[DEVBLOG#312] Drones are coming back!

Hey folks and welcome to a brand new development blog. This time around, I'd like to tell you a little bit more about our upcoming mod - Vanilla Quests Expanded - Drone Factory.

You probably remember the basic industrial-tier drones that we've added ages ago in Vanilla Factions Expanded - Mechanoids. Well, VFE-Mechanoids 2 is still quite a way away, but I know how you liked the factories and the drones, so I planned to fast track their implementation in other mods. That's why recently you have received the Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Factory, and that's why now I will tell you about the Drone Factory quest line.

Now, the most important thing you need to know: You won't need to complete any quests to get access to drones. Oh no. We're not locking such a cool feature behind a quest not everyone will want to interact with.

You will be able to research a new research project called Dronetech. In fact, you will NEED to research it if you even want the first quest of the quest chain to be given to you.

Dronetech research project will allow you to construct drone tinkering bench, as well as drone transmitters. The former lets you craft the drones, while the latter is required for the drones to work.

Majority of drones need to stay in range of the drone transmitter. They will never pick up tasks from outside of transmitter radius, and they will never leave the transmitter radius. It's like a signal antenna - it even looks like a 5G antenna, because I know secretely all of you want to place 5G antennas throughout your base.

Now, Dronetech research project will grant you access to a few basic drones - drones you probably remember from the old Mechanoids mod.

Battle drones are very basic combat drones. They're slow, they're inaccurate, they deal weak damage with their stubguns, but you can have quite a number of them and at the end of the day, they are expendable.

Cleaner drones are your little roombas, and they're about as slow as roombas. They will clean your base reliably though!

Hauler drones are slow-moving haulers that will... you guessed it, haul resources around your base. Very useful if you have a large base and not enough colonists to do the hauling.

Miner drones are what I consider a specialist drone. You only need them when you've got stuff to mine - and they will mine at a somewhat decent pace. They can't operate deep drills!

Autobroadcaster drones make a return! Set them to play relaxing music to soothe your colonists, energeting dubstep to make them work faster, or propaganda speeches to break the will of your prisoners!

Turret drones are slow-moving military turrets. You can no longer just slap any turret on them (you used to be able to do that in VFE-Mechanoids, and it was pretty bonkers). Now it's just a military turret on wheels.

Now, a lot of you ask me, how will drones work with Mechanoids, and whether they still have a niche. There's a few important differences:

Drones:

Are industrial tech, available early.

Require only steel and components. Special drones may require drone cores (special item obtained from quests).

Can be shredded for very little resources, but can also be deconstructed and will return 100% of resources spent to make them.

Are slow, inaccurate and are worse stat-wise than mechanoids.

Don't require a mechanitor or bandwidth, but need to remain in radius of drone transmitters.

Have a lifespan need which will decrease eventually leading to malfunctions and death of the drone.

Can be mass-produced in a new factory building if you have Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Factories.

Mechanoids:

Are ultratech, available late.

Require steel, plasteel, components and subcores.

Can be shredded, but can also be resurrected in a process that takes a while.

Are better, faster, more efficient than drones.

Require a mechanitor with bandwidth, creating the constant need to expand the bandwidth if you aim to have an army.

Produce pollution and need to recharge.

Take a long time to gestate.

As such, I think the niche is there. They're an industrial tech precursor to mechanoids. They're weaker, but more expendable.

You can also put drones on stand-by, essentially turning them off. This allows you to have an army of drones you can just flick 'ON' when an enemy comes.

Now, there is a lot more drone types in the mod, but I will tell you about them and the way to unlock them a little bit later.

I will also tell you about Lifespan need and Malfunctions system, because I think it's pretty cool, but again, that's for another devblog!

I'll try to answer any questions you post, but I have guests coming over all the way from Denmark tomorrow, and then it's Easter holidays, so I wish you all a pleasant end of the week!

Oh and of course, a little teaser:

Calm down! It's just a prop. For now.