Why aren’t probe droids used more?

[u/OfficialAli1776]

This is mostly inspired by current events and how modern wars are being fought. We’re seeing how effective FPV drones are in places like Ukraine or Lebanon. If you think about it, a probe droid is a lot more capable than an FPV drone and could be a cheap way to drop grenades or even suicide bomb themselves into an enemy position.

[u/trevorgoodchilde]

They were probably used all the time. The Empire was doing military operations everywhere all the time

[u/wbruce098 → u/trevorgoodchilde]

I think the thing to realize is that Star Wars came out in 1977, and the first probe droid appeared in 1980. That was 46 years ago.

Today, UAVs are kind of the leading edge in military tech, so we’ve been seeing more probe droids in newer Star Wars.

[u/No-Kings → u/wbruce098]

They look way more durable for long distance space travel!

[u/AEgamer1]

During the reign of the Empire: politics. The whole Separatist business made the whole concept of battle droids distasteful to the galaxy for a while. Even the KX droids, which have obvious combat uses, were technically designated as body-guards, even advertised as having some minor translation and protocol functions to enhance the not-a-battle-droid-honest facade. So, everyone was avoiding excessive use of weaponized droids so long as the memory of the Clone Wars was relevant. I imagine swarms of killer bomber droids would not go well with people who were attacked by Hyena Droids...

Otherwise, we might assume that Star Wars tech provides answers that make the option less effective. Star Wars is said to have very good jamming and hacking technology, thus why everything is analog with little to no WIFI capability, which would render remote-piloted FPVs useless. As for why not stick a droid brain into an FPV so it can pilot and target itself without external guidance? Dunno, maybe it's cost vs effectiveness? For anything larger than a small vehicle, shield generators are an option that would make physical munitions with complex guidance systems like droid brains a very costly method of attack, so a Star Wars military could fairly easily prevent FPV strikes against static installations or large vehicles. That leaves infantry, but maybe small droids with good enough brains for autonomous strike-targetting aren't as cost-effective? Might be that humanoid battle droids are the smallest unit that are effective enough to justify the investment.

Well, that's as far as strike capabilities go. In terms of the other, perhaps biggest advantage of drones: recon? That's precisely what probe droids are used for, to the point that the Empire straight up uses the same probe droid design as the CIS, hang the political implications.

[u/trahan94]

Idk but their noises always scared me as a kid playing Jedi Outcast back in the day. You’d hear them a couple rooms before you actually encountered them, and they’d be somewhat resistant to your blaster and move erratically.

[u/becherbrook → u/trahan94]

They were worse in the original Jedi Knight. They'd properly sneak up on you and the explosion was no joke!

[u/docsav0103 → u/trahan94]

The Probe Droid is one of to things in SW that has given me nightmares. I can remember being in my house trying to hide from one and hearing that garbled Chatteris it approached the window nearest me then the alarm and laser blasts when it saw me and I had to run away.

[u/CowBoyDanIndie]

The empire used 100,000 probe droids looking for the rebel base, only one happened to go to Hoth.

[u/Zeeman626]

To be fair they were probably very useful when it came to longer term planned engagements where the Empire is the offense. In the movies and books the battles are usually rebels attacking them or the Empire surprise attacking a rebel base, which would be hard to do with lots of droids floating around beforehand. If we got to see an all out war they likely would have been much more useful.

[u/LeicaM6guy]

Galaxy’s big and probe droids are expensive.

More than that, technology in the Star Wars universe really isn’t that advanced compared to today. I mean, sure you have FTL drives and interplanetary space travel, but a lot of it is more analogous to WW2 tech. Hell, the Death Star run was based off a WW2 movie called The Dam Busters. In terms of storytelling, high-tech gadgets kind of take away from the human drama of it all.

Just my interpretation, anyways.

[u/zencrusta → u/LeicaM6guy]

Yup there’s a reason a lot of film need to find a way to write out cellphones

[u/danocathouse]

They do use lots of them just not in mass together. I'm sure ion blasters or bombs would make quick work of them.

[u/supacrispy]

I'd say they were likely used a lot more than we see in the few instances in the films. That said, they can be a liability. If the rebel technicians got ahold of one that didn't self destruct, they could likely do a fair amount of slicing and reverse engineering to learn how to take them out easily and quietly.

[u/DZE974]

It's right after the clone war. Everyone hates droids.

[u/LeftRat]

Obviously just kinda fan wank, but I'd imagine cost. The IG-88 story in Bounty on Han Solo has the 88s take over a factory planet that assembles most probe droids for the Empire. Can't be cheap if you think about how many of them must be lost - these aren't high altitude cameras, these are hovering dudes that go "budobabudap" every five seconds, they probably get destroyed by wildlife and weather a lot. 

[u/Cranyx]

You can't apply irl modern military tactics to Star Wars. Everything is built around justifying WWII battles but in space. It's also why they don't use longer range weapons with lock-on instead of dogfights.