Drones Guide
What drones are
Drones are an officially confirmed system in [💎] Sell Ores ⛏️. You place ores; drones mine them into crates you can sell. They are the automation layer of the base, including while you are AFK, and the official description confirms offline earnings.
How they fit the loop
Roll an ore, park it on a pedestal/compartment, let a drone finish the job, sell the crate. More tunnel/compartment slots mean more parallel ore/drone jobs. Drill Speed makes each job finish faster; Drill Yield changes crate value, not how fast the drone swings.
Pets with drone-speed effects (Lizard, Hamster, Ostrich, Horse, Wolf, Bull, Gorilla) burst that clock. Gorilla is the strongest drone-speed burst in the current pet table (+100% mining speed for 20s every 150s).
Offline setup
No drone rarity tiers, drone drop tables, or official offline earnings cap are listed here. For AFK, fill pedestals, keep drones assigned, buy Regen Speed so new ores appear, and optionally fire a Growth Gem. Then leave. Details live on the AFK & offline guide.
Drones in the official loop
Without drones, placed ores do not become crates you can sell. They are not an optional late-game pet. Drone names, rarities, hatch times, and a shop price list are not in the current records, so those fields stay blank.
Slots, floors, and parallel jobs
Tunnel/compartment slots add parallel ore/drone capacity. Floor 2 and Floor 3 buys more space. That is why a $10,000 Floor 2 unlock is an automation purchase as much as it is a “new area.” AFK setup is: fill those slots, keep drones assigned, raise Regen Speed so replacements appear, raise Drill Speed so the assigned drones actually finish.
Documented drone-speed pets
Lizard 5%, Hamster 10%, Ostrich 18%, Horse 30% as passive faster mining; Wolf / Bull / Gorilla as timed bursts (+40% / +75% / +100% for 20s). Gorilla is the pick for drone-speed burst. Cerberus has an AllThingsHow note about passive drill buffs plus a huge money boost, but the AllThingsHow pet tables did not enumerate the Exotic ability text — so Cerberus is not used as a drone-speed rank.
No auto-farm, no executor
AFK-friendly is an official design statement. External scripts that click for you are not. If your drones already work offline, you do not need an executor, auto-rejoin, or macro.
Related: drill upgrades · beginner loop · pets.