Fork of Transport Drones (Continued).

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, load balancing, blueprint persistence, circuit network overhaul, Factorissimo 3 cross-surface support, and more.

Graphics by Bubbles from the Factorio discord.

How it works

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

Depot types

Passive provider 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.

Requester depot / Requester fluid depot

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

Two separate buildings. The Requester Depot takes item requests only; the Requester Fluid Depot takes fluid requests only and delivers into pipes on its three non-road sides. The fluid version is drawn as a tank, tinted to match its item counterpart.
Quality scaling: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 drone slots.
Max storage cap, ignore capacity research, and full stack only toggles for fine-tuned control.
Both unlock with Transport System.

Buffer depot / Buffer fluid depot

Acts as both a requester and a provider. Ideal for collecting resources from distant outposts and redistributing them locally.

Two separate buildings, like the Requester Depot, with the fluid version drawn as a tank.
Quality scaling: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 drone slots.
Both unlock with Transport Buffering.

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.
Fuel depot drones are the only way other depots get fuel: pipe raw fuel into a Fuel Depot and it supplies the rest.

Fluid depot

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

Every fluid depot has pipe connections on three sides.

Active provider depot / Active provider fluid depot

A push-based supplier for mixed item output. Automatically offers whatever items it contains to the network - ideal for assembler outputs with multiple products.

Can be disabled via startup setting.

Storage depot / Storage fluid depot

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

Requester depots draw from it before any passive provider at equal score.
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 any depot supplying them and deliver them to requester/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.

Removing a depot returns its contents to the player's inventory.

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).

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, filled through the depot window or by an inserter into a Drone Dispatcher Depot. Higher-quality drones are dispatched first (legendary before epic, etc.).

Priority system

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

Passive provider/fuel depots: higher priority = collected from first, even if farther away.
Requester/buffer depots: higher priority = claims scarce supply first.

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

Load balancing

Two runtime settings fine-tune supply selection:

Load balance threshold (default: 20) - when greater than 0, passive provider depots with similar scores are treated as equivalent and one is chosen randomly, spreading load across nearby depots.
Priority weight (default: 0) - replaces the absolute priority system with a weighted bias, making priority a soft preference that can be outweighed by distance.

Channel segregation

LTN-style bitmask channels let you run multiple independent logistics networks on the same physical roads.

Default: -1 (all channels - everything interacts).
Assign channels like 1, 2, 4, 8... to segregate traffic.
Depots only interact when their channels share at least one bit (bitwise AND != 0).
Fuel depots respect channels - they only fuel depots on matching channels.
Overridable via circuit network using signal [C].

Circuit network integration

Unlocked by the Transport Depot Circuits research.

Wiring a depot

Reads, all set from the depot's own window:

Enable/disable condition: switch a depot on or off on a signal comparison - signal vs constant, or signal vs signal.
Set Filter mode: force the depot's requested item from the wire. Anything/Everything virtual signals are supported.
Override priority and channel via signals [P] and [C].

Writes: a depot always sends its own contents. Three extra signals can be switched on in its window:

[D] - drone count
Active drone count
Fuel level

Those three appear only on depots that own drones - Requester, Buffer, Fuel and Active Provider, plus the Drone Dispatcher, which adds a returning-stacks signal of its own. Every other depot sends its contents and nothing else.

Road network reader

Set one or more item signals in its slots - it continuously outputs the total supply of each item across the entire road network. Useful for enabling or disabling production based on network stock levels.

Blueprint support

Blueprints fully preserve:

Requested item recipe
Per-quality drone counts
Priority, channel, storage limit, and all toggle settings

Road network GUI

Press Ctrl+T (or use the toolbar shortcut) to open the road network overview:

Surface/planet selector to filter depots by world (Factorissimo factory surfaces resolve to their parent planet).
Item filter and channel filter in the title bar to narrow results.
Contents tab: all items across the network with supply/request progress bars and capacity labels.
Depot tabs (Passive Provider, Mining, Active Provider, Storage, Dispatcher, Fuel, Requester, Buffer): minimap + structured depot info panel side by side.
Item names with capacity progress bars.
Inline priority sliders (edit in real-time).
Editable channel fields.
Drone progress bars with per-quality breakdown.
Circuit override indicators when priority or channel are set by signals.
Depot status dot (green = enabled, red = disabled).
Click minimap buttons to teleport directly to any depot.
Tabs auto-hide when no depots of that type are present.

Factorissimo 3 integration

Road networks bridge across Factorissimo 3 factory building surfaces. Place road tiles at both sides of a factory door to connect inside and outside networks. Drones automatically teleport through factory entrances.

Cross-surface distance estimation: depot scoring accounts for travel distance through factory portals, preferring closer factories.
Visual indicators: "Road connected" / "Road disconnected" floating text appears when factory portals activate or deactivate.
Road network GUI minimap navigates to the correct surface when clicking a depot inside a factory.

Mining Drones integration

Works with Klonan's Mining Drones and Mining Drones Remastered. Mining depots automatically connect to the transport drone road network when placed adjacent to road tiles - mined resources become available to transport drones with no extra setup. Roads placed after the depot trigger auto-connection too.

Migrating from other Transport Drones forks

Switching from the Meglinge Fork or any other Transport Drones fork? Load your existing save - a "Recover unregistered depots" button appears automatically when orphaned depot entities are detected.

Click it to open a confirmation dialog explaining what will be preserved and what will be lost:

The migration adopts all depot entities, preserves recipes, items, fuel, and circuit connections. Drones out on the road are recovered and spread across the adopted depots, though whatever they were carrying is lost. Drones stored as recipe ingredients are lost.

Spoilable items

Spoil timers are preserved through drone transport. Items like nutrients and biter eggs maintain their freshness - no spoilage reset on delivery.

Third-party road compatibility

Built-in support for road tiles from:

Asphalt Roads (AsphaltRoadsPatched)
Dectorio (gravel, wood floor, concrete grid)
PyIndustry (all py-tiles)

Custom tiles from any mod can be whitelisted via the Road tile whitelist startup setting (comma-separated Lua patterns or @subgroup matches).

Other mods can also register tiles programmatically by setting is_road_tile = true on their item prototype.

Technology tree

Engine
  +-- Transport System (unlocks roads, passive provider/fuel depots, requester depot (items + fluid), drones, dispatcher)
        |-- Fast Road
        |-- Transport Fluids (requires Fluid Handling) -> Fluid depot
        |-- Transport Buffering -> Buffer depot (items + fluid)
        |   +-- Transport Active Supply -> Active provider depot, Storage depot
        |-- Transport Depot Circuits (requires Circuit Network) -> depot wiring, Road network reader
        |-- Transport Drone Speed 1-4 (+15% each)
        |   +-- Speed 5+ (infinite research, +15% per level)
        +-- Transport Drone Capacity 1-5 (+1 stack each)

Configuration

Startup settings:

Fuel type (petroleum gas, water, steam, crude oil, light/heavy oil, sulfuric acid, lubricant)
Fuel per drone and fuel consumption per meter
Drone fluid capacity
Drone pollution per second
Drone sound volume (0-100%, default 80%)
Fluid depot storage capacity (default 25,000)
Requester depot fluid output capacity (default 25,000)
Road tile whitelist and blacklist (third-party mod compatibility)
Diagonal corner-cutting prevention
Space platform roads (default: enabled)
Enable/disable drone dispatcher, active provider depot, storage depot (all default: enabled)

Runtime settings:

Depot update interval (default 30 ticks - lower = more responsive, higher = better UPS)
Load balance threshold (default 20 - randomize among similarly-scored passive provider depots)
Priority weight (default 0 - blend priority with distance instead of absolute priority)
Max dispatches per depot per tick (default 100)
Redispatch interval (default 10 ticks)
Active provider depot overfill percent (default 25%)
Pathfinder tuning (max steps, max work, path cache)

Remote interface

The mod exposes a "transport_drones" remote interface with 25+ functions for mod-to-mod integration:

Query networks, depots, and drones
Read/write priority, channel, storage limit, capacity bonus, full-stack-only
Diagnostics and debugging tools
Force depot updates and bucket recalculation

Usage: remote.call("transport_drones", "<function_name>", ...)

See the source code for full API documentation.

Localization

Fully translated in 9 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Polish.

Credits

Original mod: Klonan - Transport Drones (Factorio 1.1)
Graphics: Bubbles (Factorio Discord)
Factorio 2.0 port: Shadoxa
Cross-fork migration bridge: MoSII2710
Mod tutorial: Nilaus on YouTube