This guide is about meta game (and min-maxing to an extent) – everything described below can be easily determined on your own, so there are gameplay SPOILERS ahead.

If you are using Steam version of the game, I strongly advise you to go here and install the unofficial update that fixes a lot of annoying bugs.
I tip my imaginary fedora to devs for incorporating the unofficial update into the base game, you guys are the best!

If you have played less than 15 hours/are a game journo that hates losing and is looking for a shortcut/don't like the challenge the game presents – this guide is not for you. In my opinion, the game's most important aspects, that make it into a unique experience and a game worth being a classic – atmosphere and immersion, to a significant extend rely on the gameplay and the balance to be how they are currently (as of v1.205) and if the latter would be altered to accomodate the more casual crowd, the former ones might suffer to the point of the game falling into obscurity. You may not like how the game plays, you may not enjoy the lenghts you have to go through to figure out what is even going on, you may not like the way the game tells you about its mechanics and various different things, But I assure you that the game either does a good enough job to not hold your hand too much while still providing the vital information for you, or does it in a way that complements player's immersion (the manual as an example).

The way the game makes you invested in itself is through the need to learn how to operate the drones, learn the equipment quirks, how to manage the scrap expenses and to plan your strategy out, so for the love of everything that you hold dear – please make an honest effort to get the grip on things you might find frustrating and only then come back and give this guide a go. I myself finished the game at least once without looking anything up and had a great time with it, and if I could do it - so can you. So git gud put that Slime back on Normal and strap in – the sea of scrap floating in space is waiting to be unearthed.

It's important to note that while some modules bring more utility than others, every single piece of equipment has a universal set of qualities:

• Convertable into scrap
  
• Takes up an upgrade slot
  
• Breaks over time
  
• Can be traded for a full price even broken

On a side note, you will rarely run into a situation which requires you to leave the derelict without stripping all the destroyed drones of their modules, hoarding is rewarding.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure."
You absolutely need scrap to maintain equipment and 90% of the time you will be picking it up directly. Even if your gathering drone suffers a depressurization accident while trying to act as a bait for a Swarm, you still get all the scrap it gathered. Same applies to propulsion fuel and jump cells. Attempting to commandeer a vessel, on the other hand, doesn't give you all the scrap you left laying around. There are ways for scrap to appear under solid objects, and unfortunately you can't do anything about it since the drone needs to touch the piece of scrap with its hitbox, but that happens extremily rare. Unless you feel like fighting Bots in tight rooms.
"Unlimited power!"
The ability to close and open doors is one of your biggest tactical advantages - you have an ability to shape the ship routes for your drones and the infestations so that neither would meet each other and your gathering drone can get to the goodies without harm provided you have the energy to power the doors. Aside from those it can also power terminals and ship defences. Unfortunately, it doesn't always power the whole ship as they can have more than 1 power inlet in them. Or course, you are able to explore unpowered ships too, but it's kinda hard.
"A runabout? I'll steal it! No one will ever know!"

You start your journey with 3 drones, but if you find them chilling on derelicts, you can recruit them with this upgrade. While you can't have more than 4 functioning drones on a mission and no more than 3 spare ones, towing disabled drones is one of your top priorities as they are a great source of scrap (converting them gives you 7-9 scrap depending on their condition) so be sure to have at least 1 empty slot for an extra drone before a mission. In some rare cases ships may contain drones with 4 upgrade slots, and believe me - you absolutely want to have extra slots on your drones. You can also tow ship upgrades back to the dropship (unless they are permanent or firmly installed). Be advised that you can't move destroyed drones (white outlines), however an open airlock can, so be careful when venting dangerous rooms.

"What I'd like to know is how you rob a bank without opening any doors."

Pros:

• Instant
  
• Can teleport certain small items with an upgrade
  
• Infinite uses

Cons:

• Doesn't teleport other drones
  
• Upgrade mentioned above is limited
  
• Can't teleport into rooms you haven't revealed in schematic view
  
• Difficulty with teleporting into narrow rooms

This is in my opinion the best upgrade you can ever have on your generator drone, While it has its drawbacks, this upgrade gives you an ability to detect and dispatch threats within the safety of your first room (or even dropship with the help of ship upgrades) specifically due to its pretty cheap upgrade. Though you need some other equipment to make the most out of this one, even in its default state it's pretty useful - especially in situations when one of your drone ends up stranded in an unpowered room and you for some reason can't get to the specific inlet directly in order to free it. So what makes this upgrade so valuable?
"A surveillance camera?"

Pros:

• Continiously scans the room it's placed in
  
• Works with Teleport
  
• Has plenty of charges

Cons:

• Dangerous to place without Teleport
  
• Meal for Security Drones

You are able to detect enemies visually, but only a few would let you to drive away from them. While the presence of your drone is required to place a sensor down, you are almost never locked into your first room and almost always able to manipulate enemies into walking inside rooms that are being scanned. Pretty solid upgrade on its own... but with an upgraded Teleport it becomes 3 times more useful! One thing that takes ages to do in Duskers is scouting for enemies - you can spend ages luring out Swarms and Leapers from unsurveyed rooms just to lure them back once you've done collecting scrap, or there may be no enemies in those rooms and you'd just waste time waiting for nothing to come out and even then you can either get ambushed by a Swarm suddenly bursting out of a vent or Slime can spawn next to your dropship even before you are able to figure out that it was on the ship in the first place. However Teleport + Sensor combo mitigates all those things and lets you salvage derelicts very fast just by reliably pointing out all the dangerous rooms for you within several minutes. Be aware you can't pick sensors back up and Junkbots will shoot them on sight.

"Give me a hard copy right there."

Pros:

• Instantly reveals everything in the room
  
• Locates extra scrap
  
• Infinite uses

Cons:

• Doesn't reveal enemies
  
• Maintenance may outweigh the extra scrap you get

Another thing that takes time in Duskers is highlighting all the items and structures - you need all the resources you can get to survive so the game facilitates meticulous search for every bit of useful stuff, so with this upgrade upon entering a command you are able to reliably highlight every point of interest in the room no matter how big it is. What's more useful is that this upgrade can reveal deposits of scrap that you have no way of seeing through the drone view, those are highlighted orange. Best upgrade for your gathering drone.
"What makes me a good Demoman?"

Pros:

• AOE nuke
  
• Works with Teleport

Cons:

• If more than 1 trap is deployed, they detonate altogether
  
• Blast radius is as big as the room is
  
• High chance of damaging structures

Your second most destructive way of dispatching enemies (nothing beats the vaccum of space). Place a trap in a middle of the room, wait until an enemy enters and blow it to smithereenes. You can do damage to environment, but if you've towed all the drones from the room and there is no power inlet, you're safe to play with explosives. Oh, and who can forget the Teleport synergy? Telebomb your way through the derelict like a madman if you so desire, but you may want to save those few trap charges just for Leapers and Slime clusters. Don't forget to pick up unused charges before you leave.
"How am I going to stop some big mean mother hubbard from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind?"

Pros:

• Flexible
  
• Plenty of ammo
  
• Hitscan

Cons:

• Unusable while moving or turning
  
• Doesn't immediately kill threats
  
• Can damage structures

Good old-fashioned tactic of giving your enemies a critical dose of lead. While it is the least damaging way of fending threats off, it is by far the most flexible one. What I mean by that is that you can use Turret in various situations where other offensive upgardes can't help you or do more harm to you. For example, game decided to spawn a vent in a room with a power inlet and Swarm has been spotted buzzing on the derelict. What does this mean? Well, you either need to move very fast or deal with Swarm spawning at some point from a vent next to your generator drone. Even though your combat drone will take some damage and you'd waste 40 bullets putting an end to a Swarm, your mission won't be put in jeopardy. Be aware that trying to take on a Leaper head-on is a bad idea - it's gonna claw you down before you'd be able to retaliate so consider setting up an ambush instead. Try not to kill rooms full of Slime with it as well - it takes quite a bit of ammo to do so. Note that Turret won't shoot something that the drone itself wouldn't be able to see (losing visual signal doesn't affect the upgrade), so camping doorways isn't as easy as it seems. Also note that the range goes beyond the arc displayed in front of the drone, so there's never a need to drive up close outside of an ambush – the infestations got you covered on that front ;)

"They forgot the first rule of survival: the real hunter always watches where he steps."

Pros:

• Set and forget
  
• Proximity-based
  
• Variable blast radius

Cons:

• Unreliable
  
• Useless against Slime

Let me say that despite the drawbacks it is still a very useful upgrade and it's a good addition to other offensive upgardes (hence why it's on the top of B-tier). Its main drawback consists of a few small annoying conditions you have to meet. Firstly, you need 2 mines to kill 1 Leaper - half of your ammunition out the window! Secondly, most effective placement is directly in front of a door - Swarms and Junkbots have no chance of surviving, but the door can't be closed after that. Thirdly, the upgrade has a variable amount of damage depending on how close your drones and enemies are to the explosion - your drone will survive if a mine goes off on the othe side of the room but not without taking a hit. Fourthly, Mine is virtually useless against Slime due to to how hard it is to make it "step" on one w/o endangering your drones and unpredictability of its spawns. And finally, it can damage structures as well as Trap can, or it may not - just don't set up your minefield on top of an inlet. Why is its weird blast radius considered a benefit? Well, if we take an earlier example with a vent in a room with an inlet, you can pretty safely spawnkill Swarm with mines - just put one on top of the vent, even if you are as slow as molasses, losing some health won't be as bas as losing an entire drone. Would I take mines over other weapons though? Hell no. Would I use it before trying to kill Swarms and Slimes with an airlock? Hell no. Would I use it against SecBots and Leapers if there are ship defences as well as Interface upgrade available? Hell no. With all that said, you don't have a lot of options in terms of how to deal with enemies permanently, so if you bring it along - exhaust the charges before switching to more potent weaponry.
"Vi, you have to put a force field around the plane!"

Pros:

• Tank almost all kinds of damage (even Leapers can't penetrate it!)

Cons:

• Has to be activated beforehand
  
• Weak to explosions

Did you want to be a juggernaut? Now you can! With this handy upgrade you can take any living threat head-on or you can pose as a better living bait depending on how desperate you are. The best synergy is with Turret since you can just stand in front of a door and wait 'til enemies come to you! If you have no other options, Shield lets you to check whether it is safe or not to go into rooms without suffering damage or losing the drone completely. Of course, shield hitpoints can run out so you can't just stay under Swarm's attack indefinetely. Why is it weak to explosions? Well, I once tried to see if Mine is able to oneshot a Leaper if it's put directly on its face, and while the experiment was a success (although I was never able to repeat the result again, I am still wondering why did that work!), the drone, that had full health and full 500 points of shields, died immediately. And I'd say that radiation shielding is not worth it - I've yet to see a situation where it is either absolutely needed or it can save my drones better than a closed door can. Can't be activated along the next upgrade which is...
"She says the jungle... it just came alive and took him"

Pros:

• Become invisible to all enemies (can even fool a Slime spawn)
  
• Rechargable

Cons:

• Using almost any other module switches it off
  
• You can't go through most of the enemies
  
• Bumping into them reveals your drone
  
• Enemies can sense your drone if you drive near them

Your second best early-game module and your only way of safely identifying types of enemies 100% correctly. With it you can scout for enemies directly, if you have no other means of detection, you can simply sneak past them if given a big enough room. In combination with Turret, you can reliably sneak up on Leapers and gun them down before they turn around and make you regret your life choices so it's a pretty good replacement for Shield for your combat drone. Swarm though... despite of what I read on wiki, it is surprisingly good against it - you can't bump into it as it's a non-solid entity unlike Bots and Leapers. While you best not to take your chances with a stationary Swarm, if it somehow finds a target (even the drone that is about to get cloaked), you can put Stealth on and literally go through the pack without it noticing - Swarm's AI only allows it one action before it is able to react, so if it is flying towards the spot it has seen you last time to investigate, it's you best chance to escape.
"Welcome to the omniverse."

Pros:

• Survey ship layouts
  
• Switch on defences that vaporize all enemies instantly
  
• Scan rooms for valuables
  
• Ship Defence option is almost guranteed to be in the terminal if there are any stationary turrets present

Cons:

• Presented options are random
  
• You can't switch on defences in unpowered rooms
  
• Rooms that get scanned are random

There is only one very solid reason for this upgrade to not be in a lower tier - ship defences destroy entities better than BEN SHAPIRO (in his imagination) DESTROYS young students INEXPERIENCED in public debates with FAXX & LOGIC?!?!?! - you'd wish you could take a stationary turret with you, strap it onto your combat drone and cleanse the whole ship with it. In fact, it can also destroy your drones if you forget to switch defences off before entering the room. While terminals can provide you with a scan and a survey, they aren't as reliable as some upgrades that can do the same without a need to search for a right terminal or have whole derelict powered.
"Don't move, don't whisper, don't even breathe!"
Pros:

• Reveals threats in a room you are in as well as any adjacent rooms even through closed doors

Cons:

• Needs your drone to stay in place in order to work
  
• Has a chance to not be able to scan random rooms at all
  
• Does not detect Slime

I was considering putting this into a lower tier but... it's a big early game carry. Being able to scan rooms for threats within the safety of your starting room is invaluable before you're able to assemble the meta build, not to mention it works well in tandem with Sensor - the more detection, the better. Unfortunately it becomes obsolete very quickly and upgrade slots need to be filled with other useful upgrades. You can still turn your drone with it switched on.

"AAGH I tried to sneak through the door man! Can't make it. Can't make it. ♥♥♥♥'s stuck."

Pros:

• You can open any door

Cons:

• Try closing it back, lol

While the benefit is very clear and the upgrade has no alternatives, why would you ever want to open an unpowered door? Or course, if some random door is going to malfunction due to RNG or because it couldn't withstand the vacuum of space, trapping a drone in the process, then this is your only hope of recovering it which makes it a decent fail-safe upgrade. You can also ditch Generator completely, give all your drones Turret upgrade, put a SWAT uniform on and play "breach n' clear", but is it a sustainable startegy? Though at some point you need to commandeer an unpowered vessel to complete a certain objective, I'm pretty sure you have to do that once. Good addition to your 4-slot drone through. Weirdly enough, it's the only upgrade that works with Stealth on.
"Computer, turn off that noise!"

Pros:

• Scare off Leapers, Slime and Swarm
  
• Lasts up to 100 seconds

Cons:

• Slime returns back to where it was 10 seconds after switching the upgrade off
  
• Bots couldn't care less
  
• Requires your drone to be motionless

Let's face it, you don't want to go in a room with a Leaper while having only Sonic equipped - half the time Leaper is going to meet you face to face before you have a chance to use your upgrade. I would prefer to have a type-specific upgrade in this situation (which is slightly below on the list) as it distracts Leapers for far longer without a drone to supervise them. Despite aparently being a mechanical threat just like Junkbots, Swarm has sensitive ears. And Slimes? It gives you time to react and gtfo, you can even prolong the inevitable for longer if you care to time the use of the upgrade correctly, but it requres much more attention than just throwing Slime out the airlock (or gunning it down if it spawned next to your generator drone), which is much faster and safer. I'll take Trap or Turret over this on a Slime-infested derelict any time.
"Probing Uranus."

Pros:

• Automatically scans rooms once deployed
  
• Retrievable
  
• Safer than Scan

Cons:

• Overall slower than Scan
  
• Randomly wanders
  
• Still doesn't scan enemies

If there's something in Duskers that people still can't agree upon, it would be the viability of Probe. On one hand, it is an automated Scan – just deploy it and do other stuff while it's busy – throw in stealth mod and you can just watch it get info on all the rooms for you. On the other hand, you have a scout drone just sitting there and waiting for its turn while the probe is doing its thing and you are most likely gonna be busy managing the doors the entire time (because Probe won't mind scanning the room it has already scanned again while there's an unscanned room waiting). Two steps forward, one step back. Having Probe certainly beats having no scanning upgrades, and in early game it can be stronger than Scan, but when the age of the derelicts starts reaching 400 and they would grow 3 or 4 times in size compared to early ships, that's when you'll have some problems running Probe over Scan because time will become your most pressing concern – an active probe requires too much babysitting, the stealth mod is too expensive if you use a variety of other upgrades and it simply cannot compare to the speed and efficiency of a drone equipped with Scan and Gather. Sure, Probe works perfectly fine on its own w/o any support aside from Generator-related matters and you can put your scout drone in grave danger if you try scanning the whole derelict with nothing but Scan, but the upgrades don't just exist in a vacuum – you've got the meta build keeping you informed of all the dangers, other upgrades to deal with them and with Scan you'll only need to explore the derelict once, instead of doing a probe sweep than a gather sweep (opening and closing doors each time, of course). Simply put, risking your scout drone and running Scan is faster and more profitable than running Probe, don't @ me
"It's easy to fool the eye but it's hard to fool the heart."

Pros:

• Attracts Leapers and Swarm
  
• Leapers prefer lures over drones

Cons:

• Can't be teleported
  
• Can be destroyed
  
• Can't be picked up if damaged
  
• Security Bots and Slime ignore them

Bots and Slime clusters don't get fooled not because they have hearts, in fact all the enemies are pretty much heartless, as well as the entirety of the dead in-game universe... So 2 out of 4, huh? Swarm can get distracted by it if it didn't see any juicy drones driving around first. Leapers though? Leapers love lures. One can jostle a lure for several minutes. As already been stated, they prefer lures over your drones, so if you have a Leaper on the loose and happen to have Lure, be sure to feed them some of the charges. But you know what is the best way to disable Swarms and Leapers? That's right, outright killing them, so this upgrade acts as a crutch before you get something more lethal.
"I'm not looking to start a firefight in there; just neutralize them."
Pros:

• Disables moving enemies

Cons:

• Disable is temporary

It's just a weaker Mine. Situations where you need to stun and not kill your adversaries are extremily rare, not to mention it is completely useless against Slime. The only moderately good use this upgrade can have is when dealing against Swarm - if you have Turret but don't have Shield and desperately need to gun down a Swarm that is blocking your path, Stun allows you to dispatch it head-on w/o taking damage. Or better yet. it allows you to dodge Swarm spawning out of a vent next to an inlet, but Remote Power is a better option for this. An offensive crutch. Note that the length of the stun depends on how close the entity is to the stun mine itself when it goes off. Another thing to note is that mines disable all of the upgrades from affected drones even through a split second stun and even the structures themselves, so if you had an inlet being powered remotely near the stun mine, you'll have to hook up to it again,

"Light speed is too slow, we're gonna have to go right to ludicrous speed!"

Pros:

• Get 35% faster
  
• You can outrun Swarm
  
• Stacks with drone speed upgrade

Cons:

• Aforementioned drone speed upgrade

Yes, you can go to plaid if you want, but is there any reason to? And also, why would you give up valuable upgrade slot for something that improves your survival chance by the tiniest margin possible? It wouldn't be this bad if it wasn't for the fact that for 2 more scrap you can free an upgrade slot and stop caring about this thing breaking just by giving the permanent speed boost to any drone. It's good on a mission you found it, after that it's just a free deposit of scrap. And yeah, why would you try to run from a Swarm, if you can blow it up/lock it up/feed it some bullets/send it to space? You can be a better bait with this upgrade, but honestly, if you run this upgrade on a drone for this reason specifically, that means you don't have any non-essential upgrades available and you are minutes away from a reset.

Ship upgrades possess same universal properties as drone upgrades do, but there are a few nuances:

• None are imperative to your survival

This is simply because there are no essential ship upgrades. Yes, some of the upgrades allow you to visit derelicts you had no way of accessing before, but you can either skip them completely or access them later.

• Alternative deterioration rules

All but one equipable upgrade pass deterioration check upon leaving a derelict. Yep, doesn't matter whether you used it or not. Bringing something over "just in case" might bite you in the ass.

• Procurement method is different

You either tow them back to your dropship or commandeer a ship with them on board (the only way of getting firmly installed or already broken ones). And yes, just like drone upgrades, you can buy or sell them (for double the price!) when you come across autotraders.

• Existence of fixed upgrades

These offer a few new rules. For instance, they never break, which doesn't necessary means you can use them as much as you want - most of them require scrap to reachrge. Also, they are ship-specific - it doesn't mean however that each type of ship has their own fixed upgrade. But still, you will never be able to find Cannon installed on a barge (I'll gladly eat my words in case if I didn't look hard enough - I once thought that one fixed upgrade can be installed only on 2 ship types, but then I discovered that both Cannon and Collector can be found on 3 different types).

Did you know that ship upgrade slots themselves are prone to breaking? Unfair, I know, but such is life.

"Show them the zappy thing, Miles."

Pros:

• Power any inlet on the derelict

Cons:

• 1 inlet at a time

A glorified Generator upgrade? Not so much. You see, the obvious big difference is that you don't need a drone for it (which means you can ditch Generator if it malfunctions and if you don't want to convert your upgrades into scrap to build a new one). Why is it important? Flexibility, m8! The fact that you don't need to move your generator drone means you don't have to waste time leading it to another inlet and then escorting it back, and time is of the essence - the more you wait, the more problems will arise such as pipe ruptures leaking radiation, asteroids flying by, vents spewing Swarms, etc. Speaking of vents, for some reason game really likes putting them next to inlets in Swarm-infested ships. So yeah, even if there are any threats in the room with an inlet, you are still able to safely power it. Also, don't try to hook up to destroyed inlets, the upgrade isn't THAT good.
"...To chart the world. What joy... If only Iselda could share the thrill..."

Pros:

• Immeadiately reveal the layout upon boarding

Cons:

• There are a number of other ways to reveal layouts

Pretty straight-forward, innit? What could be a better upgrade to synergize with meta build - now you can send out sensors straight from the dropship! Despite of how good this upgrade is, it is still a tiny bit worse than Remote Power - Surveyor offers very few options compared to former since hooking up to inlets already reveals all the powered rooms. If you have Interface, and if you are lucky, you can survey the ship that way (in this sense Surveyour is better because there is no RNG involved). And unfortunately, all the derelicts have a rectangular shape, so there wouldn't be any surprise corridors leading to even bigger sections of the derelict, which devalues this upgrade even further. And no secret inaccessible rooms because all adjacent rooms are always connected to each other. Praying that devs would change that, it would bring a ton of variety and reason to take certain low-tier upgrades. If you want to make a mod for the game, please go with advanced ship layouts.
"This ingenious device lets you move things from one place... to the other!"

Pros:

• Transport your drones from and to dropship
  
• Gain access to outposts
  
• Works with Tow
  
• Receiver locations are always* safe

Cons:

• Signal is only bound to receivers
  
• Each room randomly gains and loses signal

Irreplaceable outpost-raiding tool. Even though you can freely teleport to and from dropship via drone upgrade, the game won't allow you to board outposts if you don't have Transporter installed. It also works with regular derelicts by expanding your safe zone further – any of your drones placed in a room with a signal will be automatically transported aboard the dropship upon exiting the derelict. The more interesting thing to note would be that transporter receivers that spawn only when you have the upgrade installed ALWAYS pick enemy-free rooms, those even outright disable vents they might be sharing rooms with no matter if they have an active signal or not - Swarms are not happy about it and buzz extra angrily when they sense Transporter (*citation needed). And yet, Slime couldn't care much about Transporter - it still can't spawn upon boarding in the room with a receiver, but single rogue nodes can still spawn anywhere they please (except your dropship, of course), so those Transporter safe havens might have gatekeepers waiting for you. The randomness at which signal appears makes this upgrade rather finicky though. Make sure you have some aliases ready - Transporter commands have a bigger auto-fill threshold. Actually, a lot of upgrades benefit from aliases, especially those that contain more that 1 word in them, make yourself familiar with that window if you haven't already. Imagine typing a giant command each time just to teleport 1 sensor, lmao... Nobody would do that, right? RIGHT???
"Get out of here, stalker."

Pros:

• Gain access to quarantined derelicts

Cons:

• These derelicts are quite rare

Perhaps the biggest choice this upgrade gives me is what I get to joke about in this section - anti-vaxxers or that scary virus which currently keeps me at home (for 2 years at this point, gorsh darn it!). Fun fact: making this guide kept me from crawling up my walls during early months of COVID-19 pandemic, otherwise I don't think I'd be bored anough to even think about making it at all. Anyway, this is the most straight-forward upgrade ever. Outposts are more frequent hence why this upgrade is below Transporter.

"My vision is augmented."

Pros:

• Double the scan range in galaxy view

Cons:

• Different deterioration rules
  
• Systems are almost never out of reach of your regular range
  
• Useless during boarding

This is the only upgrade that deteriorates upon equiping it. Does that mean you have to equip it and keep it until you commandeer another vessel? No, if you aren't flying MUTEKI A, you barely have any space for upgrades that are useful during boarding. You are going to be ok if you equip it just before or after moving to another system. And if it breaks - no big deal. The upgrade mainly helps you with strategic decision-making - if you don't have Transporter or Bypass, you might want to avoid systems that are dominated by derelicts that require those, with the help of Long Range Scanner you will be able to see them before you waste a jump-cell in order to chart the rest of the galaxy. In short, you barely get to use the upgrade for it to be somewhat useful, which means there is way less upkeep involved. And don't worry, if it breaks upon equpping, the area around you is still going to be revealed.
"So what if I like big guns?"

Pros:

• Obiterate whole rooms

Cons:

• Too destructive

Remember when I said that there is nothing more dangerous than vacuum? I lied! How about getting exploded first and THEN getting exposed to the vaccum of space? Nothing survives, nothing. Problem is that you may need to go through that destroyed room, or maybe there might be something useful to salvage. Besides, if you manage to lock enemies in rooms you have no intention to visit, they are practialy dead to you. And also there is little to no benefit in complete room destruction. For example, demolishing all Slime-infested rooms doesn't stop it from spawning periodically elsewhere. There is also a chance to destroy doors (and leave them open!) in the process which means you are possibly locking yourself out from even bigger area. If you are about to commandeer another vessel, Cannon may save you some ammunition and time.
"Number 5 is alive."

Pros:

• Make some derelict structures blow up
  
• Junkbots and Swarm die instantly

Cons:

• Slime and Leapers take 2 explosions
  
• You can't use destroyed equipment
  
• Doesn't work with rooms that don't have required structures

The list of affected structures is as follows: Inlets, Terminals, Turrets and Fuel Access Points. Basically, it works like Trap, but has damage of Mine. You also don't get to control what explodes in the room - you can damage something and(or) you can destroy something. Possibly the worst lethal option you can have, but at least it's free.
"I'm The Trashman, I eat garbage!"

Pros:

• Passive
  
• As of 1st of Feb 2022, extremily gamebreaking

Cons:

• ~30% per item

Another weird upgrade. First of all, it usually spawns on derelicts that aren't very desirable to commandeer, which are most likely to have just 1 ship upgrade slot. Second of all, in order for it to work you need to deliberately feed salvage to the vacuum - drones of any kind (except destroyed), scrap and ship upgrades can get fished out by your ship at the end of the mission. And finally, the chance is quite low - the only thing that follows backwards XCOM rules is upgarde breaking chance, which means these 30% are practically nothing. I decided to do a test to see if the upgrade works with salvage that doen't get sucked out but is just left to rot aboard - juicy Medical A with 2 disabled drones and ~20 scrap were left untouched... and not a single thing got collected. I'm pretty sure I just killed my current run by performing this test, but it's all for science. Also, I will not elaborate on you-know-what.
"Whoa, those things come in kits now? The good book don't mention that."

Pros:

• Remove radiation from a room

Cons:

• Expensive to refill (each charge costs 2 scrap)

Radiation leak can be caused by doing 3 things - leaving airlock open for too long, wasting enough time to experience pipe rupture event or blowing the room with Cannon. What do you do when it happens? Just close the doors, 4Head. When this upgrade comes into play? If you decide to pay a visit to an outpost and the remaining Transporter signal ends up being in irradiated room. It's good only as a fail-safe option, any active use gets trampled by costly recharging. You got better chances to get hit by lightning than find a situation where this upgrade can save your run.
"Nog, did you reroute that damn gyrodyne?"

Pros:

• Power rooms adjacent to those which are powered by an inlet

Cons:

• Lose power in rooms you reroute from

It's a good upgrade in a vacuum... but Remote Power accomplishes the same quicker and better. Nothing much to say here. This upgrade can be very helpful if you accidentially destroy an inlet early, but if you rely on fail-safe equipment a lot, you might be doing something wrong.

And now for something completely different. For this section I'll be rating threats by how easy you can deal with them - "Pros" still display properties that benefit you, "Cons" on the contary. The amount of preparation definetely matters which means for the sake of simplicity I should settle on that amount - whether one is fully prepared or not prepared at all... so let's do both! Universal properties? You don't want your drones to be anywhere near them, simple.

Btw, if you thought you can roleplay as a battlebots announcer while locking up a junkbot and a leaper in the same room, I have bad news for you - infestations don't recognise each other as enemies.

"bark"

Pros:

• Woof

Cons:

• *whimper*

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"I'm trying to get some rest from all the unborn chicken voices in my head."

Pros:

• Drops scrap on death
  
• Slow on the draw
  
• Abysmal vision
  
• Extremily predictable
  
• Weak to radiation

Cons:

• Destroys sensors

If prepared: no challenge
If unprepared: minor threat

Let's be fair to Bots and say that they aren't complete pushovers - you generally don't want to stick around them with no weapons and you sometimes can get shot from outside your vision. But if you have any way of killing them, you are in luck - each Bot can drop from 1 to 3 scrap upon death. Patrol behaviour is also pretty simple - Bots can't resist going through open doors, which means Mine is your easiest option. If you get spotted, don't worry - outrunning these guys is just as easy. As for the drawback of having them on the derelict - sensors are expendable anyway, but it should be noted that, despite suffering from miopía, Junkbots seek out dropped sensors through great distances. Despite supposedly being a part of internal ship defenses, they can't be controlled through terminals or directly exploded with Overload.
"I'm escaping to one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism. SPACE!"

Pros:

• Instantly vaporizes hostiles

Cons:

• Treats you and anything you can drop or pick up as hostile
  
• Extremily high chance of destroying structures including closed doors
  
• Brings radiation along

Environmental hazard

This thing seems vicious, right? Well, it is, but if you play the game right, it becomes your weapon. Anything that enters depressurized field (yellow lines on schematic view) gets sent to shadow realm instantly... except your drones. Yeah, vaccum leaves some breathing room for you, albeit a very small one. What does that mean? You can vent rooms with enemies while having a drone in the same room, you can even survive if you close the airlock fast enough (remember what I said about aliases?). Vacuum travels through open doors, so Slimes aren't safe. It also removes corpses, so you can unblock doors if you want.

"All that I ever see is nuclear fusion."

Pros:

• Weak
  
• Rare

Cons:

• Generally sticks for a while
  
• Doesn't affect organic threats

Environmental hazard

There's not much to say about this one, it's just a slight obstacle 95% of the time that isn't even that powerful (even though it travels through open doors). Well, except when you hear a sudden metal-bending sound which usually warrants for a mass evacuation. Or if you get notified about an asteroid floating by. Or if you decide to put Cannon to use. As long as you don't leave airlocks open for too long, you are gonna be safe. Farming Junkbots with it seems viable, but keeping radiation under control is not easy because it sometimes just hijacks the room even if it was barely exposed to other sources of radiation, and since you can't predict which enemies you will have aboard – you will most likely keep using your upgraded shield to tank other sources of damage.

"You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play."

Pros:

• Gets stunned for a while after attacking

Cons:

• Massive leap range
  
• High burst damage
  
• Doesn't like walking
  
• Big health pool

If prepared: Minor threat
If unprepared: Moderate threat

I still remember the first time I saw this thing attacking, I got so startled that I nearly screamed like a little girl. Even after almost a hundred hours of playing, this thing manages to at least make me flinch when I run into it. 90 damage upon impact is the real kicker here. Still, not the worst thing you can find aboard a derelict. It has been already mentioned that Mine is not the best offensive upgrade for fending off Leapers, however it doesn't mean they can't be killed - a few shots from Turret should make a quick work of them. And they aren't immune to vaccum either. Shield is your best friend while dealing with these living crystals.

"We'll outnumber them all."

Pros:

• Cannot move
  
• Can't go through doors
  
• Relatively low DPS

Cons:

• Spawns in any room multiple times
  
• Seeks out your stationary drones
  
• Initial clusters are too big for Turret
  
• Slows drones upon contact
  
• Invisible to Motion

If prepared: Barely a threat
If unprepared: CBT

Many people find this enemy to be an embodiment of Satan that is going to ruin your run at any opportunity. And I'm not many people. Yes, this is a very annoying enemy that can block you out from any room (potentially permanently), but that doesn't mean you can't beat it - knowledge is power!.. as well as weapons, of course - Trap doesn't care how many Slime nodes are in the room and Turret provides means to eliminate randomly spawned ones. A sensor near your generator drone should be enough to counter Slime's movement - new instances can spawn only 3 times over the course of the expedition. If you don't have anything with which you can destroy Slime nodes, work fast and don't hesitate leaving the ship if it threatens to lock you out - greed is good, but dead drones don't need scrap.
"Bring the spooks to the beer-soaked glade, the robot's here if the robot's paid."

Pros:

• Tiny health pool
  
• Monotask AI
  
• Very loud
  
• Very weak to radiation

Cons:

• Numerous
  
• Very fast
  
• High DPS
  
• Very sus (it lives in the vents)
  
• Breaks through weak doors
  
• Hard to distract
  
• Unpredicatble movement

If prepared: Medium threat
If unprepared: Massive threat

The most vicious physical threat you can find aboard a derelict. Imagine if you were attacked by 20 robotic fig wasps irl, you'd be scarred for life if you survive. Same here - if Swarm finds your drone, your chances to recover are very low. Oh, and it can spawn at any time from one of the vents. Now, why Swarm is worse than Slime? First of all, Swarm behaves like a normal enemy and can very quickly close the distance. Second of all, Slime can only spawn 3 times and then it stops, while Swarm can spawn 1-2 times from each vent - the bigger the derelict is, the worse it gets. Third of all, even if it is tied to vents in terms of spawn location, it spawns 10 or 20 small drones immediately - Slime can only spawn one node that is easily dealt with using Turret. Speaking of, the amount of Turret ammunition you have to spend to kill a standard Swarm should really discourage you from the active use. However, Mine and Trap prove to be the best offensive upgardes you can have while dealing with Swarm. Another thing you should consider is that Swarm, as was previously stated, has sensitive ears! I once opened a bunch of doors to form a coridor to the other side of the ship, room on the other end had a triggered sensor. The moment I moved my scout drone, Swarm started to demolish the door that lead towards my entire party - it heard me moving on the other side of the giant derelict. Speaking of ears, use them - in the drone view you can easily determine where the individual swarms are - sounds travel through walls. Try avoiding the direct confrontation at all costs.

Thank you for reading this far, this was my first ever guide. If you have any questions, ideas or objections, feel free to post them below - I'll try to answer asap.

Guide version 1.7:

v1.7

• Another attempt to rewrite the disclaimer. Felt like the previous one was tad too hostile.

v1.6.3:

• Added description for more beneficial Transporter properties
  
• Changed Collector entry

v1.6.21:

• Amogus

v1.6.2:

• Gave a detailed explaination on why Probe sucks isn't god-tier, as some people suggest (I exclusively used it over Scan to clear 20 consecutive ships/outposts just to remind myself why I ranked it so low initially, and my opinion only changed in regards to early game)

v1.6.1:

• Nth attempt to rewrite the disclaimer (difficulty settings became more varied with updates)
  
• Added big and small details to following entries: Gather, Scan, Turret, Mine, Shield, Interface, Stun, Overload, Radiation and Swarm
  
• Removed more typos

v1.6:

• Made an attempt at rewriting the entries to make them less snarky and confusing
  
• Changed the disclaimer due to the unofficial mod becoming an official update
  
• The rest of the disclaimer has been sligtly rewritten as well

v1.5.2:

• Restructured ship tier-list intro
  
• Repair priority clarification in the main intro
  
• Overall minor entry tweaks
  
• Typos removed

v1.5.1:

• Blast radius mechanic concerning Mine and Overload is now a bit more clarified

v1.5:

• Added Threat tier list
  
• Typos

v1.4:

• Added Ship Upgrade tier list
  
• War on typos continues

v1.3:

• Added a mention of Stealth and Pry synergy (thanks to Fischl_♠)
  
• Removed Shield recharging mod from its benefits (too much maintenance)
  
• Added a minor drawback to Turret description
  
• Typos!

v1.2.2:

• Added the rest of the GIFs to Drone Upgrades
  
• Updated Sonic entry (got bamboozled by the wiki)
  
• Placed Sonic under Pry
  
• Added fancy dividers

v1.2.1:

• Added more GIFs and updated those that were present already
  
• Pry moved up to the top of C-tier
  
• Updated Lure entry (turns out it's useless against Slime)

v1.2:

• Added disclamer in the intro
  
• Added some GIFs
  
• Added a sligtly clarified description of an interaction between Stealth and Swarm
  
• Removed some more typos

v1.1:

• Reworked Stealth and Mine descriptions
  
• Mentioned unofficial patch
  
• Added tiny details to some entries
  
• Removed some typos

v1.0:

• Hello, world!

To do list:

• Redem Probe for myself or find a way to explain better why I think, from my standpoint, it's worse than Scan
• (the more I look through this guide, the more I can't shake the feeling that I am unreasonably biased against it)
  
• Test Mine on Leapers for possible instakills
  
• Investigate Transporter signals interacting with vents, destroyed/disabled drones and ship upgrades and whether you can start the mission on an outpost w/o transporting yourself first
  
• Remove remaining typos
  
• Add more gifs