Yes, I hope so. The thing is that's the biggest and oldest project, it's under big rework with lots of new half-baked features.

Any chance you would publish Autopillock on it's own?

Sweet, thanks! Your drones are super cool, and I kind of want to apply it to some of my designs!

It is already possible, but not very straightforward. I'll write a small guide later after I look again into it, it's been a while...

Specifically I wanted to create a carrier that could build and launch small ship drones that would recognize the mothership and form up with it, providing covering fire against hostile ships that closed to knife fight range.

>How do you use your autopillock script?
What exactly do you mean? What do you want to achieve?

How do you use your autopillock script? I'm interested in using it to automate a Carrier design I'm going to do.

That's awesome my man, thank you! Feel free to write any ideas/suggestions, I've just shifted my focus back to drone close combat, so much stuff can be done there.

Hey cheerkin -- you have single-handedly revived my interest in this game. I don't know if the devs will ever update the game again, but I wanted to make sure you knew you were inspiring me to be more creative with the PB and scripting.

You can build a massive large grid master ship and use the Autopillock code in it, jsut make sure you name everything properly and correctly aligned (forward-gyro is the main reference rotation block which determines the drone Forward direction)

** and you can do this for pirate faction ships - set up a host ship, change its faction to SPRT, then change a drone to pirate faction, then copy them in any numbers. This way drones won't spread out and will always return to their master ship.
Basically this is the way I set everything up in that arena battle video, the concept is pretty simple.

* after changing init sequence in Custom Data you want to either recompile the script or ctrl-x ctrl-v the whole grid.

- [toggle:turret-response] switches drone react to enemy grids on/off,
- removing the [command:pillock-mode:WP] from Custrom Data init sequence leaves autopilot an Disabled state so you can fly it yourself.
- [toggle:broadcast-wingman] will switch on fromation vectors transmit for all registered peers (drones).

Glad to hear that! If I see enough interest I'd roll out newer version, more user-friendly and with detailed guide.
Regarding your question, here is a quick guide how to set up a host and formation:
1. Replace [drone] tag with [host] tag in PB name, this will be the master ship.
2. Enable wingman broadcast on it by making PB CustomData look like this:
[toggle:turret-response],[toggle:broadcast-wingman]
instead of
[command:wp-next]
3. After you spawn [drone] grids they should hook up to host and go to formation.

I wasted a whole day playing with this. Awesome toy to play with, but I'm not sure I follow how to script swarm formations.

I've had a code for different formations, but had to throw it out to give a room for more important featuers. Script length 100K limit is a real showstopper.

Depends what you want. You can install URV core on base and tell it to bradcast windman vectors. And you can shape vector however you want with a bit of programming. You can make them going circles, for example. Or you can make a host one of your ships.

I still have to test them in survival. I started all this for making cheap survival drones to kill pirate carriers. Got distracted for making more and more features, had no time for survival yet. Maybe you'll be the first to actually use them in survival)

So, when I weld one in survival, it just takes off... where is it going and what do I change for it to just hang around and gaurd the area? Or for it to just hover until an enemy arrives?

Checked the save from that arena battle video. The Draugr host has this string in CustomData
[toggle:broadcast-wingman]

This code is a bit outdated, you need brackets, my bad.

Play around with that, you can make a cross formation, diagonal, even circle. Simple math.

Hmm.. Be sure to toggle once, since you can switch it back to false. I's better to get it into the CustomData and recompile.
Yeah, by default the shift is this:

basePoint + pillockController.FovOrientation.WorldMatrix.Up * 50 + pillockController.FovOrientation.WorldMatrix.Left * n

Find this line, change 50 to whatever you want, this will change their elevation above host. If you change it to -200, they will be in line 200m below the host.

LOL, okay I got it working by toggling it to true in the script, but the ship is big and the drones started slamming into it when they tried to get in position.

Couldn't get the host mode to work yet. Tried running the PB with the argument toggle:broadcast-wingman. Also unrelated. I get the aerror "Program(945,1): Warning: Unreachable code detected" when I try to check code... it still works fine though.

Sure, just keep it in default state of Disabled cruise control. Check the CustomData and remove "command:set-mode:WP" which forces them to start acting. With empty CustomData they should not iterate through waypoints.

Can I set my main ship as the host without the script controlling it, so I can still fly it and have the drones escort me?

It sets frequency of PB run. 12 means every 12th tick, it averages to 5 runs per second. I recommend setting 1 for host, 12 for drones.

I haven't tried the host setting yet. I will when I get home tonight. What is the [clock=12] tag for?

I think they started to fly to some default location, like zero world coordinates maybe, because of no host.

Glad to hear!
That sounds funny, I haven't tested them much on planets, just tested some distinct stuff like landing and gravity-orienting a while ago. Have to revise that!
Did you manage to get it working? I think you have to enable vector broadcast on host drone, by using "toggle:broadcast-wingman". All newborn drones should connect to it and go to formation.

Had a lot of fun playing with this so far. I had 3 of my large gravity drive ships battle it out. With the heavy armor, decoys and high speed of them the fight lasted forever! Also used this on a planet with some ships. Works great as long as the drones are over their target. After the fight thought they started to fly off into the sky never to be seen again. Also thanks for the host tag info!!

Also it's possible to assign a squadleader, just put [host] tag instead [drone]. That way drones will always return to formation after engagement.

Excited to see your experiments with drone config. You can actually make a Draugr-style fighter, it should hook up any gravgens and mass blocks automatically.

Woot! Thanks! Been waiting for this.