Some questions about drones

[onos_devour]

What determines how many drones you can have out?

For example if you had a launcher that has 2 drones on it, 1.0 drones per second, and 75/energy per launch... and your core generates 750 energy per second, how many drones could you summon?

If you had 10 launchers?

They seem to have some weird thing where they die off after a while, but that's not written anywhere... so are they taking 1 damage per second or something?* Anyone know?

*Tested, and they don't seem to be taking 1 dps either.

Okay, so they seem to stay alive for 30 seconds each.... so a launcher with 2 drones at 1/second spawning, assuming you have the energy, will release about 30 drones.

However, okay why then do 6 launchers only create 150, and not 180? (6x30)

There's some sort of diminishing returns on one of the values, of 0.8333. Going to test fruther to see if it's a drone max limit or the time they are spawned.

Edit: They seem to stay out for 30 seconds still but just get hardcapped, which means it's probably about 30 drones per launcher with a diminishing return of 0.8333 of the total of that number. So for 10 launchers, you'd expect 300 drones but really you would be able to summon at most (300 x 0.8333) 250. I'm not sure if this goes for all drones or not... I'd imagine you could do some interesting things with that system, because if something spawns 1.5 drones per second it is getting hardcapped, but you could add another launcher that spawn 1 drone every 2 seconds (0.5 drones per second) and technically you would end up with slightly more of the faster spawning drones able to be spawned (as far as I'm understanding how the mechanic works).

Their deaths seem to make no sense either... I have a ship that should output 12 at a time, and I have enough energy to do that more or less constantly (so that if I watch they come out at 12 at a time). HOWEVER I watched the fleet information and when it gets low they die by 6 at a time instead of 12, even though they're being summoned in waves of 12.
Nvm, because they only generate 1 by 1 they were outputting 6 at a time after the initial click.

[Halcyon]

If you check out how the blocks are written you'll see that every launcher lists a "lifetime=" stat. This determines the length of time a drone will live for so any discrepancy concerning the number of drones under your command v. lifetime should be able to be squared away by how many get launched initially.

[onos_devour]

That's not the only factor though, after testing.

1 launcher produced 30 drones, 2 produced 50: a 0.1667 decrease from expected, 60.

Also that decrease from 'expected max' scaled all the way up to 50 launchers producing 1250 instead of 1500.

I'll keep testing with other drones, the ones I used were 1 drone/second with a lifetime of 30.

[Halcyon]

Yeah, spaced on that one. Replicate time has an overall effect on launchers in that the replcate/launch cycle takes a small amount of time over the actual stat block. I want to say Cirrial notes this in his block editing guide but, anyway...I believe the added time per cycle is static so other launchers with different cycle lengths shouldn't vary the % of drones missing from maximum.

But I'm interested to know what that number is and if it does scale based on replicate time or not :D

[onos_devour]

What do you mean over the stat block?
Edit: I see what you mean, like an unmentionned delay. I have a feeling that's the case.

I tried to isolate a formula for WHY this is happening, and it doesn't make any sense.. if it replicates 1/s and can launch that one... even while the other drones are counting down, that's still 30/s and it only produces 25.

Also I was wrong about the singular drone launcher: at 30 lifetime with 1/drone/sec - it was making 25 drones/second which for whatever reason is only 0.8333x what it really should be.

This lines up with other launchers too... like red faction has one that is 1/drone/sec at 10 lifetime and it fluctuates between 8 and 9 randomly instead of expected, 9 and 10, and scales up.

I have no idea why, but multiplying lifetime by drones/sec and then finally 0.1667, then subtracting that number from lifetime will give you the total of possible drones you can have (per launcher).

Not sure if it's a delay causing the extra time or what... This can be simplified by just doing (lifetime * 0.8333) though.

Complicated way:
Max Drones Out = #OfLaunchers x Lifetime - ( (Lifetime x (Drones per second)) x 0.1667 )

Note: #OfLaunchers is by type, so if you have 2 types of launchers you'd have to do this for both.

To get lifetime, for those reading this and curious, you can either go into the block files for the specific launcher (group is faction #: http://reassembly.wikia.com/wiki/Meet_the_Factions ). Or just do it the old fashioned way and launch a drone and just time how long it takes to disappear. The values are usually in base 5 (5,10,15,20,etc) so it's not too hard to just bring up steam overlay and time them.

You're also right that it's a per-launcher thing, not global.

Edit: I give up, that equation doesn't work if drones spawn more than 1/s.

[onos_devour]

It still seems to have worked best (without getting complicated) if I just multiplied the total number of launchers by their lifetime, and then by their drones per second, all multiplied by 0.8333.

I made a spreadsheet for drone launchers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tsvxx46a2fKJ_-aY_B7V6qy_-vwJHQo1ECruycjg_aw/edit?usp=sharing

Yes, it's messy, but just modify the blue values... there's only 10 or so values you need to change and I added a note to most of them so you can fill it out rapidly.

I'm not sure how to set it so that people can just edit it from the page, but you can download it as a spreadsheet and then reupload it to your google drive or open it with a sheet editor.

To explain my reasoning for giving drones a high and low dps value: it's just a simplified way of looking at the big picture without adding in calculations for weapon spread, drone acceleration and torque, enemy defenses, and targetting multiple ships. Just know that the average DPS usually lies in between the low and the high values. There does exist a value for if your enemy is just sitting there, too, for the rare case where for whatever reason you may want it.

[Halcyon]

Very cool SUDDExc, this looks very well done. Thanks for putting the effort in!

[onos_devour]

Oops I accidentally botched a pretty important value...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tsvxx46a2fKJ_-aY_B7V6qy_-vwJHQo1ECruycjg_aw/edit?usp=sharing

The "Time until All Drones are Out" is now fixed flawlessly...so the tournament values are more accurate.

EDIT: Seriously that delay is a nightmare. The sheet is somewhat perfected now.

Some things that I discovered (more for modding than dps):
1) Spawning drones that spawn at a slow rate will always cause the player to hit the maximum amount of drones at that rate passed the lifespan. So, if you had drones with a lifespan of 4000, it will take you 1:11 hours to spawn your max drones, but you WILL be able to so long as you're clear to be spawning them. This means you could do something interesting like have a low spawn rate but a high lifetime, and you would have to 'build' your drones up but you'd be able to, after a long while (5 minutes), have 300 of them from 1 launcher.

2) The opposite can be true, you could burst out 40 drones at a time from 1 launcher and give them a short lifespan, and have it cost a LOT of energy to do so (for balance). This can give rise to quick fleets of drones that are short lived, allowing for wave-like attacks from launchers as a kind of risk vs reward thing... You either dump all your energy into the one wave of drones or you can choose to use small weapons.

3) Drones/s is probably one of the hardest things to balance for. It increases the get-go drone damage, and so drones that spawn rapidly should usually have either short range or short lifetime to compinsate... or perhaps just really weak attacks, or as stated above, high P and energy cost so you can't spam them well or for particular builds.

For anyone using the sheet, feel free to get rid of the notes if you already know that stuff.