Drones are robotic craft that are only used when supporting their owning ships or stations.Drones fall into two broad categories:Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV; remotely-piloted by the player).Only available for the Player Ship).Offer a range of fighting and support capabilities.Unmanned Ranging Vehicle (URV; autonomous drones).Fighting class (able to be equipped by capital ships and the Player Ship).The Skunk may equip a maximum of 8 drones, which can be of most of drone types. There is a maximum drone control range of 20 km outside which drones self-destruct. drones must be bought from drone dealer NPCs: they cannot be bought from Shipyard Ship Dealers. All drones in the Skunk can be accessed through the Ability Menu ("T"). The Ability Menu contains 10 buttons and respective hotkeys. The prominent 8 blue ones correspond to equipped drones. The red ones at the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions appear when the mouse hovers over those areas. At 9 o'clock is the Smart Defence command, which launches all available Fighting URVs, which adopt defensive rules of engagement (see below).

The command at 3 o'clock, Recall Drones, instructs deployed Fighting URVs to dock. All drones can be individually launched through the Ability Menu, and launched URVs will automatically dock after a period of inactivity. While the Skunk is capable of carry up to eight fighting URVs, the player is MUCH better served bringing along a Light Sul or even a Rahanas if they wish for sustained drone support. While these two ships are unlikely to survive heavy combat they do provide the potential for many waves of drone reinforcement, whereas the Skunk has none after the first eight are gone.Later in the game this can be eased through storing drones on stations and using Manual Transfer orders to equip them to our own stations.Example stations for drone resupply hubs: Rebirth 4.00 simultaneously introduces the ability for stations to use fighting drones, and a streamlined way for station Managers to replace lost drones through the new Supply Options menu. Perhaps if we're lucky, the next game or a mod could support the automatic resupply of combat drones on ships (related L3+ Ideas thread, requiring DevNet membership via forum profiles, is here).

As the name suggests, these are drones that needs to remotely control; as such, only one may be used at a time. When exits the drone it will automatically return to . If "retain speed in menus" is set to "no", the Skunk will be immobile during this time; if not, which may include while in Flight Assist Off mode (not tested), the Skunk will drift away. No more than two of a particular Support ROV may be equipped at a time. The Trojan is a little odd in that it is described as an "ROV/URV" but in practice, it only behaves as an ROV.ClassNameMkCostSpeed(m/s)HullMax effective range to target (m)DPSFightingAssassin-24k2001k2 x Pulsed Maser 12,3802 x 1,400SupportBeholder120k100Detailed scanning of InfoPoints for revealing greater%s for hardened modules;Higher Marks unlock further 100-279k3244k-456k100--327k150Deployment of limpet mines<1,000?lotsStrictly speaking these should be called Autonomous URVs: they are drones that fly themselves and help in combat situations. Within the Skunks maximum, there are no limits on how many of an individual URV type may be equipped. Fighting URVs operate with rules of engagement similar to a Defence Officer's "Defending" order: once launched, they will automatically attack targets that are attacking the Skunk, but not those that are no longer able to attack at that time (eg if has nuked all their weapons).

ClassNameMkCostSpeed (m/s)HullEquipment / roleRange (m)DPSFighting*Interceptor170k2424k2 x Pulsed Maser 126k2,5202 x 2,000Intrepid1100k1968k2 x Plasma Repeater 12,8802 x 2,4002417k19612k3.0402 x 3,300Overrun1133k1648k2 x V Launchers??????; areaeffect2511k16412kSupportShield Support-17K2422KBoosts shield recharge after redocking-n/aDefence Grid-15K1642KGenerates a shield wall in front of the Skunkprobably bugged** n/aCivilian-   n/an/a-   Transferring wares between ships/stationsCollects ware containers in spacen/an/aSurface Miner***-   Collects Ice/Nividium/Ore/Siliconn/an/aScoop Collector***-   Collects Hydrogen/Ions/Plasman/an/a  * The Fighting Class also includes Assault URVs, which are essentially a URV equivalent of the Traitor ROVbuy parrot ar drone nz, but they do not work so are not listed. macdev drone dx special edition

** Whilst they look very nice and hint at potentially unique versatility, the shield walls don't seem to prevent weapon fire or ships passing through them. The Skunk bumps off their wall, or passes through with a bump at speed, so the walls may potentially detonate missiles (if they do, this could allow for some amusing but niche interactions with Balors and missile turrets).*** Employed by Mining Ships.Destroying the Drone Launch Pad destroys all docked drones (even cargolifters, which don't even launch from there) and prevents the equipping of new drones until it is repaired. ar drone 2 teileDrones that are in space when the pad is destroyed while the player is IZ are unaffected.parrot ar - drone 2 bleuIt's a somewhat complicated issue to adjust because drone presence is tied into Boarding Resistance and the only way to reduce Boarding Resistance derived from docked drones is by destruction of the pad. parrot ar drone 2 teardown

Loss of a drone pad and its remaining drones can explain why you may see no info about units afterwards as when there are no drones left, that part of the ship's Detail Menu in the UI does not appear.Occasionally the player may run into an issue with boarded ships having no drone launch pad but still listing some units as "in use" (usually cURVs repairing the ship). Despite being "in use" they seemingly have no physical manifestation so the units may be permanently stuck in this state, surviving even if the drone launch pad is destroyed again. parrot ar drone ball bearingsThis can be fixed by waiting until the drone launch pad is rebuilt and then transferring the drones back and forth with another ship or station. After the transfer completes they will function correctly as normal units.Unfortunately, drone pads are always one of the last components for an Engineer to repair and without one it is impossible to launch Construction URVs (cURVs) which would otherwise increase repair speed drastically.