Drone

"Drones and drone stations were inspired by bees; drones buzz around the ranch to complete their task and like to recharge in their flower-shaped stations once their job is complete. When a drone returns to its station it will go to sleep until it is time to get back to work. Wake up, little drone!"

- Teaser announcement

The Drone is a player-created Utility gadget crafted at the fabricator at The Lab. Unlike most other utilities, placing it down does not require a two minute installation cooldown before it can be used, nor can it be installed anywhere outside The Ranch and its expansions.

Up to two Drones can be installed in each Ranch expansion. Due to this, a maximum total of 14 Drones can be used at any one time. In addition they can be recolored using the Tech Chroma Pack, and have Fashion Pods applied to it.

Acquisition
The blueprint for the Drone is purchaseable from The Lab for 2,000, as soon as The Lab becomes accessible.

Usage
A Drone and its flower station is the most versatile Gadget that can be installed on The Ranch due to its programmable nature. It can be used to feed slimes, hoarde plorts into a silo or sell them off, and even tidy The Ranch if slimes are in the habit of blowing plorts out of their corrals.

By default, it rests on top of the flower in an inactive state. The button in front of the flower indicates how much charge the Drone has left by a water gauge, which can be refilled by splashing the station with Water. The button can be interacted with to give it three tasks to execute: Target, Source, and Destination.



Target
Target specifies what the Drone will focus on collecting. It can collect Plorts, Veggies, Fruit, Meat, Elder Chickens; Elder Hen and Roostro. In addition, it can be programmed to target a specific item, such as a Mint Mango or a Mosaic Plort.

Source
Source indicates where the Drone will gather the resources it is set to collect from.


 * When Plorts or a specific plort is selected, it can collect from Corrals, Ponds, Incinerators, Silos, Plort Collectors, and Outside Plots.
 * When a Food category or a specific food item is selected, it can collect from Gardens/Coops, Silos, and Outside Plots.

Destination
Destination tells the Drone what it is to do with the resources it has acquired.


 * Plorts can be taken to a Silo or the Plort Market.
 * Food can be taken to Corrals, Silos, Auto-feeders, or Incinerators.

Note that Drones will prioritise the Market Link over the Plort Market if the Plort Market is chosen.

When the drone has completed its tasks, it goes back to the flower to recharge.

Tips
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Changelog

 * 1.3.0 - Implemented.

Trivia

 * Drones are based on bees; its behavior of collecting resources is heavily based on bees collecting nectar. The term "Drone" is a double entendre; referencing both the male bee referred to as a drone, although its role is more reminiscent of worker bees than true drones, and the common name for a remote-controlled pilotless aircraft. Beatrix - herself resembling a bee due to her Vacpack - programming the Drones to perform tasks may reference the relationship between a queen and her worker bees. The key on top of the drone resembles the keys used in Wind-up toys, and the common shape for bee's wings drawn in a cartoon style.
 * Drones were originally intended to be released alongside Mochi's Megabucks Update. However it was changed to be its own update to give it more developmental focus, pushing back Viktor's Experimental Update to Update 1.4.0.
 * Prior to their release, the roadmap stated: Adorable drones will be added to Slime Science, allowing you to selectively automate parts of the ranching experience! Our goal with drones is to somewhat reduce the amount of manual work required to keep your ranch running while still retaining the spirit of the game we have now. Drones will also likely be a considerable investment, similar to teleporters as their value to the experience is high.