Strategies for Drone ships?

[Fulano]

So far... they feel kinda useless, so I haven't used them much, other than the ones that come built into some ships.

It seems they might be useful against ships with lots of slow weapons, any other reasons to use them?

The AI seems to usually have something anti missile or PD ships in their fleets so they just seem to die right away.

Also, for those who do use riders, any tips on what kind of weapons to use on them? I've been going with the most accurate (like beamers or emitters) but I haven't really watched how much damage they do.

[sir_schwick]

Like missiles, drones require mass. Utilize the swarm and combine with long range weapons like torpedos and missiles. They will die but enough mass and they will keep enemy ships off your carrier fleet. Be warned that interceptor missiles make torps and drones useless.

As for weapons, beamers are the most satisfying. Crow drone swarms in particular are amazing to watch with a laser light show. Keep a few obsolete carriers around just to increase the beam variety.

[Vuyek]

Missiles can hit your drones since missiles in this game are physical objects, unlike new version of homeworld.

[BlueTemplar]

I'm not sure what you mean, missiles other than interceptors won't target your drones, and the chances for a missile to hit a drone in a fight are negligible.

Massed Morrigi drones are extremely powerful, most of the time you're going to win fights without any ship losses (and once you have repair ships, your drones can be easily replaced even on the offense). The superior Morrigi speed and maneuverability makes kiting enemy a cakewalk.

The only thing that hard counters them in early-mid game are light emitters (on DE's).
Gauss point defense should work well too, but I rarely see the AI using it. Laser point defense is mitigated by reflective coating on drones, and if your opponent starts to field a significant number of point-defense ships, it's time to counter their counter by deploying close combat Armors instead.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Drones are a pretty big topic. They can be ultra powerful game deciding units, or completely useless. Here's some general points of consideration for you:


1: Always deploy drones in large numbers. If you try to just use 1 or 2 drone CRs in a fleet, they will be quickly overwhelmed by enemy PD and you're wasting your time and resources. It is far better to go for CNC + all drone ships in a drone fleet. It can be a good idea to put other weapons on those ships that will soak up some enemy PD fire as well, depending on what your specific faction and tech allows.

2: If the enemy has phaser PD, don't bother. Deploy those drone ships to another front where they can be useful. Fourtunately, phaser PD isn't exactly super common. The fish and crows will probably get it eventually, but everybody else has low odds.

3: Interceptor Missile PD can be shot down by your own PD. Drones armed with phaser PD can make enemy interceptor missiles totally worthless.

4: Keep your drone ships out of the actual fighting as much as possible. Just kite the enemy with them. Set their facing mode to face waypoint, or the formation is going to get seriously slowed down. Speed is important. If you're early liir, you probably shouldn't bother because you're not going to be outrunning anything.

5: While you're kiting, be sure to target their CNC ship first so you can start reducing the number of PD turrets tracking your drones.

6: Drone DNs are pretty useless. Drone CRs have the same number of drones per command point, and are more agile and better for kiting. They also have an easier time showing up as reinforcements due to outnumbering and that means even more drones.

7: Always concentrate your drones on a single target to take it out so it's PD stops shooting at you.

8: You will often see your drones launch at the enemy formation in a haphazard manner as they come into range. Do not allow this. Use the hold fire command to prevent drone launch until the enemy fleet is in range of all your carriers and launch all your drones together. Unfourtuntely, there is no clear visual que for when this will be, but with a bit of practice you can get a feel for it.

9: At some point, your drones will want to return to refuel and rearm. They will pretty much always do this in a haphazard manner. Again, do not allow this, any stragglers willl be killed for no gain. Use the hold fire command to make them all return to their carriers together, and then launch the next wave all together.

10: With the default combat time limit, I find that usually about halfway through the battle, your drones will be pretty shot up and seriously losing out on combat effectiveness. Attempt to retreat their carriers to the reserve pool and bring in fresh carriers around this time.

11: Avoid killing refinerys with drones. Seriously. If there's no enemy fighting ships left, then sure, whatever.


I'm sure I could think of more, but that should be enough to get you started.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Originally posted by BlueTemplar:

The only thing that hard counters them in early-mid game are light emitters (on DE's).

Even that is iffy. If your drones have weapons with good range, you can use the hold fire command to keep them from closing to emitter range.

[sir_schwick]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

3: Interceptor Missile PD can be shot down by your own PD. Drones armed with phaser PD can make enemy interceptor missiles totally worthless.

Holy telepathic dolphins!! You really learn something new everyday with this game.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Just thought I would mention something here.

One of things I hate encountering the most in SOTS is those zuul CR scale bore ships and their damned node cannons. If I suspect that this is going to be a concern, I usually go out of my way to develop drone cruisers and include a pair of them in every fleet. Drones are extremely handy for taking those guys down. Either the bore ship will fire it's node cannon at your drones, giving you a good window to charge and kill it, or it won't and your drones can kill it.

[Vuyek]

ah, the dreaded zuul fart cannons

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

I've always thought of it as the a s s blaster :P.

[Fulano]

I totally forgot about this post... but why is everything showing up twice...??? Weird Steam forum bug?

Still, this is some great info to get me started on them! Sounds interesting. Especially had no idea I could use fleet commands on them.

Getting some cruisers with PD weapons, missiles and drones then keeping my distance sounds like a great way to harass larger fleets until more help arrives, and probably a sure fire way to get the AI to adapt to PD ships in no time. :)