Simple question about combat robots/drones

[Shadow Raven]

Good morning, hope people are well.

So simply, I have never really used the Combat Robots/drones, since I have always seen it as a waste because of the 45s life span.
So my question is, is that just how long they are out on the field before having to recharge like a construction bot? Or do they just die, and you have to recraft them?

[It'sDannn]

From what i can remember then just die and you have to recraft them. They are fairly/extremely effective though. I'm pretty sure you can use them in part of the Campaign/Tutorial and i found them amazing!

[Shadow Raven]

I would love to use them, but if they just die and become a waste of resources, they are way to expensive per craft then.
Even with mega bases, the cost per unit of use, is just way to expensive.

Similar to how people state Steel Chests are to expensive (Which holds 48 stacks of items) compared to the Iron chest (Which holds 32 stacks of items), 1 iron chest is 8 iron plates, compared to 8 steel (40 Iron plates), many see that wasteful. Specially since you can get 5 iron chests equal to cost of 1 steel chest.

But thanks for the answer.

[Hedning]

You have to compare it to other types of ammo. A nuke is also very expensive. Artillery shells too. Basically the more effective the weapon the more expensive it is. If you are only going with the cheap options like laser turret creeping your bug clearing will be even more tedious than it already is.

[Shadow Raven]

Originally posted by Hedning:

You have to compare it to other types of ammo. A nuke is also very expensive. Artillery shells too. Basically the more effective the weapon the more expensive it is. If you are only going with the cheap options like laser turret creeping your bug clearing will be even more tedious than it already is.

Ok lets make a comparison.
1 Normal Ammo for Submachinegun and pistol.
4 Iron Plates.
1 SMG shoots 10/s has a range of 18.
Per 1 Mag, you can do 50 damage.
Pistol has a range of 15 and shoots 4/s
Both Pistol and SMG lasts till you throw them out, or you die, or you win the game.

A defender capsule.
Range 15
Shoots 3/s
Lasts 45 seconds.

The Gun turret.
Range 18
Shoots 10/s
Lasts till destroyed, you die, or win the game.

All of these are Tier 1 of their classes.
SMG, Pistol and Gun Turret can differ in damage output with different ammo.
Example the Uranium Ammo (Which is extremely expensive)
Has a base damage of 24 per shot, costs 1 Piercing Ammo + Uranium 236. Each Ammo upgrade increase this damage with 2.4 effectively making the resource cost less compared to the Defender capsule which gets a 0.5 increase per upgrade.

But wait, tank cannon shell upgrade is a +20% for first upgrade so it makes that 200 physical damage and 100 Explosive damage to 240 Physical and 120 Explosive.

We will take this:
Get Damage upgrades from tech tree to level 7, this gives a total of 160% increase in damage.

Simple Ammo: 5 damage. (13 damage)
Piercing Ammo: 8 damage. (20.8 damage)
Uranium Ammo: 24 damage. (62.4 damage)

Defender Capsule: 5 damage. (13 damage)

So just starting to use Piercing ammo, which is required to make 1 Defender Capsule btw, we will have more output than that capsule, since sadly they can be killed like the player.

Even if you get the Max output of a Defender Capsule, which is a total of 135 shots, the damage output compared to its cost, would be amazing!
Then they get hit twice by a spitter and suddenly that 45 seconds went to 10, which if you can understand is 30 shots IF they were in combat the whole time.
Which drastically made that cost a waste.

People state the Tank Cannon Shells are a waste.
Well 300 Piercing damage (200 physical, 100 Explosive)
For the cost of 2 Plastic, which costs 1 Coal and 20 Petrolium for 2 Plastic, 2 Steel which is 10 Iron Plates, and lastly but not least 1 Explosives which is 1 coal, 1 sulfur (30 petrolium 30 water) and 10 water.
Damn that sounds like a lot! But, Petrolium you have unlimted resouce of (Oil never goes below 0.1/s), water never runs out. So the only real cost here is the Coal and Iron plates.

Then we need to think about the upgrades that comes with it as well.
With Cannon Shell damage upgrade #6 you are looking at a whoping 320% increase in damage.
840 Physical + 420 Explosive = 1260 damage in total.

But since Distraction Capsules and Destroyer Capsules doesn't get a single upgrade from anything.
We only have the Defender Capsule to go by with upgrades, but since they only deal base basic damage, their cost is way more expensive for their use compared to a single tank shot.

You may say it costs a lot to get the Tank, and yes, it does, it is costly, but guess what? The tank can be repaired if damaged, it can be refueled, and reused till destroyed, you win the game, or you die.

Again the drones for what they are worth, is too expensive in the long term.
Specially when people state the Tank is way to expensive for its use. But they defend the drones? Silly.

What would make them better? Hell I would use them, if they didn't have the time limit, and you could repair them, have so they do little damage like 2 damage for the Defender Capsule, but you can have 100 of them late game with the follower upgrades. But they have to recharge in a portable robo-port.
Yeah sure, the damage is ♥♥♥♥, but they would in a long term use, outweight their cost with how much use they have given.

[piccolo255]

Like everything, they're situational. I found them useful on occasion.

Originally posted by Shadow Raven:

But since Distraction Capsules and Destroyer Capsules doesn't get a single upgrade from anything.
We only have the Defender Capsule to go by with upgrades, but since they only deal base basic damage, their cost is way more expensive for their use compared to a single tank shot.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Combat_robot_damage_%28research%29

[Hedning]

The thing with drones is that you can use them in conjunction with everything except maybe artillery, to make any sort of attack faster and easier. You can even use them to defend your tank as your tank easily gets swarmed by bugs.

The most tedious thing abut clearing bugs is whittling down behemoth biters hp, and the destroyer capsule is pretty effective at keeping those at bay with its laser damage, meaning you can focus more of your effort at nuking the bases, and less at slowly flaming the biters coming after you.

The tank is slow, much slower than power armor with some exoskeletons and doesn't have strong enough attacks to work well against behemoths or the splash to deal with huge bases. Drones are more scaleable and works even late game.