Drone Master Guide

Your first levels... So you start off as a lonely little p2p in a huge Star Sonata galaxy.. You've tested the waters, and here you are, ready and willing to whup stuff. Make your way up to level 49 and then go level up your core skills, because the next time you level up, hell's coming your way.

At level 50, everything starts attacking you. I know, that's kind of lame. But now you don't have to mark everything enemy to get your drones to shoot. Anyway, plan to spend a week or two not being in w0, trust me, you'll thank yourself when you're level 1k and sitting in Sol like the rest of us. You should have at least DD12 to start on this guide, if you don't have that, go do that now. Good.

So you wanna be a Drone Master?

You're obviously going to need drones. If you wanna play it old skoo, go grab yourself 12 PP drones (Pickpocket drones, they sell for about 3,000,000 each.). These are surgical and will get you more money in the long run, but level you slower.

If you want the new modern ways of droning, go get yourself a healthy bunch of Arson drones. (20-30 should do). Buy a bulk trader in East Warp 1 (Nearing warp two) in a galaxy with at least fiery sun.

You can calculate your drone slots by multiplying your drone level by four (At this point, 12, so 12x4 = 48, so you have 48 drone slots). Unfortunately, they changed it so that you can only have 15 drones open at time. And Arson drones are tech 5, so you have 3 more slots than the required for 15 drones. But there's a new problem... you can't deploy more drones than your DD level. So you're stuck with 12.

Being the Master of DRones that you are, I hope you have DM. At least 5 or 6 for now... when you reach level 130~ we'll go for another skill point run. But for now, you're good.

Teach me teach me! I wanna kill shit!

Calm down there speedy, what do you wanna kill?

At level 50 you should have a decent ship... ha, just kidding. You don't need a decent ship. Grab any old junker with a lot of energy and chill in that galaxy with a G class sun, or something. Hotkey your drones, and move north on your screen at about speed 10-15 and spam your drone hotkey.

Dock, and mark some Betas enemy.

Pretty cool huh? No?

how about the loot? Your drones will most likely be less costly then the loot you're collecting. Betas can drop standard augs, which are worth 6 mill to AI bases. 10+m to players. Keep those in your bulk.

Keep killling betas which should give you 250+ XP per kill till you hit 135.

LeveL 135 okay. This is a huge checkpoint in your progress because you have enough skill points to do a lot of stuff.

Get your DD up to 16 (ask a teammate or someone nice on all chat)... You can get that with Quu drones in Steppes. You need a pretty big ship but not immense. So go get DD 16 and your DM as far up as it can go. If you wanna change your ship, have fun, give it plenty of shield and energy though, I like hestia augs.

My Enforcer frigate setup was Dio, Hestia+, and basically rocked your socks. 56k bank with a Synergy pack and no aug tweaking.

I like to bring several Coercion drones and a PC in case I see something i'd like to cap. When you're level 135, the easy part comes. You should be able to deploy something like 12 arsons (unless you're at DD 20 in which you should be able to deploy 15) which can easily own SBBetas, Gammas, and other random NW2 AI. Save EVERY SP you get, as it's rewarding later on. At level 200, get your engines leveled up. This is the easiest to get up and the best to get out of the way. Go to ruby steppes and get it to 17 with not that many skill points... and go buy a flower power. They're 100 space and don't cost anything really, but they're really strong midgame engines.

Gammas drop Blue Gamma augs, which sell nicely to AI bases and even more nicely to players, if you stash up 20 or 30, you might have a few hundred mill on your hands :)

Now that that's out of the way, and that you can kill gammas, I'm gonna have to ask you to switch poles. Go down to south w3 (rape anything you feel like on the way, as you're cool now) At level 200, you should kill anything up to a BG. CHECKPOINT Get your DD up to 20 at this point. Ruby Steppes for Qafir drones, which are size 7000. Use a few basic caps on a Gelato and have a teammate tow you around. Remember that the warpo drones are there, you can cap them or kill them!

ALTERNATE, SEE *

Toss away your old arsons (I know you loved them... but it's time to move on). You should have levelled up DD to 20 by now (if not, do so. Cool, thanks.) And DM to at LEAST 15. Rosemaries and basils can be killed without DM 15, but, if a bg comes along, don't expect 40m to pop out of no where to pay for your lost drones. You have the space for all this, trust me :) The sixty solar panels work out better in the end, as when you die they don't drop, and less GG wasted on Solar Panel 4's. important-Another thing, if you value your money, buy a bulk trader in w3 and keep it there for storage. Don't use GG. yeah. I said it. It basically is worthless. 100m for saving 40m worth in drones? Everything on your ship at this point can be AI base bought and if not it's unequippable on death. Here's a setup.

Shield Transference 1 Phobos Blockade Reactive Energy Diffusers Reactive Laser Diffusers (ten of each should do) Hull Expander (or something to the likes) Drone scoop 60 Solar Panels Synergy Pack Revealer Radar your titans should always be deployed, so if you die, they're still chilling there.

Basils and Rosemaries will be your primary source of XP. They both drop some cool gear stuff (including augs up to good augs, heph augs, LC's(rosies) and hunleyites. Hunleyites are rare and sell to the AI base for a feww million.). Rosies are extremely low shield AI and can be treated as such. They have low shield and low resists, but high surgical damage if you were wanting to use a porp. Basils have low bank high resists, AND they carry diffusers, but your Titans still flatten them like pancakes. You should be getting massive amounts of XP at this point per kill. If you find a galaxy of rosies and MF basils go lay your drones and dock/warp and get near a G Class sun. Charge up and lather/repeat. If you get something like a Giga Cebo pack and manage 200k energy, try to stay near your drones! If after deploying you have more than 20k spare energy, stand by just in case. You might save more money than you think.

I keep dying :( What do I do?

You'll get good at it soon, I promise! Dying is nothing compared to the levels you're getting. If you lay your drones down and dock you'll be set. This uni a good place to do that is Lysox, it has a G Class sun and an AI base close enough to charge in.

That was boooring... and now i'm level 500! YEAH! MY FIRST T20! Kind of!.... The ship you're in right now has made you this far... and you're still getting 200+ XP from rosies and basils.

Keep going. If you really want to stop, stop at around 600 so you don't look like a newb in a izer fresh level 500.

You'll get a bit more money than automatically going to your next class then waiting in your unaugged for god to drop you a line or [cash].

You should be able to kill BG's with your current experience (yeah... you learned something during all those rosies) SO DO SO!!!

They're the top 10 AI in the game. They drop anything from minor dockings to zeus augs... and they give bitchin' XP too. At level 550, this is important.

You're done! Nearly!

At this point, you can probably even take on a pick. But they have strong tractors... Very strong tractors. so just chill on them until you get a better shield. With the tons of skill points you now have you need to do something with them. SKILL CHECKPOINT! Go get all of your core skills as high as you possibly can.

I recommend : Shielding 19 ( If you were using a phobos, go kill three paxes for the space boomerangs and train up in Underworld, then buy a pearly gate for shielding 19. Grab a GnT,) Weapons 18, (You're on your own here. I don't do weapons. :P) Engines 17, (You should have this!!) EE 19, (Needed for the fabled Fire of the Gods... You'll want it when you're in a t20) Astral Travel 20, (for those long lonely space flights) Piloting 19 (Piloting is fun. You go to rumble 2 and kill the bitches for hours on end till you're at P16, then get a buddy to help you with R3, P19. Get your team to do rumble mumble and have P20)

Now, you should be able to devise some of your own stuff. You're level 600+, you've got a good knowledge of how things work, and you're rich as hell. Kinda. You have heph augs and trans hull expanders to sell.

oh, speaking of which.

LOOOOOT!

Everything in South W3 (aside from zebus and the likes) drop Good augs.

Rosemaries+ (not including basils) Drop exc augs... Transcendantal Hull expanders.. (worth like a bill!)... Heph augs... LC's(Love cylinders, worth 250m) and more... If something is bigger than the hull you have, drp your titan drones. The thing you scoop is most likely worth more than your titans.

Your alternate drone choices.

There are plenty of ways to level up, the above are just recommended. If you're really clever and you have something like 10bil to throw away, go get your Infinite Knowledge to 20 and buy a few armada drones. You can get your IK to 20 in lyceum for Honorary Mentions. Armada drones are cool gear and can be turned in from a mission into BigFuckinDrone 9000's. Yeah. They're bamf. They fire adonis lasers (yeah, base lasers) and are permabound to yourself, so you can't buy them. These are all really expensive though, and require GG. If you don't have GG and you die, i'm not responsible. If you die with a few cheap titan drones, you can pay for that yourself :).

Alternatives to Arsons) Magic Attacks, Ethereal, bought at any AI base Pick pockets, short range surg lasers, player made Ares drones, not recomended, Mobiel lightning drones, VERY nice DPS, they follow you around,b ut they cost almost 2mil each from every aI base and you can't scoop them.

Good luck.