Early Drones Defence

Combat drones for a base that has no roboports yet.

Early Drones gave your factory flying logistics before the vanilla bot network exists. This mod gives that same era its teeth: escorts that follow you, towers that hold a line, and scouts that clear a threat before it reaches the wall.

Requires Early Drones. It shares that mod's stations, power sinks, pole network and flight code rather than building a second copy of them.

The rule that governs everything Drones are temporary. Each one dies on a timer whether or not anything shoots it — 15, 25 or 35 seconds by tier, 75 for a scout. You cannot stockpile an army; you can only pay for one, one magazine at a time. Every fight costs exactly as long as it lasts.

Tier 1 — personal escort A Drone Launcher goes in a weapon slot. When an enemy comes within 30 tiles it puts two combat drones up at once, one round each, and they orbit you until their time runs out. In cleared land it launches nothing.

You can carry three launchers, and all three work at the same time — but then there is no room for an actual gun.

Tier 2 — defence towers Better escorts: four drones per launcher instead of two, twice the health, twice the damage, and 25 seconds of life.

Defence Tower — a building that holds a 30-tile line with four drones. It needs magazines and electricity: a 1 MJ buffer, 24 kW standing draw, and 150 kJ for every drone it launches. A full launch is most of the buffer, so a tower that is fighting is visibly drawing power.

Its drones never leave the tower's circle. They pick their targets from the tower rather than from themselves, so the swarm cannot be walked away by one retreating group while another eats the tower.

Tier 3 — scouts Better escorts again (six per launcher, 400 health, 35 seconds), eight drones per tower, and a new building.

Scout Station — sends a flight of four scouts out along your power lines to kill threats before they arrive. Scouts fire slowly and heavily from further away, live 75 seconds, and do not come back. That is what they cost.

Their reach follows your infrastructure:

along the power network — unlimited; the line is the road off the network — at most 150 tiles from the nearest pole charted ground only — so vanilla radars finally have a job Set the patrol radius with a slider, from 50 to 400 tiles. The station shows both circles when you open it, and tells you why it is idle when it is: no enemy, uncharted ground, out of network reach, no power, or a flight still out.

A new flight goes only when the previous one is entirely gone. Four scouts together are worth far more than four scouts one at a time.

What it does not do It does not touch vanilla military. Turrets, walls, artillery and combat robots work exactly as they always did — this mod fills the gap before them and stops there.