Drones: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 19:09, 15 June 2026

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

The individual setup of drones is entirely up to the 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 and return them to the Ship when it decides to leave a POI. The 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

Available Drone types depend on the Drone skills unlocked.

Basic ones (mining laser, salvage laser, combat laser) are always available,
Advanced drone types (mining core, salvage harpoon, combat missile) are unlocked by Advanced Drone Access skill,
Utility drones (painter, scanner and shield repair drones) are unlocked by Utility 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 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

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 Drone Power stat, and the sum of every loaded drone's own Power. That pool is then sliced into per-drone attack power by a 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.
Drone shots feed off ship Power (a mining drone would use Mining Power), but the reverse is also true, drones' own Power contributes to ship turret damage.

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:
Base Drones:	3	6	9
With Aspects:	Extended Drone Bay: +2	Oversized Drone Bay: +4	Oversized Drone Bay: +4
With Skills:	Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control: +2	Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control: +2	Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control: +2
With max Hull Milestones:	+3	+3	+3
Max Drones:	10	15	18

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:

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:Drone Gathering.png|thumb|500px|right|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]].
+Drones are autonomous craft deployed from a ship with a Drone Bay, which can be configured to do any type of activity - [[Combat]], [[Mining]], [[Salvage]], or utility.
-The individual setup of drones is entirely up to the Player. It's quite common to use drones for defence while main turrets are dedicated to mining, or vice versa.
+The individual setup of drones is entirely up to the Player. It's quite common to use drones for defense while main turrets are dedicated to mining, or vice versa.
 [[Echo|ECHO]] can use drones, and will actively deploy and return them to the Ship when it decides to leave a POI. The Player can also deploy them manually by clicking the "Deploy" button at the bottom of the screen.
@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 [[File:Drones.png|500px|right|thumb|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.
+Available Drone types depend on the Drone skills unlocked.
+* Basic ones (mining laser, salvage laser, combat laser) are always available,
+* Advanced drone types (mining core, salvage harpoon, combat missile) are unlocked by '''Advanced Drone Access''' skill,
+* Utility drones (painter, scanner and shield repair drones) are unlocked by '''Utility Drone Access''' skill.
 {| class="wikitable"
@@ Line 23: / Line 27: @@
 == '''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.
+Once released, drones act on their own for most activities. They can be re-focused on a single Object by 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.
@@ Line 30: / Line 34: @@
 == '''Drone Power''' ==
-[[File:Drone mechanics v2.jpg|800px|thumb|right|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 <code>DronePower</code> 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.
+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 <code>Drone Power</code> stat, and the sum of every loaded drone's own Power. That pool is then sliced into per-drone attack power by a 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 "Drone Power" figure|Power § DronePower vs. the bay's displayed figure]]).
+* 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.
-* Drone shots feed off ship Power, but the reverse is not true — drones' own Power does not contribute to '''ship''' turret damage.
+* Drone shots feed off ship Power (a mining drone would use Mining Power), but the reverse is also true, drones' own Power contributes 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|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''' ==
@@ Line 62: / Line 59: @@
 ![[File:Drone Bay Large.png|thumb|center]]
 |-
-!Max Drones:
+!Base Drones:
+|3
-!3 (5*) (7**)
+|6
-!6 (10*) (12**)
+|9
-!9 (13*) (15**)
 |-
-!*With Aspect:
+!With Aspects:
+| Extended Drone Bay: +2
-!Up to 2 more Drones
-with Extended Drone Bay
+| Oversized Drone Bay: +4
+| Oversized Drone Bay: +4
-!Up to 4 more Drones
-with Oversized Drone Bay
-!Up to 4 more Drones
-with Oversized Drone Bay
 |-
-!**With Skills:
+! With Skills:
+| Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control: +2
-!Up to 4 more Drones
+| Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control: +2
-with the Skills: <br>
-Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control
+| Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control: +2
+|-
-!Up to 6 more Drones
+!With max Hull Milestones:
-with the Skills:<br>
+| +3
-Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control
+| +3
-!Up to 6 more Drones
+| +3
-with the Skills: <br>
+|-
-Drone Squad Expansion / Expanded Drone Control
+!Max Drones:
+| 10
+| 15
+| 18
 |}
@@ Line 95: / Line 93: @@
 Drone Bay View:<br>
 [[File:Drone Bay View.png]]
-== See also ==
-* '''[[Damage and mitigation#Drones|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, <code>DronePower</code> vs. the bay's displayed figure.
-* '''[[Damage and mitigation]]''' — full damage / mitigation chain that drone shots run through.
 [[Category:Game Concepts]]