Drones
What are they?
Drones are automated combat platforms that provide a variety of uses, such as healing, killing enemies, protecting galaxies and trade routes, assisting in large scale combat, providing helpful auras to allies and other drones, or in rare cases even disrupting another player's visual field!
How do i obtain the skills necessary to use Drones?
The most common place for you to start your automated destruction journey is in Sol, the big base there always has atleast a few levels of Drone Deployment. If you want to pursue this specialty further i recommend going to Prism for higher levels.
How do i obtain drones?
As most everything in Star Sonata, drones can be obtained in many ways.
The common ways of obtaining them are;
Most AI(artificial intelligence) bases sell drones at this tab
and can be exchanged for credits [provided you have the proper hull space and funds]
Looting/Raiding, many drones have a chance of dropping off of NPC ships such as goblins, Infernos, and the Space Blue family.
Player Bases/ Other Players, drones can be bartered from other players and player bases, for credits or even a variety of items negotiated upon.
Blueprints, if a drone blueprint is installed at a base of the proper tech and is provided with the materials listed, it can be built and used.
Capture, some enemy drones may be captured and made your own. To do this, you must irradiate them with a radiation weapon. When you have reduced their shields to zero drone will become hostile to everyone. At this point, anyone can scoop the drone up and become the new owner. However, the drone is still functional, and as such, will continue firing at you until you can scoop it.
How do i identify drones in my cargo?
Drones can be identified by two different icons indicating the type
the first,
is for temporary drones and the second, 
indicates that the drone is permanent. Drones are also usually accompanied by the word "Drone" next to the name of the item.How do i gear my drone?
You don't have to, drones come with their gear already pre-loaded and ready to go, all they need is a little juice!
How do i use drones?
You will need a ship, an energy, a drone scoop, and some drones. *NOT ALL SCOOPS CAN BE USED ON DRONES*
Temporary Drones- used for on-the-go combat situations and can be moved around and scooped easily, but decay if left without being scooped too long. (See basic drone stats layout to determine how long.)
Open your hull
find the drone you want to use and drag it to the hotkey bar <Pictured> click to activate, they will equip and begin charging, using your energy. After a set charging period you will be able to deploy the drone, do so by clicking the drone or pressing the hotkey associated.
When you are done using the drone, go over your drone and press "c" to scoop it, it will be transferred back into your hull and begin charging again.
Permanent Drones-
After receiving a permanent drone(these come in two types, unattached which are free-floating and attached, which can be attached to a planet by selecting the object, then using the drone) you will want to find a place to lay it.
You can identify a perma drone by the time limit <shown in basic drone layout at the bottom of this article> these are significantly stronger than temporary drones but have some drawbacks... they are significantly larger, instead of using a charging system, they consume the amount of energy instantly (which means you'll need a large ship with a large energy storage for them), they can only be laid in certain areas (no perilous space, owned galaxies on another team, dg's etc.)
Drone Capacity
While you can have as many drones in your hull as your heart desires, but only a certain amount of drones are allowed to remain equipped and charging, different classes of ships have different numbers of drone charging ports...
Capital - 12
Freighter - 18
Heavy Fighter - 8
Light Fighter - 4
Drone Related Equipment
Drone Ops Augmenters
Taking the place of normal augmenters, these augmenters add bonuses to temporary drones that are placed from a ship with the augmenter equipped. Drone ops augmenters come in a variety of types;
Offensive - Major bonuses to total damage output.
Defensive - Major bonuses to shield and recovery.
Everlasting - Major bonuses to Electric regen and Energy bank.
General - Significant bonuses to most all stats.
These can all be obtained by exchanging the respective tech Token for any augmenter. Tokens drop from any uber or dungeon, but the tech that drops depends on the danger factor.
Drone Controllers
Essentially augmenter overloaders for drones, these take about 40 of a certain common augmenter (minor firing, std. electric, etc) to build. They give a listed bonus to temporary drones when equipped, though you can only have one equipped at a time.The blueprints for these can be bought only in shadow.
Overloaders
Certain ship overloaders have a bonus to drone ops, these overloaders affect the temporary drones layed from that ship, when equipped. Overloaders with bonuses to drones can be obtained throughout the game, they drop from dungeons, ubers, and can be bought and earned from the Engineer's Workshop in Lyceum
There are a number of other items, but I won't spoil the surprise, you need to discover these for yourself
Drone Related Skills
Drone Mastery, a subskill of the engineer class gives a weighted (true number) bonus to most drone stats:
+0.5% Damage per level
+1% Shield regen per level
+1% Elec regen per levl
-1% Visibility per level
+1% Rate of fire per level
+1% Range per level
+1.5% Energy bank per level
+1.5% Shield bank per level
+1.5% Tracking per level
+3% Radar detection and visibility per level
Station Mastery – Trained in Free Market, this skill gives a 2% boost to Permanent drones per level, but does not apply to temporary drones.
Drone Research - A very expensive and highly sought after skill, it increases most stats on temporary drones by 10% and also increases the amount of permanent drones you can lay.
Astral Injection - This skill allows you to inject augmenters (ship, base, and drone type augmenters all work) into Permanent drones. Astral injection is preformed by stopping over the drone you want to aug, select it by left clicking, then right click the augmenter you want to use, select toss overboard. If the drone did not accept the augmenter repeat the process a few times. If the problem persists it could be caused by insufficient level in AI, you may only equip augmenters in tech equal to your level of AI. Another issue could be that the drone has reached its maximum # of augs, although this varies with drones; the most common number of drone augmenter slots is 3 and 4.
Common Drone Errors
Not enough slots
For non-perma drones this means you have exceeded your max drones deployable (all classes but Engineer have a maximum of 3 temporary drones, whereas Drone Mastery [a subskill of the Engineer class] allows a maximum of six temporary drones upon reaching level 20). For permanent drones it means something similar, you don't have enough slots (you get a certain amount of permanent slots and temporary slots per level of Drone Deployment).
Cannot place a drone in this galaxy
Dungeons, protected galaxies, instances and other areas can't accept permanent drones.
This scoop cannot be used on drones -- upgrade.
DON'T PANIC, WE'LL BE FINE. Just run to the nearest AI base immediately and purchase a drone scoop and then head back to your drones to load 'em back up into your hull.
Hull must be equivalent to drone tech
Your ship will need to be the same tech or higher than the tech of the Temporary drone you want to lay, permanent drones have no tech requirement.
You've reached the maximum number of drones equippable.Pretty straight forward, you've equipped too many drones to charge on your class of ship, <see Drone Capacity for more info>
Basic Drone Info Screen Layout
