AI Automatic Docking - HOW TO - Space Engineers 

You can use scripts for this as well. Once it arrives at a designated waypoint you can have it trigger a script to shut off collision and lower your max speed before initiating the docking sequence.

​​@@comensee2461consoles don't have scripts. So the ability to do these things wothput scripts is important

Thatll be cool to see coming at you like a drone revolution xd

Oh, that's an idea; you'd probably want a command vehicle with an ore detector and reference beacon(or a set, one for each mining drone so they don't collide), maybe put the beacon on a rotor(and possibly piston to control depth), and the mining drones mine relative to where you park and position the commander and it's beacon. As they mine, adjust the command rover/beacon position to move them to different parts of the deposit, and give the drones event controllers that get them to switch from the mining AI set to the return set at % cargo so they'll stop part way through the mining path when full, go unload(and maybe also have them fully recharge so they never just drop dead), then come back and start again. Can even have them go park if they ever hit the end of their mining path. Well, assuming you can get them to fly into the ground; haven't tried it yet but heard they didn't like doing that; wonder if a subgrid would get around that?

Tbh... I'm underwhelm by how little stuff the community is doing with this, they hyped it so much and now that they have it they ain't doing much lol, meanwhile I'm suffering cause I haven't had much time to play lately and assembling my fleet is taking too much xD

thats what I thought too

Yeah I figured maybe I could have a landing beacon next to a connector that I turn on when I want a drone to land there.

Very impressive. Your girlfriend must be proud.

Thankyou got a few more coming.

Maybe it’s to do with the Alignment with P-gravity ?

@@brandondawtrey6874 I admit, I didn't think about checking that. I'll have to see when I'm back planetside.

That Connector Ready to Lock is *new* from the beta. It wasn't there at the time! It's actually perfect for those situations.

@@JulianSkies unfortunately it has an issue with also proccing as soon as the connector unlocks, because the "locked" state overrides the "ready to lock" state. Usually what I do is have the event controller feed into a timer block, which locks the connector and turns off the event controller. Then I have the event controller turn on as part of the docking sequence, either from the timer that starts it or as an action at one of the approach waypoints

I had cargo drones for drill setups a few km away from base, on a dedicated server, kept coming back to them either crashed in between or on my base, i had them setup to dock on my base for 5 minutes, do the 3 minute trek, and repeat, but they kept dieing still, so i plan to test with the event controllers to see if its any better

On the way shortly. Are you having issues with the reference beacon or would you like me to try and find some tips when it comes to using it.

@@LastStandGamers Oh, I just worded it poorly. This is the first tutorial with connecting drone to mobile grid and I appreciated you mentioning how. As for myself, I will try the update sometime in the future and knowing myself will tinker till it works, but these tutorials, they give great head start and ideas. Thank you!

It does record orientation if that is what you mean. But It looks like the recorder refuses to turn the drone while aligning to gravity unless the waypoints are fairly far apart. It does work perfectly in space. I assume that is a bug.

@@thepatriarchy1637 You're right, I was messing around with it today and it seems as though it was some sort of bug that was causing my ship not to orient properly. My set up was in space with no gravity to align to so I found forcing the ship to approach from a certain direction allowed it to properly right itself.

The only thing I've been able to get working for miners is to just build a bog standard stationary mining rig, modified to lock w/ landing gear instead of being a station. Slap thrusters and an AI on it and drop a gps point on the ore vein. What'd be really useful is a function for the sensor (or a new block if need be) that detects specific voxel types in an area. That way I could set up a few such sensors to inform the drone of when it's pointing at ore, or if there's ore nearby that it isn't pointing directly at

It should be the same process. Using event controllers you can have the ai blocks perform their task once certain conditions are met. Like no enemies or once fuel is low

@@akilled3646 thnx, but when I tried in the beta it didn't seem to work. Undocking worked but the ships did not leave the hangar properly. They just stayed put.

Video will be up tonight covering this.

@@LastStandGamers THANK YOU !!!

NVM I just figured it out

Solar tracking needs a camera as the pointer, it will attempt to put the camera at the sun,

@@TengertLanes Yeah I know, I already connected it, besides, the turret controller will say it doesn't work without a camera. Not sure, it might even be a bug for me...

@@MedicMainDave sounds like it, or sometimes I found I had to manually adjust the turret before the ai control took over

Just make sure you have your horizontal and vertical azimuth set correctly and of course the camera and it should be good to go. It even follows it at night which be entertaining.

@@mediocreman2 everything is set up correctly, I even manually controlled it towards the sun, it doesn't want to turn, not sure...

Just make sure its on and click on it in the AI Block

Omg guys he hearted my comment this is the best day of my life. It's complete now I can die happy. 😀

That's what waypoints set using reference beacons are.

@@WulfgarOpenthroat please elaborate

AI blocks can't control wheels(atleast for now, hopefully changes in the future; I'm sure a modder will take a stab at it anyway), but you can fudge it by setting wheel friction to zero and using forward/reverse/left/right thrusters and gyros so long as the terrain isn't too bad.

Would love to know how you did that on a moving grid ?

A tip I saw on another video is that when you set the final point (where it's ready to dock), turn off the connector and get it right up against it before marking the point. They also suggested not making the action at that point be to toggle the connector lock, but to start a short (1.5s) timer block that does it instead, to give it the best odds of getting into the magnetic field and successfully docking.

@@ninjacat7507 I've also seen the suggestion to use an event controller to lock the connector when a connection is possible.

I think you just add a second set of AI blocks, and have them trigger timer blocks that turns themselves off while activating and starting the other set so they alternate; maybe event controllers too so it heads back to base when X% full, lands and docks to a connector with sorter set to suck the cargo out, sets battery to recharge, then back to auto and triggers the return to miner AI block set when it's battery is fully charged, so it never runs out of power while enroute? Haven't messed with it yet myself.

@@WulfgarOpenthroat yeah but how do you keep the way points accurate

@@wildocado5376 When set to use a reference beacon, it sets reference points relative to that beacon; when the beacon moves, the way points move with it. So you put the reference beacon for docking to the vehicle on the vehicle, and the AI blocks for docking to the base either use a reference beacon on the base or use regular waypoints without a beacon.

@@WulfgarOpenthroat does it move the whole waypoint chain or just the one you select? because if it moves them all then it also moves the one on the static bass

@@wildocado5376 As the video explains it you need a different pair of recorder and flight blocks for each landing location, then use groups, timers, and/or event controllers to control which one is active(iirc you should only have one set of AI blocks turned on at a time but that was from the beta). One recorder+move block uses the rover's beacon, the other set uses the base's beacon or just isn't set to use beacons for it's waypoints, as he shows being set up first. When the first docks to the mining rover it activates timers that locks the connector, turns the first set off; event controller is triggered when the cargo is full then disconnects the connector and turns on/activates the second set of AI blocks which fly it to the base, where they trigger timers which lock the connector, set the battery to recharge, and turns the second set of AI off, while a sorter sucks the cargo out of the drone. Once the battery is recharged, a second event controller triggers another set of timers which set the battery to auto then turn the first AI on and activate it, sending the empty but recharged drone back to the miner to fetch more ore. This AI is awkward, clunky, and not very smart, but should be fairly versatile once you figure out how to work around it's limitations.