[MOD 0.13] Drones - remote control your factory

[binbinhfr]

Infos

• Type: Mod
• Name: Drones
• Description: Eyes in the sky ! Monitor and pilot your factory with your smartphone. (or a way to have several cameras all around the map to give you alternate views and control on your factory)
• Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.13.0
• Locale: english, french
• Multiplayer compatible: tested on a headless server...
• Tags: Views, Camera, Drones, Remote control, GUI
• License: You are free to use and distribute this mod and also to modify it for personal use, but not to release a modified version without permission (unless visibly not maintained anymore).
• Portal download : https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhfr/Drones

logo.jpg (33.95 KiB) Viewed 17770 times

drones-screen00.jpg (67.85 KiB) Viewed 26753 times

Description

Description
I guess you're so tired of running everywhere in this bloody huge factory ?
Even with exoskeletons, all these kilometers are a pain, no ?
You'd better chill out and relax in a deck-chair, drinking a beer and monitoring your factory from your smartphone ?

Well the bad news is that there is no more beer since the last six-pack broke during your spaceship crash...
But the good news is that you can search a new Camera Drones technology !

Just build a few drones and send them away to spy around, or let them in stationary flight somewhere in your factory or in an outpost.
They have solar panels and a good lithium battery, so they can fly for a very long time !
They just need to be in range of a drone antenna (around 100m).
At any moment, just switch on them and watch through their camera.
That's as simple as that.
The maintenance drone upgrade can even interact with your factory. But cannot wear weapons.
And now, relax in your deck chair and well... dream about a good fresh beer !

drones-screen01.jpg (198.56 KiB) Viewed 26753 times

drones-screen02.jpg (139.5 KiB) Viewed 25708 times

Notes :
- open/close the drones list with the big upper button.
- use the drones list to switch from one drone to another or switch back into your body.
- you can rename a drone with "N" to describe its position.
- you can delete a drone with "X" (confirm with a second click).
- the "?" button helps you to find the drone with a big arrow. Click again to delete the arrow.
- the drones list can contain a page of 10 drones, but you can swap pages.
- maintenance drone names are colored in orange.
- drones are invincible so you can spy aliens with them...
- surveillance drones are quite inactive : they cannot handcraft things, they have no inventory, but they still have a toolbelt that you can use to transport a few items.
- maintenance drones are more powerful (maybe a little too much...)
- while droning, your body remains active : handcrafts continues, you can meet aliens or players, etc...
- so, of course, your body can die, and if your body dies while droning, you come back in your dead corpse. But in multiplayer, drones remains after player respawn.
- edit config.lua if you want to customize some variables.

Download
For Factorio 0.13.X :
Please now use the portal for downloads (see link above or use ingame mod install/update).

[binbinhfr]

I need multiplayer testers for this one... So any feedback is welcome.

[binbinhfr]

a stupid gui bug corrected for those who tested but had a crash...

[binbinhfr]

1.0.2 = drones are finally same force as player to simplify a lot of things, but undestructible to spy aliens. Corrects other MP bugs.
I really need a team of testers

[daniel34]

In the future, please don't make 4 posts in a row even on your own threads (especially not within 4 hours of starting your thread). Use the edit function to add the information to the original post.

I've already noticed this behavior in other threads (mainly because of your colorful signature), but 3-4 posts is definitely too much.

[binbinhfr]

In the future, please don't make 4 posts in a row even on your own threads (especially not within 4 hours of starting your thread). Use the edit function to add the information to the original post.

I've already noticed this behavior in other threads (mainly because of your colorful signature), but 3-4 posts is definitely too much.

Sorry man...

When releasing my firsts mods, I was told to do that, so that users subscribed to the mod's post will be automatically aware of new releases and would download it. It seems that just editing the original post does not send a message to the subscribers, or is it ?

But why is it inconvenient for you if you do not read my post, or are not subscribed to it ?

[Sedar]

wow, perfect mod for monitoring and micromanagement on a large base. But i found an one fun feature(?). Drones can use weapons and ammunition, so you can covertly attacking aliens and at the same time they are can not to do anything to you. But.. as for me that is fun in the some cases. Thank you wery much.

btw, perhaps you will be interested to add a few research branches of drone upgrade.
For example, the base version can not use a weapon, but the military version - can, but limited: without the tolbelts (to not be to much OP)
You can also add advanced "working" version of the drone that can use the tools and can setup/remove the building.

Thanks again.

[binbinhfr]

wow, perfect mod for monitoring and micromanagement on a large base. But i found an one fun feature(?). Drones can use weapons and ammunition, so you can covertly attacking aliens and at the same time they are can not to do anything to you. But.. as for me that is fun in the some cases. Thank you wery much.

btw, perhaps you will be interested to add a few research branches of drone upgrade.
For example, the base version can not use a weapon, but the military version - can, but limited: without the tolbelts (to not be to much OP)
You can also add advanced "working" version of the drone that can use the tools and can setup/remove the building.

Thanks again.

Yes, you're right, I did not pay attention to the weapon usability !
It's far to OP, so I will try remove the possibility of weapon.
But I'd like to make a surveillance drone invicible, because for me it is flying up in the sky, so impossible to be touched by aliens.
And I want to let it in a part of my factory, without risk : for example, if this part of the factory is attacked, I'd like to monitor the attack without losing the drone, to see if I have to physically move there with a tank or something else.

But if I make a military drone, it should not be invincible.
So I could make :
- a spy drone invincible, but no weapon, no craft, just monitoring.
- a military drone : not invicible but some life and weapons, to play around with aliens (bombing ?), without risking your own life.
- a maintenance drone : not invicible but with inventory and crafting possibilities.

For the toolbelt, I'm afraid I can change it because it is in relation with the technology of your force. And the drone is a character/player like your main body, and knows the same tech-tree as yourself, so it has the same toolbelt. I am afraid it will be the same with the weapon slot...

[Sedar]

Yes, you're right, I did not pay attention to the weapon usability !
It's far to OP, so I will try remove the possibility of weapon.
But I'd like to make a surveillance drone invicible, because for me it is flying up in the sky, so impossible to be touched by aliens.
And I want to let it in a part of my factory, without risk : for example, if this part of the factory is attacked, I'd like to monitor the attack without losing the drone, to see if I have to physically move there with a tank or something else.

But if I make a military drone, it should not be invincible.
So I could make :
- a spy drone invincible, but no weapon, no craft, just monitoring.
- a military drone : not invicible but some life and weapons, to play around with aliens (bombing ?), without risking your own life.
- a maintenance drone : not invicible but with inventory and crafting possibilities.

For the toolbelt, I'm afraid I can change it because it is in relation with the technology of your force. And the drone is a character/player like your main body, and knows the same tech-tree as yourself, so it has the same toolbelt. I am afraid it will be the same with the weapon slot...

If it is imposible to remove weapon slot, then maybe posible to make surveillance(base) drones invicible for aliens, but still have wery small amount hp, so if they attack aliens then aliens quickly destroy the drone. Camicadze style.

ps: anyway the spy/maintenance/military drone idea is great.

[binbinhfr]

I believe that i cannot suppress the weapon slot, but I found a way to avoid weapon : if you try to put a weapon on, it returns immediatly in the drone toolbelt.
I have also to empty logistic slots otherwise robots try to give you stuff, but you do not have a main inventory so they are disturbed.

I do not understand the low hp idea: the drone is invincible, so even if he attacks, he won't lose its hp. By the way, if it is what you think, I cannot detect if the drone attacks (no lua event of this type) and disable invincibility only in this case.

I'll try to create the 3 types of drones.
But the maintenance drone will be the same as the player main body, without weapon. Won't it be OP ?

[Sedar]

I believe that i cannot suppress the weapon slot, but I found a way to avoid weapon : if you try to put a weapon on, it returns immediatly in the drone toolbelt.
I have also to empty logistic slots otherwise robots try to give you stuff, but you do not have a main inventory so they are disturbed.

I do not understand the low hp idea: the drone is invincible, so even if he attacks, he won't lose its hp. By the way, if it is what you think, I cannot detect if the drone attacks (no lua event of this type) and disable invincibility only in this case.
?

I did not know that. But idea with remove the weapons is solved this case.

I'll try to create the 3 types of drones.
But the maintenance drone will be the same as the player main body, without weapon. Won't it be OP ?

My base, like many others, is made up of large parts of which are located not close to one another. That becouse during the expansion of one part of the factories i do not want to have the problem with lack of space. So moving from one part of the base to another is one of the large problems for me. It is a pity to waste a lot of time to move to the other end of the base to make a few minor changes.

For solve this problem i use several mods(sorted by cost):
-Airkraft Midgame, just wery fast move, but stil useful
-Avatars Midgame, better then airkraft but much more expencive to build each one.
-SimpleTeleporters Wery expensive technology and eqipment, but completly solved the probleme, late endgame

Maintenance drone could be early midgame thing. With some restrictions, like wisible for aliens & small inventory, or so.

[binbinhfr]

ok.

I'll create this maintenance drone in priority, with inventory. Because the military drone is much for fun...

Otherwise, don't you have any bugs ?

[Sedar]

ok.
Otherwise, don't you have any bugs ?

No any bugs, everything works as expected, fast and clear. (Factorio wersion 12.30)

[binbinhfr]

ok, and did you try the last version with maintenance drone ?

[Sedar]

I did not check the first page.
PM sent.
Maintenance drones are great. Brilliant!!!

[binbinhfr]

I did not check the first page.

I know, I used to post a new message in the thread when i release a new subversion, but a moderator told me that it was not the right way to do, and that I have just to edit the original post. But then, as I suspected, people subscribed to the thread do not receive a message warning for the mod upgrade...

[Sedar]

Btw i did some tests of another mod (Subsurfaces) and found some bug in your. If you walk on the drone through the teleport and you switch to the main dody or another drone when you try to switch back on the first drone, you get an error:



I consider that this error will be the same when using any teleport. It is not critical. Just to let you know.

[binbinhfr]

Yes, I did not know SubSurface, but it seems to use several surfaces/maps to simulate underground...
I assume like many other mods that everything is always on the same surface. So it crash. I will see if I can do something, but maybe also the other mod is not supporting multiple character per player, like I implemented...

Did you try it with a mod like FARL or smartrains or YARM ?

Edit: I confirm that this mod , even promising, is not really finished. And Factorio does not allow teleporting entities/character from one surface to another, so not easy to mis with my mod for the moment...

[binbinhfr]

v1.0.5
To make the drones a little less OP, I put drone antenas that are limiting their action range to around 100m from the antenna.
So you cannot reveal the whole map anymore with this invincible little fellows !
Maintenance drones can now mine.

[Sedar]

Did you try it with a mod like FARL or smartrains or YARM ?

No.

v1.0.5
To make the drones a little less OP, I put drone antenas that are limiting their action range to around 100m from the antenna.
So you cannot reveal the whole map anymore with this invincible little fellows !
Maintenance drones can now mine.

Cool, it seems now the maintenance drones are actually ready to go. And now it looks like a well-balanced
Thank you for the very convenient mod.