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 and all living creatures (such as Lizard Doggos) can be run over by vehicles, but receive no damage. Every vehicle except for the Drone can be driven by the Pioneer.

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.

$$\frac{Fuel\ energy\ MJ}{Vehicle\ power\ MW} = acceleration\ time$$ 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
Pioneers can enter or exit vehicles by interacting 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 while in a vehicle locks the view to straight ahead, a second press unlocks the view. There are currently unknown features which will allow performing stunts. 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 while driving. This allows for tighter, sliding turns, for greater control. It is also possible to "J" turn by backing up quickly, steering  or, and pressing  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 knock them down and cause them to ragdoll. However, this will not cause any damage to their health, and they will be able to get up after some time or if the vehicle moves out.

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 Engineer approaches in a vehicle, but the Flying Crabs themselves will remain idle.

Fall Damage
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 ).

Vehicles themselves are immune to fall damage.

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

Radiation damage
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.

Automated vehicle paths
To setup autopilot: use the vehicle menu (press while driving) to record a path. When recording, way-points (displayed as blue triangles) are placed periodically along the vehicle path. Paths can be saved after recording, and loaded via the vehicle menu to other vehicles of the same type.

The automation uses way-points for pathing: 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. Waypoints and pause points can be edited by interacting with them, to delete superfluous nodes or adjust pause times.

Automated driving requires a clear straight path between way-points and a closed loop of them to work optimally. If a vehicle collides with an obstacle (including another vehicle), it will reverse and adjust its course, but vehicles will not actively avoid each-other.

Railed vehicles
Monorail trains that consist of Electric Locomotives and Freight Cars can be driven manually or automated using the vehicle menu. 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