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BEI C-Series Drone Interceptor

This NPC drone is first seen in episode 3 of my First Person Survival Combat youtube series. Like the sentry, it is intended to be easily spawned into a world ready to go and activated with relative ease. The Model 2, is a variant of this drone and is a piloted version for the engineer. This drone also makes for a good player support craft as well in remote control mode, but it is somewhat underpowered.

Let me explain how to activate this drone as a NPC, and it's behavior as such. First, if you are in survival mode, after spawning in this asset make sure you can activate all terminals in administration controls. This is simply done by pressing alt f10 together then finding the appropriate checkbox. Once you have done that, go to the control panel and find the category 'Ownership to Space Pirates' and give ownership to the Space Pirates (or NPC) faction. Then, go to the 'Recompile this after Transfer' category and press the recompile tab. Of course, if you are in creative you can overlook this second step. Voila! You are done. Go to the top of the drone and press the 4 buttons in any succession. This will activate the firing control systems, and set the drone to activate within 5 minutes. Best get into your ship fast after that, because it is coming for you after 5 minutes wait! :D

The drone has the ability to undock from a connector both horizontally and vertically (actually at a 45* angle). This is to simulate launching from within a hangar and attached to a connector. It is set to a vertical takeoff by default. Make sure your path is clear, and when the NPC start timer goes off it will undock from the connector and fly 250 yards (meters) from the parent before activating it's program to come at you. If you want to launch from a hangar bay, it must be simple in design. It will only launch forwards out a door, that is it. So no having it launch from some backroom without a taxi to the staging area. Turn off the 'Program Vertical [UndockV] category, and make sure there is a wall or object behind the drone to 'see'. Then proceed to activate with the buttons, and in 5 minutes it will launch from the bay before hunting for you. Also, I have made it so that it can be launched from the surface of a light gravity moon. It will fly from the surface to engage you in orbit. What more do you want? LOL

In combat, it will not crash into you intentionally and will avoid you. Since the guns are fixed and not turreted, you can expect a real dogfight. Also, the drone is apt to miss or shoot and/or target other assets in your fleet from time to time. Furthermore, it will dodge, twist, and turn to gain a firing position on you or avoid being fired upon. Thanks to raycasting, Delizin's autopilot script, Sogeki's fire control script, and an old enemy AI script that allows for unlimited pathfinding for drones. It is quite the complex mashup of scripts, but I have woven it together and the results are beautiful.

As a player controlled drone, it works as well as any other. Though it is underpowered with a powertrain of only 4 small reactors. So no heavy lifting, and power movement will be sluggish. It is equipt with Spug's autodocking, which has become a standard script for my workshop assets. Just put it on a connector and run the argument, and the drone will recall upon command. It does not get any better then that in Space Engineers!

Be a friend to reality, and you will be blessed

Wolfenray73, CEO of Blair Enterprises, Incorporated