Drones

Drones doing drone work

Drones are autonomous craft deployed from a ship with a Drone Bay, which can be configured 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 defence 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 Drone 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 can 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

Drones don't have their own isolated Power. When a drone fires, it draws from a shared pool built from the ship's matching activity Power (Combat/Mining/Salvage — see Power), the ship's DronePower stat, and the sum of every loaded drone's own Power. That pool is then sliced into per-drone attack power by the standard per-turret formula.

In rough terms:

• Adding more drone slots adds firepower overall, but each individual drone's per-shot power drops slightly as the pool is shared more ways.
• The bay's tooltip "Drone Power" figure is cosmetic — it tells you what each loaded drone's turret is rated at, not the actual stat used in damage math (see Power § DronePower vs. the bay's displayed figure).
• Drone shots feed off ship Power, but the reverse is not true — drones' own Power does not contribute to ship turret damage.

For the exact pool formula, the per-stat inheritance rules (which ship buffs reach the drone and how much, including the stats that are not inherited at all), player-only skill paths, charts, and a full worked example, see Damage and mitigation § Drones.

Drone hardpoint size

Drone turret size is baked into the drone prefab itself — the bay's size only controls how many drones launch, not their hardpoint class. In vanilla, every player-unlockable drone variant (mining laser, mining core / driller, salvage laser, salvage harpoon, combat laser, combat missile) carries a Small hardpoint.

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:

See also

• Damage and mitigation § Drones — drone shared-pool formula, per-stat inheritance rules (including stats not inherited from the commander), charts, worked example.
• Power — what feeds each PowerStat, the Base Power mirror, DronePower vs. the bay's displayed figure.
• Damage and mitigation — full damage / mitigation chain that drone shots run through.