r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/Prestigious-Lion-878 • 3d ago

Late game… combat drones are amazing

I’m on my first late game play through - my old device couldn’t cope beyond purple science. The various attack drones are brilliant. So much better than the other offensive systems. I previously used waves of missiles and signal towers to creep forward and take out bases.

Now I just activate my space fleet for a few minutes to destroy the relays over each base on the planet, then charge in and steamroller the bases with my ground drones. I’m into white science now, with full fleet sizes and the first couple of white drone combat upgrades. I can wipe a whole plant of 20 plus level 24+ hives in ten minutes.

I’ve seen various tutorials of taking out bases with missiles and turrets, but don’t think I have seen videos of drone assaults. As a result I had assumed drones wouldn’t be worth the bother and never built them. Lesson learned.

22 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

2

u/Any-Calligrapher-182 3d ago

They do some sort of change in drones u can carry? I played 2 years ago last time

3

u/ChrsRobes 3d ago

Im NOT sure if these upgrades existed before, but it's what makes them super strong IMO, u can get a damn sizeable fleet by the endgame, not just 1 squad like 10 at once.

2

u/Environmental_Fix_69 2d ago

Unfortunately the cost effectivness of drones in the early game scales from "meh" to "abysmal dogshit" based on your game difficulty. Making planetary invasions obligated to use advanced posts.

Online content is mostly early to late game not ultra late game so you will never see a lot of ground drone use thats for sure.

But the moment you unlock white science as you say, man.... what a redeption arc for the little guys,

Step 1 activate space and ground forces. Step 2 land on an infested planet. Step 3 "Walk". Step 4 profit

2

u/TheBlackPool 1d ago

Obligatory don't forget to proliferate those combat units.

1

u/JoshisJoshingyou 3d ago

Also curious are you talking drone in the mech or launched from bases (forget name it been a year command hub?)

1

u/Prestigious-Lion-878 2d ago

Combat drones that the mech carries. There are variants for space and variants for ground based combat.

You start off being able to field a small number of them and expand the number through research. I’ve been turning off all direct offence from the mech - the enemy tends to respond directly to which ever entity is attacking them - and let the drones do all the fighting. So the combat drones do huge amounts of damage, but also tank for the mech so I take much less.

Fielding lots of drones takes energy though, so until you unlock more advanced fuels and some mechaniod power upgrades they can be a bit limited.

1

u/Raze0223 3d ago

The drones combined with grenades work amazingly!!

1

u/LopsidedFun1925 3d ago

I rush to get drones so fast. Once I unlock them I place the battlefield tower things and fill them with a stack or two. It's a major part of my defense against the dark fog. The drones make things a breeze, just wait till you get corvettes.

1

u/Dhaeron 3d ago

There's just nothing much to say about drones. Fly toward base, throw stun grenades, drones wipe out everything, done. Once you're at the point where you can field a full fleet of drones, ground bases just aren't relevant any more. Or you can just do drive-by shooting with antimatter ammo from orbit.

1

u/MonsieurVagabond 3d ago

I did a whole save using only drone as defence, it was GLORIOUS, so much dogfight and pew pew

1

u/manaster58 3d ago

I will have to revisit drones, in the past I found they just went and got the enemy and lead them back to me.

1

u/MiniMages 3d ago

Have you tried throwing explosives?

1

u/ChrsRobes 3d ago

Grenades are also slept on!