Frigate Drones vs. Fighter Drones: a cost comparison

[Sam Redstone]

Hi, all. I've been crunching some numbers to decide on my next move in XTC, and although I haven't yet come to a conclusion, I thought I'd share some data.

I am either going to buy a Drone Frigate and use its ability to mass-produce its proprietary fighters (which are somewhere between M5 and M4 in terms of stats), OR I am going to set up an Advanced Drone Factory complex and churn out a heap of MkII Fighter Drones.

Either way, I will have a limitless supply of minions to do my bidding. The question is, which path is better? Specifically, which is...

1. Cheaper?
2. Easier to manage?
3. More effective in combat?

For this post, I'm going to focus on #1, the cost comparison. That's as far as I've gotten so far. After this, I'll be commencing field trials of the Split Panther Drone Frigate, and I will attempt to address the other two questions later.

PART I: Drone Frigate

First, what does a Drone Frigate cost? A Split Panther with upgrades, weapons (I chose PBE all around mainly just for missile defense; these ships aren't built to fight), and shields costs a total of around 42 million credits.

Upon giving the order to manufacture drones, I learned that each drone is produced in approximately 40 seconds (very impressive!) at a cost of 1.11 million credits. A little expensive, but awfully convenient, especially because the Panther will automatically build replacements as any of its 24 drones get destroyed. At least, according to the manual... I haven't field-tested this feature yet.

I'm a little disappointed that the Panther can only maintain 24 of these drones, as it has hangar space for 32 fighters. I was hoping it could support 32 drones, and that's why I chose it... but it's also the fastest DF, so I'm still satisfied with my purchase. Besides, that means it has room to pick up any fighters that bail, which is always nice.

Anyway, that brings the total cost of a Split Drone Frigate and 24 drones to a hefty 68.88 million credits. Each drone subsequently destroyed in combat will cost the player an additional 1.11 million, so battles which go poorly can be expected to have a high cost (more than the mission payout, in all likelihood).

PART II: Fighter Drones

The Fighter Drone MkII has a median cost of 26,952 credits. However, if I'm going to be using them extensively, it would be more cost-effective in the long term to set up a self-sufficient factory complex to produce them.

As Ore is not needed, the only mineral resource needed is Silicon. With a 50-yield Silicon asteroid, a complex can be built which will produce 15 MkII Fighter Drones per hour. A self-sufficient complex like this (using Split factories) costs a grand total of 44.47 million credits, but requires no further investment. (I'm assuming factory prices are unchanged in XTC, but I haven't double-checked that yet.)

So to sum up:

Cost for a Drone Frigate and 24 drones: 68.88 million credits

Cost for a self-sufficient MkII Fighter Drone complex: 44.47 million credits

You can even buy a TL to help build the complex, and still come out money ahead.

This is only a cost comparison, however. The real in-game application of each approach would be substantially different. First and foremost, the Drone Frigate is the only viable choice for automated, out-of-sector defense. (That's really what they were designed for, I think.) Another important difference is that MkII Fighter Drones are not reusable. Once deployed, they are permanently invested, whether or not they are destroyed in combat. However, they can be deployed in much larger numbers. Each takes up only 4 units of M class cargo space, which means a typical M7 can easily carry several hundred. Incidentally, this M7 that's carrying the drones can be an actual combat-capable ship, such as a Tiger or Tepukei, rather than the relatively weak Drone Frigate. Of course, they could likewise be deployed from an even bigger ship, like an M2 or M2+, if that's what the player prefers to fly. Furthermore, with the complex up and running, the drones are essentially free.

In case you think Fighter Drones are useless in a real engagement, you should see the results of a test I ran using 100 and then 200 Keris Drones under CMOD. 200 of those were quite capable of taking down multiple capital-class ships. You can find my report here. Granted, the Keris in CMOD are especially dangerous, as they carry the beefed-up CMOD version of the EMPC. I have yet to determine whether the MkII in XTC is anywhere near as good.

That will all be determined when I get around to field-testing both approaches. Stay tuned!

 0 Comment(s)

[Trickmov]

I don't think that this cost-comparision is useful - the drones are much stronger than the MK2-drones... that's like comparing a M5 with a M3 and stating that the M3 is too expensive :P

[EDIT:]
With such a comparision you could also easily calculate a fully equipped M1 out, because it's too expensive.

Apart from that the drone carriers should originally be able to repair damaged drones (and probably that feature will make it into the next patch)

 0 Comment(s)

[k1LLzyar]

There is strength in numbers

Hmm 1.11 million is a lot for a single drone, you can buy 40 MkIIs for that money, thats if you don't have a self-sufficient complex.

How much stronger are these frigate drones?

That will all be determined when I get around to field-testing both approaches. Stay tuned!

I appreciate your efforts.

 0 Comment(s)

[pippin83uk]

just a thought i had after using some mkII drones they die very easy.

MkII fighter drones only have 600 hull and cost about 30k but a Keris has 3k hull and cost about 1/3 of that but in a self sustained loop cost dosen't really matter in a longer fight the Keris would be better as a drone as it has a much greater hull then the mkII FD not tested a Drone Frig yet but i did like the griffion in XTM so will give it a go at some point.

 0 Comment(s)

[Sam Redstone]

Tricky - It's not meant to be a 1:1 cost comparison. I wouldn't compare a single MkII drone to a single frigate drone. As k1LLzyar pointed out, you could buy 40 MkII drones (41, actually) for the cost of a single frigate drone. Now tell me which one would win in a fight.

The frigate drones have a chance of surviving the fight, while the MkII drones do not, which makes them potentially more cost-effective... however, the MkII drones can be built in a self-sufficient factory complex, making them more cost-effective over the long term. It depends on where and how you want to spend your money, and how much of it you want to spend.

For the curious, I did finally run a bunch of field tests. Using a base savegame so that I could attack the exact same targets each time, I tried the drone frigate and all three types of disposable drones.

The targets were a pair of Pirate Carracks (M7) escorted by 2x M8s, 2x M3s, and some M4s and M5s (two of each, I think). I was mainly concerned with taking down the Carracks first, especially since one of them was the target of an assassination mission.

For the three different types of disposable drones, I used four hours' worth of production from a same-sized complex. That's why there are different numbers of each type; however, the production cost of each "swarm" was the same in each case. (The production could be increased by adding factories, of course... an Argon complex which could produce double these numbers would look like this and cost about 84 million.)

Test 1: Drone Frigate

This was a Split Panther with 24 drones aboard. First, I attempted to control it while OOS, thinking that would be a convenient way to do missions. I sent it to the gate nearest the Pirate fleet, and before I could open its command console, it was gone. It was destroyed in something under two seconds, with all drones lost. Never mind the OOS approach.

Then I tried it in-sector from a safer distance. This was a smashing success, with only one drone destroyed during the mission. That's a 1.11 million credit loss on a mission that paid 2.4 million, so there was still a profit.

I took a subsequent mission, which also gave me a 2x Carrack battle group as my target. This time, I explored the other end of the "success <--> failure" spectrum. Perhaps it's because some of the drones had hull damage from the first mission, but this time, I lost EIGHT drones during the battle, for a loss of nearly nine million credits. To make matters worse, the assassination target Carrack was actually killed by a Split cop in an M3, who got lucky and landed the killing shot... so I failed the mission. I didn't even get paid.

That was enough for me... I came away feeling that the risk / reward model for the drone frigate was just too unpredictable. You might make a profit, or you might be out millions of credits. It all depends on how the fight goes - something over which the player has little control.

Test 2: Fighter Drones (MkI)

I noticed during my cost research that the basic Fighter Drones can be manufactured about seven times as quickly as the MkII Drones. I thought I would give them a chance. They're extremely fast (400 m/s) and maneuverable (120 rpm), so that might give them an advantage despite their pitiful firepower (a single Impulse Ray Emitter).

Four hours' worth of production at my planned complex (with four drone factories) would produce 436 of the MkI Fighter Drones, so that's what I unleashed on the Carrack battle group. It was a sight to behold, although something of a slide show at 13-14 frames per second! Sadly, the MkI Drones seemed to lack the firepower to bring the shields down on the first Carrack before their 10 minute, 20 second lifespan expired. They got the shields to around 78%, and there they stayed. Their damage output wasn't sufficient to overcome the Carrack's shield recharge rate. Additionally, they seemed to have a significant maneuvering problem due to their numbers. Every time I inspected one of the drones, its current action was listed as "Avoiding... Fighter Drone." So they were too busy trying not to collide with each other to spend much time firing on the target.

I suspect that if one could successfully deploy them out of sector, where collision is not an issue, they would be impressive in those kinds of numbers. Even in-sector, only 100 or so were actually shot down by the entire enemy battle group by the time their 10-minute batteries gave out. so while they only have 50 hull and no shields, they are exceedingly hard to hit.

Test 3: Fighter Drones (MkII)

Now we arrive at the MkII test, which I was looking forward to. The MkII carries 2x Particle Accelerator Cannons, giving it the firepower of an actual M5. It's slower and less maneuverable than the MkI (180 m/s and 26 rpm), but it compensates with a thicker hull (2500).

These are more costly to produce, so four hours in my complex only yielded 60 drones.

They were an unmitigated success. I am happy to report that 60 MkII Drones chewed right through both Carracks (each with a full 2 GJ of shielding), took out both M8s and both M3s, and had just enough time to kill one of the M4s and start chewing on the second M4 before their batteries gave out. (Despite Betty's description of the MkII as having an "increased range" over the MkI, their lifetime is only 2 seconds longer.)

Their numbers dwindled throughout the engagement, of course. They lost close to 20 in the fight against the first Carrack, and there were only about 10 or 12 left when they ran out of juice. Still, I noticed that several had some hull damage, which meant they were able to take a hit or two and keep fighting. In my own separate tests, I was able to peg one with a Meson Blaster about 5 times before killing it. They are actually pretty survivable, although of course each hit slows them down.

Test 4: Keris Drones

Unfortunately, there is really no need to test my favorite drone, the Keris, as it is not possible in the X-tended mod to buy a factory which produces them. This is a shame, because in the vanilla game, I manufacture these things by the truckload and use them often. However, for the sake of completeness, I tested them anyway. (Straps on goggles and shouts, "FOR SCIENCE!!")

Using production data from the vanilla game, I estimated that my 4x complex could build 200 of these in my allotted four hours, so that's what I deployed against the targets.

I expected better performance from them, to be honest. They scuttled the first Carrack (and thus completed the mission) but couldn't overcome the second one. I think they may have been too numerous to be effective. Again, they were "avoiding" each other most of the time. Their stats are similar to the MkII Drones, which were amazingly successful in smaller numbers. I suspect that a smaller group of Keris drones actually would have been more effective.

Unfortunately, I was tired of running tests, and it really wouldn't be relevant anyway, since the player cannot manufacture Keris Drones in XTC. Ah, well. I had a clear winner, anyway.

Conclusion:

The MkII Fighter Drone is, as I suspected, a powerful ally. The ability to deploy an entire fleet of disposable, combat-capable craft at virtually no cost to the player, with enough firepower to burn through a pair of frigates and their escort, should not be underestimated. All this fighting power takes up a mere 240 units of M-class cargo, too.

If the player actually participates in the battle, of course, they become even more effective. While that would more accurately reflect a real usage scenario, I chose to stay out of the fight for the sake of making an accurate comparison between the drones themselves.

This was a simple test, and your own mileage may vary. I just wanted to get an idea of the overall effectiveness of this approach to combat in XTC. There are lots of ways to approach the game, and this is merely one more. I've always found unleashing swarms of drones to be enjoyable. If you don't, then there's no need for you to bother with it. A single destroyer in the player's hands, with lots of rolling and strafing, will probably always be the MOST cost-effective and simplest way to fight. But if you find that it's getting dull, don't be afraid to try alternatives. Bombers, carriers, mixed fleets, and even the Redstone Swarm are all effective tactics.

 0 Comment(s)

[pippin83uk]

i didn't notice i keris couldn't be made by the player still drones are fun i like loading an m3+ with them and taking on pirate raids and cappital ships its fun send in swarm confuse the enemy and then add my own guns to the mix not sure a drone frig would be as much fun unless it was over tuned ^_^

 0 Comment(s)

[Sam Redstone]

One more thing I should mention, by the way. I did promise in my original post that I was going to try to determine which approach was "easier to manage"...

Fighter Drones can be given orders by simply pressing predefined keys. I think it's Shift+8 for "Drones attack target" and Shift+9 for "Drones protect me." You just dump them out of your cargo bay and hit a key, then sit back and watch the fun.

The only way to make the Frigate Drones this easy to control is by setting the entire wing as the player's "Wingman." Then you can use Shift+6 and Shift+7 to get the same commands, I think. I'm not sure what the long-term effects of leaving them set as your wingmen would be, but you might need to go back into the wing command console and change them back after the fight. Just a little bit harder to use. On the other hand, you can give them a broader range of commands, too, so it depends on what you're after.

 0 Comment(s)

[dctrjons]

I was understanding that Frigate Drones were more designed for OOS. Hence might not be so easy to manage. This from reading the manual...my computer cringes 'strength in numbers', so I have not ventured this path.
Have you tried them OOS on just patrol where there are not enemies in waiting?

For those wondering, frigate drones have 1-5kj shield, 10k hp, 4 forward guns, PAC or PBE and run 200m/s
What's interesting is these are ships...IE if you want to dig into the cash you can put 5KJmil on them and swap out the guns. And fly them.

24 drones with 5KJ military shields and 4 PBE? O.o I wouldn't fly into that solo.

 0 Comment(s)

[Sam Redstone]

I think you're absolutely right. I even mentioned in my first post above:

First and foremost, the Drone Frigate is the only viable choice for automated, out-of-sector defense. (That's really what they were designed for, I think.)

Not that I blame anyone for missing that in my enormous piles of text....

Have I actually tried the Drone Frigate in that capacity? No, not yet. Eventually, I will, as I'm sure most XTC players will. Drone Frigates are a new addition in XTC, one of the things I know the team worked very hard on, and everyone is going to want one (or several) to protect their empires. I hope they work well. I'm sure they've been tested. I just don't personally have an empire at the moment, so have not much use for one.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's no place for Drone Frigates. I was merely trying to find out which setup I would rather have for personal use, that's all. I know that's not really what the Drone Frigates were meant for, but I was in the mood for a new way to do combat missions for a while.

What I'm curious about is how the landed drones will behave if the Frigate is attacked. I noticed during my own tests that the Drones are not "home based" to their carrier, leading me to wonder if they will actually undock and fight if the carrier is attacked. Surely that was the design intention, but unless there's a command hidden under the surface, they don't seem to be "born" with any sort of latent command to protect the carrier.

You know, I kept that savegame from my tests with the Panther, with the Carrack battle group at the other end of the sector.... maybe I'll fire that up again tonight and tell the Panther to "patrol" that sector. I can hop into an adjacent sector and see what happens when the Panther encounters the battle group.

I'll report back.

 0 Comment(s)

[dctrjons]

Honestly I read it, I just forgot about it 30 min later when I was done reading
But I think they do 'look' too fragile (no battle testing myself). I think they were designed as lil' M1s with the idea of M7's being little M2s. And I don't think that comparison works. An M1 is a mobile base, a M7D (my official name) is a mobile factory.

Ignoring costs I would think these guys should have more durability. Maybe lacking free cargo for manufacturing, or maybe add a supply requirement to them. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have at least some sort of supply requirement (I'm not a fan of thin-air manufacturing). And weapons could even more limited, only really needed for missile defense, and leaving more energy for shields and drone replacement. I would think the idea would be to keep them out of the fight as much as possible.

But the cost of the drones isn't so bad, about 3x it's worth. (Slightly gimped buster)

And are these player exclusive?

 0 Comment(s)