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Hey thanks for doing this comparison @Finlay! Are you able to tell me the exact port to port distance for this test? I'm doing some calculations around this and that would be useful to know. Also, would you consider doing a follow-up video which shows the stats after a number of runs? The figures seem to settle after a while and they can differ as compared to just a single run.

If I understand correctly, If I am already making Rocket Fuel its a little cheaper aluminum-wise to just package some of that rather than build a whole battery production chain. It might be better Sulfur wise to make batteries if I'm getting power elsewhere but right now I am already building huge Rocket Fuel productions for power so I might as well bottle some of that up to start using Drones

Great vid, I was really happy when I heard that drones can use more than just batteries. Opens up a lot of doors and I love me some turbo fuel in my jetpack so I'll probably settle for that for now. Would've been funny to see packaged Biofuel in this experiment, it probably would make regular fuel look not too bad by comparison lol.

Thanks for this video. I am actually building a plastic factory and my first done port of this play through from the spire beach area that you are testing from. I plan to use Turbo Fuel for the first setup, and this was helpful.

I was today years old when I found out drones can use nuclear fuel.

so its a race ya want ...then that is what you get ...my head made a hole anime of a drone race now lol

I haven't used drones before but I'd like to give them a go in my current playthrough. What's the go with the maximum transfer rate? How does the fuel type affect this? I figured it would be determined by the belts in and out of the drone port like a truck station?

Flying with the drones looked really fun, also, very useful. I'm glad we have option of using expensive fuel for fast drone, and and just have option of using ordinary fuel. -sincerely Uel

i know what ill be doing with plutonium rods this play through ! thanks

turns out batteries are the ideal option overall, both fairly simple to manufacture and keeps the drones at good speed plutonium is quite a waste to be used as any vehicle fuel, I get it that it's one way to get rid of nuclear waste but you'd be better off either sinking it or making more power with it ionized should only be used for jetpacks honestly and fuel is simply the cheapest option available if speed doesn't matter at all

can drones run on packaged crude oil or biofuel?

I also noticed the usage of rocket fuel is less than bateries. And they have the same speed. And I think rocket fuel is generally easier to produce in large quantities than baterries

How about the acceleration ? Try lower distances like ascend ing and travelling through a factory.

It’s kind of breaking my brain that different fuels not only burn at different rates, but also cause vehicles to move at different speeds. Feels like too many variables.

Here are the times of travel and the number of each item it takes per trip (with the amount of time it takes for one item to be consumed (so the longer it takes the better)) - Ionized Fuel : 4:08 for 6.02 units (that’s ~41 sec/unit) - Plutonium Fuel Rod : 4:08 for 0.04 unit (that’s ~103 min/unit) - Uranium Fuel Rod : 4:22 for 0.08 unit (that’s ~54.5 min/unit) - Batteries : 4:49 for 9.71 units (that’s ~30 sec/unit) - Rocket Fuel : 4:50 for 8.29 units (that’s ~35 sec/unit) - Turbo Fuel : 5:33 for 30 units (that’s ~11 sec/unit) - Fuel : 6:14 for 79 units (that’s ~4.7 sec/unit)

Hey man, great video but you missed biofuel

This is a great video with a well thought out and run experiment. Thank you for taking the time to make this. One consideration in my mind is that the nuclear powered drones don't create any waste, so could be used to burn plutonium fuel rods to close the nuclear loop (depending on how many drones you have) without needing to create ficsonium.

Thank you. Looks like i'm going to skip nuclear for my gameplay. Or at least would try it on endgame.

for some reason the "Hi, I'm Finlay" introduction reminded me of direwolf20's intro

Good video. Would have been cool to see fuel consumed per trip by each drone instead of just fuel though! Would help for a calculation/cost of 1 uranium drine vs 2 fuel drones for example.

with the fuels that use less than 1 whole per trip, do they just never take more fuel after the first unit?

Pretty nice comparison, simple and I liked that you reversed the drone ports at the end.

The Geiger counter went nuts... 😂

Very good setup. I like the data. =)

Why not tested BioFuel?

Real good. Thanks

Videos like this makes me lament that there isn't really a downside to just making really long belts everywhere. The fun demands using all the alternatives, but to optimization addict in me demands belts, haha. Great comparison, by the way! Very clean and informative.

another thing to compare, due to the drone fueled by regular packaged fuel requiring so long to take off what is the difference at 1/4 this test distance?

Very scientific approach, sound experiment. Thanks for this!

That was very helpful!

does ficsonium not work on drones?

Time stamps: 0:00 The Setup + Explanation 3:21 Liftoff 5:53 Transfer Speed Comparison 7:40 Round Trip Time Comparison FAQ: Q: Why are the drone ports set up in a straight line rather than perpendicular? A: To avoid what was explained at the beginning in the video, with drones following the landscape. Setting them up like this makes sure they all take the exact same route. The ports are ordered 1234 <--> 1234 to keep the distance the exact same as well. Q: Can drones run on other fuel types? A: These 7 fuel types are all drones can run on currently. Liquid biofuel, any coal, and Ficsonium fuel rods are not supported. You can check the supported fuel types for drones (and other things) by clicking the fuel icon next to the input slot in the UI. Q: Why would I ever use the radioactive fuel rods? A: While yes, the fuel rods are radioactive, their consumption rate is miniscule compared to the other fuel types, so they can be much more efficient in terms of fuel used per trip. (I can't pin this comment because TH-cam considers it an "advanced feature" that needs ID or facial verification - no thanks?)

Thank you, excellent video. This was a really great change for 1.0 and gives you so many more choices in factory designs and focus.

So what I got out of this is that Ionized fuel is awesome, but Plutonium Fuel Rods can fuel things forever so long as they're being made and not causing radiation. I'd use those for like Nuclear and whatever since moving Uranium around isn't as easy by train.

I honestly had no idea you could use anything different from batteries, I always just produced a ton of batteries and had drones deliver batteries everywhere to all my drones, I just always just assumed they were electric drones, I wish I knew about using burnable fuel ages ago

can't ficsonium fuel rods be used as a fuel ?

soo theres a lot of extra talking that has nothing to do with the actual video taking up the time so you can hit the 10 minute mark... get to the point stop wasting my time...

This video was recommended to me at the exact right time, because I just finished my Ionized Fuel Plant for all my Drone needs. Good to see the estimated fuel consumption, since I couldn't find ANY info about it. Also makes me realize that my 520 packaged ionized fuel per minute are basically all I could ever need (hopefully) :D

Why is TH-cam suddenly suggesting another dragon to me

Great setup and video, thank you! It's also good to see my gut decision for rocket-fuel-fueled-drones validated. Consumption numbers were also very interesting to see. Thanks again!

Very cool test, this is a very significant difference! Nuclear fuel is a bit nasty i think. So, if you don't want to go for batteries, rocket fuel probably ist the fuel of choice. easy to produce and fast.

Interesting. Thank you.

Thanks for the complete absence of nonsense in this video

very nice. getting close to drones in my playthrough, and i've been wondering about the speed differences myself. personally, i feel like even if the radioactive fuels are much faster, it's probably not worth dealing with the radiation, but that's just my take. for a "more perfect" scientific test, having all of them placed side-by-side would be ideal, though with matched rows at either end, i don't think it would actually make any difference.

Fascinating. I didn't know fuel affected speed, I thought it was just the burn rate. Thanks for doing this, and love your avatar!

Speed and consumption is already listed on the wiki since release.

great video, just started using drones so this is very nice to know!

great comparison! thank you

thank you for making this video

I recently discovered that all my drones should be using plutonium fuel, and it doesn't really cause radiation. Never using any other type of drone fuel again.