Part Placers

[Jaredare]

I would love to see some parts that let your bot place things down in such a way that you could create smaller bots inside of your big one, so perhaps you could release 2 or 3 satellites that would just slowly pump out a swarm of little robots. I was thinking it would have to cost something, so that you cant just slap a few pieces on your bot and call it good. What about any fuel or power that it starts with is taken from the bot that made it, and it has a pretty steep cost to make each piece. You could make it so that the block placers run on either fuel or power depending on which you get.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Jaredare

[Micha]

We now have a factory part that can replicate and decouple the parts that are originally attached to it

[Micha]

So you would design the smaller bots inside the editor and this part would build them later while flying around? Sounds fun

I just dont know yet how to design the smaller bots in the editor. 

Maybe a special editor for them?

Or a drone part that can replicate and release the parts that are attached to it ?

[Jaredare]

@Micha

That sounds like a fantastic idea! I was thinking just blocks that actually placed other blocks right in front or next to them, which would be much more tedious and limiting, but yours sounds so much better.

A special editor sounds great, but so does a drone part that could replicate parts attached to it, maybe only those attached via a floppy tether or something?

[Lurkily]

On 4/6/2018 at 6:24 AM, Micha said:

So you would design the smaller bots inside the editor and this part would build them later while flying around? Sounds fun

I just dont know yet how to design the smaller bots in the editor. 

Maybe a special editor for them?

Or a drone part that can replicate and release the parts that are attached to it ?

I was browsing through older threads, and found this. 

Reassembly did it by having a 'factory' part which consisted of two parts that would construct anything placed between them in the editor.

I like a different suggestion that's come up here, which is to reconstruct anything on the other side of a specialized decoupler, using the decoupled part to act as a 'core' for the detatched unit. (A target for enemies, an anchor by which to determine what is a part of the sub-drone, and if necessary, a signifier of when the drone can be considered 'destroyed'.)

[Micha]

I also think the idea to replicate all parts that are attached to a special part makes the most sense and should be relatively easy to add as it does not require editor changes 

I think it's a greet idea that opens up alot of cool possibilities. 

[pieguy56]

Maybe you could create a kind of sub-decoupler so that you could build All the way around your mini drone brain rather than have it exposed on the back of the drone. You would also have to make a cap on how many mini drone builders can be used to stop people from creating droneception by putting drone factory's that build more drone factory's.

[Lurkily]

 

19 hours ago, pieguy56 said:

Maybe you could create a kind of sub-decoupler so that you could build All the way around your mini drone brain rather than have it exposed on the back of the drone. You would also have to make a cap on how many mini drone builders can be used to stop people from creating droneception by putting drone factory's that build more drone factory's.

 

[Lurkily]

On 9/5/2018 at 10:30 AM, Micha said:

We now have a factory part that can replicate and decouple the parts that are originally attached to it

And I am abusing it heartily.  So far I have made a satellite manufactory that squashes itself against the Nimbatus, magnets down, and pumps out 100-altitude drones that orbit and fire rockets downward.  I've created factories that create ore blocks, then detach them on command to fly back to the hopper so I can manufacture more and keep mining.  I've created a spinner that keeps at high altitude, and just manufactures tons and tons of wibbly-wobbly TNT missiles.

I do think their building needs to be regulated, though.  You can't build something out in stages; it all happens at once.  If there are sub-factories, it doesn't stop there.  You could build a bomber that could make and launch it's own TNT bombs, but it will also make all the bombs first, instead of launching the drone and letting it manufacture in flight. 

I'd like to see them, ideally, build in stages.  Children, then grandchildren, then children of grandchildren.  It would make the build process a lot more interesting to see.