Commanding M7D Drones

General discussion about X³: Farnham's Legacy.

Moderators: Moderators for English X Forum, Moderators for the X3:FL Forums

Post Reply
Jimmy C
Posts: 1131
Joined: Tue, 17. Jul 12, 02:50
x3tc

Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Jimmy C » Thu, 26. Aug 21, 10:54

Ran into a situation with my Panther's Drones today. The MM7D came under attack by fighters in the Hub. It launched its drones to assist in killing the attackers. The problem is, I couldn't recall the drones after the fighters had all died. They started going after enemy TSes. Even after I pulled the Panther out of the sector, they would return until they killed their last target. Worse, one of them got damaged and I don't know how to repair it. The drones don't seem to repair each other and I don't know if the drones from the Guppy can repair it while it is repairing other ships. I can't even order it to the HQ for repairs.

So, how can I force a drone to return to the carrier and how can I repair a drone?

Deathifier
Posts: 160
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
xr

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Deathifier » Thu, 26. Aug 21, 11:24

Once under the control of the drone carrier you don't have direct control over them, there is no recall drones command, and it seems like once they launch they don't get a new command until their job is done.
The lack of a recall drone command is annoying if you accidentally jump the carrier somewhere whilst the drones are out as they don't seem to want to go back to the carrier unless it returns to the same sector.

The damaged drone you can fix if you disconnect it from the carrier.
Click on the M7D in your property list, choose advanced -> carrier management, then you can choose the drone to remove.
You may have to rename it to find it though (I numbered mine).

Once disconnected you can undock it and the other drones should repair it just as they repair other ships.
When repaired dock it at the M7D and it'll take over control once more.

Jimmy C
Posts: 1131
Joined: Tue, 17. Jul 12, 02:50
x3tc

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Jimmy C » Thu, 26. Aug 21, 15:27

Disconnect worked and I got the drone repaired. Thanks.
As I said, the drone did go back to the ship after I pulled it out to the adjacent sector, after they killed their target.

Deathifier
Posts: 160
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
xr

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Deathifier » Thu, 26. Aug 21, 17:01

Jimmy C wrote:
Thu, 26. Aug 21, 15:27
Disconnect worked and I got the drone repaired. Thanks.
As I said, the drone did go back to the ship after I pulled it out to the adjacent sector, after they killed their target.
Good to hear it worked :)

The travel issue I had may have been because I had set the distance to travel to 0 so the drones wouldn't run off out of sector to do repairs.

Agimar
Posts: 251
Joined: Wed, 22. Dec 04, 11:38
x3ap

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Agimar » Thu, 26. Aug 21, 17:47

Very important and usefull information! Thx!

Hwitvlf
Posts: 484
Joined: Tue, 13. Apr 21, 21:36

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Hwitvlf » Fri, 27. Aug 21, 17:06

A couple drone questions:
Does anyone have a list of the differences in the special drones?
Has anyone tried to use drones for mining? I'm wondering if there's a benefit compared to TS miners.

Jimmy C
Posts: 1131
Joined: Tue, 17. Jul 12, 02:50
x3tc

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Jimmy C » Sat, 28. Aug 21, 05:21

From my own experience, the Boron Extended Drone has three Repair Lasers, which are a real help in patching up ships. The Split Raider Drone has two IRLs and 1 Repair Laser. I thought it'd be no better than an M5, but they actually chewed fighters when they launched that time. Some of the other drones may have missile launchers, but I haven't gotten to those ships yet.

I've been wanting to ask, is there any way to use drones independently of an M7D? After I got the Guppy, I built an Extended Drone and tried to use it on its own, but could find no way to order it to repair ships.
Last edited by Jimmy C on Sun, 29. Aug 21, 03:30, edited 1 time in total.

Deathifier
Posts: 160
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
xr

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Deathifier » Sat, 28. Aug 21, 07:23

Hwitvlf wrote:
Fri, 27. Aug 21, 17:06
A couple drone questions:
Does anyone have a list of the differences in the special drones?
Has anyone tried to use drones for mining? I'm wondering if there's a benefit compared to TS miners.
Cycrow listed the drones and their features here:
Re: Drone types and M7Ds

I've mainly used the Boron Extended Drones - 24 of those on an Ariadne fixes just about anything extremely quickly.
The Teladi mining drones probably work well for collecting the minerals however the drones and their carrier would quickly fill up and unloading might be an issue.
Jimmy C wrote:
Sat, 28. Aug 21, 05:21
I've been wanting to ask, is there any way to use drones independently of an M7D? After I got the Guppy, I built an Extended Drone and tried to use it on its own, but could find no way to order it to repair ships.
I think you can manually fly an independent drone if you put it on one of your in-game monitors and then click on the monitor to take control.
I haven't tried it though.

Hwitvlf
Posts: 484
Joined: Tue, 13. Apr 21, 21:36

Re: Commanding M7D Drones

Post by Hwitvlf » Sun, 29. Aug 21, 07:57

Thanks for the Drone info link. I've been trying out the different types.

The Teladi drone's mining seems to go faster than other methods- maybe because they fly fast, and they're much easier to deploy. Setting up a TS using Trade Distribution works well to empty minerals from the carrier.

The Boron drone is great for repair duty. You can enter the cockpit via spacewalk and repair things faster yourself.

The Collect Spaceflies feature (Yaki Hauler) is fun, but it only works in-system and the drones have a hard time picking up flies before they recover from being stunned. The Hauler also scans ships' cargo but it seems to select its targets at random so it does a lot of flying back and forth; still could work quickly with a large squad.

Collect Wares is decent, but they only collect a single item per trip so it's not as fast as you would expect and the cargo is not huge so it doesn't work well for large drops.

The other drones don't seem very useful. Exploration functions seem counter intuitive to the Discovery Points system. The marine distribution feature isn't better than having a TP hovering nearby. Split fighting drones are generally inferior to cheaper M4s as far as I can tell. Seems like the new Drones are a great platform for a mod though - lots of special functions could be added like remote salvaging ships, searching universe for a specific ship type or cargo, searching for discoveries etc.

Post Reply

Return to “X³: Farnham's Legacy”