Large Drone Bay

The Large Drone Bay allows you to construct, edit, and control one customizable drone.

Placement

The Large Drone Bay takes up 5 x 8 x 3 tiles and the 8 levels directly beneath it must be empty, as it launches and recovers the drones through a force field in the deck. The most important access point is along one of the short sides, and includes a built-in staircase to the second deck, where the drone bay input and controls are located. You can alternatively design your craft so as to access the second deck of the bay directly. It is perfectly safe to walk across the deck of the bay unless you are launching or recovering drones. In these circumstances, the protective grating retracts, leaving only the force field to keep you inside the spacecraft.

Drone Uses

Currently drones have a number of different uses, namely attack orders for skrill (or other enemies) in sensor range, mining, and hauling cargo. Don't forget to fill your drone's stock of consumables - hydrogen, standard ammo, and/or standard missiles, depending on which attachments you include.

Drone Base - not good for much, add some additional systems to give its circuits a purpose.

Mining Drone - ensure to equip your drone with a mining laser and a cargo bay at minimum. You may also want to add the engine attachment for extra range, and the top turret for defense in a pinch. Add all of the minerals you want your drone to search out and then confirm your order and launch it. It'll keep looking for those resources, but only among the asteroids which are currently loaded in the system. Perhaps warp around a bit throughout areas with asteroids in order to load enough for your drone to find what you're looking for. Every once in a while, you may have to recall it in order to empty its stores of the riches you have just earned.

Cargo Drone - ensure to equip your drone with the cargo bay. It can now carry 16 tiles worth of resources anywhere in the system you'd be interested in sending it.

Defense Drone - With several turret and missile launcher attachment options, your defense drone can be a formidable opponent. Just don't let it run out of hydrogen or ammunition! Also, unless you have an automation card for your drone bay, you'll have to manually launch and select targets for your drone to destroy.