do repair drones really matter?

[Vertigo 7]

I remember seeing some questions about repair drones on frigates a while back and people were saying the repair drones repair from inside the ship instead of launching. Here's the thing, I've found that my ships, regardless of size other than S, will all repair with or without repair drones and the amount repaired is completely based on the crew skill. I don't even see a difference in rate of repair with or without repair drones. I'm curious if anyone has noticed anything along these lines as well?

Matter of fact, I've been going back and playing rebirth again, and I'm seeing the same behavior there. People say don't blow the drone bay or the engineer can't repair the ship... well, 5 star engineer repaired a Taranis I captured completely to 100% without a single drone.

So yeah... as far as I can tell, repair drones are pretty worthless.

[RodentofDoom]

Whether they actually launch or not is based on 1 factor

Is the player in sector

[Vertigo 7]

no, specifically M class ships never launch repair drones, in or out of sector. Assume everything I'm speaking about here is in sector =p

[Imperial Good]

Repair drones do matter. A single drone will repair ships 10 times faster than no drones, and the number matters as well. The exception is with the Xenon. They have a separate repair rate without a penalty for no repair drones.

I do not know if they matter with M ships. I must assume they do seeing how there is an option for putting them on frigates when manipulating loadout. However they most certainly do with L, XL and stations. One wants at least 1 repair drone on those. Destroyers and carriers usually want maximum.