Why Drones need fuel?

[Reinero]

Correct me if I'm wrong about logistic;
Initially, you start with tier 1 belts and spliters;
Then you progress to tier 6 belts and programmable spliters;
Then trucks that need fuel - so far, so good;
Trains are the next step for logistics, powered by the electricity grid and carrying power to stations, great.

Then you release drones... that need... fuel? Are the devs stupid or what? We're talking about a technology that's only released in tier 8!!!! Why the hell regress to fuel? Why not a battery that recharges directly from the power grid and you can stipulate the amount of energy spent x distance/range from the drones to the next station? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ why are you so bad at QOL in this game?

You seem to complicate the game just so that players get stuck for hours finding alternatives instead of having fun. ♥♥♥♥ hell.

[Ryuukaze]

Trains are connected to their power source... The rail. You can even fly along the rail with your hoverpack because it's live current.

Drones need to take their power with them.

I admit it feels like a step back. Perhaps the drones should just have charged an internal battery at the station instead, which would cause some power grid headaches, but ... yeah.

[Lil Puppy]

I think they did used to require batteries, non-rechargeable, just a constant flow of batteries to drone ports. IDK, I never bothered to use them.

[Huren Ogeko]

Trains still need fuel. that electricity doesnt make itself
what might make sense here is drones having to recharge when they dock. so the lower the battery was drained the more time it might need to recharge. also you can limit range by the total capacity of whatever battery it might be using.
I think they changed it where drones are not battery powered anymore and use some sort of combustion engine. I think they did that to bring them into line with trucks and other things that have a choice of multiple fuels.
So this means trains are the only truly electric transport. But what if changed them to take coal or other fuels. With the power towers having them act as long range power transmitters is sort of redundant now.

For me I never used drones. From the day they were added to the game I never really found a good use for them given their low cargo capacity. By the time I unlock them I have a massive train network that can handle anything I need and much higher volumes.

[Khaylain]

Ryuukaze, did you read what they wrote? Because they did indeed talk about the drones having a battery that recharges from the grid. That is taking the power with them.

[HardXcoreXdave]

Something doesn't work the way I think it should work , lets insult the devs because of it. Why has this become so common?

[Ryuukaze]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

Ryuukaze, did you read what they wrote? Because they did indeed talk about the drones having a battery that recharges from the grid. That is taking the power with them.

You're right. They did. I don't always fully read rants. My bad.

[Ryuukaze]

Originally posted by HardXcoreXdave:

Something doesn't work the way I think it should work , lets insult the devs because of it. Why has this become so common?

Pain only has a few outlets, and anger is one of them. Games are generally expected to be fun, so when people feel pain instead, it's a shock. This causes many people to lash out, instead of trying to have a calm discussion.

I'm not excusing it, but it's a very human thing to do, and it's never going to go away. My solution is usually to empathize with them and then, if I agree with the complain, respond more moderately with my agreement, leaving out the vitriol.

If they're too abusive, I generally just walk away, though. Some people are beyond having a decent discussion.

[NocheLuz]

I also think it should not need Fuel. However, in this game, electricity is very easy to come by. With Diluted Fuel, you can make 300 m3 of Oil into 30 GW of energy (not counting the factories to make Fuel).

I think the Drone takes too much energy to fly. Previously, it took 4 Batteries just to take off and 1 extra every kilometer. This means that, If it flies 1 kilometer, it would take 30,000 MJ of energy just to fly 1 Trip. If it recharges at 1,000 MW per second it would take about 30 seconds to charge + extra 6 seconds for every kilometer.

So, I think instead of charging in the port, taking the Fuel might be more efficient after all. Except if you can adjust the charge rate, for example, up to 5,000 MW per second.

[ShelLuser]

I fail to see what's wrong with this... it's realistic'ish enough, and besides: if you'd rely on rechargable batteries you should also take deteriation into mind: over time batteries become worse and can hold less and less charge.

Instead of having to bother with that.. you simply replace them. Which makes perfect sense to me.

[Evilsod]

Because drones without a fuel requirement would be akin to just throwing down a storage container that could teleport material across the map. It would make trains completely useless.

Trucks and tractors suck for many reasons. The fuel cost is the bottom of that list, even at a time where the fuel it requires is directly taking from the resources you need (coal). By drones, sparing fuel is trivial.

[Jeff]

Originally posted by Ryuukaze:

Trains are connected to their power source... The rail. You can even fly along the rail with your hoverpack because it's live current.

Drones need to take their power with them.

I admit it feels like a step back. Perhaps the drones should just have charged an internal battery at the station instead, which would cause some power grid headaches, but ... yeah.

Every drone that I own (4) have a battery that lasts a hell of a lot longer (up to 45 minutes) then the drones in this game. Different fuel types doesn't make sense.

[Tenebris]

Originally posted by Jeff:

Originally posted by Ryuukaze:

Trains are connected to their power source... The rail. You can even fly along the rail with your hoverpack because it's live current.

Drones need to take their power with them.

I admit it feels like a step back. Perhaps the drones should just have charged an internal battery at the station instead, which would cause some power grid headaches, but ... yeah.

Every drone that I own (4) have a battery that lasts a hell of a lot longer (up to 45 minutes) then the drones in this game. Different fuel types doesn't make sense.

Because the game need to to actually have challenge. As another example, real life nuclear plants don't create dozens of barrels of Simpsons-esque nuclear waste from a single fuel rod.

Stop trying to bring real world logic into a game.

It'd be boring if it was realistic, end of story.

[TH3R4BB!T]

The logistics to fill the drones was a bit to much, but let trains roll to each port with the packaged fuel. It is a pain to do, but that is more in this game

[vivan]

Originally posted by Jeff:

Every drone that I own (4) have a battery that lasts a hell of a lot longer (up to 45 minutes) then the drones in this game.

They're very lightweight and can't carry much. Drones are extremely energy inefficient for transferring high load. Probably 10x less than train. So power consumption around ~1GW makes sense.

[Hydroculator]

Originally posted by Jeff:

Every drone that I own (4) have a battery that lasts a hell of a lot longer (up to 45 minutes) then the drones in this game. Different fuel types doesn't make sense.

Your drones have nearly unlimited weight capacity? When your drones can carry dozens of stacks of metal weighing 600,000 lbs, then you can make this comparison. Otherwise, you're just comparing little toys to industrial machinery.