jbox1

Updated the guide! Added more depth to the classification and subclasses of drones. Also added the first example GIF!

What about ore sensors also having different modes, and sensors can only detect one type of ore, depending on their mode? The idea of ore sensors also having different FOVs and ranges sounds fun, and I'd much prefer a slider for this, just so you know

Of course, along with ranged sensors like this, I'd also like distance sensors to also have an "ore" mode, so you can tell automated drones what to mine and what not to mine.

Politics

well that’s cool And then I come in and ruin the fun

O_O better get crack’n!

What about servos that do the same thing to? They can only go to one angle or another. Seems legit.

I much prefer nimbatus with its unlimited parts system. It really makes all the challenges revolve around your current situation, not your budget. Ditto above Fast charge batteries charge faster for their size. 2 fast charge batteries will charge faster than 1 large battery, despite it having the same size. THATS WHY THEY HAVE SWITCH GATES!

Right

Of course I’ll be lying, but you asked me too say this.

Well you got your buffer gate.

That’s a lot of hours.

This sums up everything I wanted to point out when playing the closed alpha release: Bugs When anti-aliasing is disabled, distance sensor beams may not render at some angles/zooms, (assumedly) due to them being in-between pixels. Solution: make the beam wider. "Risk Level" reports are rather in-accurate, as "low" risk planets can still swarm with more cannons than the German Military Suggestions When the transmitter "cocoons" while under attack, the transmitter effect will be disabled (as it should be no longer transmitting, I assume) until it stops cocooning. Bring back mother hives! have an FTL jump cutscene play when jumping to planets (but can be disabled as the user pleases) Multiplayer co-operative/competitive gameplay? I know that's usually a big ask, but co-operative gameplay never fails to please people. City planets: planets with large sci-fi cities. Visiting them will grant special missions, but you will have to pay a tax to fly to them. Alternatively, city planets could have disasters, where you will have to launch a drone and finish the mission within a time limit (such as killing a giant space snake, deploying certain equipment, or otherwise) Fuel tanks, battery cells and ore tanks can give a key output when they are full or empty Ammo types should show tooltips about their effects. General Feedback I like the changes to the weapon systems, especially the option to have the weapon "fixed". This saves a lot of time, and removes the unnecessary requirement to farm weapons just to get one with a fixed angle. Of course, with the new weapon system, some fun (admittedly over-powered) features will be missed. I hope more planet types, missions and general obstacles to overcome will be added to the game, along side alternative gamemodes, similar to the sumo arena, which require the player to design autonomous drones to solve tasks.

And so I present the several breeds of Nimbatus sumo drones, including their counters, strengths and examples! Also check out my new guide for information about guidance systems for drones! Contact: Contact based drones rely on their ability to contact their opponent in some way, in order to push them out of the arena. All contact drones are designed to be heavy and powerful. Some contact drones will also employ magnets to help them grab onto a target. RAMMER Rammers simply ram the opponent, unguided, out of the arena. It's simply a button linked to every thruster on board and WOOSH it's outa there! Some rammers may attempt to use some simple guidance systems to help ensure a hit, but otherwise that's it. Because of it's blind attack method, dodger drones are often an effective counter, provided it's fast enough. Since rammers are unguided, they will usually fly out of the arena if they fail to meet they're target. Counters: Dodgers, Gliders, Surprise Bombs Strengths: Center Seekers SURPRISE BOMBSurprise bombs are similar to rammers, but also include a lot of explosive parts, such as fuel tanks. The theory is to ram and explode the enemy into it's parts - in the hope that it confuses, destroys or knocks out the opponent. It is rarely successful, because it's hard to maintain a usable "leftover" and the shrinking ring will most likely be their worst enemy.Counters: Shield/Coward, non-fragile drones Strengths: light drones PUSHER The pusher is a smarter version of the rammer. Pushers will instead ensure that it's enemy is in front of it before activating all it's thrusters, via the use of a distance or direction sensor. This means its less likely to miss it's target, but some carriers can confuse it's guidance systems to activate it's thrusters prematurely. Some pushers also use jump thrusters instead of regular thrusters, to give it a little more edge. Some pushers may also use magnets to help ensure it is able to push it's target out of the arena. Counter: Carriers Strengths: Dodgers, Center Seekers A pusher "Salt levels rising" versus a glider "The Corruption". Notice "Salt Levels Rising" will stop it's thrusters when it's target is not directly in front of it. PULLER Puller drones are only ever seen with mini-drones on carriers or cowards. A puller drone will seek out it's target, and once engaged, will then activate a magnet to pull the enemy out of the arena. Unfortunately, this is rarely more effective than pusher drones, and they will often be countered the same way pushers are. Counter: Carriers, Center Seekers, Gliders Strengths: Dodgers, Rammers, Pushers SPINNER Technically a sub-class of the center seeker (or glider, depending on it's guidance systems), a spinner drone utilizes a lot of thrusters to spin very rapidly, while maintaining it's position in the arena. It's especially lethal, as any drones that contacts it will be knocked off course by it's rapid rotation. Avoidance drones are often too light to handle a spinner, and will not survive once the arena closes. Multi-drones also are often not strong enough. As such, spinners are almost uncounterable (verification required). Counters: Pushers, Pullers Strengths: Everything A pusher "Salt levels rising MK 3" versus "Blender". Notice how the spinner is able to knock away it's opponent out of the arena, thanks to it's angular momentum. Avoidance: Avoidance based drones will attempt to avoid the enemy, until the arena closes, or the enemy falls out of the arena. DODGER The dodger (not to be confused with a glider) will always attempt to move out of the way of enemies. It may be fast or slow, but whatever it's doing, it's trying to get out of there. Often this leads to it falling into the ring of death, as such, dodgers are only ever good versus rammers. Most other drones are able to compensate for dodgers. Counter: Pushers, Center Seekers Strengths: Rammers CENTER SEEKER Center seekers will use some form of guidance system to go to the center of the arena, and sit there. They will often also be very bulky, to survive the onslaught of whatever it is faced against. Since they are usually the more powerful drone, they are able to outlast it's opponents until the ring of death closes in. They are countered by rammers and pushers, able to kick them out of the arena before they are able to get a foot hold. Counter: Rammers, Pushers Strengths: Gliders, Dodgers, Carriers A center seeker spinner "Beyblades" versus a glider "The Corruption". Notice how the center seeker is much heavier than it's opponent, enabling it to maintain it's position in the center of the arena, forcing it's opponent out once the arena closes. GLIDER Gliders are often mistaken for dodgers, but there is a key difference. Gliders will "glide" along the ring of death, by staying as close as possible to it, while not going over the edge. This tactic will confuse most drones into falling out of the arena, when they are pursued. However, they can still be defeated by some pushers, but mostly center seekers, which will be able to knock out gliders when the arena closes. Counter: Center Seeker, Pushers Strengths: Rammers, Pullers Multi-drone: Multi-drone classes will use 1 or more "mini-drones" which act as fully functional drones, that are detatched when the round starts. Mini-drones are often reckless contact based drones, but since they don't contain the drone brain, are of no risk should they escape the arena. As such, they mostly do not use any form of arena edge avoidance. Meanwhile, the main drone containing the drone brain will act as an avoidance class drone, staying safe as their mini-drones do the dirty work. CARRIERS Carriers are among the smartest drones. Carriers will feature several, smaller mini-drones aboard it, which it will deploy when the round starts. This can range from 4 to dozen or more mini-drones. These smaller drones will act like distractions, triggering systems on the opponent, meant for the main drone itself, or the drones may take a contact based strategy. Meanwhile, the main drone (the drone containing the drone brain) may either take part as a contact or avoidance class, or even not do anything at all. Carriers are very versatile, but they are often countered by center seekers, which are much heavier and more powerful than the carrier. Counter: Center Seeker Strengths: Pushers, Surprise Bombs, Rammers, Dodgers A carrier "Necromancer 4" versus a pusher "Bettle". Notice the two different strategies of the mini-drones and the main drone, as the main drone hangs around as a glider, while the mini-drones do all the work. SHEILD/COWARD Cowards will put all it's equipment on one large mini-drone "sheild", which is detached when the round starts and acts as a contact drone. Meanwhile, the main drone "coward" is left to fend for itself or to act as an avoidance drone They are hard to counter, but a smart drone may be able to discern the coward from the shield, or a glider could work in some cases. Counter: Pushers, Rammers, Gliders Strengths: Carriers, Center Seekers, Surprise Bombs A coward drone "The Alien" versus a glider "The Corruption". Think I missed anything? Want to contribute? Share your drone designs so I can make GIFs with them!

Oh boy! YAS! SIGN ME UP!!!!!!!1!!!one!!

You have to manually install every update, sorry I know it sucks, but the game is still pre-alpha (and also there is the fact that they probably aren’t bothered enough putting an updater in until latter)

Very impressive! It certainly seems to do it’s job, and I really limed the turrets! I imagined this thing as some sci-fi metal monster with all its slowly rotating parts. Either way, brilliant build!

that is so cool.... I want one for Christmas!

I like it - but I couldn't use it. I love making smart, autonomous drones, and both being a tower, and being cursor-controlled would make it useless for that. Heat-seeking is my preferred trait, and it's rare, and non-tower isn't too common. My ideal epic would be a third-tier gun (shotguns are too recoil-ey) with heat-seeking, cluster, and bounce. I find that cluster can often stand in for a digging upgrade, it's great at chewing up terrain. Eh, I don't blame you. I'd make more non-autonimous drones if heat seaking was better and if non-towers were less rare.

For what is still in pre-alpha, it isn't that bad!

It’s not cheaty if yah have guns on it! (Cause then it serves a purpose aside infinite recourses)

I had this bio-shotgun tower with a more projectiles upgrade, digging upgrade and mouse following missiles which fragmented on collision. That’s all you need to know. if that isn’t enough, you know the mother hive? Now imagine that gone in > 2 seconds...

That’s alot of wishes... I wish they had lua programmable blocks which had a console function so I could make my drone scream when it sees an enemy. Ok, in all seriousness, a programmable block would be SWEET!

I decided to post some of my drones, as yah do when you've clocked over 600 minutes on one save file! Number Display Drone So, I had this random idea whilst messing around with the "new" LEDs. (yes I know there has been an update since then but the updates are so quick and violent, I honestly can't keep up) Anyway, I made this design which uses IF gates to light up segments of an LED display which shows what numbered key I press. It did this using if gates, activating the binded LED when the appropriate key(s) were pressed. Unfortunately the file which had the drone corrupted, and all progress was lost (go me! ) Anyway, I'll make another version sometime soon. Snake Drone YES! I DID DO THIS JUST BECAUSE LATHERIX DID (all hail the mighty)! AND NO! THIS IS NOT AN EXACT COPY!(first off, I did it in one episode! ;D) Anyway, it had a very similar design to latherix's, but without a rotating head, and also I added guns to the snake so it could 'un-hinge' itself from any rocks. It also had a clever system of logic splitters, allowing each segment to fly away from walls, and also allow the player control of several forward thrusters on each segment. This one, again, was on my corrupt save file (damn you bugs!) Wheel Drone This is a fairly standard wheel drone that will trundle along the surface destroying everything behind it. Note the tower laser for removing odd bumps and blockages that might get in your way. It isn't perfect, but it moves. . Luckily this one survived the great corruption of 2017, so you will be able to marvel (or laugh at) my awesomeness. The file is attached to this post. Necromancer Probably the most over designed, over engineered, closest link to that good old formula of "Bigger is better". Basically, it is a ball of drones that will crush any kind of sumo competitor (except rammers). This one also was a survivor, and can be found as an attachment to this post. Prospector I HAD THIS IDEA BEFORE LATHERIX! OK? Not only that, but, unlike latherix's design, it actually works. It s a basic mining rig which can be transported and dropped anywhere, then continue to mine into the planet. It uses a motor, coupled to a high tolerance direction... thing... to cause a switch to oscillate when the direction sensor is triggered by the sweeping motion of the laser. So long as the rig always points down, it should work fine. The drone is also attached to the post. And that's it! Thanks for reading! Tell me what I did wrong! Bye! Wheel_Drone.nimbatusdrone necromancer_2.nimbatusdrone Prospecter.nimbatusdrone