Drones

Drone Overview

According to the Evelopedia, drones are “Self-propelled, remote-controlled robots for deep space operations.” In a more practical sense, they are remote controlled ships that more or less do what you tell them to do. Left unsupervised however, and they will begin to take action on their own.

Drones are launched out of drone bays on certain ships. Not every ship can carry drones, and some ships have unique bonuses that increase the effectiveness of the drones. Drones come in difference sizes and require different amounts of “bandwidth” from ship that launched them.

Drones are stored in a ships drone bay. Some ships can store more drones than they can fly at one time. And regardless of drone by size & bandwidth, you may only control 5 drones at a time. There are two exceptions to the 5 drone limit, however. First is a special ship called a Guardian Vexor. This ship was released via Blueprint Copies allowing 50 to be built. There are between 15 and 20 left and are considered some of the most prized ships in New Eden – as such will rarely be seen undocked. The other exception is certain class of capital ships.

The smallest drones are “Light Scout Drones”, and they take up only 5m3 of drone bay space. They also use 5 mbit/sec of bandwidth. These are the fastest but do the least amount of damage. The next size up is the “Medium Scout Drones” which use 10m3 of space and 10 mbit/sec of bandwidth. After medium scout drones come the “Heavy Scout Drones” and “Sentry Drones,” each use up 25m3 of drone bay space and 25 mbit/sec of bandwidth. “Fighters” are a special breed of drones. These are cruiser sized drones launched from carriers & motherships.

As mentioned before, bandwidth limits the drones you are controlling in space, where as drone bay size limits the size & amount of drones you can take. Example: The Vexor has 100m3 of drone bay space, so it can hold 4 heavy scout drones. However, it only has 75 mbit/sec of bandwidth. Since heavy scout drones require 25 mbit/sec of bandwidth, the Vexor can only have 3 of the 4 heavy scout drones flying at one time.

The other limit, as mentioned earlier, is the 5 drone limit. Using the Vexor as example again, the Vexor can carry 10 medium scout drones. Even with 75 mbit/sec bandwidth, the 5 drone limit prevents the Vexor from flying more than 5 at a time. All this, of course, is limited from the start by the pilot’s "Drones" skill level. Regardless of ship, drone bay & bandwidth, a pilot cannot control more drones than their Drones skill level. Drones Level 1 allows a pilot to control 1 drone, level 2 controls 2 drones and so on. To control 5, you must train drones to level 5.