explosive and perhaps even cinematic. With all the little fighters flying around. I look forward to seeing them being used outside of tests that are set up specifically for them. Like in people's gameplay series and server events that would normally happen but are now going to be changed.
I feel like this might start an arms race with people trying to figure out the most efficant and optimal disposable drone designs, and carrier configs. Assuming they don't get banned on your server due to lag lmao
Reminds me of the concept of tie fighters and their disposability. Its going to be fun to see all the designs that are created to protect the ai cores but also allow the to be cheap and effective weapons edit: maybe even making a ditch button so you can escape a crippled ship while it suicides the target or attempts to flee without crew. O isolated sections of a ship that will keep targeting if they get disconnected from the main control stations
To avoid the limp fighters sitting on the deck, have a timer trigger max thrust on the downwards facing engines of the respective fighter to give it a nudge above deck level. This should fix the inherent collision checks causing the fighters not to move because of collision avoidance (and also a great way to push large AI torpedoes away on launch!). Alternatively, set collision avoidance off by default, then after 1 second turn it on upon liftoff. However I must caveat that if LOS to the target is below the deck line, the fighter will slam into the deck before collion avoidance gets placed on. Food for thought!
This update is awesome especially for my designs. My drones prior relied on remote control but they were well equipped to where i could orbital drop a miner and cruise it back with no problems. But now i can go full scale! One of my carriers is a big ship with 6 large ship drones with heavy cannons. Idea was for the deployment to allow a mass wing of cannons that shred large ships
I grew up playing pinball, Pac-Man, asteroids, and Defender It's amazing to live to see the evolution of video games.. Literally amazing I wonder if I am REALY going to play this thing - hopefully
I always imagined self replicating ai colony, that can mine, deliver resources and fight on its own. Now it's possible I guess. Space Engies self sufficient AI. I am thrilled.
A neat tactic I think would be a good reason to use a bunch of hangers is for like a battleship, enemies would come in expecting a straight 1v1 battle but suddenly you open a bunch of concealed hanger doors and suddenly there are a bunch of drones they weren't prepared for.
I want Devs to add a Signal transmitter and Signal receiver! Signal Transmitter will send a player number (0000-9999) through antenna and through antenna Signal receiver will receive number and if it matches Signal receiver then signal receiver will turn on. It essentially remote button function. It will round up Automatons nicely. 😊
This gives me some ideas. Gotta mess with these things You could probably use pistons on timers or something to help move the fighters away from the grid automatically so they detect being separate properly If you turned off collision avoidance, they'd be pretty good at delivering armed warheads to a mobile target
I've updated the original. I ended up putting all the launch control on the fighters themselves. That way they can either be launched as a group or one at a time. They seem to struggle a bit while changing direction because the AI wants to fly using the side engines instead of the bottom engines like they are designed to do.
This drone mechanics might have more versatility than one might see at first glance. For instance; you're on a gunboat that's really outnumbered but this gunboat is above a planet and is equipped with drop pods rated for plant atmo-entry, you plop the offensive block and activate it. While the gunboat is fighting you enter the drop pod and escape to the planet while your gunboat delays the enemy to the end. That is just the beginning in terms of potential for this update.
I am interested in a carrier that has a variety of ships with different AI. Hit &Run Bombers with autocannons & 2 AI controlled missiles each. Interceptors with normal machine guns and normal rockets A Carrier with Rail guns and Artilery being a Bot itself. A Large Grid Missile. And a personal fighter of my own preference that i dont think the AI would do well with.
Loved the video @LastStandGamers! Can't wait for the next video man! Having an AI Fighter, Bomber or even Attack Aircraft would be Really Cool to see. Even AI Transport Units like Medium and Heavy Lift Utility and Cargo Helicopters in Space Engineers is cool! For me, I'd have a Flight Recorder to Record a Taxi Procedure, a Takeoff and a Landing Procedure, the AI Offensive Block to either Fight Enemy Fighters or have Attack Aircraft Fire Missiles or Drop Bombs on a Target and the Condition Block to have them Return to The Airbase or the Carrier when They're either Low on Fuel or they've Expended their Ammunition. This way should allow for the Set-up of some Strikes and even a Combat Air Patrol to Protect the Carrier and the Carrier Group. Let me know what you think about this and I'll catch you in your next video man!
Heyo. I'm a console player and I'm getting a little crazy with my own AI drones. Got auto docking, auto launching, auto patrol/escort, and auto combat. List of items: 2 Move AI (Both serve different functions) 3 AI Record (1 Docks, 1 Launches, and 1 for Escort/Patrol) At least 3 timer blocks 1 Event controller 1 Combat AI I may have gone overboard with the setup but, it works. Fully automated, AI never shuts off, and one click of a button and watch it work/never shut off. Now, with what was shown in this video, I might actually be able to create a fully automated carrier.
I've been working on a mech that launches it's "wings" at the enemy. It's a small fighter that takes full advantage of the custom turret controller and the AI. This allows for a truly devastating combo.
Attack drones or suicide drones/missiles don't really have much distinction, for launching. Splitsie used a timer to launch his test missiles off the connector initially, for a top-down/indirect attack, the way you see many surface missiles launch. Vertical boost for 100m, then next timer block in the chain shuts off the override, turns on AI blocks. This way, you can achieve a consistent initiial launch that puts the drone reliably clear of your ship by X meters or seconds of boost. I imagine a moving carrier could use this to roll, pitch, or yaw as it fires off the sequential waves, to achieve a wider launch spread of drones. They'll attack from more angles on their initial approaches. With forward-launching drones, the initial boost could also be used to create even more stand-off distance -- your carrier could fire the drones from 3 km, with a boost phase timed for approx 500+ meters. This will put the drone AI into its 2.5 km detection range, but your carrier ship never has to enter that range itself. This could make the circle/orbit pattern more viable, since the boost launch phase won't get clogged with numbskull drone traffic around the carrier. I want to use the circle/orbit pattern more, b/c I'm trying out different drone roles. Heavy, cheap tank drones in the first wave -- mostly just a flying brick of heavy armor to serve as overbuilt moving decoys (since decoys have done !@#$ all in recent updates). A few long range circle/keep distance drones for railgun sniping (can be more expensive). And a bunch of cheap, disposable hit and run drones to fill out the menu (including missiles/suicide drones). I'm personally building on a rear connector vertical launch-to-direct-flight using all forward thrusters. As opposed to using up thrust to launch, then having to alter vector and course to forward thrust. Also, sometimes launching the AI off the connectors, the AI get stuck for a little while. This can cause the connection to reset and reactive its proximity magnetic force. I'd include an action on the timer disconnecting the connector to also turn off the connector. This is probably best done from the drone's timer block(s), so that if your carrier connector is included in a merge/welder/projector setup, it will immediately be ready to connect the next welded replacement.
one goal i have for a build is to have a carrier that has 4 2 frigates and 2 corvettes on its side acting as back up thrusters and extra armor but when it detects an enemy the side ships disconnect and engage the enemy, with both the frigates and the carrier launching their own fighters as extra support. so pretty much a Fleet Carrier class ship
what I like about AI fighter is that they don't completely make player manned fighter obsolete, sure AI's are far more spamable but player fighters will always maneuver and respond to orders faster / better
@@LastStandGamers well - I have a bit experience in Dreadnought designing and building - and usually a dreadnought has heavy weapons, maybe a super weapon and a lot of Point Defence - but it is much more inefficient to try to protect a huge ship like a dreadnought bcz if u could build like 4000 small fighterdrones with its resources and then swarm it - against 4K fighters even the best Point Defence would be useless 😫 The optimized ship for this new kind of warfare would be some sort of a carrier like ship (I also designed a super carrier - but that one sadly will never be completed because of it being so big for one structure that it reached the physical block simulation limit 😭), destroyers with focus on Point Defence for the carrier group, frohstes with AI Controlled long range missiles for heavy striking, and maybe a heavy cruiser type with weapons to efficiently attack a base or finish critical damaged old battleships with cheaper ammo 🤷🏼♂️
I mean irl battleships died due to the same reason. Missiles and Fighters were born, and with it having big gun would not save you since the threat you normally fought in the sea is in the air now. The better question is, why did it take so long for engineers to discover basic AI?
@@lukea1533 well - I guess bcz it was rather complicated to program it on his own - and finished scripts u could download usually need a few modifications depending on how ur built vehicle differed from the one the script was made for 🤷🏼♂️ I guess that’s why basic AI wasn’t used that much
I had the idea when this update was released to make a carrier with an artificial mass launch system, I don't have the time to do it myself so it would be cool if someone else tried it. Like a fabrication bay that manufactures and stores fighters and then launches them
I had the same idea of making a carrier that could manufacture fighters throughout a battle, although at that point, it might have to become a super carrier with its size, but definitely something I’ll look into!
@@KyleMan-my9wn I think for the artificial mass system to work the ai blocks need to have an offset with a timer block to avoid collision, and the storing should just be an assembly line
before having giant flight decks on your ships wasnt really worth it in my opinion atleast, because it was a giant, unprotected surface so your fighters would get destroyed so easily. However, now they are going to be so much more useful as you can launch large amounts of fighters quickly and easily instead of slowly coming out a hangar bay
You can fudge it, if you use 4-directional thrusters and set wheel friction to 0. Far from ideal and had issues with rough terrain but atleast it's something.
Strike craft researched When we getting fusion that uses ice but requires a lot of energy to start it off, and if it runs out of a set number of ice it shuts off and u have to start it again, like a pull cord on a chainsaw
what I was thinking with my design was to make a big ship with a lower hangar bay (which will hold about 4-6 drones) and that it will have those drones fall out with gravity and then they wake up and attack the target
Looking at this I'm thinking a racker basicly a carrier type thing only it's an oven rack sort of structure with each rack being a deck to launch strike craft or wtvr to a fight or something, perhaps sliding out for launch or, rotating out, also one could do like a drop platform of fighters and such and drop them at various points like little hornet nests or something in space, super simple, not overly complex just a group of misiles or fighters or wtvr in a place that launches stuff as it sits there and is activated.
An interesting idea for shields would be to only block some projectiles, such as rockets (as much as those don’t need to be nerfed anymore as they are, just spitballing here) so it would create more initiative to use artillery. It could also be done where the shield only protects against projectiles from a certain range, (such as 1.5km or more) to try and protect against long range missiles and rail gun drones. There’s other ways too, and I definitely don’t think that they’re necessary, especially with the new flee ability for AI, and safe zones already existing, but if done right, it could be a great feature, (sorry about my bad grammar, it’s late)
The ai recorder does not mind if the beacon goes out of range so you can set the ai to take off out of its rout i prefer to have all the fighters set up in line so they have the same Ai. Then they fly to a waypoint 10 km or even like 30km from the target or fly a loop around a you at 3k for example but you have to stay still because i don’t think it adjusts for you movement when outside of beacon range. then if the bomber detects an enemy, it fill fly a hit and run to 2.25km and fire its payload of missiles at 2.25km then even controller can detect this switch the bomber back to defensive ai but also set a timer turning off old recorder and turning it to another one with its last waypoint getting set to where it dropped missiles since you can have it automatically change its last waypoint. you need another offensive ai so you don’t trigger it again making it try and drop missiles twice on second run 3 times on third etc. then it will return and again reload its missiles and repeat. If it docks with a connector each time you can have the carrier reset the bomber using groups so it does not dump all your component into missile after the target is dead. this means your ai carriers like real carriers can attack targets way out of range even to a point were sometimes my bombers are running sorties on several enemies that I do know the location of.
What would be cool but clang would very much hate, is a launcher comprised of rotors that "fling" the drone into combat. Could make for a planetary defence laucher....
IMO for disposable drones I don't think you want them placed in rows; I think the ideal shape would be something like a flat grid shape whose face was towards the enemy ship. You would have one drone inside of each box of the grid. In other words, an open hanger design, essentially. The argument here is that you should be able to parallelize the launches with some sort of tiling method. ie: Assuming x = 0 is the furthest to the left, and y = 0 is the bottom, you could launch drones from x0 y0, x1 y3, x2 y6, x3 y9, x4 y1, x5 y4, x6 y7, and so on at the same time without them interfering because there should be enough distance between each fighter. You could then do a second wave offset either be one x or one y value. Alternative a cross shaped carrier should be able to launch two fighters from each "arm" without issue at the same time. I do think that the rate of launch matters a lot for this strategy, because the enemy should have an amount of PD that can take out X number of drones per second; in other words, there's a minimum number of drones to pierce the enemy's defenses at all, so you want to pay your "tax" as few times as possible, by launching in as close to a single wave as you can. Alternatively, I think another strategy could be to start the drones with inertial dampeners off, launch a few, move your ship, roughly equalize momentum, launch a second wave, and so on so forth to get a large wave built up. You would then need some sort of signal or event to activate them and turn on inertial dampeners (didn't think this part through, not sure what would be the best). One could imagine a welder ship with a single drone port building up a wave of fifty drones, for instance, on route to an enemy, and them all activating at once.
Great video thanks! I see a lot of people recommending to turn connectors off to part ways. But what if you turned off the magnetics on both connectors and relied on the positioning to be accurate. Then simply switched lock to part?
Would it be more effective to create a cylindrical carrier with drones on the outside circumference? You could deploy drones a lot quicker. Less launching collisions (because they deploy in different directions) means less need for delay, all with a smaller footprint
okay hear me out. theres this roblox game called starscape. the primary enemies are drones and pirates. the drone lore is that a faction created them for defence but they went rogue. imagine a self-sufficient drone species that causes mass chaos and an entire war, that would be SICK.
All I can think of is a mothership that has printers pushing out an endless stream of tiny fighters/missiles until the target is destroyed... u can also have the "return" point if they live be in a grinder pit to recycle old damaged ships
0:29, ERROR. if your not really caring about them Returing to the Carrier, then why are these Drones not Kamakazi Drones? They Fire all ammo until it is Depleted, then PLOW INTO the target before Detonating and inflicting the utmost damage.
i would like to see a "closed hangar" and see the carrier configuration for open the hangar doors, start the fighter, the fighter go, and get back and land in the "closed hangar"
aaron did you ever think of bringing back your gutter nanites sticky bombs as ai controlled weaponry?? i was looking at this the other day since im an old fart in engineering and this might be interesting to see now :D the nanites wouldnt just wander off either they would stick to ships like bees on honey XD
@@LastStandGamers oh and i forgot to say to get the small drones away from youre grid you could put pistons in combo with even controller and timer for ejection pushes to send them up so the ai picks up faster???
If you want them to return to the carrier after {ammo depleted, damaged, time, fuel low....} would you rather use a central beacon for reference, and set up waypoints for each fighter manually, or build multiple beacons on the carrier, and just change the beacon itself for each fighter ?
honestly me personally i would make projector and welder system that produced new fighters so i am not just limited to the compacity of the carrier ship
I intend to get into this game, however I'm still waiting on our ps4 release. That being said i want a space aircraft carrier the size of a planet. When they ask how many aircraft you have at your disposal, You say "Yes!"
I've not yet played this game, so I'm unfamiliar with the mechanics. In regards to "space carriers" wouldn't it make more sense to have the runway angled away from each other. Like a triangle shape with a runway in each side (Tri-Carrier?). This way would avoid many collisions due to heavy grouping as you would have three single lanes.
I feel like it would be better to have each wave of fighters be on a separate button, so you can commit just a few of your drones for smaller situations, rather than all or nothing
Begun, the drone war has.
200,000 units are ready with a million more well on the way
Lag wars have begun
LAG, we will find.
much, there will be
Captain jack won't like dealing with this new tech. Mr castle on the other hand.
You ain't no yoda, don't type like that
With new drones like this, I’m imagining stations défense where cheap disposable drones are printed and launched at a terrifying rate
Your right could be a whole new way to play.
This video is for a large block hydrogen drone missile printer and it's fairly nuts: th-cam.com/video/q64p85Q7GGs/w-d-xo.html
imagine this but it's a giant carrier-dreadnought for maximum firepower
@@carteradams43 Like a USS Typhon? From Star Trek Invasion.
Yesssss, just waves of them, all fed by mining drones.
Drones are completely changing the combat meta of space engineers, and I'm all for it!
now we just need signal jammers to inhibit remote orders and telemetry.
Now we need actual servers
Agreed, I really wish there was a better multiplayer community for it
they aren't is the thing. you saying this makes me think you most likely have never done meta combat, or maybe even PVP and just tested things against pve targets, which are not a good representation at all of actual combat. i've fought multiple drone carriers already with my gdrive meta brick (9 layers armor, 48 railguns, nonscripted, 4/8 gatling turrets 4/0 missile turrets). if you are a competent pilot and dodge, the drone AI is drunk and can't hit. they also can't keep up with a gdrive either, and just tend to fly straight at me until they get shot down while i shoot the main ship, or if hit an run they get hit on the way in and out. generally, hit and run is not good for meta, in fact drones aren't good at all for previously mentioned reasons. small grid drones especially are very pcu inefficient too among other things. missiles don't work to well for the reason of everyone has the same speed limit, so if you just go max speed they cant run into you and get shot down. also, drones are horribly material inefficient in survival compared to just firing artillery or railguns. another tactic is just to rush the mothership with your meta brick and take it out before they launch more than a few drones. also ramming the drones with meta bricks is a thing. small grid just disentigrates.
@@a3.0001 dang, I never played space engineers pvp but you gave me so many robocraft flashbacks and I totally see your brick working
As someone who plays a lot of single player this new update is a game changer. Before this update the thought of building a whole fleet of large grid ships in my survival world was fairly pointless since I would only be able to fly one at a time, but now I can set the ships to follow the player and move an entire fleet by myself.
Plus some of the harder AI encounters were also fairly daunting as a solo player. However, now that I can build an army of drones to assist me they seem much more manageable. I love that my success won't be hindered as much by playing solo and will instead be determined more so by my ability to design and build things that function in the way that I need them to.
what is there to fight against in single player btw
They have Space Pirate's in single-player, too, but I always add more enemy factions like Assert, Cult, Reavers, etc.
@@LilTikiBoyAnother way of doing that is to just ravage neutrals until they don’t like you.
Finally! I love having ai fighters in games, they add the cinematic feel that you can achieve with real players! (to a certain extent)
The AI fighter thing will be pretty nice to see in-game.
Plus now this makes "drone battles" a whole lot more interesting because now you can set them up for the server according to what you want, rather than need players or admins to control them
You could also use timers on each drone fighter to activate a thrust override to get away from the ship for a few seconds to prevent the AI from getting stuck due to collision avoidance. Of course, you'd also need one to turn it off.
If you dont care about looking nice you could make the carier more like a rocket shaped with drones on all 4 sides, if you roll the carrier the drones will be thrown away from the carrier by centrifugal force. Means you can launch 4 drones at once, with a little delay you can launch the next 4 you could probably launch 20 drones in 1 second with decent spacing in a helix formation. That would be very effectiv.
Yeh my missiles do that
@@jonasstahl9826Or if you're feeling fancy you could have Babylon 5-style cobra bays on a rotating section. Might be tempting Clang but it'd look cool.
@@jonasstahl9826 Grav launch BSG style could also work, set up a bunch of grab generators pointing out and then artificial mass on the fighter.
@@WulfgarOpenthroat I am not into fancy designs, I will try the rolling rocket type of carrier, eject all the attack drones and crash the carrier in the target or park it near the target as bulletsponge.
Thanks for that! A good use for a drone is to arm a warhead and switch to an intercept block when it runs out of ammo
Yeah, if it's not coming back you might as well get a one final use out of it and help clean up the server.
I guess you could set a timer to set the ai block to intercept mode after a certain amount of time. How ever long it takes for the drone to use up all its ammo.
@@evinbraley No need for a timer... it would be much better to use an event controller block. Set it to check the cargo capacity of your drone, and set it to trigger the intercept AI block and arm the warhead once it runs out of ammo.
A good idea for drone recovery could be to have them fly to a set location far away from your main base that way the location of the carrier and your base isn’t given away when they run out of ammo ready to be collected for grinding
Set up a recovery ship with a beacon as their home location.
@@Yukimaru0 the whole idea is the drones aren’t worth as much resources as a recovery ship the carrier or your base so it’s better to just leave them in the middle of nowhere to be picked up later
@@Yukimaru0 it could be possible with a complex set of timers and sensors but that would be more resources in the firing line then it’s worth to recover the drones still
@@ethanthompson4198 Maybe for the first drone. And the second. And the third. What about the 19,746th drone tho? What if you could even Automate it? Is there Sensor Blocks, and can the AI interact with them? If you could get the AI Drones to fly to the hidden garbage carrier, land in a specific spot on it, which triggers a Sensor. Then have the Carrier able detect when all Sensors are triggered and thus 'Full', and warp back to base untraceably? Well then, you have an Automated isolated system that works, and needs no oversight or changing. A background Routine you can always use for any and all drone collection needs.
Just use an event timer to command the used drones to fly back to a grinding pit on the rear of a carrier. Gravity genorator to pull them in once engines are off. Printers on a carrier to print new drones. Keep em small and nimble. Rinse & repeat
I was exploring that today and i found that using a flight recorder referencing a small grid dock beacon you could make 4 drones connected to this grid and replicate it by only changing the reference beacon name on the duplicated one in the flight ai basic and the flight recorder . Once updated the drone will be able to return to their respective dock essentially creating a deployable 4 ship squadron that can go back to the deployed docking grid using the event controller to check for ammo, damage or charge . So basically set up once then all you do is print and change a name and you have a deployable autonomous squadron .
4:20 If you could force them to do a 1-5 seconds one directional burn after activation, they would be better at clearing the deck. Like they would be launched for a Catapult or Galactica Launch Tube.
This could also allow you to launch the waves closer together. But for that, you may want to organize them a crescent formation, so they always give each other space once they "fanned out".
Thinking that maybe a gravity catapult system should be used for helping launch them.
oh hell yeah, like BSG stuff or well plenty of franchises use launchers for various purposes honestly.
@@wepntech or maybe a space battleship yamato style revolver launch system
Fun thought; use gravity and artificial mass blocks to launch fighters. This could just be kicking them off the deck, or you could get fancy and put them in downwards-facing cells with timer-activated doors freeing the top for guns(alternatively, launch sideways battlestar-style). Or you could get really fancy with launch tubes/internal flight deck and 2 pairs of opposed grav gens constraining the fighter to the middle while a fifth throws it out into space.
Just remember to use timers to turn the mass blocks off after if you're worried about enemy grav gens messing with them.
SE has been stalled for many years in my opinion, but in the last couple years, Keen really put work into it.
It is going in the right way, and I can't wait to see more about SE2 and the new VRage 3 engine!
Battles are going to be a lot more chaotic and explosive and perhaps even cinematic. With all the little fighters flying around. I look forward to seeing them being used outside of tests that are set up specifically for them. Like in people's gameplay series and server events that would normally happen but are now going to be changed.
I wonder how effective drones will be for base defence as I'm guessing that's how they're mostly going to be used for most smaller groups.
Depends on how they're set up but my faction has been testing them in creative servers and they're very effective in numbers
We just need to design them to refuel themselves for survival
I definitely want that next video on how to make them return too!
Working on it the hard it has been trying to keep it short.
I am one more step closer to making a protoss carrier
We require more vespene gas!!!
This is the comment I was waiting for hahahaha
@@micahjestep your comment was the one I was waiting for to make that reply
@@ChildLikeEmperor1 YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS
I feel like this might start an arms race with people trying to figure out the most efficant and optimal disposable drone designs, and carrier configs. Assuming they don't get banned on your server due to lag lmao
Reminds me of the concept of tie fighters and their disposability. Its going to be fun to see all the designs that are created to protect the ai cores but also allow the to be cheap and effective weapons
edit: maybe even making a ditch button so you can escape a crippled ship while it suicides the target or attempts to flee without crew. O isolated sections of a ship that will keep targeting if they get disconnected from the main control stations
make escape pods look the same as ai fighters so the enemy won't think twice about shooting the fighter that isn't a threat yet
Thank you for putting this out I've been wanting to do this for some time for my engineering.
Thanks! Great advice, can't wait to see what the community can do
Also sick carrier
This single update has made this game feel 100x more alive and complicated lol. Love me some automations
To avoid the limp fighters sitting on the deck, have a timer trigger max thrust on the downwards facing engines of the respective fighter to give it a nudge above deck level. This should fix the inherent collision checks causing the fighters not to move because of collision avoidance (and also a great way to push large AI torpedoes away on launch!). Alternatively, set collision avoidance off by default, then after 1 second turn it on upon liftoff. However I must caveat that if LOS to the target is below the deck line, the fighter will slam into the deck before collion avoidance gets placed on. Food for thought!
This update is awesome especially for my designs. My drones prior relied on remote control but they were well equipped to where i could orbital drop a miner and cruise it back with no problems. But now i can go full scale!
One of my carriers is a big ship with 6 large ship drones with heavy cannons. Idea was for the deployment to allow a mass wing of cannons that shred large ships
All i can think about is the old AI Swarm Drones (especially that orb mother) getting a revamp and how much more terrifying it'll be now hahaha
I grew up playing pinball, Pac-Man, asteroids, and Defender
It's amazing to live to see the evolution of video games..
Literally amazing
I wonder if I am REALY going to play this thing - hopefully
I always imagined self replicating ai colony, that can mine, deliver resources and fight on its own. Now it's possible I guess. Space Engies self sufficient AI. I am thrilled.
A neat tactic I think would be a good reason to use a bunch of hangers is for like a battleship, enemies would come in expecting a straight 1v1 battle but suddenly you open a bunch of concealed hanger doors and suddenly there are a bunch of drones they weren't prepared for.
Perfect, now I know how to make missiles for my hangar.
Would love to see a video about compact drone designs with the new ai stuff
That is a swarm of death. Im looking forward to the self returning drone video.
I want Devs to add a Signal transmitter and Signal receiver! Signal Transmitter will send a player number (0000-9999) through antenna and through antenna Signal receiver will receive number and if it matches Signal receiver then signal receiver will turn on. It essentially remote button function. It will round up Automatons nicely. 😊
This gives me some ideas. Gotta mess with these things
You could probably use pistons on timers or something to help move the fighters away from the grid automatically so they detect being separate properly
If you turned off collision avoidance, they'd be pretty good at delivering armed warheads to a mobile target
Thank you so much I was wondering how to do this thank you so much for this video I love the channel and the videos❤
I've updated the original. I ended up putting all the launch control on the fighters themselves. That way they can either be launched as a group or one at a time.
They seem to struggle a bit while changing direction because the AI wants to fly using the side engines instead of the bottom engines like they are designed to do.
Did you use the carrier in the video?
@@beefcake3543 Yes in one of the Lunacy iterations it was my ship for the end event.
@@aurenian8247 Could you share it as a blueprint? That would be a tremendous help.
@@beefcake3543 It's linked in the video description.
This drone mechanics might have more versatility than one might see at first glance. For instance; you're on a gunboat that's really outnumbered but this gunboat is above a planet and is equipped with drop pods rated for plant atmo-entry, you plop the offensive block and activate it. While the gunboat is fighting you enter the drop pod and escape to the planet while your gunboat delays the enemy to the end. That is just the beginning in terms of potential for this update.
Ohh boy the Drones are back in business!
Love your return to making more SE videos!!!
Can't wait to see the player's in your server play around with this!
I am interested in a carrier that has a variety of ships with different AI.
Hit &Run Bombers with autocannons & 2 AI controlled missiles each.
Interceptors with normal machine guns and normal rockets
A Carrier with Rail guns and Artilery being a Bot itself.
A Large Grid Missile.
And a personal fighter of my own preference that i dont think the AI would do well with.
i cant wait till i make a swarm of tie fighters now, need to see if it works with the starwars armco mod. great work Arron !!
That sounds awesome can't wait to see it.
Loved the video @LastStandGamers! Can't wait for the next video man! Having an AI Fighter, Bomber or even Attack Aircraft would be Really Cool to see. Even AI Transport Units like Medium and Heavy Lift Utility and Cargo Helicopters in Space Engineers is cool!
For me, I'd have a Flight Recorder to Record a Taxi Procedure, a Takeoff and a Landing Procedure, the AI Offensive Block to either Fight Enemy Fighters or have Attack Aircraft Fire Missiles or Drop Bombs on a Target and the Condition Block to have them Return to The Airbase or the Carrier when They're either Low on Fuel or they've Expended their Ammunition. This way should allow for the Set-up of some Strikes and even a Combat Air Patrol to Protect the Carrier and the Carrier Group.
Let me know what you think about this and I'll catch you in your next video man!
Heyo. I'm a console player and I'm getting a little crazy with my own AI drones. Got auto docking, auto launching, auto patrol/escort, and auto combat.
List of items:
2 Move AI (Both serve different functions)
3 AI Record (1 Docks, 1 Launches, and 1 for Escort/Patrol)
At least 3 timer blocks
1 Event controller
1 Combat AI
I may have gone overboard with the setup but, it works. Fully automated, AI never shuts off, and one click of a button and watch it work/never shut off. Now, with what was shown in this video, I might actually be able to create a fully automated carrier.
I've been working on a mech that launches it's "wings" at the enemy. It's a small fighter that takes full advantage of the custom turret controller and the AI. This allows for a truly devastating combo.
I would honestly love to see a dedicated SE AI Fleet series on building, supplying, and maintaining an AI fleet in SE Survival.
I have been waiting years for a plug and play drone system! The new meta is Ganna be sic
Attack drones or suicide drones/missiles don't really have much distinction, for launching.
Splitsie used a timer to launch his test missiles off the connector initially, for a top-down/indirect attack, the way you see many surface missiles launch. Vertical boost for 100m, then next timer block in the chain shuts off the override, turns on AI blocks. This way, you can achieve a consistent initiial launch that puts the drone reliably clear of your ship by X meters or seconds of boost.
I imagine a moving carrier could use this to roll, pitch, or yaw as it fires off the sequential waves, to achieve a wider launch spread of drones. They'll attack from more angles on their initial approaches.
With forward-launching drones, the initial boost could also be used to create even more stand-off distance -- your carrier could fire the drones from 3 km, with a boost phase timed for approx 500+ meters. This will put the drone AI into its 2.5 km detection range, but your carrier ship never has to enter that range itself. This could make the circle/orbit pattern more viable, since the boost launch phase won't get clogged with numbskull drone traffic around the carrier.
I want to use the circle/orbit pattern more, b/c I'm trying out different drone roles. Heavy, cheap tank drones in the first wave -- mostly just a flying brick of heavy armor to serve as overbuilt moving decoys (since decoys have done !@#$ all in recent updates). A few long range circle/keep distance drones for railgun sniping (can be more expensive). And a bunch of cheap, disposable hit and run drones to fill out the menu (including missiles/suicide drones).
I'm personally building on a rear connector vertical launch-to-direct-flight using all forward thrusters. As opposed to using up thrust to launch, then having to alter vector and course to forward thrust.
Also, sometimes launching the AI off the connectors, the AI get stuck for a little while. This can cause the connection to reset and reactive its proximity magnetic force. I'd include an action on the timer disconnecting the connector to also turn off the connector. This is probably best done from the drone's timer block(s), so that if your carrier connector is included in a merge/welder/projector setup, it will immediately be ready to connect the next welded replacement.
I can already see massive carrier wars starting.
one goal i have for a build is to have a carrier that has 4 2 frigates and 2 corvettes on its side acting as back up thrusters and extra armor but when it detects an enemy the side ships disconnect and engage the enemy, with both the frigates and the carrier launching their own fighters as extra support. so pretty much a Fleet Carrier class ship
These drones are so unique yet basically almighty & have good acceleration.
what I like about AI fighter is that they don't completely make player manned fighter obsolete, sure AI's are far more spamable but player fighters will always maneuver and respond to orders faster / better
This is the end of the dreadnoughts
Why do you think this ?
@@LastStandGamers well - I have a bit experience in Dreadnought designing and building - and usually a dreadnought has heavy weapons, maybe a super weapon and a lot of Point Defence - but it is much more inefficient to try to protect a huge ship like a dreadnought bcz if u could build like 4000 small fighterdrones with its resources and then swarm it - against 4K fighters even the best Point Defence would be useless 😫
The optimized ship for this new kind of warfare would be some sort of a carrier like ship (I also designed a super carrier - but that one sadly will never be completed because of it being so big for one structure that it reached the physical block simulation limit 😭), destroyers with focus on Point Defence for the carrier group, frohstes with AI Controlled long range missiles for heavy striking, and maybe a heavy cruiser type with weapons to efficiently attack a base or finish critical damaged old battleships with cheaper ammo 🤷🏼♂️
I mean irl battleships died due to the same reason. Missiles and Fighters were born, and with it having big gun would not save you since the threat you normally fought in the sea is in the air now.
The better question is, why did it take so long for engineers to discover basic AI?
@@lukea1533 well - I guess bcz it was rather complicated to program it on his own - and finished scripts u could download usually need a few modifications depending on how ur built vehicle differed from the one the script was made for 🤷🏼♂️
I guess that’s why basic AI wasn’t used that much
I had the idea when this update was released to make a carrier with an artificial mass launch system, I don't have the time to do it myself so it would be cool if someone else tried it. Like a fabrication bay that manufactures and stores fighters and then launches them
I had the same idea of making a carrier that could manufacture fighters throughout a battle, although at that point, it might have to become a super carrier with its size, but definitely something I’ll look into!
@@KyleMan-my9wn I think for the artificial mass system to work the ai blocks need to have an offset with a timer block to avoid collision, and the storing should just be an assembly line
Definitely have a few ideas with blueprints to make this easier, though setting up in SE is always the harder part.
before having giant flight decks on your ships wasnt really worth it in my opinion atleast, because it was a giant, unprotected surface so your fighters would get destroyed so easily. However, now they are going to be so much more useful as you can launch large amounts of fighters quickly and easily instead of slowly coming out a hangar bay
Venator-style recessed flight deck with armoured doors for the drone fighters?
I hope that one day we also get an “AI Drive“ for rovers…
You can fudge it, if you use 4-directional thrusters and set wheel friction to 0.
Far from ideal and had issues with rough terrain but atleast it's something.
You can make it work its not perfect but you can do a lot with it still.
Strike craft researched
When we getting fusion that uses ice but requires a lot of energy to start it off, and if it runs out of a set number of ice it shuts off and u have to start it again, like a pull cord on a chainsaw
FINALLY!
I can easily outsource the job I'm least effective at in Space Engineers.
Soon the game will play its self and you can just log in to see what your drones have brought you.
@@LastStandGamers although the combat is fun in SE I've never been good at. More of a resource gathering/ship builder guy.
what I was thinking with my design was to make a big ship with a lower hangar bay (which will hold about 4-6 drones) and that it will have those drones fall out with gravity and then they wake up and attack the target
I think you could easily launch more drones at a time by launching every other, or every 3 rows at a time
I agree but the issues I ran into then was them shooting each other in the back. The time also allows the attack to be spread out.
@@LastStandGamers
Is there a way to disable their weapons temporarily until they're clear of the carrier?
how do i get the fighter them self?
Thanks for this... cool tutorial
Looking at this I'm thinking a racker basicly a carrier type thing only it's an oven rack sort of structure with each rack being a deck to launch strike craft or wtvr to a fight or something, perhaps sliding out for launch or, rotating out, also one could do like a drop platform of fighters and such and drop them at various points like little hornet nests or something in space, super simple, not overly complex just a group of misiles or fighters or wtvr in a place that launches stuff as it sits there and is activated.
We need defensive shields and more quality of life things
Shields, one of the most debated topics in space engineers why do you think we need them ?
An interesting idea for shields would be to only block some projectiles, such as rockets (as much as those don’t need to be nerfed anymore as they are, just spitballing here) so it would create more initiative to use artillery. It could also be done where the shield only protects against projectiles from a certain range, (such as 1.5km or more) to try and protect against long range missiles and rail gun drones. There’s other ways too, and I definitely don’t think that they’re necessary, especially with the new flee ability for AI, and safe zones already existing, but if done right, it could be a great feature, (sorry about my bad grammar, it’s late)
The ai recorder does not mind if the beacon goes out of range so you can set the ai to take off out of its rout i prefer to have all the fighters set up in line so they have the same Ai. Then they fly to a waypoint 10 km or even like 30km from the target or fly a loop around a you at 3k for example but you have to stay still because i don’t think it adjusts for you movement when outside of beacon range. then if the bomber detects an enemy, it fill fly a hit and run to 2.25km and fire its payload of missiles at 2.25km then even controller can detect this switch the bomber back to defensive ai but also set a timer turning off old recorder and turning it to another one with its last waypoint getting set to where it dropped missiles since you can have it automatically change its last waypoint. you need another offensive ai so you don’t trigger it again making it try and drop missiles twice on second run 3 times on third etc. then it will return and again reload its missiles and repeat. If it docks with a connector each time you can have the carrier reset the bomber using groups so it does not dump all your component into missile after the target is dead. this means your ai carriers like real carriers can attack targets way out of range even to a point were sometimes my bombers are running sorties on several enemies that I do know the location of.
What would be cool but clang would very much hate, is a launcher comprised of rotors that "fling" the drone into combat. Could make for a planetary defence laucher....
IMO for disposable drones I don't think you want them placed in rows; I think the ideal shape would be something like a flat grid shape whose face was towards the enemy ship. You would have one drone inside of each box of the grid. In other words, an open hanger design, essentially.
The argument here is that you should be able to parallelize the launches with some sort of tiling method. ie: Assuming x = 0 is the furthest to the left, and y = 0 is the bottom, you could launch drones from x0 y0, x1 y3, x2 y6, x3 y9, x4 y1, x5 y4, x6 y7, and so on at the same time without them interfering because there should be enough distance between each fighter. You could then do a second wave offset either be one x or one y value.
Alternative a cross shaped carrier should be able to launch two fighters from each "arm" without issue at the same time.
I do think that the rate of launch matters a lot for this strategy, because the enemy should have an amount of PD that can take out X number of drones per second; in other words, there's a minimum number of drones to pierce the enemy's defenses at all, so you want to pay your "tax" as few times as possible, by launching in as close to a single wave as you can.
Alternatively, I think another strategy could be to start the drones with inertial dampeners off, launch a few, move your ship, roughly equalize momentum, launch a second wave, and so on so forth to get a large wave built up. You would then need some sort of signal or event to activate them and turn on inertial dampeners (didn't think this part through, not sure what would be the best).
One could imagine a welder ship with a single drone port building up a wave of fifty drones, for instance, on route to an enemy, and them all activating at once.
Takes alot of time but the potential of a drone carrier in a fleet is brutal and definitely worth it I think!
Great video thanks! I see a lot of people recommending to turn connectors off to part ways. But what if you turned off the magnetics on both connectors and relied on the positioning to be accurate. Then simply switched lock to part?
Yes that would work, there's plenty of ways of achieving the same goal I just like the fact that they go red and it clear.
Would it be more effective to create a cylindrical carrier with drones on the outside circumference? You could deploy drones a lot quicker. Less launching collisions (because they deploy in different directions) means less need for delay, all with a smaller footprint
Definitely an interesting concept, although it may be a little difficult to build/engineer, however, you’re probably right about the larger waves.
My biggest curiosity is that if u can make bombers with the new ai stuff
okay hear me out. theres this roblox game called starscape.
the primary enemies are drones and pirates. the drone lore is that a faction created them for defence but they went rogue. imagine a self-sufficient drone species that causes mass chaos and an entire war, that would be SICK.
Very nice!
I think it would make a lot of sense to have the carrier mobile so that the drones get some separation once the landing gear is disabled
I literally figured this out last night i finally got it done around 3am could have used this
I was messing with this last night too the AI did so many silly things while I was trying to configure it I had to sleep on it.
All I can think of is a mothership that has printers pushing out an endless stream of tiny fighters/missiles until the target is destroyed... u can also have the "return" point if they live be in a grinder pit to recycle old damaged ships
0:29, ERROR. if your not really caring about them Returing to the Carrier, then why are these Drones not Kamakazi Drones? They Fire all ammo until it is Depleted, then PLOW INTO the target before Detonating and inflicting the utmost damage.
Who else wants to see a whole fleet of AI Henry's bringing the ruckus on a server?
U cold also use a event controller set to connector locked to turn the thrusters and ai blocks on :)
The drones would probably benefit from an active launch system like a gravity catapult or something.
Great video, exactly what I need. I want to know how to get them to land.
YES thank you so much🎉
i would like to see a "closed hangar" and see the carrier configuration for open the hangar doors, start the fighter, the fighter go, and get back and land in the "closed hangar"
(AN) very nice spacecarrier.
(D) Sehr schöner Raumflugzeugträger.
(PL) bardzo ładny kosmiczny lotniskowiec .
does this also work on ps4/5?
why you didnt uploaded it with the ia ?
The base ship is not mine if the creator would like the AI version i can always give it them to upload
aaron did you ever think of bringing back your gutter nanites sticky bombs as ai controlled weaponry?? i was looking at this the other day since im an old fart in engineering and this might be interesting to see now :D the nanites wouldnt just wander off either they would stick to ships like bees on honey XD
That's a great idea going to have a play around with that concept as soon as I get the time.
@@LastStandGamers oh and i forgot to say to get the small drones away from youre grid you could put pistons in combo with even controller and timer for ejection pushes to send them up so the ai picks up faster???
If you want them to return to the carrier after {ammo depleted, damaged, time, fuel low....} would you rather use a central beacon for reference, and set up waypoints for each fighter manually, or build multiple beacons on the carrier, and just change the beacon itself for each fighter ?
honestly me personally i would make projector and welder system that produced new fighters so i am not just limited to the compacity of the carrier ship
One day we might have ai infiltration drones, one day 😢
The infiltration part is the hard bit.
Think I want to try this with the Battlestar Galactica 🤔
I intend to get into this game, however I'm still waiting on our ps4 release.
That being said i want a space aircraft carrier the size of a planet.
When they ask how many aircraft you have at your disposal,
You say "Yes!"
That FOB feels familiar.... A certain home base of sorts...
This makes me want to revisit my bomber with 200+ bombs
Remember to put at least one decoy block on every drone.
I've not yet played this game, so I'm unfamiliar with the mechanics. In regards to "space carriers" wouldn't it make more sense to have the runway angled away from each other. Like a triangle shape with a runway in each side (Tri-Carrier?).
This way would avoid many collisions due to heavy grouping as you would have three single lanes.
i sttill cannot wait for coders to find out how to make a self replicating drone ai fleet
von numam swarm
I feel like it would be better to have each wave of fighters be on a separate button, so you can commit just a few of your drones for smaller situations, rather than all or nothing
Just saw your missed video. Please use that same system to launch drone battle ships like that instead on missiles!