Transport Drones (Continued)

A ground-based logistics system for Factorio 2.0. Transport drones haul items and fluids between depots connected by road networks - a flexible alternative to belts and trains for mid-to-late game logistics.

This is a full rewrite of Klonan's Transport Drones for Factorio 2.0, with major new features: quality scaling, priority routing, channel segregation, supply thresholds, load balancing, blueprint persistence, circuit network overhaul, bot integration, Factorissimo 3 cross-surface support, and more.

Graphics by Bubbles from the Factorio discord.

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How it works

1. Build roads to connect your production areas.
2. Place depots on the road network: supply depots offer items, request depots collect them.
3. Insert transport drones into depots. Drones autonomously pick up items from supply depots and deliver them to request depots.
4. Fuel the network with fuel depots - drones consume fuel proportional to travel distance.

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Depot types

Supply depot

Makes its inventory available to the road network. Other depots dispatch drones to collect from it.

• Quality scaling: 80 / 100 / 125 / 175 / 250 inventory slots.
• Optional logistics bot access (passive provider) with the Transport Logistics research.
• Supply threshold: reserves items below a set count, only offering excess to the network.

Request depot

Dispatches drones to collect a selected item from supply depots. The number of drones controls throughput - more drones means more concurrent deliveries.

• Quality scaling: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 drone slots.
• Max storage cap, ignore capacity research, and full stack only toggles for fine-tuned control.
• Supports both items and fluids (connect pipes to the output side for fluids).

Buffer depot

Acts as both a request and supply depot. Ideal for collecting resources from distant outposts and redistributing them locally.

• Quality scaling: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 drone slots.
• Optional logistics bot access (buffer chest).

Fuel depot

Delivers fuel to all depots on the road network. Fuel type is configurable (petroleum gas by default).

• Quality scaling: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 drone slots.

Fluid depot

Makes fluid available to the road network. Connect it to pipes - request depots can request fluids just like items.

Active depot

A push-based supplier for mixed item output. Automatically offers whatever items it contains to the network without needing a recipe - ideal for assembler outputs with multiple products.

• Fluid mode toggle: switch between pushing items (from chest) and pushing fluids (from south pipe). The entity swaps to a furnace variant that auto-detects the piped fluid.
• Confirmation dialog warns before switching when contents would be lost.
• Can be disabled via startup setting.

Storage depot

A passive warehouse for the drone transport network. Accepts overflow from active depots and serves items back when requested.

• Prioritized over supply depots at equal score (preferred sink for excess items).
• Shows zero-count items in the road network GUI so you can see what was stored even when depleted.
• Can be disabled via startup setting.

Drone dispatcher

Holds transport drones and distributes them to other depots on the road network.

• Drone request slider: each depot can request a specific number of drones from the dispatcher.
• Priority-based distribution: higher-priority dispatchers distribute drones first.
• Return slots: locked inventory slots collect excess drones when a depot's slider is reduced. Drones are returned automatically.
• Central dispatch mode: the dispatcher sends its own drones to pick up items from supply/active depots and deliver them to request/buffer/storage depots. Configurable with a drone allocation slider (percentage of inventory available for central deliveries). Each depot has an "Allow central dispatch" toggle to opt in or out.
• Can be disabled via startup setting.

All depot settings - recipe, drones, priority, channel, threshold, and toggles - are configured in a single unified Transport Drones panel that opens when clicking any depot. Removing a depot returns its contents to the player's inventory.

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Roads

• Road - Standard tile. Walking speed bonus: 1.5x.
• Fast Road - Upgraded tile. Walking speed bonus: 2.0x. Drones are ~33% faster on fast roads.

Any connected road tiles form a road network. Disconnected road areas are separate networks.

Diagonal crossing prevention (enabled by default) stops drones from connecting road networks diagonally through non-road corners.

Roads can also be placed on space platform foundations (Space Age).

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Quality support

Depot quality scales inventory size:

• Supply inventory: 80 / 100 / 125 / 175 / 250 slots (Normal to Legendary)
• Drone slots: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 (Normal to Legendary)

Drone quality scales performance:

• Speed bonus: +15% / +30% / +50% / +80% (Uncommon to Legendary)
• Fuel savings: 10% / 20% / 30% / 45% (Uncommon to Legendary)

Any quality drone can be used in any quality depot. Drones are stored in a separate drone inventory that supports logistics robot delivery for automated restocking. Higher-quality drones are dispatched first (legendary before epic, etc.).

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Priority system

Every depot has a priority slider (0-100, default 50):

• Supply/fuel depots: higher priority = collected from first, even if farther away.
• Request/buffer depots: higher priority = claims scarce supply first.

Priority can be overridden via circuit network using signal [P].

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