Logic Drive

A **Logic Drive** is a complex control system for standard jump drives, which increases travel speed and efficiency by charging many drives at once, and subsequently firing them in rapid succession.

## Description

A logic drive (subsets of which are **chain drives** and **autojumpers**, often referred to by faction-specific codenames) is, in its simplest form, a logic clock which is linked to a number of individual jump drives, each usually consisting of only 1 computer and 1 block each. The principle of such devices is that, when enough drives are linked, the time to expend all of them (due to the jumping animation's duration) will be greater than the time to recharge all of them, leading to continuous jumping.

## Details

There are a few distinct categories of logic drive, some of which no longer function due to changes in software.

* *Chain drive*: A logic drive which consists of a logic clock linked to a significant number of 1-block drives, usually grouped together so that their computers can be easily connected. Usually contains enough drives that it will jump continuously, hence being classified as an autojumper as well as a chain drive. This is the most common variety of drive, and the only type which is in use today. The Helkan Imperium Hermes system, as well as the Thryn Monarchy Z-Drive, are examples of chain drives which are autojumpers (although, when first built, neither were autojumpers, as that feature had not yet been added).
* *Autojumper*: Refers to any logic drive which can jump continuously. This is a separate distinction to a chain drive because, in some cases, chain drives may have a limited range before they must pause to recharge. Pulse drives are also technically autojumpers, but could be considered "semi-auto" as they were not usually hooked up to a clock, as a chain drive is.
* *Pulse drive*: A now-defunct category of logic drive which used "pulse multiplying" logic to charge a jump drive more rapidly than normally possible, by multiplying an input pulse to send a very large number of output pulses to the jump drive. A number of individuals dabbled in creating pulse drives, but the only faction to ever regularly field a reliable pulse drive was the Thryn Monarchy and their infamous X-Drive, a pulse drive so powerful it charged instantaneously, and was practically impossible to stop by means of jump inhibitors. Starmade v0.19549 made this variety of logic drive defunct.

## History

### 2315

The earliest known occurrences of a logic drive were, in fact, before the "autojumper" subset of logic drive even existed.

On September 3, 2315, Helkan Imperium member Heillos began equipping their warships with a new technology, entitled simply "Hermes", which was the forerunner to modern logic drives. A 4Hz logic clock, made publically available by Thryn Monarchy's Jaaskinal, was linked to 3 large "racks" or continuous groupings of 1-block jump drives, charging all of them over a significant period of time, likely around 10 minutes. At this point, logic could not yet activate a jump drive, merely charge it, and so these racks had to be manually linked back to the ship core, assigned to hotbars, and activated by hand. Despite the confusion caused among Helkan pilots as to the operation of the technology, it still cut down travel times by a significant amount.

On September 6, 2315, Helkan Imperium launched a scorched earth operation in the SS Galaxies, in preparation for them leaving the galaxies due to issues with it's Galactic Council. It is noteworthy that all of these ships were fitted with the Hermes system. The operation, ironically, was stopped in its tracks by these same issues. In frustration, the Helkan fleet left the galaxies one by one, with several officers not securing their warships at the homebase before leaving. A number of these unsecured ships were captured by enemy factions such as the Blood Stained Empire, a faction dedicated to fighting the Helkan Imperium's oppression.

Slightly later, on September 7, 2315, Jaaskinal of the Thryn Monarchy independently developed similar technology for her faction. This variant utilized a 1Hz clock linked to 3 racks of 15 drives each, and had a reported charge time of 20 minutes.

On September 8, 2315, Starmade v0.19431 was released, adding Jump Inhibitors and a range of optimizations. Something not noted in the patch notes, however, was that jump drives could now be activated by logic, as well as just being charged by it.

This functionality was quickly discovered by both factions developing logic drives, with the Thryn Monarchy's *Zurich*-class warship being fitted with the first such device. During its maiden voyage, the ship could not be stopped until all of the jump drives had expended their charge, and the system was then promptly stabilized. The system was named the "Z-Drive" in memory of this occasion. The Helkan Imperium discovered the same functionality soon afterwards during routine operation of the Hermes system.

A third party, Planr, who had a previously-existing grudge against the Helkan Imperium (as an ex-member who was kicked for publicising the imbalance of shield drain beams, something which the HI wanted kept under wraps), and was a member of the Blood Stained Empire, also discovered the autojumping functionality, while testing the Hermes system on a warship captured at the conclusion of Helka's galaxy-leaving op.

On September 10, 2315, Planr publicized autojumping to the wider community in this thread, wherein he denounced it as both OP and exploitative. The general response was positive, contrary to Planr's intent, with players noting that although most of the functionality was useful and welcome, the technology's ability to be overclocked beyond the normal speed of a manually-charged drive was severely imbalanced, especially as such overclocked drives were almost impossible to inhibit.

Vaygr Empire member HolyCookie developed an overclocked jump drive of similar capabilities to the later-developed Thryn "X-Drive" (instantly-charges, impossible to inhibit). In contrast to other factions' implementation, such technology was never fitted to warships; the Vaygr Empire instead decided to maximize their vessels' efficiency by not dedicating space to non-combat technology such as this. Instead, they developed a large "jump carrier" fitted with the technology, to which their fleets docked for transportation to and from a warzone.

In the later half of October, Jaaskinal reached a critical point in the development of overclocked jump drives, by successfully creating an instantaneously-charging logic drive, codenamed the "X-Drive" (a play on "exploit", which is what the X-Drive relied on; the ability for a jump drive to take in an unlimited amount of pulses at once). This was achieved by multiplying a single input 2^11 times. Input multiplication was achieved by a circuit which linked the input signal to 4 not-signals, and subsequently into a flip-flop. Each of these "multipliers" doubled the number of output pulses, leading to 2,048 pulses being instantaneously sent to the jump drive. The end result was that the drive charged and fired immediately, and was immune to standard jump inhibitor designs due to its instantaneous nature.

In November, Jaaskinal donated autojumping technology to two other major factions: the Aethi Imperium and the Khanid Domain. In early November, the Aethi Imperium received a copy of the Z-Drive technology, and later in the month the Khanid Domain received a copy of the X-Drive.

At this point, development of logic drive technology had effectively peaked, although not all factions shared the same level of knowledge of it.

### 2316

With the release of Starmade v0.19549 on January 16, 2316, the X-Drive technology was rendered non-functional. The basis of it was that a jump drive computer could receive an unlimited number of pulses at an unlimited rate, allowing its charge rate to skyrocket. Update Starmade v0.19549 changed this, adding a "frequency cap" to the jump drive that meant it could only be charged as fast as the same manual drive. This frequency limit is estimated to be between 30-33Hz.

The Vaygr Empire, its previous logic drive technology rendered non-functional by this update, refitted its jump carrier with chain drive tech; in this case a paired chain drive system with the two sets of drives alternating between firing and charging.

On January 20, 2316, in response to the X-Drive nerf, Jaaskinal publicly released a Copy-Pastable Logic Jump Drive to the Community Content section of the Starmade Dock. This drive charges in about a minute, and will operate almost continuously in stock condition (with a simple modification ensuring that it does so). With the advent of publicly-available logic drives of such a high standard, the development of the technology has seemingly plateaued for the time being.

Soon after the release of launch rails, several factions jumped at the opportunity to use these to achieve faster clocks. The Vaygr Empire had obtained such a clock from Jaaskinal, who joined Mortarian Legion after the fall of Thryn Monarchy; however after Mortarian Legion descended into inactivity, Vaygr Empire members fellow\_starmadian and HolyCookie began to make prototype logic drives that were smaller and more efficient. Arstotzka and later FCM received the same drive when Jaaskinal joined FCM.

Soon after, shootout rails were changed and clocks using them became significantly harder to make. Although ways to make "shootout clocks" were rediscovered, they were not able re-create the extreme effectiveness of the original shootout rails.

The Vaygr Empire had made their own drives that went back to the older "spinning core" clock design but were abandoned in favour of newer drives that used shootout clocks.

While other factions believed Pulse drive technology to be completely obsolete, and were reverting to core activated drives, MercDragon created a highly secretive Hybrid-Pulse drive which combined a shorter-chain variant of the Thrynn Pulse drive with auto jumper Chain drive technology. The result was a 32hz logic clock attached to a small number of chain drives resulting in a much smaller and more reliable autodrive than used by other ships of the era. The MkII micro-dragon drive installed on the Toothless-class recon shuttle was only 29 blocks allowing the shuttle to sustain continuous jumping while cloaked.

Shootout rail clocks were made unreliable due to a spacial phenomenon known as a "bug" which caused emergency eject functions on docked cores that were moving along rails to eject without an emergency undock signal being sent to them, this caused problems for numerous factions who had relied on shootout clocks for their primary travel methods.

The Vaygr Empire had soon after developed a prototype clock that did not rely on a docked entity to generate pulses, however it was found to be unreliable as it would not always turn on/off when a signal was sent to turn it on/off. Soon after they developed a drive that would be able to jump without waiting for all drives to be charged and would be able to charge while jumping, this was abandoned as it was found to cause lag when it was used on servers and it was to large to be installed in warships in a compact manner.

### 2317

Earlly in 2017, another update changed the way that jump drives receive pulses such that each new pulse maintains a continuous .5 second signal rendering complex logic clocks completely obsolete. As such, most modern chain drives consist of a simple 1-2hz logic clock or core spinner connected to a small chain drive. These newer systems often range from 20-36 blocks for continuous jumping depending on shipsize, server defaults, and lag buffering.

### 2318

The January 20th update replaced jump drives with jump chambers which made attaching logic systems to jump drives impossible. This marked the final end to all logic drive technologies.

## Usage

Logic drives of all types were designed to cut down on travel times, both for exploration and for escaping enemy attack. In this regard, the drives were highly successful, although some overclocked pulse-drives were known to stress starship computer systems while in use. When pulse-drives were rendered non-functional, the chain drive subset of logic drive immediately took over, and remained the dominant FTL tech right up until the release of chamber drives forced them out of existence.