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| {{hatnote|This article details the use and various applications of drones. For an overview of the different types of drones, see [[Drones]].}} | | {{hatnote|This article details the use of drones. For a page that describes the kinds of drones and how they work, see [[Drones]].}} |
| Most of the information here will be useful for anyone who uses drones. The sections on PvP and PvE combat each have a subsection devoted to the use of dedicated drone boats (ships with large drone bays and hull bonuses to drone damage, hitpoints and/or dronebay space).
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| == Drone control ==
| | Drones have a wide variety of applications: including combat, e-war, logistics, and mining. |
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| === Drone control range ===
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| Your drones can attack/repair/mine anything within your [[Drones#Drone_control_range|drone control range]]. Once you've ordered them to attack a target, your drones will pursue that target anywhere within your drone control range, whether or not you continue to have that target locked. If the target leaves your drone control range, your drones will start to travel back towards you. However, they will not use their microwarpdrives (MWDs), so they will do this very slowly - to get them moving properly again you should manually order them to return and orbit or return and scoop, or give them a new target. <!-- check this! -->
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| Most drone combat occurs within about 50km of your ship, as for longer-range combat your drones' travel time becomes a major drawback. Therefore, a moderate investment in control range increasing skills is enough for most drone pilots. However, once you start using sentry drones, you will want to increase your drone control range as much as possible, as sentry drones still need their target to be within your drone control range before they can open fire, and the long-range sentry drones (Caldari and Minmatar models) have very long effective weapon ranges.
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| === Abandoned drones ===
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| If you warp away while your drones are in space, if your ship is destroyed, or if you give the "abandon" command, your drones will become inactive and remain stationary in space. At this point, anyone can recover them (by flying to them and using the "scoop to drone bay" or "scoop to cargo bay" command). You can also reconnect with any drones which you have personally abandoned by right-clicking on your ship (or the capacitor on your HUD) and selecting "reconnect to lost drones"; this works as long as the drones are nearby, [[Eve_Lexicon#On-Grid.2C_Off-Grid|on the same grid]]. It's not possible to use a tractor beam on abandoned drones.
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| If you've warped away without recalling your drones, but cannot directly return to the location (e.g. if you left your drones in a mission [[deadspace]] pocket, but you completed the mission, and therefore no longer have the bookmark for the location), you can [[Scanning|scan down]] your lost drones using combat probes.
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| === Grouping ===
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| [[File:Drone group.png|thumb|right|200px|Add drones to a group through the right-click menu.]]
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| Drones can be grouped through the drone control window. This makes controlling drones simpler, as you can give a command to the entire group (as opposed to having to command each drone individually). To move a drone in or out of a group, right-click on the drone, or drag it in or out of the group. Create groups of drones which you intend to launch and use together; usually, this means groups of five identical drones, but in some cases you may want to create groups with a mix of drones (for instance, a group of two heavy, two medium, and a light drone to make the most of a [[Vexor]]'s 75 Mbit/s bandwidth). You can delete unused drone groups by right-clicking on "Drones in space" header in your drone control window and selecting "Delete group".
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| === Damaged drones ===
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| [[File:Damaged drones.png|thumb|right|200px|Two damaged drones. The first drone has only taken shield damage, while the second drone has taken both shield and armor damage.]]
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| 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 (particularly for expensive Tech 2 drones).
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| You can easily repair all damaged drones if you dock at a station with repair facilities, at the cost of some ISK. Also, they get repaired automatically, without any cost (for free), while your ship is [[Citadels#Tethering|tethered]] to a [[Citadels|Citadel]].
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| If you don't have access to a station, you can repair drones in space by using remote armor and hull repair modules, or by using logistics drones. If you plan on being away from stations for a while, it may be a good idea to carry small armor and hull repair modules with you, and fit these modules to your ship (using a [[Mobile_Structure#Mobile_Depots|mobile depot]]) in between combat encounters to repair your drones. Light armor and hull logistics drones are also an option if you have space in your drone bay, but keep in mind that they repair very slowly - a single light armor repair drone takes about 3 minutes to fully repair a damaged heavy drone, while a small remote armor repair module can do it in about 30 seconds.
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| == Drone-centric factions == | | == Drone-centric factions == |
