Companion Drones 2.0: Remnant's Protocol

Companion Drones 2.0: Remnant's Protocol

A standalone fork of Companion Drones (based on the mjlfix 3.1.2 build) rebuilt around one goal: Autonomy with character.

This is a standalone replacement & an alternative to the other mentioned mod. Do not run it alongside the original or any other "Companion Drones" mod.

This mod is STILL BEING DEVELOPED (more in FAQ), and I'm actively working on it in my own free time! Expect borked stuff or unoptimized performance in some cases! Expect that the next patch could rewire some Companion content in your existing save within this mod! (It won't corrupt your save. Your save is always secure; Factorio handles this well. Some companion-related context, however, can migrate or disappear, showing a spooky message at your next save load.)

What it is

A companion is a flying drone that follows you, carries its own fuel and cargo, and works on build orders or attacks enemies when they are near.

There are six of them, each unlocked on the planet it comes from. Atlas is where everyone starts. Flora, Volt and Aegis are a step above him, but not above each other - each is built for a different job. Prism comes after all of them, and Remnant is the last.

• Atlas is your humble companion on Nauvis. It builds, it repairs, and it fends off what wanders in. Nothing it does is exceptional, and it is the only companion you have for a long time.
• Flora is grown on Gleba. She spits acid and loves hunting nests and worms before anything that moves. She builds nothing and repair packs do nothing for her, she heals herself instead. You'll love to have her!
• Volt is assembled on Fulgora. Specializing in building and crowd control, carrying a lot of shield, but his chain lightning barely scratches anything. Neat bodyguard!
• Aegis is cast on Vulcanus. He has a huge health pool, fires one enormous rocket every few seconds, and pulls enemies off the rest of your fleet onto himself. A true tank for your battles.
• Prism is built on Aquilo. A research unit that studies light, and uses it: short bursts of white laser that hit several enemies at once, huge health and a big shield. If you get hurt near it, it heals you with a green beam. Made for the biggest biters you will meet.
• Remnant is found past the edge of the solar system, in the place where nobody knows what happened. An exceptional health pool, a very large shield, and it repairs itself, because no robot can. Its heavy red beam hits up to ten enemies at once and every hit explodes. Its equipment fuses with it: once placed, it stays.

Volt, Aegis and Remnant also carry equipment that buffs you, the player, in various ways, and Prism keeps you alive.

This mod works with or without the Space Age DLC. Most of the drones come from its planets, so without the DLC you get a stronger Atlas and everything he does, and the rest simply do not show up. Nothing breaks either way. Neat, right?

Why and when to choose this mod

• You want your playthrough less mundane and more varied. A companion is your own personal roboport with a mind of its own and real firepower, and you get the first one almost from the start.
• It is not a cheat. You research, craft and equip every companion yourself, and the better ones take real work.
• You like clearing nests up close. The later companions are built for exactly that.

Autonomy, with a dash of story

Autonomy here means you hand over the goal and keep none of the method. It shows in two places: the work you give them, and the fights they end up in.

The work

Give a companion a large deconstruction order or a blueprint and it will work through the entire thing by itself. The components for build orders are fetched from your inventory, so keep them on you. A drone can only restock while it is near you.

• They follow you by default, but a job you actually gave them outranks that. Walk off and do something else, it will be done when you get back.
• It comes back to you when its cargo is full or it has run out of what it is building, then picks the same task up again.
• Several companions on one task split it into strips and each sweeps its own, instead of re-treading each other's routes. One that finishes early moves on to the next strip along, so the task ends as one clean sweep.
• Opportunistic on the side: a stray ghost, something marked for deconstruction or a damaged building near you gets handled while they follow you.

The fight

They do not go looking for one. What starts a fight is you walking up to it, so your drones will not wake a nest you were trying to walk past. Once it starts, each of them reads the threat and picks its own answer.

• Something that chases them gets kited, but only once they are actually losing health. Giving ground to a biter that has not hurt anyone or hurts too little costs damage for nothing.
• Something that stands still and shoots, like a worm, gets circled instead of stared down.
• They keep to the outside of a nest instead of walking into the middle of it - smart repositioning.
• When several of them are in the same fight, they stay close to each other. One drone alone in a crowd does not last long.
• They come back to finish a nest, and they patch each other up while fighting, as long as you stay near.
• If you get hurt, every armed companion breaks off and comes to you, then goes back to work. Player life conservation at all costs.

The story

Your drones remember where they came from. Atlas arrives with a message, every other drone introduces itself the first time you build it, and they react to each other. As you move through the tech tree, Atlas and later Prism have more to tell you, all the way to the end of the story.

None of it gets in your way. It is there for the ones who read the chat.

Equipment and progression

Every companion has a small equipment grid, so you choose what it carries: