Drones drones drones

[Ed Kolis]

In Devnull, they get half price engines... and since engines are often the major part of the cost of a drone this could make them very attractive...

They get extra movement, though they can't use solar sails, so they're faster than ships until solar sails are developed...

They get higher defense bonuses than even an Escort (even though a Small Drone is larger)...

They require fewer command & control components (only a computer core instead of bridge/LS/CQ)

[Stone Mill]

I just lost a nice fleet to the Xi Chung (TDM) because they clobbered me with a stack of large drones when I invaded their home system.

These buggers have been annoyingly tough.

My point defense failed for the most part; could not hit other than at short/point blank range. This despite having sensors III and being trained 20/20. When I did hit, the drones soaked up A LOT of damage. I only managed to kill two or three, while losing 15 ships.

Xi Chung are berserkers, and had ECM III on the drones to boot. One hit obliterated a battleship easily.

If anyone knows, what is the drones inherent attack/defense bonus? Must have helped.

I never use drones (because of the cost), but this made me think. I finally did away with the drone threat, but it definitely required a massive rearmament of point defense... much more than I usually equip with a fleet. It can be a big surprise.

[Ed Kolis]

No attack bonus, but +50 to defense.

[Pocus]

What is interesting was the points developped by PvK : mostly advantages on an empire level, whereas StoneMill spoke of the unique assets of drones in tac combat.

thx all, a very instructive set of posting. Definitively to be archived...

[Karibu]

I think that drones are usable only when you have sufficient production capacity. They take a lot of time to build and they need a carrier -> more micromanagement, but I have tested that fully developed drones take down any ship put against them. Of course, you need to have enough of them. I tested like this:

10 drones against 3 base ships. Drones won. Why? I put on them 2 warheads, engines, ECM and couple of shields. They soaked insane amount of fire before destroyed. They are superior when ship has no Talisman or it is not very experienced (ie. hits with every gun). Though, drones are not for novices to use.

Consider this: If planet can target max 10 targets at every combat turn (excluding PD), lets assume it destroys 10 drones at first salvo (assume that planet is full of platforms). Then drones come within range of PD which takes down 3 more. Furthermore next round planet takes 10 more and PD takes again 3 = 26 killed drones. But when the rest ram into planet making 1000 damage (or how much was that planet warhead damage?) and 10 -15 drones hitting planet will propably glass it (2 warhead in every drone).

So, fully developed and defended planet taken down without single ship loss, but loss of units only. I admit, I haven't tested this yet in practice, but Swarming tactics is the only way to use them and it is effective one too. The best advantage of a drone over fighter is that it can have full phased shields, which fighters can't have.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Make a cloaked drone launcher, load it with anti-planet drones, send it into your friends empires and park it in a storm, use when need arise.

I actually sealed a win in a recent team game, by doing just that -- slipped some cloaked drone carriers into the enemy's home systems, and obliterated a half-dozen built-up worlds in each. Completely glassed about 1/3 to 1/2 of the enemy's real industrial capacity that way.

Granted, I and my teammate were already winning, it was only a matter of time ... but even if we hadn't been, those drones would have done some HEAVY damage to the enemy, all out of proportion to their cost.

...

It's a shame you can't put a starkiller component on a drone; it'd be a great way to pop entire enemy star systems. Heh.

[Nodachi]

I like drones combined with temporal tech. Late game you can build more than one large one at a time, used defensively they can max out at +175 defense (berserker +10, racial +25, ECM +60, drone +50, events predictor +30), and with solar collectors can hang around forever. Using NSP's and swarm tactics they become much more than an annoyance to an enemy fleet.