> NOW ACCESSING 'ROBOTIC ASSISTANTS: DRONES'... > ... Upon reaching 6th level as a Technician, you will be allowed to purchase a simple air drone (AD Model Droid). Drones are the smallest of the available droids, but they should not be discounted. They are still very useful to young Techs as well as the general populace. With the proper upgrades, drones can give bonuses to an area to help with repairs, first-aid, lock picking, or alchemy. A drone with a GPS uplink and cameras installed can even locate a person and allow its owner to watch the location from a distance. Besides all that, they’re fun to play with! When you’re ready to buy your drone, head on over to Droidworks, located through the doorway inside the Cyber Clinic, just south and northeast of Cloud Court. Drones cost $15,000. Unlike MAD droids (which are available at 15th level), drones come ready-equipped with internal power, gear , cooling, processor, and fuel systems. The only things you absotively posolutely MUST buy to get your drone up and running are one passive personality chip and one active personality chip. I’ll go more into the different types of personality chips in another section, as their names can be a little vague. When you purchase your drone, the dormant unit will be moved to Droidworks’ workroom, just west of the salesroom, to await installation of the aforementioned personality chips. Buy the chips that appeal to you and head west (if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to buy them all and test them out to see which personality type fits your idea of how your drone should act). With one chip in your hand, INSTALL CHIP IN DRONE. It doesn’t matter if you install the passive or active chip first, but one of each must be in place before your drone can be activated. Repeat the installation process with your other chip. After both chips are in place, ACTIVATE the DRONE and watch your new best pal come to life! You can leave your drone in the Droidworks workroom or you can COMMAND DRONE TO FOLLOW and have it come with you as you pick out more equipment to install. Type COMMAND DROID HELP in game to see a list of things you can program your drone to do. If you do not have the proper equipment installed, you will get a message from your drone stating that fact. Be aware that drones have no carrying capacity, so GIVE, DROP, STOW, GET, and DISPLAY are unusable. Type COMMAND DROID MODE in game to see a listing of what modes your drone can go into, providing it has the proper equipment installed. When you have the equipment you need installed for the mode you want, type COMMAND DROID MODE #, with # being the number of the mode on the list that you want to activate. Your drone must be in the mode corresponding to the proper equipment in order to receive any bonuses. At 6th level you should be able to install several systems into your drone, if you so choose (and I know you will because you want all those bonuses, right?) Check out the Droidworks parts list to see what’s available for purchase and a description of what each one does. You should be able to install the voice emulator, tool chest, IR scanner, medkit, chemical processing plant, and precision tools with no problem (I haven’t tried the cloaking device). If you buy both the chemical plant and the tool chest, you’ll have to switch them out when you want to use them, because your little drone doesn’t have enough room in his torso to carry both at once. Voice emulators add more customization to your drone, but are not necessary because the drone comes pre-installed with a monotone voice. So if you’re strapped for cash, let this one go for a while until you can afford it. You can also do without the cloaking device. It doesn’t last very long and takes up a lot of room, and chances are you will rarely use it. You will NOT be able to install either camera or the GPS uplink at 6th level. Unfortunately, no one else can install components on your drone, so they will have to wait until later, after you’ve gained a couple dozen levels or so (as soon as I’m able to install it, I’ll include that information). Don’t bother buying and installing two of the same thing in your drone. Even though you may have the room, the bonuses do not stack, so it’s just a waste of money. Until you have a MAD droid as well, you will not really need to use the droid warehouse (located right next to the Cyber Clinic). This is good, because their prices can be overwhelming for a young Tech. No matter if your drone is activated or deactivated, when you log out of the game it will go into temporary storage. Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay to get it out of the warehouse. Just type COMMAND DRONE TO RETURN and it will activate and appear in your location (remember to tell it to FOLLOW if you don’t want to leave it behind). If you don’t want your drone tagging along everywhere, you can find a quiet spot and COMMAND it to STAY (activated) or DEACTIVATE it to let it sit dormant. When you have both a drone and a MAD droid, you will have to put one of them away in order to use the other (you can’t have two droids out at once). This is where the warehouse comes in. Read the sign in the warehouse lobby for more information. These are the basics of drone ownership. I hope you found this guide helpful. May you and your drone have many happy years together! Written By: Zap Foster