Equipment space and staff slots are the priority when choosing a ship for drones. This makes Sanctuary the best ship for drones. This guide requires Four of them.


Hangar space and staff slots are the priority when choosing a ship for maximum fleet commander. This makes Rising Sun the best ship for the largest possible fleet. This guide requires One of them. Swap to this ship when building your fleet, swap back to the Sanctuary when you're done building your fleet (hopefully this never gets fixed as having a ship that doesn't suck while having a fleet is a lot of fun). Do this before acquiring Lone Wolf, if you intend to get it.

For the Sanctuary ship enhancements you want Tier 3 Drones Gain Weapon Damage and Two Tier 2 Repair Systems Efficiency. Drone damage will increase damage and healing of your drones. Repair systems efficiency is a multiplicative stack.

For the Sanctuary ships the Captain, First Officer, and Staff seats should all be Specialized crew with Drones Gain: Weapon Damage. (The player controlled Sanctuary will not have a Captain)


For the Rising Sun ship the First Officer and Staff seats should all be Specialized crew with Bonus Fleet Commander. No other crew is necessary for the Rising Sun.


Engineers for the Player Sanctuary should be Two Specialized with Hull Points and Bancheis Nocturnous in the Third seat. Keep in mind autotarget on drones may get you killed with a fleet as mentioned here


One crew Specialized with Space Pilot is required. Equip this crew in your First Officer slot without having a fleet to assist in reaching +60 Space Pilot to open the third engineer seat (Prodigy skill helps). Replace it after (hopefully this never gets fixed). Do this for all Four Sanctuary ships. Do this before acquiring Lone Wolf, if you intend to get it.


Slap T2-E in any gunner slot, even without having any weapons equipped to increase your drone damage by a small amount.


All other crew is unimportant to the purpose of this guide (pick what you like).

The goal with Equipment is to minimize everything you don't need or want and add as many Repair Drone Bay Mk.II as you need and as many Attack Drone Bay Mk.IV as you can. As such, a concrete list of Equipment for the Player ship, beyond the basics provided for the Fleet ships, will not be provided as each player's wants and needs is different. However, I recommend at least 20 of each Repair Drone Bay Mk.II and Attack Drone Bay Mk.IV (closer to 30 of each is better), at least until you start upgrading your gear to orange.

Using Energy Cells for warp will reduce the need for any energy storage.

Drones seem to work even at negative energy. However, keep Energy Generation in mind if not using Energy Cells to warp.

A Deuterium Warp Drive and no scanner would be the minimal space required to be able to warp.

A Nodolo's Warp Mod can reduce the cost of warping, and the space required for Energy Storage equipment, in the case you don't want to use Energy Cells (it sucks to forget to restock them and run out).

Nodolo's Combat Mod is useful, but may not always be better than just adding more drones.

Drone Enhancer: Utility is useful for long battles and for reducing restocking requirements.

Drone Enhancer: Targeting is useful for adding a small amount of damage (this drone damage appears to be an additive stack and you will already have a lot added, so the actual increase in damage will be nowhere even close to the percent listed). It could also be used to replace crew Bancheis Nocturnous with another Hull Points crew. Keep in mind autotarget on drones may get you killed with a fleet as mentioned here

I prefer keeping Bancheis Nocturnous and using Drone Enhancer: Utility.

Consortium A.I. is a massive boost to Repair Efficiency (with the enhancements mentioned in this guide). As such, equipping it will reduce the number of Repair Drones required, allowing more Attack Drones to be used.


If playing Solo (without a fleet and with Space Pilot active), I highly recommend not having a Flux Capacitor or Warp Diverter, for the Armor Bonus (drones don't crit).


Equipment for your Fleet Sanctuary ships (200% Thrusters). Keeping in mind you can adjust the Drone ratios if you want, fewer repair for more attack or vice versa:

Have Master and Commander to reach T7 with your crew, then respec.

This a drone guide so weapons aren't really used. Any energy weapons would require you to have more space used by energy generation and/or energy storage. Any other weapon would require massive amounts of ammo and/or constant restocking.

I tend to start as Outis. So I have all options available and an extra point.

Armor Plating
Power Optimization (not required, may be helpful in saving space)
Piloting (not required, may be helpful by reducing crew requirements)
Command (not required, may be helpful by reducing crew requirements)

The other perks I tend to pick up are the ones I find difficult or impossible to achieve in a single playthrough.

Battle Rush
Hard Worker
Just me and the boys
Traveler
Techie

Whatever knowledge you intend to raise to 25 first can be omitted.

The best background perks are Lone Wolf, upon quest completion with Consortium A.I., and Pirate. Either will aid in stacking Repair Efficiency (more attack drones, less repair drones!). Keep in mind Lone Wolf will have consequences on being able to remake your fleet, should you remove any.

Short video demonstrating the build (note: the video is after accepting Lone Wolf, so I am down 10 Fleet Commander and that's the reason you want to have your fleet built before going Lone Wolf).

This guide may use two unintended mechanics. These could disappear in any patch (hopefully not, especially the fleet one). So, use them while you can, if you want, but don't expect them to always be around.

• An extra engineer seat
  
• A Fleet and a Player ship that doesn't suck

If the fleet one is changed, play solo - better survivability. This is, after all, a solo drone build guide with fleets incorporated into it for maximum efficiency.

Written for Game Version: 2.1.2

If you have questions, leave a comment.