The Fish and Drones update of The Planet Crafter has created a new way for players to make their lives and construction projects easier. The new drones can travel anywhere in the game to pick up resources and bring them back to the main base.
The main issue with drones is that they take some effort to set up and need some time to move between destinations. Still, The Planet Crafter is a game that needs some patience, and ultimately a little time spent learning how drones work will save players a lot of time running around gathering resources.
Getting Started
The first thing players who want a drone fleet will need is a Terraformation Index of 78 GTi. This is the number needed to unlock the Drone Station, which will let players build drones and also house them when they aren't in use. The Drone Station costs one osmium rod, one fusion cell, one super alloy rod, and three circuit boards, a material that was also added with the Fish and Drones update. Each drone also needs crafting, and the cost of a T1 model is one rocket engine, one circuit board, and one iron each.
The Drone Station must be constructed outside, and it comes with three information displays. The center display lets players construct drones, the left display shows the station's inventory of drones (it can hold up to 25), and the right display explains how drones work and which containers have supply and demand orders.
Building a Supply Chain
To put the drones to work, players should select a container (including lockers, crates, ore extractors, and anything else with an inventory) and click on the new third icon to the left of the inventory. This lets players set up a supply order that tells drones to pick up a certain kind of material, or they can set up a demand order that tells drones to fill the container with the selected materials.
Once a material has both a supply and a demand order, drones will fly to the supply container and take one material to the demand container. They'll keep this up until the demand container is full or until the supply container is empty.
Any drone can carry any material, so if they have to choose between different orders, they'll prioritize the supply container that's closest to the Drone Station. Players can change this by giving a container a priority setting from between -1 and 5.
Players should note that drones can move through solid walls (at least for the moment), and they always need to stop by a Drone Station between deliveries. As such, the best place for a Drone Station is near the main base or wherever materials are going. Drones also can't grab materials that aren't in containers, so players will still need to gather algae themselves.
The Planet Crafter is available in early access on PC.