[Idea] Surveillance Drone

[theBeave]

Idea:
A flying drone that flies far and wide, noting resources and biters in areas covered.

Discussion:
For the sake of idea conveyance, this is effectively a really long range radar. Graphics of actually displaying a moving drone aside, the mechanics would be as follows: A base station is placed down. This is the center of the drone's search area. The search area is very large, 16-25x area (2-2.5x radius) that of a normal radar. Like the radar, the drone circles out from the base station.

Implementation: The actual base station uses minimal electricity, that on par with a light - because the base stations is not the entity doing the scanning. The mobile drone portion is the entity that consumes the power. And to power its huge range, it must burn fuel (batteries are not powerful enough). This fuel can be any of the fuels in the game. Drone should naturally return to refuel, which has been inserted into base station. Presently, it seems reasonable to say that the drone should not venture out until it has enough fuel (any mixture of said fuels) to complete its journey. Since the drone needs fuel, and it is flying out over new ground, it should deposit a small amount of pollution in the areas it is scanning, as it flies over. The drone would be impervious to damage, nor should it, itself, trigger biter agression. However, the small amount of pollution may be enough to trigger raids and evolution.

Positives: massively extended range, for the singular cost of one base station - minimal investment in running costs.
Negatives: requires refueling, causes small amount of pollution during operation


Possibilities/Limitations: Maybe modify a radar to do this work. Could/should a unique drone item be necessary to craft, that the base station can handle more that one drone at a time (thus increasing rate of scanning) Extending, could the drone be made semi-autonomous, that it is set to scan new areas only, or prowl the perimeter of the known area? How should the drone be deployed, strictyl via fueling status, on regular schedule, and ending flight prematurely if/when out of fuel, etc?

[Factorio2016]

Yes! of course!
Need to add more robotic technology.
Robots are helpers with guns. (guards-watchmen)
defensive machine guns (there is a mod, there is a 'tankbot'). Light and heavy armaments.

[bammalar]

Awesome, and it looks like this idea is similar to this one, viewtopic.php?f=33&t=23961

[binbinhfr]

I did a surveillance drone mod, but it's not exactly the same purpose...
viewtopic.php?f=93&t=25026

[charonme]

+1 like a spyplane / spy satellite, doesn't even need to uncover such a huge area

[Subject314159]

Not a drone but has the functionality to scan indefinitely beyond regular boundaries: Infinite Radar

[Noah235]

Maybe the AAI Programmable Vehicles mod is what you are looking for? https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-progr ... rom=search