Drone

Overview

A Drone is a sphere shaped NPC robot that follows a player's ship wherever they go. Each one has the ability to equip additional lasers, shield generators, or CPU extras.

Overview

While progressing through the orbit, you will find that any equipped drone starts earning experience points just as you do and has a max level of 6. Any available ship is capable of having a total of 10 drones equipped at the same time. Also while having a maxed out level 6 drone, you gain an additional 10% damage and 20% shield boost to the laser cannons or shield generators that are equipped to the level 6 drone. Extra CPUs cannot be boosted.

Please visit the Drone Formations page for more info about the available formations for drones.

Cost

After purchasing your first drone, the price of the next ones will double after each consecutive purchased one (example, cost is 200 Credits, next will be 400 Credits and so on).

Damage and repairing

Every time you are destroyed, your drones are destroyed as well. The items that were in place on the drones at the time are returned to your equipment. The drones are damaged each time by 2.5% and after reaching 100% they are gone for good. You can simply repair your drones in the Hangar to 0% by:

• Repairing using Credits or Uridium (depends on the drone)
• Using Repair Credits

Battle drones

• Flax
• Iris
• Apis
• Zeus

(BD-01 F) Flax drone is a battle drone with one slot and is bought with Credits, it does not tend to be FE ship status, but is good for new players. Although a full ship of 8 Flax is not bad, you're only Sub-Elite. to be called Full Elite, you must have a full ship of Iris Drones instead. Bonus at level 6: 10% (lasers) / 20% (generators)

(BD-02 I) Iris drone is an elite battle drone with two slots and is bought with Uridium. (can be bid on in Trade) It is recommended to have a ship full of these and not have any Flax. Flax only have one slot while these have two. Bonus at level 6: 10% (lasers) / 20% (generators). (All with HAVOK design + 10% lassers)

Apis is a battle drone with 2 slots (similar to the Iris) but is only attained by collecting 45 blueprints from pirate booty, which is later exchanged in the tech center. If one has 8 Drones, the Apis drone can be added as a 9th drone.

Zeus is a battle drone (similiar to the Apis) which is only attained by collecting blueprints from golden pirate booty, which is later exchanged in the tech center. You can also purchase it for 1,500,000 uridum in the tech center. The golden booty boxes also come out every once in a while, which many FE players take advantage of to get the drone. It is really difficult to get, and is not worth the uridium spent looking for the blueprints, because this drone will still just give you 2 more spaces, that's all.

Battle drone's experience earning

Battle Drones don't earn experience like the user, they win experience when the player destroys an enemy. List of battle drone's experience earning below:

Drone Designs

Drones can be equipped with two types of drone designs. The functional ones like the Havoc or Hercules, or the cosmetic designs that are more common in Dark Orbit by now.

Trade drone

HM7 is the only trade drone available that allows you to sell ore no matter where your location is. Action is limited to 100 uses. This drone is only Payment bought. However, if you purchase the Amber, Jade, or Sapphire designs for the Goliath, you get unlimited number of HM7 trade Drones. You can not see this drone because it isn't a battle drone. The cost of an HM7 trade drone remains constant.

Drone Upgrading/Repair

^{Just to clear something up;}

• Drones can be upgraded but by default do a small bonus based on the level of the drone. When upgrading it will do a large amount more bonus but it comes at a much greater cost and is recommended to be done after getting all your equipment including the LF-4.
• Repairing your drone does decrease your drone level by 1.
• If your drone is level 1 and reaches 100% damage it will be destroyed and no longer on your account, meaning you must buy it again.
• However, if your drone reaches 100% on any level it will be destroyed without the drone repair CPU found in the auction and shop.