Repair Drones - Generally Snubbed?

[fall_ark]

As for the energy cost. With the exception of breaches/fires, generally if a system is in need of repair, the energy the system cant use due to damage can be used for the drone. And once the system is operational, if you disable the drone it just sits there dormant on your ship, and if another system needs repair you dont pay more drone parts to reactivate it. So the drone parts cost is a one off per jump when used, and the energy is essentially free.

Drones on your ship only consume a drone part when a new one is activated, a.k.a. when they are destroyed. They sit on your ship through FTL jumps.

[Bluevein]

Awesome. So they are even less costly than I thought.

[geldonyetich]

I wonder if the reason they're snubbed so much in Let's Plays I see is because not a lot of people realize this.

I'm looking at this one Let's Play and the guy is often hit by hull breaches or fires that stop him from immediately sending over his four-man boarding party to do repairs because his other four crew members are busy manning systems. A repair drone would clear that right up.

[fall_ark]

Another upside is since it has no combat ability, it will start working even if there's fighting going on in the room: So if you can at least maintain the same number of people in a fight, you can power up the Sys-repair drone to deal with the fire/breach/system failure at the same time.

Of course if you don't have a number advantage it'll just take up a position in the room, which would be bad. Power it down so you can send people to fight. (Like all characters, it takes up the position even when it's nowhere near the room, this could be overlooked very easily and cause problems for the player)