Drones: Difference between revisions

{{Update|Need info from Summon the Swarm patch in regards to mutated drones and modules}}

'''Drones''' are semi-autonomous vehicles launched from ships and designed to augment the launching ship's capabilities. All four races use drones to a greater or lesser degree, so many ships, especially larger ships, will have drone capabilities.

This window also shows the active status of any drones you currently have in space. These are listed in the last folder. If any of those drones are damaged, the three little bars to the right of the drone will turn red - indicating hull, armor and shield … in that order.

Drones can be grouped through the drone control window. This makes controlling drones easier, as you can give a command to the entire group. To move a drone in or out of a group, right-click on the drone, or drag it in or out of the group.  

:These target asteroids or ice and [[mining|mine them]] for resources.

===Drone bay===

Additionally, you can use keyboard shortcuts for many of these commands. These can be changed in the [[Game Settings]] window.

! Command

! Shortcut

=== Flight behavior settings ===

You can modify your drones' default behavior through the drop down menu at the top left of the drone control window.  

*'''{{co|wheat|Passive}}'''<br>

=== Damaged drones ===

Your drones can take shield, armor, and structure damage during a fight (just like your ship). Their shields will regenerate slowly, whether the drone is in space or in your drone bay (at the same rate), but armor and hull damage needs to be repaired. When in combat with drones, keep an eye on your drone's health through the drone control window, and when a drone starts taking armor damage, recall it to your drone bay and launch a fresh drone (if you have spares) - it's much cheaper to repair drones than to replace them.

! colspan=2 | Empire factions  

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! colspan=2 | Other factions

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Therefore, the four race's drones represent a sliding scale between damage and speed (the percentages in the table below are relative to the worst-performing drone family). Note that the table lists two values for speed: the speed with MWD on (when the drones are chasing a target), and the orbital speed with MWD off (when the drones are orbiting and attacking a target).  

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! colspan=4 style="background-color:#111111;border:none;" |  

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In addition to the basic Tech 1 drones (described above), there are four other [[Techs, Tiers and Meta levels|variants]] of drone within each race's light/medium/heavy drone lineup:

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==== Sentry Drones ====

*The Bouncer and Curator are in the middle and somewhat comparable; the Curator having a higher tracking speed and slightly higher damage factor, while the Bouncer has a longer range.

|+ '''Sentry Drones: Comparison'''

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|| Bouncer || Minmatar ||align="center" | + ||align="center"| -  ||align="center"|- {{icon|ex damage|18px|Explosive damage}}

{| class="wikitable sortable collapsible collapsed" style="text-align:left; font-size:80%;"

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|| [[Image:Bouncer.png|30px]] Bouncer|| Minmatar || {{icon|ex damage|24px|Explosive damage}} || 30 +6 ||45 +9  ||.014 + .003 || 64  || 1.45  

| Sentry Drone Operation V<br />(Race) Drone Specialization I

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=== Electronic warfare drones ===

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Stasis webifier drones work much like Stasis Webifier modules ("webs"), slowing the sub-light speed of the target, making them easier to hit and damage. They are stacking-penalized with other SW drones or with normal web modules. For comparison, a Stasis Webifier I module reduces the target's speed by 50%.  

Mining drones will mine the targeted asteroid for one cycle (60 seconds), then return to your ship, drop off the mined ore (into your cargo bay or ore hold), and fly back to the asteroid to continue mining. Despite these drones having a MWD that is always running, they are very slow (about half as fast as heavy combat drones), and therefore it's important to keep your ship as close as possible to the asteroid they are mining, to avoid losing too much time in transit. Training {{sk|Mining Drone Operation|icon=yes}} and {{sk|Drone Interfacing|icon=yes}} improves their mining yield, and training {{sk|Drone Navigation|icon=yes}} increases their speed.  

Much like a mining module, if the mine cycle is manually cut short (in this case, by ordering the drone to return), the drone will get the amount of ore mined proportionally to how much of the cycle was completed, but in other cases progress will be cancelled, including if the ship has no more room for the ore by the time they return.

| 175 m/s

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For comparison, an Ice Harvester I module has a cycle time of 220 seconds.

| 90 m/s

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== Skills ==

== External links ==

[[Category:Drones]]

[[Category:Fitting]]