Docking and Launching Automatically - Getting Started with Drones
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- Опубліковано 14 кві 2023
- In the first in a series of tutorials focusing on the content from the Automatons update I cover how to make a drone automatically land and dock on a connector, launch and follow a path set by the player. This should get everyone started on being able to do all sorts of cool things with their drones :)
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Begun, the drone wars has...
Lmaoo
Space engineers :the drone wars
You two probably made someone gain hope for humanity. Just by being awesome!
Magnificent aren't they?
Possibly the single best SE comment I've ever read. Thank you.
13:37 It occurs to me that the reason why the connector wasn't in range of the base connector was because the ship was turned away from straight, thus putting the ship connector to the side and out of range of the base connector. If the flight points are centered on the 'Move' block, then I think the safest thing would be to put the 'Move' block directly centered on the connector in whatever orientation it needs to connect. So, in this case with a vertical connection, the 'Move' block should be centered above the ship's connector. If it was a horizontal connection to the front or rear of the ship, then the 'Move' block should be either centered directly in front or behind the connector.
I had the same impression. Hope they add an option to make the ship end up with the correct yaw on a waypoint. Maybe this is something for precision mode?
Turn off planetary align and it will force the orientation of your waypoint
You should also make sure the recorder is centered over the connector on the drone. My drone works much better that way.
Thought the same right away. Placing the AI Recorder directly above the connector is a good solution for this setup. If that's not an option, reduce the approach speed and set up a path that forces consistent orientation of the drone each time. A combo of the two is probably best. (This is the same problem/solution for old Remote Control drone setups)
hello again :)
Just as I started experimenting with drones...
Perfect timing as always
FOR ANYONE STRUGGLING WITH SHIP ORIENTATION TURN OFF PLANETARY ALIGN IN THE FLIGHT AI SETTINGS. It overrides the recorded orientation unless you switch it off
Just saved me from watching an entire video that probably wouldn't have answered my question.
Super cool if they added a "force orientation" for waypoints. That way waypoint 3 can have that selected and between 2 and 3 it rolls spins and turns untill the recorded orientation is established.
the block could plot a path between the two waypoints and add some thrust over a period of time so that the trajectory changes accordingly.
Imagine making a drone from Land Base to Space Station shuttling supplies that you cant get readily in Space.
Or Splitsie, make a drone that follows Capac.
On the other hand, Capac could make a drone to follow you Splitsie, that plys your favourite Fun song constantly 😂
LOVE YOUR CONTENT SPLITSIE! DONT EVER STOP
The drone that follows capac could have its own dedicated survival kit for instant and infinite orange bullet shields. 😂
I think Salt'r might be on to something... A drone that follows you or Capac and has a low chance of randomly firing it's weapons... The Roulette Drone! You can't leave base without it! (It follows you, everywhere...)
@@daz8405 the one following capac could also remind him to take his ship off recharge/stockpile. Although I guess the even controller will now do all that automatically.
Nah they need a drone that leads Capac around that way it takes the inevitable bullet meant for Capac.
On the other hand I could see someone building a simple remote controlled block ship that could travel randomly around a planet until it detects a Capac and then slams into him from out of nowhere
I remember following your original tutorials years ago, they got me over the initial learning curve and paved the road towards my 2k+ hours in game and a bunch of relatively successful workshop uploads (Mitts on steam). I haven't hoped back in for probably over a year now and it's great to see you're still doing these, I still recommend your initial tutorial series to new players, looking forward to your next one!
Awesome tutorial!
This is so cool! can't wait to start playing around with the new blocks.
A very useful guide. I would like to add that 2 AI Flight (Move) can be used on the drone.
The first one is for low-speed flights (for docking)
The second (with high speed) for flights outside the stations.
That was a brilliant and helpful tutorial, looking forwards to more advanced stuff, especially those focusing on making big 💥
Thank you so much! I always love your tutorial videos. I am also looking forward to trying out your salvage mod.
Why is this one of the BEST tutorials?!
You still make the best tutorial's that I've seen for any game. I'm going to have to get some caffeine and rewatch this to get it to sink (early morning here) in but you always explain things in a way that I can 'get it'.
Excellent start, can’t wait to see more on these.
Okay, this was very swiftly done, Splitsie! Thanks!
I wondered how long it would take for you to explain to me how to use the new blocks. I'm not disappointed! Thanks for the helpful tutorial, Splitsie!
Great tutorial. lots of little hints, tips and tricks, thanks Splitsie!
awesome video as always! This made me realise how actually cool this update actually is, and i can't wait to see you build drones like these in your survival series 😁
Great video! Definitely made me want to try out these new blocks. Before this video, I was worried that they’d be too complicated. Thanks!
Excellent Tutorial Thank you for this Splitsie!
Always refreshing to see a Splitsie-Tutorial!
Great tutorial , seems very complicated at the moment but Im sure after playing around will be much easier.
Up late unable to sleep AND NEW SLPITSIE! Thank you I have needed something to dive my brain into all night
For when you get around to building missiles, I experimented with it myself a little and ran into the problem of warheads not detonating on impact. A pretty reliable fix I found for it is to be found in the event controller:
Distance to locked target
You didn't use scripts?
15 meters has been the general consensus from what I've seen, and sometimes proximity detonation does more damage
@@yamatokurusaki5790 none
@@truejoshi8569 ah
I am not sure how I feel about reliable long range missiles. while cool and all, trying to figure out how to get close enough was not only an engineering challenge it was fun. Case in point. Splitsie's bombing run over mountains onto enemy bases with his decoy tossing ship.
really good guide.. was just enough for to push me over the edge to do what ever i needed!
OMG, the OG tutorial space engineer is back!!
Holy crap, thank you! I just came back to SE after almost 4 years away and I spent about an hour feeling like an idiot trying to figure out all the new stuff by myself like an idiot. Your tutorials are amazing Splitsie, thank you for making them.
Finally! A quality video about the new update!
When you get to event controllers, I've found an airlock system that is substantially more user-friendly than the officially-released example. My design is crafted with multiplayer in mind. It should be intuitive to use, as there are no buttons that need pressing. All a user has to do is open each door in their way like any uninitiated Capac would, and the design is mostly idiot proof, for the set of all idiots who don't have weapons or grinders.
Idle setup is both doors on and closed, and the airlock vent set to 'depressurize'.
Each controller looks at one of the doors, and as soon as that door opens, it starts a one-second timer, and turns the other door off until it closes. (You can also have the inside door opening switch the airlock vent off depressurize, but that isn't strictly necessary.)
All the timer does is wait a second and then close both doors. (You could do this with two separate timers, but you can also have both controllers start the same one.)
Yes a splitsie tutorial. I was waiting for this. No other streamer/youtuber can do a space engineers tutorial better than splitsie. Trust me others have tried and they aren’t as great as they think they are.
Yaaaaay! Splitsie is still doing tutorials! I came back to the game after a long time when I saw the new AI blocks. (I always sucked with scripts)
Thanks for this. Looking forward to your next tut video.
I am going to use this not for a fully automated ship, but for a automated docking. Docking with a big ship can be a pain in the batooski!
Thank you for this very good explanation.
I think if you turn off align with planet gravity on the flight block you'll have better luck since it seems to remember orientation of your grid when that setting is turned off
IT DOES????
I tested it you're a genius
Nice Tip.
Thank you for this guide!
Been waiting for this
i was really hoping they were gonna make it so the ai ships can just auto detect docking points and do all this on their own.
Capac: “how do you make this drone move on its own?” Splitsie: “i made a tutorial about this, didnt you watch it?” Capac: “No. why should i? Whats in it?” Splitsie: ”……..” capac: “now where can i put a solar panel on this thing”. - Is how i see this playing out in the future
I also see Capac parking on a drone's connector and then complaining when it tries to land on him.
Another great tutorial. For simple back and forths and docking between static grids, you can do it all easy with just the remote control block and triggers at each waypoint. It's easy to make a ship dock on a planet from space. No need for the new blocks. To me the new blocks just add more features and obviously better behaviours for only grids that you use for defence or offence. I do need to play around with the new blocks more, can't wait for more tutorials :)
Ah but now you can also have drones follow your cargo ship and shoot the bad guys while the cargo runs away.
I have found on previous editions of the game, especially with more maneuverable small ships, you're going to want to set downward thrust in a gravity environment even with manual flight controls, just to keep the flight controls from getting confused. Otherwise sometimes your gravity counteracting thrusters won't properly let you fall.
I was so looking forward to this video after seeing the official launch of the Automaton DLC!
I've just bee experimenting with the event controller and it allows you to automatically activate your batteries when you disconnect! Thats awesome!
you can also use the event controller to automatically retract a custom landing gear, upon unlocking fom the ground (and even turn it off to avoid clang in tight spaces)
Always nice to see explanations for tasks like that. Even when my "potato" gave up running this game like 3-4 Years ago. (Long Story short, pc got old, gamer got old, passion still is there.)
Thanks this helps me with the hulling drown am working on
Glad it helped
Hey man you make the best guide for space engineers. I wish you would go to town with them.
I think this can be improved a bit if you put the recorder block directly above the connector. That way, there's no way to have rotation be a problem, because the rotational axis is the recorder block, and now the connector is also inside that axis.
can't wait for the others tutorial! Very nice starting point to use drones without drowning myself into scripts 😅
Finally, waiting since release
awesome, now everyone can build drones!
we did this back in 2015/16 with the progammable blocks.
we did it for Mining drones - just assign a region, a material , a drilling depth, a savety high for return and assign a docking station für unloading the ores and one for charging up the batteries.
worked pretty well, except for the first few attempts... many deaths and broken bases ... but was worth it.
I've got some old autopilot tutorials I made where I did similar with it, the main difference between then and now is that the vanilla experience (without scripts) is now quite reliable and reproducible, which is nice :)
In my own experience putting the recorder block on the center line of your connector works best for any orientation
i like that they are discrete blocks. a broken drone should have predictably janky behaviour
Thank you for this tutorial.
You are welcome :)
I love how now if I ever need say iron, I can click a button and a little cargo drone can go to a mini-base I made for iron and pick some up while I chill and drink coffee.
Pathing and automatic docking are not just good for drones. I've already started sticking them onto mining ships because I'm too lazy to fly back to base myself.
Yes AUTO-DOCKING procedures. love it.
yes more please!
Great tutorial, as always.
I've already started playing with the Event Controller and so far all of the functions seem to be fine except for locking Connectors. I'll try your Timer Block idea next...that might fix it.
Awesome! Thanks! I hope you will explain how to make it land on a moving grid in a future video!
It'll be in the next one, have been messing with the defence block all afternoon 🙂
well done
yayyyyy back to tutorials xD always nice to see you care bout the noobs out there cheers!!!
I’d love to see this sort of docking set-up done for a mobile large grid. Can we make these drones return and dock with a large ship hangar if it has moved from it’s point of origin by a few kilometers in space, for instance? Think I saw something about the drones being able to pursue particular beacons etc and move "relative" to these blocks.
Assuming it's set up as with the Beta, yes. You can set the recorder block to be relative to a Beacon.
@@MediumRareOpinions So... automated carrier operations? Sweet.
i use the drones sometimes they're kind of unique when you're just creating ships in Space Engineers but i definitely like them.
I like the drone design
nice tutorial and good this is finally in base game (as the 5y old mod that did this in bit different way by blocks as waypoints) stopped working.... but it did work in moving grids. I wonder if keen will add dynamic way of pathing (so you could have drones/fighters) launched and returned from/to mothership
event controllers wouldve been perfect for those timer blocks. you can set it to connect automatically when its in range, and disconnect when the batteries are fully charged
Unfortunately the event controller is a bit buggy with connectors at the moment so I chose to show another method that works reliably 🙂
@@Splitsie ah good thing i havent been relying on it too much for that then, ive mostly just been using it to turn off my engines when landing gear locks
hopefully they patch that stuff soon, im really eager to make use of it
Cargo drones would be great too. something that goes from a drilling rig to your main base. and can stock up drilling rig if it has weapons.
With this setup duplicated you can do exactly that 🙂
Splitsie, in AA you could make an ice base at the pole and have drones transport the ice back to your main base
That's one of the things I had in mind for it 🙂
OH MY GOSH!!! I finally made a working elevator!!! 🥰
Thanks for explaining. So good to be back in the game after a while and have a reliable source of "FU*K this sh*t aint working. Someone put this in understandable pleazzzzzzz!"
...did I mention that I love your tutorials?
Anyhow, thanks👍
it seems like one of the issues that caused the connecters to not line up was that it doesnt record its orientation at the set waypoints. So if you have it place its recorder block over the waypoint, but it's turned 180 degrees then it obviously wont have the connecter lined up. You could do some weird shenanigans with multiple waypoints to force an orientation, or you could just have the connecter and recorder block close enough together that it doesnt matter
The wiki says the recorder block saves the orientation, but this is clearly not the case unfortunately. The worst bit is that it makes rear-mounted connectors impossible even with multiple waypoint shenanigans because drones can't back up. Very frustrating
Nvm I just had to turn off planetary align in the move ai settings. It overrides the recorded orientation
for the event controller, we need to have an event for air vents where if a room cannot be presurised (mainly for if the ship is damaged and a room is depresurised) you can close the doors so that it is ensured that the rest of the ship isnt depresurised and you can get round to presurising it and would be great for people doing a no suit survival so they dont die because they left a door or 2 open
Now we need a "flatbed" drone/ truck thing... Always need a flatbed!
Hey Splitsie nice video, really helped get my head around this new update.
Idea for your salvage only survival mods, have a mirage I.e. a projection of a building or ship to fool players making them think they found a giant piece of wreckage. Think this would only work on dessert planets.
Take care, and enjoy fatherhood.
Follow up idea, project high end parts to lure players in for another one of your booby traps.
One thing that would be useful, is if we could program multiple behaviors within one AI block and trigger them separately. Thus we'd only need one block for a more complex schedule.
My biggest question is: Can subgrids control the main grid? Needing to have a separate block per docking station would be very bulky in large grid. It would be nice to be able to put all of the intelligence in small grid blocks connected via rotor or hinge.
Instead of a timer to control the connector, an event controller can be used. The event controllers have a specific setting to detect if one or more connectors are ready to lock, and use that to trigger the lock on your connectors. It might never make the prettiest connection, but it will deny Clang their wrath. Because unlocking the connector immediately gives it lock-readiness, you will need to turn off the connector in order to undock, and turn them on again at a safe distance or during a docking approach. Another similar and great use is to use systems like these to automatically set a ship or drone's batteries to recharge or stockpile once docked, and return to automatic when undocking.
You could also use an event controller to detect if it’s ready to lock or not and if it is set it to lock the connector
Yup, definitely. I avoided it here just to steer clear of the event controller for now before I cover it in a coming tutorial (plus there are a couple of bugs in how it handles connectors right now)
@@Splitsie ah, gotcha, also since ur here, thanks for all the tutorials over the years, you rlly helped me, and many more, loads with this game!
THX A MILLION
Excellent tutorial, not to long and covering one concept, perfect to get started with before diving into more complex things.
And even with just this, combining multiples of these solutions you can create very complex behaviors.
One thing though, orientation, will it try to retain the orientation it had during recording, or will orientation depend on the direction it came from? In the later case it could be important to either make sure the recorder it exactly on top of the connector, or that you have the waypoints setup to force it into the right orientation, especially if its a side or front/rear connector.
If direction is only governed by the recorder, switching to a recorder oriented so that the side//front/rear connector is facing forward in regard to the recorder could be one way possibly?
I believe it records orientation of the block, but I've had some mixed behaviour that makes my belief less than absolute :P
In general though, you're right, should put the block directly in line with the connector anyway as it'll help the ship line up properly :)
Another pitfall I came across is that drones have no problem is setup like this where the connector is facing downwards on the bottom of the drone, but if you want to make a connector on the side instead (because you have something under, like drills) the flight controller freaks out and refuses to reorient the ship to the orientation it was recorded. You can somewhat force the orientation with additional waypoint that is forwards on the same elevation before the point that will make the drone descent, but still makes the drone somewhat buggy. This was not an issue in the beta, so I don't know what is going on. And this is not a mod interference because I haven't enabled any.
Thank God someone else has the same issue as me. I thought I was going insane. This bug completely prevents my design from working and I am very sad
Nvm just turn off planetary align you're welcome :P
The biggest problem, that you didn't address, when it tried to connect to the base and failed, was that your Recorder block was not in line with the connector on the drone.
Because it was not that the connector was close enough to the connector hight vise. It was that the drone was rotated around the waypoint so the connectors didn't line up on the horizontal plane.
So your change of adding a timer and such didn't actually address the issue that you had when it failed the first time and it could still fail.
I'll use this to make an auto lander for my cargo ship
I hope you make a dedicated video to teach us how to properly set up a mining drone as well!
Mining can't really be done, I mean it technically can, but it would be very clunky without using scripts
@@Splitsie Better than nothing, but I suppose it'll have to wait until someone does write up the scripts for it to be feasible.
I'm imagining a swarm of fighter drones that will dynamically flee if damaged or depleted, then parking next to some welders and activating a projector to be fully repaired, refueled, and resupplied.
I'd like to see this applied in relation to a mobile base. It would be awesome to have a large transport drone that sits on to your rover and once it fills with ore flies the ore to base. Maybe the transport rover would have to be almost a hub for your smaller drill ships to fill up, but the drone does the main ore transporting to base.
If it's possible this could make mining runs far more efficient. Your transport rover could have less storage, therefore it could be smaller, lighter, and less expensive.
Though I guess taking the few seconds to generate a path for the thing when you park the rover at each new location is not too much to ask.
I think it's best to restrict the angles above zero or it bugs out trying to be perfectly flat. like 2 to 3 degrees.
Also its helpful if you have the flight-move block directly above the connector. That way it doesnt matter if the drone rotates around the flight-move block axis
or if you want rear connection, I got them to reverse dock upside down on my asteroid base last night pretty damn easily. Simply have the RECORDER BLOCK (not the flight block) BACKWARDS.
The connection failing had nothing to do with the vertical distance. The yaw was way off, so the connector was way out of horizontal alignment. Sucks that the waypoints don't save orientation.
Can’t wait to see how nasty ASSERT is going to get with these new tools.
can you please do a in depth video about the event controller and some suggestions on each of the settings, it took me a long time to get it to start/stop certain things on my base based on solar panel output.
Why they thought these blocks were needed amuses me, several content creators successfully programmed remote drones using GPSs years ago.
Oh, the new logic block. I need to get that new DLC. May help with my elevator project.
You can also use this to automaticly dock your own ships
For the nice straight path you're talking about at 6:00 minutes in. Perhaps you could come down connect to the connector then release and come straight up off of it then hit the add waypoint. Then come down and connect again for the last waypoint.
Also wondering...could you use this for the last part of docking big/heavy ships. Sort of like they do for big ships in real life. When they get near port a harbor pilot comes onboard and brings it in as they are more familiar with the local waterways. In this case your fly your big cargo ship to a safe point away from the base then click the button so it flies in and docks itself. Perhaps safer since once you have it set up it shouldn't make any "human" errors.
Don't use a timer block to lock connector! Use event controller!
You want time to have the magnets align the ship
Can you test, if you can send to player. EG: Capac has crashed his Paprika. Can you send him a new one?
The legend is TRUUUE
4:08 I managed to get it to look with collision avoidance on. Do note recorder needs to line up exactly with the connector for that. The drone also can take more then one attempt on landing.
Greetings Kendoka2
Does the recorder block also maintain the craft heading precisely? Does that locking problem can it happened because the drone yaw left and right? As you said before the waypoint were created with the recorder block as the centerpoint, and you have it slightly off forward from the connector?
Gah I'm really want to go home to play the update but I'm stuck at my research location...*sigh*.....
I'm trying to design something that I'm calling a "blackbox flight recorder" where it's basically a heavily armored box that contains the blueprint projector and a few other blocks. And it's meant to be a core starting point for any ships that I make. I made it so the projector was the first block I placed down, so the blueprint of whatever I build around it automatically lines up (a trick that I think I learned from you) and I never have to mess with the blueprint projector offsets. But the more I think about it, the more I feel I should add to it. Especially with all of these new blocks. Originally I intended it to just be the projector and a small backup battery, so if the entire ship is destroyed and the only thing left was the projector or the box itself, I could still rebuild it. (I could just print a new one, but where is the fun in that?) But there are a lot more possibilities and ideas to consider now.
wonder if there is a limit to how many waypoints a recorder can have. If it's unlimited, you could technically set up an actual flight recorder. IE you could recover the blackbox and see what route the ship followed. Maybe with like a minute or so between updates
I see SE drone shows coming soon
Trying to set up autopilot on a ship to travel between a ground earth base and a space station. Kindof like the space elevator in deadspace 2