Simple Dron

Simple Dron adds mechanical drones built from wood and iron, powered by coal, designed to feel like practical machines that belong naturally in Minecraft.

Instead of futuristic technology, the mod focuses on simple survival-friendly drones with wooden frames, iron reinforcement, visible rotors, smoke, storage and different jobs. Use them for exploration, farming, carrying supplies, lighting dark areas and combat.

🚁 Four Drone Types

Each drone is owned by the player who places it and includes 27 inventory slots for fuel, crops, ammunition and other items.

🔥 Coal-Powered Flight

Drones do not use futuristic batteries.

They run using:

Coal
Charcoal
Coal Blocks

Simply right-click your drone while holding fuel to power it.

Drones can also automatically take fuel from their own inventory when necessary, as long as a complete fuel item is available.

Flying, working, using the lantern and combat actions consume fuel. When fuel becomes low, drones can attempt to return to their owner instead of simply continuing until they are stranded.

📱 Control Tablet

The Control Tablet is used to link to and command your drones.

First place your drone, add fuel and then right-click the drone with the Control Tablet to link it.

While holding a linked tablet, the controls are:

• M — Change Drone Mode: switches between the modes supported by that drone, such as Hold, Follow, Return, Patrol, Farming or Combat.
• V — Toggle Lantern: turns the drone's light on or off.
• R — Recall Drone: orders the linked drone to return to you.
• Right-click a block with the tablet: sets that position as the work or patrol center.
• Right-click the drone with an empty hand: opens its internal storage.
• Sneak + Right-click an empty drone with an empty hand: picks the drone back up.

After picking up and placing a drone again, simply link the tablet to it again.

🎮 Drone Movement

Drones use assisted flight rather than moving like normal ground mobs.

They accelerate smoothly, slow themselves while hovering and adjust their following speed depending on how fast and how far away their owner is.

When following you, the drone attempts to predict your movement instead of constantly flying toward your old position.

The system also contains basic recovery behavior. If a drone becomes stuck in an open hole, it can attempt to climb vertically. If a following or returning drone becomes badly separated or remains stuck for too long, it can search for a safe loaded position near its owner.

Recovery checks collision space and does not intentionally force-load distant chunks or teleport drones between dimensions.

🌾 Farm Drone

The Farm Drone is designed for automatic crop work.

It currently supports:

Wheat
Carrots
Potatoes
Beetroot

The drone can find mature crops, harvest them, collect the drops into its own storage and replant the field when it has the correct planting item available.

Use the Control Tablet on a block to establish the center of the farming area.

Farming respects Minecraft's mobGriefing gamerule.

⚔️ Combat Drone

The Combat Drone is the strongest combat-focused variant.

It can engage hostile targets using drone projectiles and can also use dynamite.

Dynamite is a powerful option intended for dangerous situations. It produces a real explosion, so it can injure entities and damage the surrounding terrain.

Drone dynamite respects the mobGriefing setting.

Use it carefully around your base, farms and other players.

📦 Utility Drone

The Utility Drone is a general-purpose machine.

It combines useful storage with support functions and can also use basic drone projectiles.

It is useful when you want one drone that can accompany you during normal survival gameplay without specializing entirely in farming or heavy combat.

🔦 Scout Drone

The Scout Drone is intended for exploration.

It is useful for following the player, patrolling areas and providing light while exploring caves, forests or other dark locations.

Its lantern can be switched on and off directly from the linked tablet.

When appropriate, the light system can also help the nearby owner see in dark areas.

📦 Storage

Every drone has its own persistent inventory with 27 slots.

Storage can contain resources such as:

Coal and charcoal, harvested crops, seeds, ammunition, dynamite and general survival items.

To open storage, right-click your own drone with an empty hand.

A drone must be empty before it can be safely picked up.

💾 Persistent Data

Important drone information is saved with the world.

This includes its owner, remaining fuel, health and inventory.

When an empty drone is picked up, its remaining health and fuel are preserved instead of being reset.

🛡️ Ownership

The player who places the drone becomes its owner.

This prevents other players from freely controlling your drone through normal interaction and allows the tablet system to identify which drone belongs to you.

🌐 Multiplayer

Simple Dron is designed for both singleplayer and multiplayer.

For multiplayer, install the same version of the mod on both the server and every client connecting to it.

⚙️ Requirements

No GeckoLib, Create, Architectury or other external mods are required.

🧪 Beta

Simple Dron is currently in Beta.

The main drone systems are implemented, but balancing, visuals, AI behavior and additional features may continue to improve.

If you encounter a problem, please include your Simple Dron version, Forge version, steps to reproduce the issue and your latest.log or crash report when reporting it.

Build simple machines. Power them with coal. Send them to explore, farm and fight for you.