Space Engineers Survival (Episode 43) - Automatic Drone Launch Is NOT Easy... [2024]

Welcome back to Space Engineers Survival 2024! In this episode, we're doing more drone launch stuff! In addition to completely reworking our cool drone launch system from last episode, we're also getting all of our PAM and transport ships back up and running. We're getting close to having the AMG Sandstorm complete and flightworthy!
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[@andyblondyn1898]

Oh no, you should make a continuation, do not start from zero. Take AMG, try to win some Prototech compononents and maybe start a new series with heavily damaged AMG in space but with some prototech components which survived and factorum is hunting for you so you have to stay mobile?

[@Zimmon375]

Im pretty sure your drone flops around because you set a minimal flight height. But it detects the floor of the AMG snowstorm as soon as you disconnect.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Hahaha that could be, but I have seen the same thing on the macchiato mining ship too. I think its something with connecting to subgrids like rotors and pistons.

[@Serathim]

I haven't built too many drones but I have built a fair amount of missiles, and their pretty similar. To make the connector lock once it's built you need to put an event controller on the drone and then add the condition "Block Added" and then have it tell the connector on the drone to lock. Also you don't need to add a special thrust override thruster, you can just use the ones already on the drone, when the AI takes over it automatically controls the thrusters regardless of their override state, not having blocks to control that should simplify things a bit. Something else you could do is have an event controller that tracks the drones cargo block where you store the ammo and if that cargo becomes empty have it switch it's attack behavior over to "Intercept". This will cause the drone to kamikaze into it's target when it runs out of ammo. To launch the drone I would probably have an event controller track a piston and then when it gets to the length it needs to clear the ship have it activate a timer block that turns off the connector and merge block on the drone and launch it, then start a second timer block with what ever delay you want to activate the AI blocks. Or the event controller may be able to handle most of that by itself, since they can do many more commands each now.

[@bryanvongames8495]

46:28 That is the funniest scream I've ever heard

[@wtftolate3782]

2025 - I would like to see a continuation of this series. I would like to see this series branch out, visit Earth and take the fight to the enemies! I would like you to build a battle cruiser! Maybe have some sub series as well.

[@MrInuyasha1031]

exactly, do what @andyblondyn1898 said mixed with this, we want battle cruiser with recaffinator drones

[@thetechnoninja3859]

I would love a space centered series with the AMG. Would love to see sort of a continuation. Maybe focusing on different planets and/or space each year, and then combining it all together in one season or something like that.

[@jonathangavin7560]

This is a great series. Would love to see you take the AMG Sand/Snowstorm out into space in a new series and have it be more 'space-based' than some of the other seasons. Lots of PAM asteroid mining. That CoFiNi Coffee Shop needs more locations!

[@dakaodo]

You can change a setting in the turret controller for more precision. I forget exactly, but it's called angle of error/margin/tolerance or something like that. Turret controller will only fire its weapons if target is within this angle. Default is set to something pretty high, like 2 degrees of error? I usually set my custom turrets to fire within 0.5 degree. Might be worth experimenting with even 0.1 degree for railguns. FYI at an engagement range of 800 meters, an error of 2 degrees means the custom turret would fire as long as its guns' actual aim point was within 28 meters (11-ish large grid blocks) of the intended aim point -- on either side of the target. That's a 56 meter spread, and more than enough to wildly miss even a large grid ship that's evading like the Reavers. 0.5 angle tolerance brings this down to 7 meters on either side (less than 3 blocks), and 0.1 degree angle tolerance is 1.75 meters on either side of the intended aim point. The more precise it is, the less often it will fire due to the guns less often achieving sufficiently precise alignment with the aim point. Can't remember if you did this w your turrets or not, but I've also seen workshop creators (and used it myself) suggest that the custom turret elevation hinge should share inertia tensor, while keeping the azimuth rotor set to not share inertia tensor. This unifies only the custom turret assembly itself, down through the rotor head, but excludes everything from the rotor block through the rest of the main grid (your base or ship). This compromise keeps turret rotation speed fast while potentially smoothing out at least one axis of rotation from weird subgrid Clangy jiggly action. Some of my turrets had these problems, some did not. Been a while since I went cold turkey off custom turrets, so I can't remember the details. Hope this helps save you some ammo and cycle time on your railguns though! P.S. I forgot to comment this before, but your railgun turrets look very cool, like Star Wars style ground-based orbital defenses.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Thank you for the tips! I'll see if I can spot that setting because it sounds like that will make a huge difference!

[@Robbertvg]

I would install a sensor on the drone that can detect the hangar door and determine whether it is open or closed. If the door is open, the thrust override can be activated. You also had an issue with welding the underside of the drone. A possible solution for this would be to use the piston supporting the assembly to move up and down, allowing the welders to access the underside of the drone.

[@TheWanderingtraveller]

Landing on earth with the sandstorm and building from there would be amazing 🎉.

[@Dennys854]

First, I feel humbled that you went with the vertical build/lift/launch which I commented on. I agree with the minimal height above ground comment as the cause for the shake rattle and roll around in the bay. Not knowing Space Engineers other than watching you, I would theorize this... the drone does not activate in the bay at all. Sequence should be Print (Print timer)>(Delay) Hangar Door Open (Delay) > Extend Launch Piston (Delay until Fully extended) > Detach from merge>Activate Drone>Lower Launch Piston >(Delay) Close Hangar. Simultaneously in the operation will be cycling of the Printer Pistons On command to activate and then continue to cycle until then printers off. (Which guarantees 2 drones always built and ready. Conversely, you may need a print controller that links to before it turns on. You may also need 2 routines: 1. Launch Ready Drones (Open Door/Extend/Detach/Activate/Retract/Close Doors) Followed by 2. Print Drones 3. Go to Routine 1 You did an excellent job, now it's just the nitty gritty details. I still think making a duplicate on the other side and having 4 combat drones out would be awesome given the size of the Snowstorm. Now to blow your mind further... Recovery.. Is there a way to mark a location in the interior bay of the ship that the drones would be able to land on... or a fixed landing grid on the ship rear with mag plates? (Thinking out loud). That way you could recover any drones not destroyed. Alternatively, put piloting workstations as drone AI overrides, so when situation Drone goes to zero delta V (stops in place) and an operator manually flies it back to the bay or external stowage on mag plates. Next combat, use pilot station to activate AI for all excess drones while printing more. Or... when all enemies cleared all drones self-destruct? Go get that Uranium in orbit! 😀

[@gordvan]

next season, take the ag ICEStorm to new location to start over

[@MatheusGanzo1]

+1

[@Mr76Pontiac]

I'm at 23:00 when you were talking about inventory space. Honestly? As a viewer, I'd hardly notice what the size of your inventory is. You're a KZbinr who's time is spent creating content. True, smaller inventories are more of a challenge and some beat themselves up with artificial rules, but, you've also got time considerations to think of as well. Running back and forth doesn't enhance your time spent, but, your frustration with spending time running back and forth. It's your series, your show, of course, feel free to run it as you wish, but I'm always a 10x player for pretty much everything. All I'm changing is time spent, not the enjoyment of the game.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Thank you for the comment! I like setting the size smaller especially early on to necessitate creating welding and grinding ships. When I first started playing, I never build ships for those things because I would just use the max inventory sizes, so limiting it helped me learn to make ships. But when dealing with heavy armor blocks, it can get very tedious going back and fourth to deposit materials!

[@daltonkraft4241]

Been working on my own drone mining system but I've been doing it on Triton and using hydrogen thrusters. With all the ice on the planet it felt like a really smart use of what would otherwise be wasted. For a battery system I'd look into how much of the battery is consumed for the full cargo trip and then calculate how long it'd take for the battery to charge while connected to the base and set a timer for it. I didn't want to do electric because it felt more complicated but hydrogen has its own issues too. I also go the route of bringing the ore back to base for refining instead of trying to move ingots because they're so heavy.

[@andybrown4284]

Kind of spit balling an idea that might work. If there was a piston that went between print and launch bays the drone could get printed onto a merge block there, carried over, placed onto the launch system before the piston returns back to the print bay for the next one.

[@JeffreyBlakeney]

The biggest thing to remember with event controllers is they only trigger an action slot WHEN it changes state. A newly built event controller will default to be in the slot 1 state but won't actually trigger anything. Once the event changes state (ie. connector gets connected) it will switch to the appropriate state and trigger those actions. I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to get to happen but you may have some logic backwards as it is turning on the launch thruster when you connect to the connector and that should only happen when you disconnect. To be able to switch between automatic mode and remote control mode, you would probably need some sort of variable (thruster on or off, light on or off) to allow you to set up which mode you want it in so it can react differently when it gets connected/disconnected from the connector. I hope some of this makes sense as I'm pretty tired while typing this. :)

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Thank you for the explanation!! That explains why it shows as outputting slot 1. Its a little misleading but it makes sense now that you explain it. I'm thinking the thruster issue might be just the game activating all thrusters whenever the merge block unmerges. I'll do some more testing but that's my lead suspect!

[@Mad_Hat_was_taken]

Make a group that has all the thrusters and gyros in it. When you make the blueprint have all of the thrusters and gyros disabled. Include an event controller on the drone that turns them back on when the drone's connector disconnects. I put an event controller like that on all my flyers (with additional blocks to turn on) just so they don't fall if I forget to turn something on when I undock.

[@phforNZ]

Your drone clanging around is because being connected to a Small Connector and having the thrusters active with inertial dampeners on. It's not the drone itself, it's the clang attached to Small Connectors

[@RcMayhem24Ficker2]

Continuation because the sandstorm was shot down on its first flight and limped to the new home base during its second flight. Though I still would like to see you build a ship twice as long as this one maybe on the one you are doing with kanajashi.

[@ady2848]

Also you should make the drone printer and launcher be triggered by a button near the cockpit of the AMG SANDSTORM. So in case of danger its easily accesible.

[@pascalpodszus8091]

i actually have a simple solution for your cool railcar to make it work in space. As long as you have a gravity generator on your ship, you can put an artificial mass block on the railcar which makes the railcar being pulled by the gravity generator (as gravity generators don´t affect grids at all, artificial mass blocks change that as they are being affected by artificial gravity)

[@King_Max2023]

It has been a while since a episode was one hour long.

[@St1ckM0nk3y]

Agreed. Miss the longer eps

[@finoyo]

Love the upgrades to the ships a new series where you turn it into a base would be nice or like a building ship for a meaner fighting ship

[@MrDanaris]

that scream prayer to klang sent me 🤣

[@kmalone06]

I would recommend a event controller to act as a ready state when gas is full, then launch.

[@MrSomeguy226]

Definitely do a continuation but take the sandstorm out and build a space station/port

[@moldy13]

i think it'd be cool to see you build/play from an orbital station.

[@randallvolk8437]

You could try a ‘themed’ series. Example, if you chose a ‘Star trek’ theme you would use those mods and try and build in your version of that style!

[@RcMayhem24Ficker2]

You should name your favorite drone model either the coffee bean or the espresso bean. Or maybe any other small ship.

[@matthewsykes4814]

I will be honest you do more automation than I do. I don't build drones as I'm not a script kiddie and it just doesn't interest me. Yet. I need to get back into it in a big way but I'm just not playing games as much as I used to. I go through phases. I mean hell it's the weekend and I should be running about in Sniper Contracts popping heads but it's nearly 2am and all I have done is watch people play games I have and enjoy for the past 12 hours.... I wish I could help you so here's my thoughts..... There's a bug. Delete the blueprint and build layer by layer, like a 3D printer, setting up things as you go. Fix a build point and test. If it goes wibble, remove a layer of blocks. Repeat until your down to placing a block, testing and redo. When you get to that block that causes the wibble look deeper. Does it have settings?? if not the bug is external to your build, if yes it's a setting. I would just do the blocks that need timers and setting first and build from there. When it goes tits up, back up a step or two. I suspect it's a setting either internal with the drone or the Big ship. In RL this is what I did. Maintenance on combat aircraft, no matter how complex the problem, prove what works and what does not step by step. Infuriated many but I got the problem fixed even some real nightmares, fond memories. Don't rush, don't panic. Just chill. Oh and you've got a turret on fire. Front left from Big ships bow

[@keithcummins4380]

Yes everyone is doing factorum stuff but I think you could take the AMG-Icestorm to a heavily guard base and make the next series to get all the end game blocks...

[@Robert-un9vo]

23:58 almost like upgrading your spacesuit

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Exactly!

[@ady2848]

2025-I would love to continue with this,i really dont want this to end.

[@yoannjollivet6022]

Dancing drone épisode 😆😂😂😂

[@csorgb05]

How about a Mesa base series. Where all the base construction is done underground, utilizing the whole mesa.

[@kalsaari4670]

Have you considered sharing inertia tensor option ? Probably not the root cause but it will help stabilize the sub-grids.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Share Inertia Tensor is enabled for the pistons. Its a good tip though, I'm sure the drone would be even crazier without it!

[@chadp6307]

What should you do/upgrade to recharge the Reavertarium rail guns faster? More batteries? More Hydrogen engines? Turn on a large Reactor while rail guns are actively firing? Drone EC trigger Event is: Connector Connected Input: Connector is Disconnected Output: Action Slot 1 Huh? Methinks you need to replace that faulty EC. Is it still under warranty? Imagine getting the AMG Snowstorm back to full capacity, you launch back into space to cruise off into the sunset to conclude this series, and you ironically crash back on Pertam (cause of crash to be determined). After a couple episodes, you happen to find something like a teleporter, and it's marked as sending you back to Earth. You teleport, but oops!, it's not to Earth. It was a space prank someone left behind, and you end up on (planet to be determined) and now you work to get off that planet to go get revenge on the culprit that pranked you.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Hahaha you have a knack for storytelling it sounds like! That would be a really interesting scenario! My best bet on the thrusters going haywire on the drone is that all the thrusters seem to turn on when the ship unmerges. So I might need to turn off the thrusters again whenever the merge disconnects. But that's just a theory!

[@chadp6307]

@@AndrewmanGaming Ehh, I have my moments. It just seemed like an interesting way to transition from one season to the next. Glad you enjoyed the idea.

[@jamestaylor9887]

I can't swear to it, but I don't think you have the gate box checked at the bottom of the event controller. It would cut before you were scrolled down far enough to see it

[@tylerstringer6084]

I have a idea for your bean roster it needs a camera in the middle of all the welder's it would make it easier to see if everything is going good or if you need more materials

[@laughingcloud3516]

59:25 Drone uses "Clang Dance"

[@RcMayhem24Ficker2]

Also at 46:20 54:05 55:25 58:41

[@shaneedwards596]

also if you still sticking with the coffee theme.... you could call the drones "Beans..." especially type 2 and type 3's the type one is more like a pancake

[@DLWOLFORD]

Hey Andrew, How about a trip to an alien planet scenario. Never seen any of them. Maybe add another welder on the bottom?

[@Triaxx2]

The Drone is trying to collision avoid the ship it's inside. Don't turn on the thrusters until the end of the launch sequence.

[@Lazygames2]

Anather way is to launch your drone up dampeners of and after a set time the dampeners would turn on and the ai blocks go on too

[@zyonn_c]

46:25 🤣

[@ethanmelton927]

Caw caw

[@suddenlyboop1815]

On the topic of what to do for the next series, I've always wanted to do a world where I just have a starter ship that I just continually slap things onto until it becomes a massive junker that lumbers from world to world eating entire asteroids. 😅

[@bigbadcivic2]

it would be madness to build such an awesome ship and not use it in the next season.. Maybe do a tour of the solar system with it?

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Good idea! Maybe I'll make a planet-heavy world and we'll do a big nomadic series.

[@ThatCrayzBoyDayv]

WHEN YOU GONNA TOUCH THE CAPITAL SHIP ???

[@PerfectTangent]

Take the ship and build a space station on to it/out of it/around it. Something like that.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Ooo that is a cool idea!

[@OssiJrgensen]

In the start of 2025 and the New series Are coming i really want to see the angry parallax comanders destoy the base and you hop in the sandstorm and ram the parallax ships and then the jump drives get wreket and the sandstorm auto jumps to the most habbitable planet ❤❤

[@mr.purple0887]

I would like to see survival in space with the amg snowstorm

[@mr.purple0887]

Zero planet survival

[@the-scrap-gamer]

I had to downgrade my youtube to get comments lol,anyway,continue the series

[@OwlsPoniesDragonsandWolves]

Isn't there artificial gravity units in SE? Could put one on the ship, or wouldnthat not work on the launch mechanism

[@AndrewmanGaming]

There are, and it would probably help but I'm also worried about the momentum of the large ship as it flies messing with the track. It's a good option to keep in mind though!

[@GamePlays_1230]

GIVEN THE STANDSTORM was use very little in this series we should continue to use it in the next Series , I think a nomads series where we have to set up outpost for mining

[@AndrewmanGaming]

That's a cool idea!!

[@Thrillbo341]

The cold world was not difficult enough for you. I wanna see you have to hide down in tunnels from a surface too hostile to languish upon. the jet pack needs a nerf in early game or it makes the first proto ships trivial. Trapped on a world with 5 suns, descend beneth the sizzling surface to protect your self from heat and radiation. something something automated tunneling building trains, build a rocket to get you outta there.

[@AndrewmanGaming]

That sounds like an AWESOME idea! I need to figure out how to make the surface hostile though. Do you know if there is a mod that does something like that by chance?

[@mrfoot6480]

🛡Spoiler Shield 🛡

[@savage5975]

Could you put a gravity generator down that would solve the gravity issue?

[@bitfighterrosemoor797]

It would be need to make it into bull and sit on it and activate it! have fun

[@MichaelNdungu-iv9dr]

2025 you will con tiniyou🙏💕

[@DesignerShark44]

Petition for the next season to consist of AMG...snowstorm crashing on earth

[@AndrewmanGaming]

Hahaha then we spend all next series rebuilding it for it to become the AMG Stonestorm!

[@aaroniker_me]

nooo my ship 😕 thanks for fixing

[@matheusnutsu]

keep the slide/catapult pls!!!

[@fredpryde8555]

the drone is pocessed maybe it needs a exorcism lmao

[@AndrewmanGaming]

I think you're right!

[@andressmith9821]

On your railgun system of a double system you need a second control system that's sitting in the second rail gun turret cuz you only have one you need the second one right there to do the second one to do the firing two controllers for the two railguns you only have one that's why you only have one controller firing one of each of the railguns you need a second controller to have the second one run correctly.

[@marcelvantilburg926]

Je kan een nood escape doen aan de end en je week op de earth planet en in de 2026 jeer je find je mail ship in a astroed

[@interstellarsnow]

artificial mass blocks

[@justa_guywhat]

This has to last one more year you have done to much to just leave it all behind without finishing i mean you haven’t even done space exploration