Repair drones are still dysfunctional in high attention

[LameFox]

Firstly, they cannot keep up with the ship. Destroyers, L traders, whether they're mine or the AI's, if I see repair drones pop out they end up getting left behind in a long stream and forgotten. I think they are supposed to remain in proximity to it at any speed, because they do this for a time, but they always fail at it before long.

Secondly, they collide with it. I don't know why drones in this game's physics engine are such an impediment to large ships, but they interrupt both travel drive and standard flight. Just recently I was fighting Xenon in a new Behemoth and forgot that I'd not removed drones from the order when I bought it—I ended up with the ship bumping all over the place and some repair drones getting flung away from it before slowly crawling back.

Thirdly, they cannot be turned off and have no sense of when is a good time to be the absolute nuisance they are. If they must remain in this state, they should emerge only out of combat and when the ship is idle. Otherwise they die in seconds, impede the ship, and are left behind. If no fix to their behaviour is possible, they should just repair from inside like they do OOS and for M ships—as even after the other drones have seen improvements, these ones are still awful.

[grapedog]

As it stands now, i pretty much don't install or activate cargo drones at all, ever, on a ship i might personally fly. Id sooner not get any cargo from space than deal with cargo drones, ever.

Repair drones i typically teleport away. Getting left behind or blown up, or getting stuck on them is annoying... but they're too useful not to have at all. So i let them do their thing in low attention.

[NightmareNight91]

I never use repair drones for this reason. Its moronic how they are now. No way to turn them off, they impede movement, they send your ship flying sometimes.

[LameFox]

I never use repair drones for this reason. Its moronic how they are now. No way to turn them off, they impede movement, they send your ship flying sometimes.

Same. I know they're a vast improvement over crew repairs, but I am just not willing to go OOS to make the game work. If I can't be present for the battles, what's the point!

[LameFox]

Adding to this that on top of everything else, drones repairing your ship are left behind travelling through a gate. I wish these were just deleted from the game honestly, they are so broken.

[GCU Grey Area]

Agree more control over repair drones would be useful. Workaround I currently use for this is installing a Lubricator mod on a docked S ship & re-rolling the mod until I get Unit Capacity (i.e. drones) as one of it's secondary characteristics. That S ship can't make use of repair drones itself (no way to deploy them), however it can store them. If my L has taken significant damage I fly a fair distance above or below the ecliptic (where I'm unlikely to be spotted by passing enemy ships) & use ware transfer to move those drones over to the L. When repairs are complete & drones are back on board I stuff them back in the S so they can't escape.

[LameFox]

I'm conflicted between finding that very funny and being disappointed it comes to things like that to make these work.