What determines whether combat Drones are launched?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

So, I installed some Fighter Drones on my Odysseus. At first it'd spam them constantly, even when the nearest enemy was quite a long way off.

Eventually I ran out of Fighter Drones, so I equipped some more. However, my Odysseus hasn't once launched Fighter Drones since. It uses its Repair Drones at inappropriate moments - I've lost more to the ships own turrets than I have to enemy fire - but not Fighter Drones.

I wish we had control of when Fighter Drones were launched, how many and what radius of the ship, but we don't. Rather we have to rely on what the AI chooses, and it's currently choosing not to use them for me.

Is there a trick to this?

Scoob.

[Sandalpocalypse]

did you try cycling the crew? I havent delved into x4 scripts but in XR that often helped.

[Scoob]

did you try cycling the crew? I havent delved into x4 scripts but in XR that often helped.

Do you mean move them elsewhere then back again? Or changing their job role from Service to Marine and back again?

The UI really needs to give us control of things like this - it was a major criticism of Rebirth, and the feature still feel incomplete.

Scoob.

[Sandalpocalypse]

anything that gets them out of the role should work...... i mean, maybe. Sorry for speculative tech support

[Imperial Good]

Drones are launched when in high attention and anything enemy enters radar range.

[Scoob]

Drones are launched when in high attention and anything enemy enters radar range.

If that's supposed to be the trigger - which makes sense - then my Odysseus has become broken as it hasn't used Drones, other than repair ones, since I restocked it over a week ago. I might clear out all Drones and try again.

Thought: I have lots of Drones - and materials to make them - at my Station. No reason not to just transfer some over, is there? I mean, *buying* more Drones didn't work, so maybe Transferring will.

Scoob.

[Imperial Good]

For the Odysseus to launch drones it also requires that all drones it previously launched have redocked at it (they can bug and redock at commanding ships instead, or never redock) and that at least 1 S landing pad is free.

Use information menu to detect the number of drones currently active. If all are listed as active then they cannot be launched as they are still considered as launched. One can reset active counters by modifying or transferring off all drones from the ship and then modifying or transferring them all back.

If many S ships are landed then the Odysseus requires at least 1 free internal storage capacity so it can clear at least 1 landing pad of docked S ships so that it can undock defence drones. If internal storage is full then it cannot send any more ships to internal storage and so cannot clear landing pads to launch drones.

These problems combined with Defence drones launching whenever they feel like it is why I do not recommend equipping defence drones on any L destroyer. Instead max out repair drones since you want lost turrets and any surface element damage repaired as quickly as possible. The only ship I would recommend defence drones for is the supply ship since it can have huge numbers of them and is not the sort of ship you will fly anyway. If you want defence drone spam use Osprey frigates as they hold even more than L destroyers, however be warned that this is not good for performance and can annoy you a lot when trying to get them to recall in fleets.

[burger1]

Setting turrets to defend launches drones when your ship is hit.

Setting turrets to attack launches drones whenever there's a target in radar range.

I have 1 destroyer that also doesn't launch drones matter what.

[Scoob]

The Drones on my Odysseus all show as available, they're just bugged out it seems.

This bug aside, the degree of control we have over Drone deployment - and owned, docked ships - is woeful and really should be enhanced. I dislike control being taken away like this.

Initially my Odysseus spammed Drones constantly, but they flew too slow to keep up - which is crazy. So, I was constantly waiting for them. However, despite ALWAYS waiting for them to return - those that survived at least - they've still gone into a bugged state. X Rebirth had similar issues, though usually the Drones bugged out a few at a time.

Scoob.