What’s new in the Fish & Drones Update
The 4th major content update for Miju Games‘ The Planet Crafter, titled The Fish & Drones Update, was released on the 1st of March, 2023. Terraformers continue their mission to procure and produce diverse biomass for the planet in this update. A new drone logistics system has been introduced to help players automate tedious work, and the waterfall suddenly looks different.
Animal Biomass has unlocked
After we were introduced to the Insect Biomass metric in the Insects & Waterfalls update, an Animal Biomass metric was teased simultaneously. Now, players have the means to begin the production of animal biomass by cultivating Fish eggs and spreading animal biomass. Terraformers must collect phytoplankton from various water sources to begin fish generation.
Similarly to insects, players may find different eggs in different locations of varying biomass modifiers. Set up Water Life Collectors in these varying locations to increase your chances of finding uncommon and rare fish eggs.
New game mechanic: Drone Logistics
The Drone Logistics addition is a game-changing system added with the Fish & Drones update. Drones are used as an automated logistics system for shuttling resources and items. The drone system can vastly improve your play session, especially once you have a bustling and thriving production system setup. With little effort, you can utilize the drone system to save you time and redundant running around to ferry resources from one locker to another.
To utilize the drone system, first, set up a drone station. Once you’ve created a drone station, you’ll notice three control screens. The middle screen provides crafting access to generate drones for your system. If you have the necessary materials in your inventory, click the drone to craft one.
The left screen is the drone station’s inventory. Place drones in this inventory to enlist them in the logistics system. If you wish to have drones deliver materials to the drone station, you’ll find the items by accessing this screen.
The right screen is your overview of the drone system. This screen reports on the inventories with an open demand (configured to accept a resource from a delivery drone) and inventories with an open supply (configured to provide a resource to delivery drones).
Setting up inventories for drone delivery
The drone delivery system may seem a bit daunting initially, but it is quite simple. Every container in the game has an inventory logistics control function indicated by the cog icon. Clicking this icon will open up the container’s logistics screen. This screen allows you to set two I/O functions: demand, or input, and supply, or output.
Demand setup
Set up an inventory’s demand filter by clicking the box icon with a downward arrow. Doing so will bring up a screen filled with every option for items you can store. Click one or many items you wish to have added to the container’s demand, and a drone will queue the container for delivery as soon as the supply for that item becomes available.
Supply setup
Set up an inventory supply filter by clicking the box icon with the upward arrow. This filter will allow any items you set to be added to the supply chain for drones to carry to demanding containers. A great example of a container that would benefit from setting supply is an Ore Extractor. As soon as the extractor pulls an ore from the ground, that ore becomes available for a drone to carry off to your desired storage container for that ore–freeing you up for more exploring.
New biomass crafting: Fish Eggs
Like the various larva at the Insects stage, fish eggs come in multiple colors and biomass modifiers, too. Some fish eggs can be crafted in the Incubator, while others can only be found by placing Water Life Collectors in various water sources around the planet.
First, you’ll need some new biomaterials to begin crafting fish eggs. Phytoplankton can be filtered out of water sources using Water Life Collectors and come in three varieties, much like larvae. Combine this phytoplankton with some mutagen and fertilizer in an Incubator, and you’ll be able to create fish eggs! You can make 11 different kinds of fish with varying animal biomass modifiers.
New types of fish
- Fish Provios Eggs – 100% animal biomass
- Fish Vilnus Eggs
- Fish Gerrero Eggs – 150% animal biomass
- Fish Khrome Eggs – 200% animal biomass
- Fish Ulani Eggs – 250% animal biomass
- Fish Aelera Eggs – 300% animal biomass
- Fish Tegede Eggs – 300% animal biomass
- Fish Ecaru Eggs
- Fish Buyu Eggs – 350% animal biomass
- Fish Tiloo Eggs – 400% animal biomass
- Golden Fish Eggs – 500% animal biomass
Place your fish eggs in a Fish Farm to spread these colorful creatures around your waterways, or put them on display in aquariums.
New Items in the Fish & Drones Update
Over a dozen new items and machines have been added to help with the Fish stage of terraformation:
- Aquarium T1
- Aquarium T2
- Circuit Board
- Deconstruction Microchip T2
- Drone Station
- Drone Visibility Rocket
- Drone T1
- Fish Farm
- Fish Eggs
- Fish Display (unlocks at 2.5T animal mass)
- Gas Extractor T2
- GPS Satelite T4
- Mutagen T3
- Nitrogen Cartridge
- Phytoplankton A
- Phytoplankton B
- Phytoplankton C
- Water Life Collector
Giant Waterfall Revamp
The giant waterfall biome has become almost unrecognizable! The previously-barren area surrounding the waterfall structure has been transformed into a tropical paradise with lush, new foliage and trees, new tide pools, and new features to explore. Fans of waterfalls will not be disappointed with the changes and additions made in this biome.
Some changes to the Waterfall include:
- Lowering of the terrain around the waterfall lake
- Addition of permanent trees and foliage
- Waterfall rock structure updates
- New pools and waterways
- New secrets to discover
Other changes in the Fish & Drones update
- Oxygen is no longer infinite when underwater.
- Looting items in shallow water now works!
- A new shipwreck is available to explore!
- A bug fix now prevents the player from jet-packing through dome ceilings.
- Improvements to particle effect performance.
- A bug fix prevents the Incubator from sometimes not selecting a recipe.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you in the next update.
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