Are drones any good?

[tokanroe]

Are there any benefits to making and using drones. Using a premade drone in scenario and not finding it very useful. Steering it by camera is OK but not great, and trying to dock it by camera is a waste of time. Is there anyway to improve the experience?

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Cam placement is pretty key for an enjoable drone. If you design it so the forward facing cam can see the nose of the ship its good and the reverse cam should just be able to see the connector for when ya want to dock. I usually stick the cams on the last hotbar slots.

The main advantages are the drones dont need to worry about space for crew or life suppourt. They can just be built super tiny and energy efficient. They can patrol around your base with waypoints, but i guess thats true of any ship if you whack a remote block on it.

Drone missiles are good so you can fly it strait into the target :)

[Darkaiser]

Also, in Survival, drones take so FEW resources to put together. I use them for welding snd grinding but not for mining. I'm not steady enough on the controls to avoid smacking them into the sides of the tunnel.

[Morty Jhones]

drones are usfle but are a skillset of there own to use.

I perfure using perset drones as sentries and raiders since they have no need for life suport or a large bulky cockpit such guard drones can have heavy armouring and still be tiny.

[MeatyDoubleSlap]

Ive created a rocket like the SpaceX one and its a great drone because i can have it lift off from a base on the surface of a planet then have it fly up to my ships location and let me dock onto it to get supplys and i am able to send it back down to the base and land all by its self and lock and turn off. This rocket can even be on the other side of the planet and fly to my locatoin... i find cargo style drones very useful cause a few of my ships cant land on planets

[Abisius Xarvenius Carbensius]

i use drones atm only for defence purpose with a patroulroute
needs some time to setup but it holds away the npc

[Sanquin]

The only time I will use drones is probably for making tiny welders. As, if you make them small enough, they can fit through a single block.

Docking can be a bit of a pain, but once you learn where the connector is in relation to your connector camera, it's not that much more difficult than sitting in a cockpit.

[PraiseBasedDonut]

How do I increase the range of the drones?

[Jake]

Originally posted by Callsign"Starbuck":

How do I increase the range of the drones?

increasing the antenna range (although unless you are in a ship with an antenna you will have to be 200 meters away maximum)

you could also create an antenna relay if the antennas cannot reach far enough