This guide is to help new players understand what all the drone parts do and other basic concepts to enjoy exploration of the game and it's mechanics.

It is considered a work in progress and incomplete, players are encouraged to ask questions to which the answer will be given by adding to the guide.

Content credits to:

joemama1512

Drones

You build drones. Drones can either be used to complete the campaign, compete in multiplayer battles, or just player around with.

The Campaign

The campaign is set on planets which are very small and have a small amount of gravity. Drones are created to complete tasks on planets involving finding things or, and often, destroying enemies. Completing tasks on planets awards resources or new drone parts. Travelling between planets and galaxies involves the risk of attack from the "Corp" against which there is no defence. Fleeing from or avoiding the Corp forms part of an overarching mini game which governs the dynamics of travel between planets and galaxies.

Multiplayer

Player created drones are pitched against each other in several game types.

Drone creation

Drones are created in the drone creator GUI by dragging, dropping and rotating drone parts. Each drone must be connected to the drone core or other drone parts (by dragging to that part until you see a link icon). Each drone part can be configured for use and control.

Drone control

Drones are either controlled by keypresses by the user or by a system of sensor feedback which creates keypresses and leads to full or part drone automation.

These are blocks that form the structure of anything bigger than a basic drone and stop it falling apart. A basic small drone does not need basic parts.

You can connect drone parts to basic parts (and other drone parts) by dragging them on top until you see a link symbol and letting go of the mouse.

Thrusters make drones move.

Small Thrusters

Makes ship go. Generally used as correctional and turning thrusters.

Big Thrusters

Primary thrusters to make ship go fast.

Afterburners

Powerful thrusters that ONLY WORK when you achieve a certain speed!

Jump Thrusters

When you activate they start "charging" and then push your drone depending on how long they were held down. You CAN use logic with these to "hold down the button" and then release them for a stored-up boost when needed.

Dynamic thruster

Variable and controllable amount of thrust up to big thruster amount.

VTOL

Small thruster that can pivot. "On Cursor" mode lets you use cursor to move effectively adding a new method of control.

Used for powering weapons. Weapons will not work without batteries. It is very easy to construct a drone, not understand why it isn't working, and realise you forgot to add batteries!

Fuel tanks provide fuel for thrusters. Thrusters will not work without fuel tanks and it is very easy to forget to add fuel tanks and wonder why the drone won't move.

Shields heaters and coolers. Shields defend against enemy weapons, and coolers and heaters counteract the effects of plasma (heat) and cryogenic (cold) weapons.

Parts that enable the construction of mechanically flexible drones.

Spring

Provides connection to a part but acts like a rubber band attachment where the attached item can extend pretty far and bounce back and attach to the drone when it stops moving. Maybe add a bumper to the end and have it flail around and beat things?

Motorized

Turns right or left. Attach components to it and you can change their direction. Could use with big thrusters and control thrust direction? Seems worse than using VTOL thrusters following cursor though. Can be used with a directional sensor to create an auto-aiming turret.

Piston

Connector that extends and retracts. Could be used with a magnet/heater/freezer to extend and keep hot/cold thing away from the main ship. Could maybe be used with the "autoturret" to deploy it away from the main ship so components don't hit, but could retract when needed for more stability.

Factory

Creates other drones. Amazing!

Pew Pew!

Resource collectors and resource storage for collecting and storing the yellow, red, blue and green stuff found on planets.

Drone parts that feed back information from the environment via keypresses. Keypresses act as variables or information channels from sensors, as well as the keys you press on your keyboard!

Distance

Main purpose is to fire an event when something is detected. You can adjust range and what gets detected. One use would be detect the ground at some range and fire upward thrusters which would give a drone terrain-following capability. It can be used to detect an enemy with an auto-turret and give a shoot-order.

Proximity Sensor

Similar to above except it can detect in an ARC instead of a straight line. But with shorter max range. This would be better for shorter range weapons with an autoturret with a thin arc, or to auto-fire a TNT cluster on a guided missile assembly with a big 360 arc. Or maybe it detects terrain and auto-triggers a rotating digging weapon that starts burning through terrain automatically. It would do a better job of terrain following as it would detect UPCOMING terrain instead of what is below it, at the cost of having more limited max range. Also useful for triggering shields.

Speed Sensor

Triggers when something hits a certain velocity.

Directional Sensor

Has several modes with a fallback in case main mode does not work. Set to gravity it can control thrusters to auto-orient a ship upright. Set to cursor it can move your ship. Set to Mission Objective it can help you find those hammerheads and other hard-to-locate objectives! Set to enemy, it can work with motors to auto-aim weapons.

Camera tracker

Lets you change camera to another drone, usually created by the factory

Position tracker

A trackable object you place in your drone that can be tracked by other sensors. Useful with drones that have moving parts.

Temperature sensor

In THEORY lets you auto-fire Heater/Cooler to regulate temperature. Seems very buggy though, detecting an ABSOLUTE variance from normal to either hot or cold from what I can tell. Even if it worked, it detects ITS temp, NOT necessarily the temp of the whole drone so can easily Do Nothing while the other side of drone fries/freezes. Needs a radius command that averages temps.

Temp Probe

Points at something and measures temperature. Does what it should having a min/max defined temp. Still, pointing at your ship with this is awkward.

Altimeter

Lets you keep ship at a constant height with respect to the CENTER of the planet, instead of relative to terrain height. Good for cruising above a planet dropping bombs or something.

Standard logic gates and other parts that use keypress data to manipulate information from sensors and keypresses.