How do you use Drones?

[PvK]

* Recon devices to scout and/or check for minefields. Advantages are zero happiness loss on destruction, and zero maintenance.
* To amass a surprise force that the enemy can't easily see, since many can be put in cargo storage, and don't appear unless the enemy can do a long-range scan inside the container.
* When excess resources are not abundant, to continue to increase military strength without adding maintenance cost to the fleet.
* Loaded with seeker launchers and set to Max Range strategy, can be used to overwhelm PD, especially combined with other seeker launchers, kamikaze drones, and fighters. This is one of the few ways in the unmodded game to have a chance of overwhelming numerous high-tech PD in a large battle.
* To scare the enemy and keep them guessing and changing their designs and strategies. A strong direct-fire fleet can be wiped out by enough drones if they don't have enough PD and/or have inappropriate strategies set. Once the enemy feels the risk, they may start deploying more PD and using less effective strategies against ones own strong direct-fire fleets.

PvK