Vanilla Quests Expanded - Drone Factory - Automated Drones, Ancient Factories and New Quests for RimWorld

Vanilla Quests Expanded - Drone Factory is a RimWorld mod that introduces automated drones, abandoned industrial facilities, and a new questline centered around forgotten military technology. Players can explore ancient scrapyards, confront rogue machines, raid a heavily fortified factory, and unlock additional types of robotic workers and defenders.

The modification adds 3 new quests, drone manufacturing, reverse-engineering mechanics, and an alternative to the mechanoid workforce. Unlike mechanoids, drones do not require a mechanitor, bandwidth, charging, or wastepack management.

Three New Quests and the Drone Factory

The storyline begins when dormant military drones mysteriously reactivate across the planet.

Players must investigate the origins of the awakening machines and uncover the technology behind their production.

The questline includes three major stages:

1. Drone Scrapyards: Explore abandoned military scrapyards, fight malfunctioning defensive drones, and recover fragmented command cores and lost blueprints.
2. Rogue Transmitter: Defend your colony against waves of wandering drones while sending a caravan to an abandoned robotics warehouse to disable the long-range activation signal.
3. Ancient Drone Factory: Assault a fortified industrial facility controlled by pirates who manufacture drones for the black market.

During the final mission, players must fight experienced pirates and newly manufactured drones that continue emerging from the factory.

The Tinkerer and the Final Decision

Deep inside the factory, players discover The Tinkerer, a brilliant inventor held captive by the pirates.

The final confrontation presents an important choice:

• Rescue The Tinkerer: Save the inventor and gain access to his ancient technological knowledge.
• Eliminate The Tinkerer: Prevent his knowledge and blueprints from falling into dangerous hands.

This decision forms the climax of the questline and determines how players deal with the inventor's technology.

Automated Workers and Combat Drones

Vanilla Quests Expanded - Drone Factory allows players to manufacture their own automated machines.

Drone capabilities and advantages include:

• Industrial automation: Construct robotic workers to assist with colony production.
• Combat support: Create defensive drones to protect your settlement.
• No bandwidth requirements: Drones do not consume mechanitor bandwidth.
• No charging: Drones operate without conventional mechanoid charging requirements.
• No wastepacks: Their operation does not generate toxic wastepacks.
• No mechanitor required: Any colony can make use of drone technology.

However, drones work more slowly and deal less damage than mechanoids.

They also have a limited lifespan. Once a drone reaches the end of its operational life, it must be manually shut down.

Drone Research, Cores and Recycling

Players can begin manufacturing basic drones without completing the storyline.

Simply research Dronetech to unlock the drone technology available independently of the quests.

Completing the questline provides access to additional drone types.

Drone cores can be obtained from drone scrapyard and drone emergence quests. The unique Tinkerer drone can also manufacture them.

An important economic advantage is that disassembling colony-owned drones refunds 100% of their construction resources.

This full refund does not apply to enemy drones.

The mobile turret drone also has a fixed military turret attachment. It cannot be equipped with arbitrary turrets.

Quest System and Compatibility

The mod uses a quest system independent of RimWorld's storyteller.

Important features:

• Adds 3 new quests with separate activation conditions and timers.
• Does not reduce the frequency of normal storyteller quests.
• The first quest is expected to appear between 90 and 120 in-game days from the start of the game.
• Supports existing RimWorld saves.
• Includes the developer command View Quest Chains for inspecting, triggering, and completing quests.
• Combat Extended: Compatibility has not been confirmed.

Authors

• Oskar Potocki - Graphics and mod design.
• Sarg Bjornson - Programming.
• Taranchuk - Programming.
• Ferny - Story and quest writing.
• vitalii - Storyteller artwork.