WePlay: Laser-Equipped Drone Swarms

Not a turret: a swarm that flies out to the nests on a one-way trip.

Load attack drones into a launchpad and it launches the little airplanes down its runway one at a time. They circle overhead until the swarm is ready, then the airplanes fly out together to the nearest charted biter nest, up to 1000 tiles away. Over the nest they break formation, wheel around it in every direction and pulse-laser the nests and worms until their batteries run dry. An alternative to artillery, with a lot more chaos.

Features

• 🛩️ A real swarm. Drones circle the launchpad on their own rings, meet up on the way out as a loose cloud, then peel off one by one over the target, banking into their turns.
• ⚡ Pulse lasers. Each drone locks a green beam onto a nest or worm for 3 seconds, rests for 1, then fires again (or set the beams to continuous in map settings). Nests and worms come first; biters only get shot when there's nothing else in reach.
• 🎯 Finds its own targets. Swarms go after the nearest charted nest within 1000 tiles, then move on to the next nest while they still have battery left. Swarms from different launchpads won't pile onto the same nests.
• 🗺️ Reveals the map like artillery. Swarms chart the ground around them on the way out and over the target.
• 💥 Biters fight back. Nests send their revenge at the launchpad, just like with artillery. Plan your defences.
• 🔁 Waves, not a flood. A launchpad has one attack out at a time: it launches just enough drones for the next swarm, which circles overhead until the last attack run is over.
• 🔌 Circuit network. The launchpad outputs drones in the launchpad, drones circling it, and attack in progress (1 or 0).
• 📦 Easy to move. Mining a launchpad packs up the swarm circling over it along with the pad.

How to use it

1. Research Attack drones (red, green, military and blue science).
2. Build an attack drone launchpad (5x5) and power it: 100 kW idle, 2 MJ per launch.
3. Load attack drones into it, by hand or with inserters.
4. Set the squad size in the launchpad's panel. When that many drones are circling, they fly out.

Drones are one-way: when their attack run ends, they go down wherever they are. Keep the launchpad stocked for a steady stream of waves.

Research

Settings

• Laser style (map setting): pulsing (3 s on, 1 s off) or a continuous beam. Same damage per second either way.
• Hard mode (startup setting, off by default): every attack drone needs a laser turret in its recipe.

Good to know

• Only charted nests are targeted. Radar coverage, or survey probes from WePlay: Radar Probe Drone Launcher, widen what your swarms can find.
• A full swarm with nothing to attack keeps circling its launchpad and flies out as soon as a nest shows up in range (biter expansion, new radar coverage).
• /wp-drone-swarms-clear (admins) removes every attack drone in the air.
• Requires WePlay: Flight Library, the shared flight code for WePlay's airplane mods. Space Age is optional.

Credits

Rendered in Blender.

More WePlay airplanes

• ✈️ WePlay: Long Haul Logistics Drones: swarms of cargo airplanes linking your outposts to your main base, with no coverage map. An alternative to trains.
• 🛰️ WePlay: Radar Probe Drone Launcher: survey airplanes that fly out into the fog and land as radar probes, charting far-off land for your swarms to find.

See all WePlay mods on the mod portal.