PYT Drone Generator

Make your own Transport Fever 3 drone fly from PYT - Drone 2020 bases. Fill in the form, copy the block, paste it over your model’s metadata.

How it works

The API is one tag. A vehicle model whose transportVehicle.filterTags holds "pyt_drone" is a PYT drone. Drone 2020 then:

sells it at every Drone Base (the bases sell only tagged drones);
gives it the Battery card, the range and eco mode, and the player’s speed and noise settings from the Drones tab;
names it on purchase (“Drone 1”, “Drone 2”…).

Everything else about the drone is yours: model, look, cargo, capacity, price.

The flight numbers below are the ones the PYT drones fly on: a light helicopter’s, worked out in testing. Keep them unless you want to experiment, since a drone that can’t lift itself never takes off. The output is the metadata = { ... } part of a .mdl only. Your model’s lods, boundingInfo and collider stay as your exporter made them.

The drone

Name in the vehicle shop

Description

Available from (year)

Until (0 = forever)

Lifespan (years)

Cargo

Cargo class

Capacity (units)

Load speed

PYT drone stations are cargo only, so a drone with seats for passengers won’t find a stop there.

Money & emissions

Price (-1 = game decides)

Running cost / yr (-1 = game)

Noise score

Pollution score

Drone 2020’s noise and pollution settings scale these in game.

Flight

Top speed (km/h)

Empty weight (kg)

Max thrust (N)

Wing area (m²)

The defaults are the PYT drones’ own. Drone 2020’s speed setting and eco mode adjust the top speed in game.

Size & model

Half length (m, X)

Half width (m, Y)

Height (m)

Crew seat group (a node in your model)

Sound

The size is the model’s box: the drone sits from 0 up to its height, centred on X and Y. The crew seat hides a tiny pilot inside the body, as the game’s helicopters need one. Any group name your model has works.

Lights

Landing light Position lights (red / green) White strobe Red beacon

Each light glows a mesh of the same name in your model (landinglights, positionlights, strobelights, beaconlights). They’re placed from the size above, as on the PYT drones. Untick any your model doesn’t have, or move them in the output.

Step by step

Export your drone from Blender (or your tool) as a TF3 vehicle .mdl, with version = 2 at the end.
Replace its metadata = { ... } with the block above.
Add Drone 2020 as a dependency in your mod.json (the second tab) and on your mod.io page.
Restart TF3 fully, build a Drone Base, and look for your drone in its shop.
Something odd? The Modder Notes list the crash messages we’ve met and their fixes. The game’s log, stdout.txt, names the line that failed.