Drone Logistics Network
No belts needed: flying units deliver where needed, but you have to keep them supplied.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- Design focus
- Planning · Spatial · Optimization
No.008Factorio01The core loop
Action → feedback → next choice- 01Build ports and storage
- 02Set requests and supplies
- 03Drones deliver automatically
- 04Expand or refuel the network
↻Feedback changes the situation — the next round starts from there.
Walk through one round
A simplified design example. Situations and numbers illustrate the mechanic, not exact rules from a reference game.
- T1
Turn 1 · The situation
An outpost 2km away needs 20 batteries/min; a belt would have to wrap around a mountain.
- T2
Turn 2 · The player chooses
The player builds a drone port pair; each flight burns 2 batteries as fuel.
- T3
Turn 3 · The feedback
Delivery is steady, but drones eat about 10% of the batteries themselves.
- T4
Turn 4 · The next decision
The player weighs a relay station midway or switching to denser fuel.
How it plays
Players build stations and mark chests as providers or requesters, and flying units haul automatically within range. It skips routing but has limited throughput, needs charge or fuel, and large networks suffer congestion and long trips.
What the player weighs
- Flexibility vs throughput: bulk materials still move better on belts.
- One big network vs zoned networks: convenience versus longer flights.
02Start small
Scope is an editorial estimate for the minimum prototype, not the reference game or a production schedule.
03One mechanic, different implementations
Factorio
Logistic robots operate within roboport coverage, moving items between requester and provider chests and returning to recharge.
Satisfactory
Drones shuttle between paired drone ports and burn fuel per trip, suited to long-range, low-volume point-to-point supply.
The difference worth noticing
Factorio's robots form an on-demand mesh; Satisfactory's drones run fixed point-to-point routes.
Case notes are Yoroll editorial summaries; rules may change between versions.
04What could you combine?
Drones can only land at buildings linked by roads or pads, so players plan access networks to decide which sites join air logistics.
Prototype this combo in Yoroll→Follow the next idea
Conveyor Routing
Moving items from A to B is easy; keeping every line from tangling is the game.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- 01Plan source and destination
- 02Lay belts around obstacles
- 03Watch flow and jams
- 04Reroute or add layers
Flow Splitting and Ratios
Feeding several machines from one input comes down to exact ratios and even splits.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- 01Calculate each machine's demand
- 02Place splitters and mergers
- 03Check for starved machines
- 04Tune ratios or priority
Reusable Blueprints
Save a well-designed module and stamp it again; you shift from builder to planner.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- 01Hand-build a good module
- 02Save it as a blueprint
- 03Stamp it elsewhere
- 04Iterate and revise