Drones
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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.
| Combat Laser | Fast Short ranged laser Drone. |
| Mining Surface | Surface mining laser Drone. |
| Salvage Surface | Surface Salvaging laser Drone. |
| Advanced Drones (unlocked with Advanced Drone Access skill) | |
|---|---|
| Combat Missile | Surface Salvaging laser Drone. |
| Mining Core | Done leaches on to a astaroidand drills, Core mining. |
| Salvage Harpoon | Harpoon leaches on to Wreaks, Core Salvaging. |
| Utility drones β (unlocked With Utility Drone Access skill) | |
| Painter | -15% Damage Reduction on target, Won't stack. |
| Scanner | Increase yield on target, Won't stack. |
| Shield Repair | Drone fires Repair bream that restores Shields. |
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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.
| Size | Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
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| Base Drones: | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| With Aspects: | 2x Extended Drone Bay +1: +2 | 2x Oversized Drone Bay +2: +4 | 2x Oversized Drone Bay +2: +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:
