My thoughts on the proposed solutions:
Fixing wreckage values - sounds like a bug so fixing would be good
Increasing height the drones operate at - good idea
Allowing them to function similar to normal engineers with patrol and attack-move - good idea
Glad you like the suggestions. I do think they need the Patrol/Attack-Move order as this would make them far more versatile at getting reclaim but they would also need a small increase in HP to help in this. Just enough to lower the risk of them dying but not enough to where they're too tanky.
HP increase - Also a reasonable idea in moderation. I'd prefer a consistent HP across all drones rather varying by drone which is more confusing; A t1 engineer is 150 health so I'd put it slightly below this at somewhere between 50-100 health, so it still dies quickly to T1 AA
Though I agree that they need an HP increase, I beg to differ that they shouldn't have different HP. There are only 3 drone variants in the game. One for each tech level. Depending on the game, it would be easily identifiable to know which drones you are facing depending on the time and what your opponent has.
The 3 levels are drones are as follows:
T1: ACU Shoulder Drones
T2: Kennel Drones
T3: SACU Drones
With this, again, it's not that difficult to know which drone you are facing.
Having all drones with 6HP across all tech stages makes them quite difficult to use. This is why I offered reasonable HP increases per tech stage. Max of 201 HP at T3.
T1 would have 51 HP - enough to survive one pass by a T1 intie, T2 Would have about 151 HP, enough to survive random splash that hurts them, and T3 would just be a slight increase on top of that but enough so that they don't die to random AoE, too.
Speed increase to 5 - again if changing this then make it consistent for all of them
Build time reduction - also agreed, current time feels far too long
Resource cost reduction - Agreed; I dont think it should be free, but the 80% reduction proposed seems fine
Glad to hear you support these changes, too. Though I agree completely, having free drones would make it so there isn't much of a penalty when you lose them aside from making them respawn at their Stations a few seconds later.
I'm not keen on the fuel mechanic though, it adds extra complexity and deviates from the original FAF game, and I dont think it's really needed, since even with a speed increase to 5 the drones would be so slow that they could be easily shot down if moving far away. If this was a concern I'd just scrap the speed increase or adjust the cost of building the drones by a smaller amount (to say 60% reduction).
I'm not for the range limitations either as that's literally the only advantage they have over Hives, currently. Limiting that hurts the Kennel more and I say they need all strengths as they can.
But yeah, any air unit can catch up to them - they are quite slow.
Overall if they were changed I think the changes should be consistent across drones - i.e. drones should all function the same way in terms of speed, health, and cost to rebuild
What about the mass investments of a T1 drone compared to a T3 drone?
The mass difference is quite large, and I wouldn't like losing a T3 drone.
T1 drones cost 120 mass each, T2 drones cost 250 mass, and T3 Drones cost 380 mass. All with 6 HP. I'd expect at the very least a reasonable increase for HP at each tech level. For the mass cost that you're investing at least.
Thanks for the support! Hope to hear more from you on this.
Hopefully, at least a few of these changes go through.
~ Stryker