XL Gas/Mineral/Trader. Are they worth it? + Drone questions

[Herasteane]

Hey there.

In my current playthrough, the XEN are starting to ravage every system and M/L traders are getting shot down by XEN battleships like flies. Only the S traders have good chances of survival.

Due to that, I recently sold my whole M trader fleet and have 60M to spend.

I was thinking of getting a XL Gas/Trader/Miner in order to have a properly armored and armed civilian ship that can survive fights and get the economy going again.

Do you guys ever used those? Are they worth it?
Also. I have ordered one of those XL ships at a TEL shipyard but the AI keeps on pushing my order aside and keep on building ships before mine even though I ordered it ages ago.

Also... Regarding drones. Never used them.
Miner drones, gas drones, cargo drones...
How easy are they to use? Because docking a XL ship at a station is a real pain in the ♥♥♥ and I was wondering if I can sit next to a station I want to trade with and have the drones unload my cargo there. Is that the way they work?
How do you start to deploy mining drones, is it easy and worth it or are turrets and gas-collecting vents enough?

Thank you so much for your answers. I'll now pray for the XEN to stop wrecking the galaxy.

Edit : Regarding if they are worth it or not... The economy is in terrible need for ressources. Almost all the refineries are needing more than 100K materials and the shipyards are always out of ressources so logicly they'd be worth it, but I'm considering about how "well" they can get around and get the supplies delivered on time to be profitable... More than the same ammount of cargo for more ships? (As in, instead of 1 gigantic delivery ship, are 100 of those better even though they have more chances of getting killed?)

[X_THIS]

I"ll start with the drones, you don't really have an option with mining, gas, and frieght drones they just do stuff on their own. you just need them for L ships that they go with. It's how the product is transfered and picked up. Repair drones you don't do anything, fighter drones you just tell them to attack or defend, i think intercept is in their too. With any the more you have the faster it goes.

i think you mean an L ship gas, miner, etc. The only thing that will help is they can carry 40 S size ships. i keep about 10 H fighters on them. but if they fall under attack you still have to keep an eye on them and make sure the fighters have launched and are even around it. they seem to fall behind for me so i always make sure they are docked setting them at launched don't mean they will listen game still buggie, mine don't even under the setting attack launch all the time. Most M and S class non fighters just die to quick to even help them. Split ships in those classes are the only ones worth buying they are a lot faster so they seem to survive.