[Noble713]

I don't think that drones are working yet. (I'm still playing the demo, however). Basically, they are little robotic ships that you can give a set of orders to and they will follow them until they are completed or they run out of supplies (in which case they blow up). I'm not sure if they are warp capable, but if they are you can use them as recon probes, or arm them with weapons and use them like SBMHAWK pods in Starfire (warp-capable missile pods that transit before the fleet and shoot up the defenses). Maybe the beta testers can tell us more.