Vehicles

There are 7 types of vehicles that pioneers can use for either personal travel, transporting items or both: Tractors, Trucks, Explorers, Cyber Wagons, Factory Carts, Trains and Drones. There is no limit on the number of vehicles in the world.

Pioneers can be ran over by vehicles but receive no damage, however living creatures (such as Lizard Doggos) that are ran over by vehicles, will receive damage.

Every vehicle except for the Drone can be driven by the Pioneer.

Motor vehicles

A gallery of wheeled vehicles.

Fuel consumption

Motor vehicles (excluding the Factory Cart) require fuel to operate, and can use every kind of fuel item. Fuel is input into a fuel slot by accessing the vehicle's inventory, which is usually a red box in the rear of the vehicle.

Different fuels are consumed at different rates, based on the item's fuel value and the vehicle's energy consumption rate. The Tractor consumes the least fuel, followed by the Truck, then the Explorer, and finally the Cyber Wagon which consumes the most. Below is a table of how long, in seconds, each fuel type lasts at maximum acceleration.

Fuel Consumption Table

Fuel Type	Fuel Value (MJ)	Biomass Burner (30 MW)	Coal Generator (75 MW)	Fuel Generator (150 MW)	Nuclear Power Plant (2500 MW)	Cyber Wagon (150 MW)	Tractor (55 MW)	Truck (75 MW)	Explorer (90 MW)	Chainsaw (75 MW)	Jetpack (60-600 MW)
Leaves	15	0.50s	-	-	-	0.10s	0.27s	0.2s	0.17s	-	-
Wood	100	3.33s	-	-	-	0.67s	1.82s	1.33s	1.11s	-	-
Mycelia	20	0.67s	-	-	-	0.13s	0.36s	0.27s	0.22s	-	-
Hog Remains	250	8.33s	-	-	-	1.67s	4.55s	3.33s	2.78s	-	-
Plasma Spitter Remains	250	8.33s	-	-	-	1.67s	4.55s	3.33s	2.78s	-	-
Stinger Remains	250	8.33s	-	-	-	1.67s	4.55s	3.33s	2.78s	-	-
Hatcher Remains	250	8.33s	-	-	-	1.67s	4.55s	3.33s	2.78s	-	-
Flower Petals	100	3.33s	-	-	-	0.67s	1.82s	1.33s	1.11s	-	-
Color Cartridge	900	-	-	-	-	6.00s	16.36s	12.00s	10.00s	-	-
Fabric	15	0.50s	-	-	-	0.10s	0.27s	0.20s	0.17s	-	-
Biomass	180	6.00s	-	-	-	1.20s	3.27s	2.40s	2.00s	-	-
Solid Biofuel	450	15.00s	-	-	-	3.00s	8.18s	6.00s	5.00s	6.00s	2.83s
Liquid Biofuel	750	-	-	5.00s	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Packaged Liquid Biofuel	750	25.00s	-	-	-	5.00s	13.64s	10.00s	8.33s	-	12.50s
Coal	300	-	4.00s	-	-	2.00s	5.45s	4.00s	3.33s	-	-
Compacted Coal	630	-	8.40s	-	-	4.20s	11.45s	8.40s	7.00s	-	-
Petroleum Coke	180	-	2.40s	-	-	1.20s	3.27s	2.40s	2.00s	-	-
Fuel	750	-	-	5.00s	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Packaged Fuel	750	-	-	-	-	5.00s	13.64s	10.00s	8.33s	-	5.00s
Turbofuel	2000	-	-	13.33s	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Packaged Turbofuel	2000	-	-	-	-	13.33s	36.36s	26.67s	22.22s	-	3.33s
Packaged Heavy Oil Residue	400	-	-	-	-	2.67s	7.27s	5.33s	4.44s	-	-
Packaged Oil	320	-	-	-	-	2.13s	5.82s	4.27s	3.56s	-	-
Battery	6000	-	-	-	-	40.00s	109.00s (1m 49s)	80.00s (1m 20.00s)	66.70s (1m 6.70s)	-	-
Uranium Fuel Rod	750000	-	-	-	300.00s (5m)	5000.00s (1h 23m 20s)	13636.00s (3h 47m 16s)	10000.00s (2h 46m 40s)	8333.00s (2h 18m 53s)	-	-
Plutonium Fuel Rod	1500000	-	-	-	600.00s (10m)	10000.00s (2h 46m 40s)	27272.00s (7h 34m 32s)	20000.00s (5h 33m 20s)	16666.00s (4h 37m 46s)	-	-

${\frac {Fuel\ energy\ MJ}{Vehicle\ power\ MW}}=acceleration\ time$ where the fuel consumption rate is 55MW for the Tractor, 75MW for the Truck, 90MW for the Explorer and 150MW for the Cyber Wagon.

If running at full speed all the time is wasteful (such as if the vehicle's throughput far exceeds that of the source or sink), the vehicle's path can be "underclocked" by including a lengthy pause, during which it will use no fuel. This pause should not be inside a station, as this will cause the station to consume power. Vehicles do not stop recording if the pioneer dismounts, so the player can get out and watch the bottleneck station fill or empty and then resume driving. Alternatively, you can edit the pause node to any desired length in seconds.

Acceleration time is a timer counting down whenever the vehicle is accelerating or otherwise trying to move. This countdown does not occur while a vehicle is stationary or "coasting" down a slope. When a vehicle has no Acceleration Time left and tries to move it will pull one item from its fuel tank and adds its value to the Acceleration Time. The type of fuel being consumed is not recorded, only the burn time is added. This means radioactive fuels such as the Uranium Fuel Rod or the Plutonium Fuel Rod will only make a vehicle radioactive while sitting in the tank, once consumed and added to the Acceleration Time the radiation it produced will cease. (Additional Fuel Rods in the tank or inventory will still generate radiation however.)

Piloting

The Self-driving menu for a wheeled vehicle.

Pioneers can enter or exit vehicles by interacting E with it from any angle other than the rear side. Interacting a vehicle from its rear will open up its inventory slots instead, including the fuel slot. When piloting a vehicle, the camera switches to a third-person perspective. Pressing C while in a vehicle locks the view to straight ahead, a second press unlocks the view. Vehicles cannot be upgraded. Some small foliage can be destroyed when run into by a vehicle. In addition, the Tractors can destroy some smaller trees which Trucks cannot.

Drifting

Trucks and Explorers can perform drift by pressing Spacebar while driving. This allows for tighter, sliding turns, for greater control. It is also possible to "J" turn by backing up S quickly, steering A or D, and pressing Spacebar at the same time, essentially a backwards drift. The Factory Cart has uncontrollable drift when driven on any surface which is not perfectly flat unless driving backwards.

Creature interactions

If a wheeled vehicle runs over any creatures such as Hogs or Spitters, it will damage them and potentially kill them if enough damage is inflicted. Damage dealt is relative to vehicle speed and size.

Most creatures ignore the pioneer while driving a vehicle. The exception is Stingers, which will still pursue and attack, but cannot actually do any damage to the vehicle or Pioneer except via the Elite Stinger's poison cloud. Flying Crab Hatchers will hatch when the pioneer approaches in a vehicle, but the Flying Crabs themselves will remain idle.

Damage

Fall

Pioneers can receive fall damage when riding in some vehicle if the vehicle falls from a height. To avoid damage, exit the vehicle just before reaching the ground. Alternatively, an pioneer falling from height with the vehicle at the lower ground can avoid the fall damage by entering the vehicle just before hitting the ground (such as, by spamming E).

Vehicles themselves are immune to fall damage.

Fire

Wheeled vehicles can receive minor damage when hit by a Spitter's fireball attacks. When the HP of the vehicle (displayed at bottom left) depletes to zero, the vehicle is dismantled.

Poison

Pioneers in vehicles can receive poison damage from Poison Gas, regardless of if they are wearing a Gas mask or not.

Radiation

Pioneers are immune to Radiation damage while inside a vehicle.

Water

Wheeled vehicles become disabled if they enter deep water, ejecting the pioneer and refusing to let them remount. This appears to happen when the water level reaches the center of the vehicle's hitbox, so Trucks can handle deeper water than Explorers or Tractors. If a vehicle does get stuck, it's sometimes possible to push a Truck back onto land, but usually the only solution is to dismantle the vehicle and rebuild it out of water.

Out-of-bounds damage

While in a vehicle the pioneer is immune to out-of-bounds damage.

Automation

A Truck arriving at an outpost.

Path recording and usage

The automation uses way-points (displayed as triangles) for pathing. Vehicles now follow way-points more exactly by using "splines" to connect one way-point to another way-point. It is a point-to-point system, which means vehicles will always face the current way-point until they reach the next. This means that vehicles will not correctly execute recorded three-point turns, though they can perform multi-point turns on their own initiative.

Automated driving requires a clear straight path between way-points and a closed path "loop" to work optimally.

To setup autopilot use the vehicle menu (press Q while driving) to record a path. All recorded paths are required to be in a closed "loop" by ending on previous way-point or pause point.

When recording, way-points displayed as blue triangles ▶ are placed periodically along the vehicle path pointing in the direction of travel.

Automated Vehicles have to be instructed to stop at the Truck Station while recording, which is indicated by a pause point displayed as a yellow double vertical line ❚❚.

After recording, way-points and pause points can be edited by interacting with them, to delete superfluous nodes or adjust pause times.

Automated vehicle paths can be saved after recording, and loaded via the vehicle menu to other vehicles of the same type that was used when path was recorded.

Collision avoidance

Vehicles will not actively avoid obstacles (including another vehicle) by driving around the obstacle, but will collide with obstacle without causing any damage to the vehicle.

If a vehicle collides with an obstacle (including another vehicle), it will reverse in a curve, to either adjust its course, or to get out of the way of another vehicle, before returning to it recorded path after the collision situation has been resolved.

To avoid the need for collision avoidance, players can both record path to avoid stationary obstacles (foliage, landscape, buildings / machines, etc.), and/or have multiple Automated Vehicles following the same "path loop" as long as they are going in the same direction and don't cross over (touch) another "path loop".

Deadlocking

Vehicles can get "deadlocked" if there is no way for vehicles to perform collision avoidance. This is by design and intentional in order to avoid issues.

To prevent deadlocking, Players need to design vehicle path loops that make sense and don't cross over (touch) another "path loop" without using any preventive measures.

If it is desired to record a vehicle path over another path (either from same vehicle or another vehicle), such for example when using a cross road intersection "+", the use of a "overpass" or "underpass" that avoids vehicles clipping one another, will prevent deadlocking and eliminate the requirement for vehicles to use collision avoidance maneuvers at that location.

Ghosting

If an automated vehicle falls off a cliff or raised platform (road) the game will "ghost" the vehicle to handle that situation and will automatically pick up automated vehicles that have fallen and return them to the designated path.

Ghosting is the very last obstacle avoidance resort the game will do in an effort to keep vehicle following their given path to the next destination.

Queueing

Vehicles will queue (line up behind one another) at Truck Stations and not collide.

Refueling

Vehicles will calculate how much Fuel they need for their given path and when at a Truck Station the vehicle will only take/use the amount of fuel they need.

Vehicles will wait to be refueled if both the vehicle needs fuel AND the Truck Station is full of fuel or is receiving fuel. Vehicles will receive enough fuel to make one "loop" of the path and get back to that same Truck Station again.

Vehicles will not wait to be refueled if the Truck Station has no fuel AND no fuel arrives within 5 to 9 seconds (same time as docking animation).

Adding truck stations

You have the ability to add a Truck Station to an existing recorded path. Doing so will replace existing way-points ▶ and add a pause point ❚❚ at that location which can be edited as desired by interacting with it.

Adding Truck Stations to existing paths can be useful, either as a pickup / drop-off point for resources or items, or even as a vehicle refueling station if needed.

History

Vehicle automation has changed since Closed Alpha. where, other than the Vehicle Menu, the most notable change was changing the blue arrows ⮕ to just triangles for vehicle way-points.

━━━━━━━━━━

Notes:

Railed vehicles

In the Train Station UI, switch to timetable tab and set the train schedule.

Monorail trains that consist of Electric Locomotives and Freight Cars can be driven manually or automated using the vehicle menu V. Trains are bound to Railways and cannot derail from them (with the exception of a train crash), even when reaching a dead end which will make them stop instantly.

It is not possible to couple or de-couple Freight Cars. Locomotives and Freight Cars have to be snapped to each other when being constructed, otherwise they will be counted as separate trains and will be able to collide with each other.

Automation

A train can be automated by adding Train Stations to its schedule. Trains will cycle through them in loops according to their timetables. Automated Trains will always be stopped at a train station if they fail to brake in advance, for example when the station is right after a steep down slope.

Fuel

Trains run exclusively on power which ranges between 25MW for each locomotive when it is idle up to 110 MW when speeding up. All train stations also consume 50 MW constantly, in addition +50 MW for every active Freight Platform.

Damage

Trains and all pioneers riding in it are completely immune to all forms of damage, as they lack the Vehicle Health bar completely.

• Continue reading: Electric Locomotive

Water

• Trains cannot be built on water, they can, however, be automated to pass through a Railway that is built underwater.
• Pioneers will be ejected out of a Locomotive as soon as the train enter the water's surface.

Flying vehicles

Drones can be used for low throughput long-range transportation as they don't need any infrastructure besides two drone ports which both need to be connected to power. Drones can be stood on by pioneers although it is recommended to wear a jetpack or parachute, as the pioneer might be thrown off of the drone as the drone accelerates, turns, raises or lowers.

Automation

Drones can be automated to bring resources between two drone ports, consuming 4 batteries per trip plus an extra battery per kilometer. Additionally, it takes roughly 50 seconds for the drone to take off or land at a drone port. This means a drone becomes more efficient over longer distances.

Fuel

Drones run exclusively on batteries, and at least one of the drone ports needs a supply of batteries.

Throughput

The throughput of a drone can be seen at a drone's home port, here you can see the max throughput, current throughput and trip duration.

• Continue reading: Drone
  

Gallery

• 

  Wheeled vehicles showcased in the dev blog

History

• Patch 0.8.3.2: You can now enter occupied Vehicles and kick out the driver if the driver is offline
• Patch 0.8.3.1: Invert Look option now also works on Vehicles and Trains
• Patch 0.8.2.0
  • Refactored the way Vehicles are outlined
  • Camera should not now rubber band as much when driving vehicles as it is now allowed to clip through various objects
  • Vehicle engines will now shut down when the vehicle is submerged in water
  • Fixed Players being unable to enter a Vehicle if another Player was interacting with the inventory of the Vehicle
  • Fixed sliding not ending when entering Vehicles
• Patch 0.8.0.0
  • Moved Vehicle physics to using Unreal Engine 5 Chaos
  • Overhauled all Vehicle sounds
  • Improved the manual driving of all Vehicles
  • Reworked all Vehicle trunks visually simplifying the animation and adding a new sound
  • Added functionality for Vehicles to deal damage to creatures by hitting them
    • Damage dealt is relative to vehicle speed and size
  • Undocumented Change: Removed Air Control (ability to do stunts)
• Patch 0.7.0.2:
  • Vehicles should work again :)
  • Enable Autopilot button now updates to the Disable Autopilot button after stopping a vehicle path recording
• Patch 0.6.1.1: Polish on the Vehicle Path directional arrows in the Load Path Menu
• Patch 0.6.0.14
  • Relevant items now shows fuel types
  • Record Vehicle Path button now updates properly
  • Editing a path node and setting the wait time to 0 now warns that the time needs to be over 0 seconds
  • Added a notification to indicate a path cannot be loaded because there are no paths
  • Fixed Vehicle paths being deleted from the Load Vehicle Path Menu not actually disappearing until the menu was closed
  • Added a warning when trying to record a vehicle path on a vehicle that has no fuel
• Patch 0.6.0.4: Fixed all build and dismantle interactions getting locked when entering a vehicle by pressing both Q and E at the same time
• Patch 0.6.0.1: Fixed a crash when damaging a player inside a vehicle with explosive damage
• Patch 0.5.1.12
  • Fixed a crash that could happen if there’s a deadlock near a non-automated vehicle
  • Decreased the collision-avoidance distance for automated vehicles
  • Fixed a crash for Multiplayer Clients and Dedicated Server Clients related to vehicle paths
  • Fixed an issue with vehicle path recording inside factories sometimes recording docking to Truck Station on floors above the vehicle
  • Fixed a crash related to the vehicle representation on the Map
• Patch 0.5.1.11
  • Fixed a bug where Vehicles would sometimes get displaced for Clients when far away from other players
  • Fixed issue where vehicles would get stuck ghosting
  • Fixed bug where the Load Vehicle Path UI would display inaccurate path lengths
  • Fixed several minor issues related to vehicle automation
  • Fixed a bug where automated vehicles would sometimes be able to move without fuel
  • Fixed issue where automated vehicles would sometimes stop moving when about to enter a station right after loading a game
  • Fixed issue with automated vehicles sometimes continuing to drive despite being blocked
  • Fixed an issue where removing a vehicle target would result in collision avoidance not working anymore for that path
  • Fixed issue with automated vehicles sometimes driving into other automated vehicles that are waiting in line
  • A HUD message is now displayed every time an automated vehicle gets completely stuck (“deadlock”)
• Patch 0.5.1.9: Load/Save Path menu is now disabled when there are no paths
• Patch 0.5.1.7
  • Overhauled the Vehicle Recording UI, no longer a radial menu
  • All Vehicle UIs (Trains and Vehicles) are now opened with Q key by default
  • Fixed some bugs with the Vehicle HUD not updating properly when stopping a recording midway without closing the loop
  • Fixed Freight Cars failing to load/unload correctly with the rule set to Fully Load/Unload which lead to them getting stuck in docking until force cancelled
  • Fixed Multiplayer and Dedicated servers Clients not being able to cancel the docking sequence
  • Fixed the Map not being properly visible for some players who had previously unlocked more areas of it and added some future proofing so this hopefully doesn’t happen again
  • Fixed an issue with automated vehicle wait times being reset when loading a game
  • Vehicles should no longer claim targets outside of stations when docked
  • Fixed a bug where sometimes vehicle pauses would be longer than intended when they were far from any player
  • Fixed issue where automated vehicles in long-distance mode would sometimes get out of sync for Multiplayer and Dedicated servers Client
  • Fixed bug where Vehicles weren’t placeable in the Truck Station docking area
  • Fixed crash that would sometimes happen when Vehicle path recordings were finished
• Patch 0.5.1.3
  • Fixed a bug where pause time on Vehicle Automation was not reset when manually overridden
  • Automated vehicles will stay docked until their inventory is empty if unloading cargo
  • Moved positions of “Cancel” and “Start/Stop Recording” in the Vehicle Record Menu to avert accidental selections of “Stop Recording
• Patch 0.5.1.1
  • Vehicle path arrows in UI now have the correct positions
  • Fixed a possible exploit in Vehicle fuel calculations
  • Made Vehicles take available fuel for as long as they are docked
  • Fixed the fuel consumption metrics in the Truck Stations not accounting for pauses and docking times in the path time
  • Fixed a bug where a vehicle might be blocked indefinitely when in long distance mode
• Patch 0.5.0.14
  • Vehicles now try to stop ghosting as soon as possible when blocked
  • Fixed a calculation error when fuel is added manually
  • Directional arrows for the Vehicle in the Map preview when loading a Vehicle Path are now displayed from the centre of the Vehicle
  • Added a tooltip for insufficient fuel
• Patch 0.5.0.13
  • Fixed an issue where Vehicles would not receive fuel from a station if their fuel inventory was empty
  • Fixed an issue where Vehicle Paths were not updated after a station was built over them
  • Fixed issues with Vehicles getting out of sync with their Vehicle Stations after loading a game
  • Fixed Vehicles burning up fuel when standing still
  • Added directional arrows to the path in the Map preview when loading a Vehicle Path
• Patch 0.5.0.12
• Fixed an issue with vehicles being stuck docking forever if there were Fuel issues
• Better detection for when vehicles fall through the ground
• Fixed issue with vehicles sometimes teleporting upwards when loading a game
• Patch 0.5.0.11
  • Fixed a crash related to Vehicle Automation
  • Fixed a crash when deleting Vehicle path nodes and trying to load that Vehicle Path
  • Removed “Delete Path” option from the Vehicle wheel as you can now use “Cancel Recording” does the same thing
• Patch 0.5.0.9
  • Fixed Vehicle paths selected from the "All Vehicle Path" tab made by a different vehicle remaining selected when returning to the "Load Vehicle Path" tab
  • Fixed a crash in the Vehicle system
  • Fixed remaining issues with Fuel and Vehicles
  • Vehicle docking wait times are now saved
• Patch 0.5.0.8
  • Manually driven Vehicles now take Fuel from Truck Stations
  • Fixed a Vehicle related crash
  • Hopefully fixed all issues with the Vehicle Refueling logic
  • Hopefully fixed all issues with Vehicles running out of fuel
• Patch 0.5.0.7: Fixed Vehicles not docking properly when in long-distance simulation mode
• Patch 0.5.0.6
  • Fixed Vehicle physics not working as intended on Foundations
  • Fixed Vehicle icons not rotating on the [[Map]
• Patch 2018-10-11: Introduced