Subset Games Forum

I currently feel like the Repair Drone, the Anti Personnel Drone and the Boarding Drone are absolutely useless in comparison to the defense, attack and laser drones.

They all seem really really cool, and I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a good way to fit them in, but in every single play through it just seems like they pale in usefulness to the combat drones.

Even the anti-personnel drone which seems like it would be useful on the Torus that starts with engis is pretty useless b/c you can just camp the med bay and the nano bots mean your engis can take a lot of punishment. Having the repair drone on the mantis ship seems like it would be a good idea since it only has one engi stretched very thin, but I dumped it as soon as I could get a defense drone since it would stop the damage from even being inflicted instead of just repairing it after it already happened.

Even the boarding drone seems to be less effective than simply sending 2 humans in a teleporter and accounting for power cost etc is usually cheaper too.

Has anyone come up with a good use for these that I'm not seeing, or are they just awful?

I think of them as a fall back for when I am trying to conserve drones because you don't lose them after each fight. I do generally sell them to get anything else I want.

They do have a couple uses though...

The repair drone can get you out of those occasional sticky situations where your med bay is broke, has a breach, and all your crew are at low health. Also can be useful for repairing stuff when everyone else is busy manning stations and boarding the enemy vessel.

The anti-personnel drone isn't as useful, but with upgraded security doors, it can easily take on boarders gasping for oxygen in rooms you have vented to space, leaving your crew free to man stations and other more important tasks.

The boarding drone can be a nice complement for distracting the enemy while your soldiers take out systems or make easy work of a divided enemy.

Of course, once you get a Glaive Beam and Weapon Preignitor, plus a few shield piercing lasers, everything else seems like a waste of time.

the anti-personnel drone and repair drone also have blue event options tied to them.

You say that it seems better to substitute the boarder drone with a boarding party... why not complement the boarding drone with a boarding party? send out the drone and a pair of mantis to wreck havoc on the enemy ship. (just make sure you micromanage the boarding party since there seems to be some issues with the drone occasionally giving/queuing commands to the crew atm)

Gorlom wrote:the anti-personnel drone and repair drone also have blue event options tied to them.

You say that it seems better to substitute the boarder drone with a boarding party... why not complement the boarding drone with a boarding party? send out the drone and a pair of mantis to wreck havoc on the enemy ship. (just make sure you micromanage the boarding party since there seems to be some issues with the drone occasionally giving/queuing commands to the crew atm)

boarding drone is bugged when complemented, it just makes the boarding irritating when your drone forces your party to fight in fires and o2 deprived areas. Also you save 3 energy for shields/cloak/engines while your 4 man party wrecks the place.

so because it's bugged now it's a not worth it after it gets fixed?

about the energy usage: that is merely a preference a player might want to sacrifice some dodge to be able to wreck havoc on the enemy ship with a drone as well as your 4man team.

I just want to throw this one out there::

One of the easiest games I had was on Normal difficulty and all of the finds/loot was just lining up perfectly for me the entire game.

I ended up with a 2 man boarding party of Mantis with max combat skill, and 3 Boarding Drones on the Tarus (engi) ship.

GOOD GOD did that to some terrible things to them.

Boarding drones are far from useless, though a SINGLE boarding drone I've found to be generally useless. You need 2 to really start seeing their use, you get two breaches and their crew has to handle the drones before the breaches. You hit the right systems and they're doomed.