[AP] Freight drones.

[Eleutherios]

Are they actually purchasable and what is the cargo cap? can they move l/xl stuff ( i am assuming not.

Would they be worth while to carry in a griffon to resupply energy cells/ammo? Do they control like a normal ship?

[A5PECT]

Freight Drone stats courtesy of Roguey

They're sold at certain Drone Production Facilities; I buy mine from one in Dark Waters.

Would they be worth while to carry in a griffon to resupply energy cells/ammo?

They would work for this. I prefer using a TS equipped with a transporter device as they can deliver much more supplies in a single trip/transfer.

Do they control like a normal ship?

Once you eject them they act somewhat like a normal ship. You can issue them orders and while they're docked at a station you can use it to purchase wares. However I don't think you can fly them personally.

[Catra]

Teladi Drone factories sell them

800 XL

not really.

yes

[Eleutherios]

Teladi Drone factories sell them

800 XL

not really.

yes

800XL is fantastic, two of these in a griffon would not only resupply ammo/cells but also allow me to buy wares like shields and weapons... Awesome, now to track some down when i get home.

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

Teladi Drone factories sell them

800 XL

not really.

yes

800XL is fantastic, two of these in a griffon would not only resupply ammo/cells but also allow me to buy wares like shields and weapons... Awesome, now to track some down when i get home.

There's a drone factory in Ceo's Sprite that sells them. They are probably the best way to re-supply your ship with Ecells.

[Vim Razz]

They also come with Special Command Software pre-installed, so you can dump them to run around and collect wares for you. 5-10 will clean up an area pretty fast.

They're cheap enough that if you loose a few it's no big deal.

[Probe1]

Now if only they weren't as slow as a freighter I'd really like them.

[WingC3]

Hey all, I'm really confused here. I have 8 freight drones on my elephant, but when I tell them to "transfer freight via drones" and go to select a station, the list is empty and I can't select any of the stations in the system. What am I doing wrong????? It's a bit frustrating to have to command them all around manually.

[p00fer]

transfer is only between own properties

[WingC3]

Seriously???? Why on earth is that? Why would I takenanything onto my tl if I can't sell it elsewhere or vice versa....useless

[NuclearBacklash]

Personally, I use a pair of homebased Falcon Haulers in my TLs for buying/selling. Freight drones are really only useful for remotely transferring stuff to your own stations as otherwise you'd really just be selling stuff to yourself or micromanaging a TS with freight transfer, dock, transfer, undock, etc. commands.

[WingC3]

Am I the only one that thinks this "only between your own stations" thing is completely rediculous??? It's like someone sat down and said "How can I make sure this feature will be useless"

Even if I wanted to load stuff onto my own stations, I would want to buy it somewhere else!

You can command each drone to manually buy from other stations, so why is there such a restriction??????

[Alan Phipps]

Think of it as freight drones having a role in resupplying big ships of yours from a remote base of yours that the ships themselves cannot land at. I am not saying they are the only or the best method for doing that, just that they can be used to do it without involving or needing other ships - hence they are not useless.

[WingC3]

Think of it as freight drones having a role in resupplying big ships of yours from a remote base of yours that the ships themselves cannot land at. I am not saying they are the only or the best method for doing that, just that they can be used to do it without involving or needing other ships - hence they are not useless.

That's not the part I think is useless...that is great. Who was the visionary who decided it should only worm with your own stations??? I don't have spp s everywhere....if I wanted to fly all the way home to refuel I could have a TS on standby too...
There is no reasonable explanation for why its like that - in game or otherwise....

[p00fer]

you can tell them to dock anywhere and buy the stufff then send it back to the ship...what ive found annoying is that if the ship does not have an hangar you have to pick up the drone manually as you can't tell it to dock or return home

[Umbru]

I use them to buy energy cells for my M7 and bigger ships. Using them is a little clunky as you have to eject them and then ether have them dock or use the buy wares command then once they have the goods order them to return home. You can also sell things with them by ejecting them and <800 of whatever it is and having the drone pick it up then go sell it but again really clunky. Wish there was a trade using drones command.

[p00fer]

like i said, with hangar equipped ships this is possible but with the rest of them you have to manually run over the bloody thing to get it inside...


Edit: my point being it is much easier to setup a cls2 homebased to either a station or your ship and have it supply whatever you need, currently i have one supplying my m7m with fuel and missiles. and another supplying my TL with fuel. works like a charm, make sure you install trnasporter device tho.

[TiGGs]

I use them to buy energy cells for my M7 and bigger ships. Using them is a little clunky as you have to eject them and then ether have them dock or use the buy wares command then once they have the goods order them to return home. You can also sell things with them by ejecting them and <800 of whatever it is and having the drone pick it up then go sell it but again really clunky. Wish there was a trade using drones command.

You don't have to eject the things you want to sell. Upon ejecting the drone, a freight transfer window will pop up to beam things over to your drone. I think the transporter device is needed.

If I want to buy a larger amount of energy, I usually use the broadcast command system to issue the docking command to all my drones. Once docked, I target the station and press 'I' -> 'L' to get the landed ships screen. Going through the list of drones should be quick now ('Enter' -> 'D' -> 'End' -> 'Enter'). After that I issue another broadcast command on all my landed ships on that station. Saves a lot of key strokes.

What I've been wondering: those drones use the hangar of my Teladi TL just fine but they wont use the hangar bays neither of my Shrike nor my Griffon. They usually try to fly close to my ship and vanish. Sometimes it works quickly but most of the time they don't get close enough due to collision avoidance.