Beware They Live

Level	3
Type	Mining
Objective	Kill all drones; mine 15,000 units(9,000 m³) of Mercium.
Factions	Rogue DronesRegion specific belt rats
Best damage to deal	EM ThSee NPC damage types
Damage to resist	Ex Kin ThSee NPC damage types

Mission briefing
You ever try mining with drones? Useful little guys, huh? Yeah, well, to a point… Turns out someone got the bright idea that if mining drones mine more ore, bigger drones would mine even more ore. This guy's team slapped some mining drone's AI into non-regulation heavy combat units and threw some mining lasers on. He even hacked the firmware so that the mining brains could control the weaponry, making some sort of self-sufficient mining machines. But of course the genius didn't test the things properly before sending them out to <System> to mine Mercium. And of course now he's made himself scarce. You can probably guess what happened. Now there's a bunch of haywire drones zipping about this rare mineral that we want — our guys in the lab need it for research, I guess. The drones aren't even mining the rock, last I heard, but they have tried to bore through any ship we send out there.... It's getting ridiculous. If you can, get out to <System>, neutralize the drones, and bring back all the Mercium; we'll pay you well for your efforts.

Drones for a Better Future
Since their invention sometime around the Gallente-Caldari War, drones have become commonplace in nearly all facets of life. Drones vary in size from that of a human eye up to those that rival the largest frigates, and they have been built to fill the roles of fighters, miners, and repair vehicles, as well as household cleaning units and tiny children's toys — not to mention their various military uses in space stations and on planetary surfaces alike. New uses for drone technology are being developed constantly.

This mission is doable in a mining barge with a light tank.

As in all mining operations belt rats may randomly spawn.