Automated Tractor?

[Artrysa]

So how does this exactly work? Can I just make it drive from one place to another, depositing ore for instance from a far off node?

[Vectorspace]

You need to build truck stations to load, upload, and fuel vehicles. To set paths, see here: https://satisfactory.fandom.com/wiki/Vehicles

[Vegas Doc]

MAKING A ROUTE
Build your truck stops at point A and point B, fabricate a vehicle (Tractor, Truck, Explorer) go up to either side of it and press (E) to drive it, then press (V) select record route (bottom right of the wheel), drive the route, it should be in a complete circle, point A to point B, then back to point A. Then press (V) again and Enable Autopilot (top of the wheel), there are blue arrowheads and pause markers, delete them if they are unnecessary, edit the pause markers to spend time at the truck stop ( I usually use about 9 sec) if you like the route, then you can hide the markers on the (V) wheel, if not you can clear the route and make it again until you do also with (V).

LOADING, UNLOADING, AND FUELING A VEHICLE
You must hook up a power line to the truck stop or it won't work. The truck stops can either load or unload the vehicles, just press (E) to configure the truck stop (truck loading or truck unloading) and pick the correct pictogram there, you can also add a fuel line it's on the back of the truck stop on the left (green input arrow) a container with fuel in it (sold biomass, coal, packaged fuel) hooked up with a conveyor belt, or put in a direct supply line to keep it constantly full, it only holds 100 units, you can also check this by pressing (E) on the configure truck stop. You don't have to have both truck stops with fuel, but it may be necessary depending on how long your route is, you could have a second vehicle with a truck stop supplying this truck stop if you wish.

The other two are inputs (green arrow pointing In) and output lines (yellow arrow pointing out), if you have the truck stop unloading the vehicle it will fill up an industrial sized container contained within the truck stop, and you can then put a conveyor belt line from the output (yellow arrow pointing out) to whichever container, constructor etc. that you want to keep supplied from the distant resource node.

If you chose the load vehicle option, it will add whatever you've put into the truck stop with your resource node or assembly line, if you don't have anything in the truck stop container, then nothing will load into the vehicle. Good Luck! Happy Pioneering!

ADDED COMMENTS:
Making tractor routes becomes easy the more that you do them, everything is harder at first, so I recommend making a few for practice. This will come in handy for other vehicles later on, because they follow the same general patterns, trucks, explorers, trains (are little bit different, they use platforms instead.) Even if you only go 20M between the stops, make a few routes to see how it's done, it will be good practice for you, and when you make the longer routes, it will be a breeze.

As far as whether to use conveyors or vehicles to move resources, that's entirely up to you, longer routes are easier with vehicles, take less time to make, conveyors can be stacked, I've had them as high as thirteen levels high, so once you make a route, you can just add another layer, and they can go either way, don't have to follow the first one's direction, can even branch off onto a completely different route if needed.

[Reef]

from what i saw on the internet, people says you better make long ass belts instead of trying to get tractors/tracks to work, just hang on until there's trains

[hanrahan6]

From what I understand, it is better to use trucks over long conveyors due to GPU usage. Apparently, FPS takes a big hit when there are a lot of conveyors running product.

[YetiChow]

The coming update (update 5) will dramatically improve tractors, trucks and other vehicles, particularly by allowing you to save and load up routes for them (meaning you can run multiple tractors along the same route to increase through-put, particularly useful if it's a long route), so it's probably worth waiting until that's out to really dive into automated transport with them. In the meantime, it's probably a good idea to start building roads/highways (elevated platforms to ensure a smooth path that's easy to follow) between your different sites you want tractors to haul between. You can fill the inventory of a tractor with concrete (and materials for anything else you might need) to build a very very long section of road in one journey.

Be aware that truck stations require power, so you'll need to either run power lines or set up generators at whatever stops you want along the route. It's also worth noting that over long distances you might need to refuel the vehicles, if you want to "relay" fuel along a long route you can set up stations for that pretty easily by having a first station set to unload and then use a smart splitter to convey coal into the "refuel" slot while all other materials go to a re-loading station right next door -- then you just make sure that some fuel (coal, biomass, packaged fuel, whatever) is carried on that leg of the route, and ideally you can even use that same fuel for generators to power your relay stations! An effective transport route is one where the trucks spend ideally no time empty while travelling between stations -- whether it's taking fuel out to the relay stations, moving materials between different outposts in a multi-leg journey, or using a "reverse tree/root system" design where stations fan out from a central factory and resources always flow inwards, there are plenty of ways to make sure you're not sending trucks on long journeys with empty inventories.