Hello everyone!
Today it is time for an update on an often requested gameplay feature: Long distance transportation.
Our ore patches can be quite far out, especially once you made it to the mid or end-game. Many of you brought up that it is not very feasible - and neither fun - to build so-called “conveyor highways” to bring in your ore to the main base.
We always planned for mechanics which allow movement of goods over a long distance in a simplified way, and today we show you the first of those technologies: Transport Ships.
With them you can move all sorts of goods from one landing platform to another. The platforms are very large, so the technology isn't made for moving goods from one place inside your factory to another, it is for when greater distances need to be covered.
I will go into detail on how they work further below, first I want to talk about long distance transportation in general. Although this isn’t a guarantee, we ultimately plan to have multiple long distance transportation methods. Our transport ships are the first type. The other ones aren’t as time-critical now that the gameplay issue of moving large amounts of items to a different spot is solved, so don’t expect others to arrive quickly. But we do know that you all want trains and we’re going to look into it after we have launched into Early Access.
Transport Ships
Let’s have a look on how to set them up and how they work. It all starts with two platforms, the target (drop-off) and the origin (pick-up) platform/station.
You set a name for the target station, let’s say “Xenoferrite Smeltery”, and assign it at the origin station so that it knows where to move the items. Multiple origin stations can have the same target station assigned. That means multiple ore mines could deliver to the same central pad if you want to set it up like that.
After that you need to configure the conditions on when the ship should start, you get detailed control on how they should behave. You can select either a percentage of the inventory or a certain amount of time passed. You can also combine them to create something like “both need to be true” or “just one of those needs to be true”.
Once the configured conditions are fulfilled, your ship will take off and fly to the target station. There it will unload and then fly back home. The way flying works is that they ascend upwards in a straight path, until they are outside of the buildable area and then they will fly straight to the point above the target station, where they will descend down again. That means both platforms must have an empty path upwards (must not be blocked by terrain, buildings, …). Their screen panels warn you if that is not the case.
There is no distance limitation, but the further they fly, the more they need to recharge once they are back home.
Here’s a video of them flying:
Please keep in mind, this is work in progress. Animations, balancing and other things may change a bit and/or will receive more polishing.
Wait, you can go inside?
Yep, you can. There’s an interior and a pilot and you can jump on and ride from one station to another. Currently you need to guess the time it will take off (depending on the conditions set), but we’re thinking about adding some option to tell the robot pilot to just go now if you need a ride. Although we might also create a second system for that. Using cargo ships for personal travel seems slightly wasteful.
I hope you have enjoyed today's FOUNDRY Friday and I hope to see you next time!
-mrmcd
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