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 (you will need 120 Fleet Commander Points). 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 require 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. For the Fleet Sanctuary ships, use Three Specialized with Hull Points, they don't need autotarget.
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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 Sanctuary ships before adding them to your fleet. 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 basic one provided for the Fleet ships, is not required; as each player's wants and needs is different. However, I recommend at least 20 Repair Drone Bay Mk.II for the Player Sanctuary. Your Fleet ships can warp, so you can use less Repair Drone Bay Mk.II and more Attack Drone Bay Mk.IV, especially after you start upgrading to orange equipment.

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. There's probably a nice formula you could use to figure out when one is better than the other, but I just do it manually by looking at the difference of all similar drones combined numbers with and without an extra Nodolo's Combat Mod. The "sweet spot" seems to be around 4.

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 ignoring this guide and 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). I'd also recommend changing your skills and ignoring everything mentioning "Fleet Ships Gain".


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 (Legendary+) 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 for the extra starting point and Outis start is required for the story which will grant you several things: T2-E, Swashbuckler, Lone Wolf + Consortium A.I.

• Armor Plating (the best one, should absolutely take it)
  
• 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)
  
• Ordnance (not required, but a little extra damage if you want)

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

• Battle Rush (I always take this)
  
• Just me and the boys (this is an important one)
  
• Contractor (important if you plan to build your own stations)
  
• Hard Worker
  
• Traveler
  
• Techie

I omit the knowledge perk that I intend to raise to 25 first in-game. For example, if I intend to raise Fleet Commander to 25 first, I will not start with Just me and the boys.

The best background perk is Lone Wolf as it comes with Consortium A.I. (must complete the quest). Pirate is arguably even better than Lone Wolf, but doesn't come with Consortium A.I. so isn't as good. 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.

!! You should absolutely avoid the perk "Sloppy" at all costs !!
(Cause a station to become hostile, then retreat. Do it 6 times.)

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 (The third engineer crew remaining equipped, after losing Space Pilot)
  
• A Fleet and a Player ship that doesn't suck (Your fleet remaining after losing the Fleet Commander points required)

If the fleet one is changed, play solo - better survivability (than trying to play with a ship loaded with Bonus Fleet Commander crew). Much of this guide will work with a solo build in mind it just has fleets incorporated into it for maximum efficiency. For solo, just use the Player Sanctuary setup, ignore perks and skills that have "Fleet Ships Gain".

Written for Game Version: 2.1.2
Updated for Version 2.2.1g

If you have questions, leave a comment here (I very rarely use youtube).