Drones drones drones

[PvK]

Drones do add some valuable abilities not available to ships, but they require some fairly high understanding to use them effectively. They're very easy to use inefficiently, and many players don't figure out what they're good for. But they are good for several things, if you can figure them out.

Basics advantages of drones over ships:

* No maintenance is very important, in some situations.
* If your drone carriers have scanner jammers, enemies can't tell if your transports (or other ships) are stuffed to the gills with drones, or not - and a ship stuffed with drones can be much more powerful than a ship, even if it's also way more expensive to build.
* Drones in cargo don't use any fleet supplies to move.
* Drones don't take damage to their components - they operate at 100% ability until they are completely destroyed.
* Drones have speed and defense bonuses.
* Drones can soak up more point-defense than fighters or seekers - a combination of all three can overcome fairly heavy PD investment.
* No happiness loss to your empire when they get destroyed.
* They don't give enemies a full +1 experience when destroyed - much less.
* In games with a low limit on maximum ships/units per game in space, they count as one unit (or zero units when before launch), not one ship, so total strength can be much greater.

PvK

[Fyron]

Drones in the unmodded game are only useful when you have a long period of peace in which to build up huge stockpiles of them (due to their high build cost).

[Ed Kolis]

In Devnull, they get half price engines... and since engines are often the major part of the cost of a drone this could make them very attractive...

They get extra movement, though they can't use solar sails, so they're faster than ships until solar sails are developed...

They get higher defense bonuses than even an Escort (even though a Small Drone is larger)...

They require fewer command & control components (only a computer core instead of bridge/LS/CQ)

[Stone Mill]

I just lost a nice fleet to the Xi Chung (TDM) because they clobbered me with a stack of large drones when I invaded their home system.

These buggers have been annoyingly tough.

My point defense failed for the most part; could not hit other than at short/point blank range. This despite having sensors III and being trained 20/20. When I did hit, the drones soaked up A LOT of damage. I only managed to kill two or three, while losing 15 ships.

Xi Chung are berserkers, and had ECM III on the drones to boot. One hit obliterated a battleship easily.

If anyone knows, what is the drones inherent attack/defense bonus? Must have helped.

I never use drones (because of the cost), but this made me think. I finally did away with the drone threat, but it definitely required a massive rearmament of point defense... much more than I usually equip with a fleet. It can be a big surprise.

[Ed Kolis]

No attack bonus, but +50 to defense.

[Pocus]

What is interesting was the points developped by PvK : mostly advantages on an empire level, whereas StoneMill spoke of the unique assets of drones in tac combat.

thx all, a very instructive set of posting. Definitively to be archived...

[Karibu]

I think that drones are usable only when you have sufficient production capacity. They take a lot of time to build and they need a carrier -> more micromanagement, but I have tested that fully developed drones take down any ship put against them. Of course, you need to have enough of them. I tested like this:

10 drones against 3 base ships. Drones won. Why? I put on them 2 warheads, engines, ECM and couple of shields. They soaked insane amount of fire before destroyed. They are superior when ship has no Talisman or it is not very experienced (ie. hits with every gun). Though, drones are not for novices to use.

Consider this: If planet can target max 10 targets at every combat turn (excluding PD), lets assume it destroys 10 drones at first salvo (assume that planet is full of platforms). Then drones come within range of PD which takes down 3 more. Furthermore next round planet takes 10 more and PD takes again 3 = 26 killed drones. But when the rest ram into planet making 1000 damage (or how much was that planet warhead damage?) and 10 -15 drones hitting planet will propably glass it (2 warhead in every drone).

So, fully developed and defended planet taken down without single ship loss, but loss of units only. I admit, I haven't tested this yet in practice, but Swarming tactics is the only way to use them and it is effective one too. The best advantage of a drone over fighter is that it can have full phased shields, which fighters can't have.