Drones

Drones doing drone work

Drones are autonomous craft deployed from a ship with a Drone Bay, which can be configures to do any type of activity - Combat, Mining or Salvage.

The individual setup of drones is entirely up to player. It's quite common to use drones for defense while main turrets are dedicated to mining, or vice versa.

ECHO can use drones, and will actively deploy them and returns them to the Ship when it decides to leave a POI. Player can also deploy them manually by clicking the "Deploy" button at the bottom of the screen.

Drones can be destroyed by environmental hazards or by enemy activity. When destroyed, the Drobe Bay will manufacture new ones after a short delay. Leaving drones behind when doing an Emergency Jump is also not an issue, as the drones will be reset by the time they are re-deployed.

Drone types

Example Drone Layout

Available Drone types depend on the Drone skills unlocked. Basic ones (mining laser, salvage laser, combat laser) are always available, while advanced drone types (mining core, salvage harpoon, combat missile) are unlocked by Advanced Drone Access skill.

Advanced Drone Access skill

Behaviour

Once released, drones act on their own for most activities. They cna be re-focused on a single Object by double-clicking it - be it an asteroid or a combat vessel.

In combat all drones will focus the target clicked or that attacks the player first unless ordered otherwise.

While Mining or Salvage, once set free, drones start targeting everything in sight. When autopiloting/idling, ECHO will direct them to targets to focus on - whichever target ECHO chooses first.

Drone Power

Drone Power Distribution. Disclaimer: AI created image

Drone Power is split up between each Drone. This means if you have 5 Drones and 1000 Power, each drone has 200 Power.

Also Drone Power is separate for each drone type, meaning 2000 Power will apply to Combat Drones and Salvage Drones, even if they are mixed.

Example:

• Drone Bay, 4 Drones, 2000 Drone Power
  • 2 Combat Drones with 2000 Drone power / 2 = 1000 Drone Power per drone
  • 2 Salvage Drones with 2000 Drone power / 2 = 1000 Drone Power per Salvage Drone.

In addition, each Drone Type (Combat, Salvage, Mining) gets the Drone Power from the Bay + Combat/Mining/Salvage Power from Combat, Salvage and Mining modules, if applicable, but the Drone Bay power is not added towards turrets in reverse.

Drone Bays and Skills

Drone Bays exist in all rarities and sizes. Depending on the Size the bay can store and control different amounts of Drones.

Drone Bay sizes

Size	Small	Medium	Large
Picture:
Max Drones:	3 (5*) (7**)	6 (10*) (12**)	9 (13*) (15**)
*With Aspect:	Up to 2 more Drones with Extended Drone Bay	Up to 4 more Drones with Oversized Drone Bay	Up to 4 more Drones with Oversized Drone Bay
**With Skills:	Up to 4 more Drones with the Skills: Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control	Up to 6 more Drones with the Skills: Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control	Up to 6 more Drones with the Skills: Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control

There are 2 Drone Bay exclusive Aspects that increase the maximum Amount of Drones that can be stored and controlled.

Unassigned Drones

If a Drone Bay has free/unassigned drone Slots, the game will fill them up randomly. It's best to choose Drones until all slots are filled.

Drone Bay View:

Drone Mechanics Calculations

combatDronePool = commanderCombatPower + commanderDronePower + sum(all combat drones' CombatPower)

combatEquivalentTurrets = sum(ship combat turret ratings) + sum(combat drone ratings)

sharedCombatPower = combatDronePool / combatEquivalentTurrets

sharedCombatPowerAfterPenalty = sharedCombatPower * crowdPenalty

attackPowerPerDroneTurret = sharedCombatPowerAfterPenalty * droneTurretRating * droneTurretPowerMultiplier

damagePerShot = ( attackPowerPerDroneTurret / 5 ) * random(0.8 to 1.25) / defaultAttacksPerSecond

damageAfterCrit = damagePerShot * (2 + critDamage)^critCount

finalOutgoingDamage = damageAfterCrit * (1 + typeBonus + genericDamageBonus)

finalTakenDamage = finalOutgoingDamage * max(0.2, 1 - reduction - resist)

remainingDamage -> shield -> armor -> hull