Drone

XENOMORPH - TIER 1
Drone	Evolves From: Larva Evolves To: Carrier, Hivelord, Queen Role: Build the Hive and expand it with new weed nodes. Support fellow Xenomorphs with your pheromones. Occasionally plant weeds aggressively to support pushes. Use your acid to help the Hive break into places. Guides: Guide to Hive Building, Guide to Pheromones

General Information

The Drone is the humble worker of the Hive, while other castes make themselves useful almost universally in their combat prowess, the Drone finds its vocation in building and maintaining the Hive. Relatively fast, the Drone can also build on the move. It is equipped with corrosive acid capable of melting through anything that gets in the way of their constructions. Its attacks are fairly weak, and it is not intended to engage hostile targets unless another caste has them suppressed. Its health can hold itself together, however.

The Drone can help out with building the main Hive, spread weeds around aggressively using its mobility, or even attempt to build forward hives. In all cases, their skills will be needed to make nests to secure new captures, and to make the colony more habitable to Xenomorphs, one weeded tile at a time. To help with this, the Drones have a massive plasma reserve and a respectable plasma regeneration.

Pheromones play a big role in the Drone's arsenal. A Drone can be an incredible supplement to an ambush group, making it faster, better, stronger, and providing them with weeds to rest on as they advance.

Playing as a Drone

As a Drone, your job is to assist the Queen in growing and reinforcing the hive, and eventually extending it using the mobility other building castes lack. To this end, the Drone has the ability to shape structures out of resin it can secrete with Plasma. The Drone is otherwise patently average in all regards, with a relatively underwhelming attack but a decent speed and health. All and all, building above fighting unless desperate.

It is usually a smart idea to let the Queen work on the core of the Hive while you work on expanding the outskirts. Forward hives, defensive locations, or just weeding everything in sight. As long as you're using up your Plasma, it's hard to do any harm. Your sisters should suppress the Survivors with incredible ease, so you should have clearance to roam the colony before the Marines land to plant weeds and melt dangerous gear.

Since you will be spending a lot of time behind the lines, you might take up the Sentinel's job of guarding hosts. You're not ill-suited for it, but you might not have as easy a time, especially if the hosts managed to sneak in their weapons. At least you can make nests on the fly if they are lacking, unlike said Sentinels.

Don't overestimate how much work a single building caste can do. Relying only on the Queen to build the entire Hive is a high way to total and utter failure. Two Drones should be the absolute minimum in all but the most skeletal Hives. Only at four and above should the brakes be hit.

Drone Tactics

• Build Hives with narrow corridors and fairly small chambers. The Marines are fast and have powerful ranged weapons, so force them to fight in tight, cramped spaces and on your terms. Covering floors with sticky resin adds to your advantage by making it virtually impossible to maneuver tactically. In large open areas, build resin walls to block lines of sight and for your sisters to hide behind.

• Always build multiple layers. A single layer can be shot through, and once your back line is exposed, your Drones are prone to getting wounded, which will slow down repairs.

• Avoid using multiple layers of resin doors or making the Hive too tight and confusing. The goal is for the humans to suffer should they enter your Hive, not for Xenomorphs to suffer from living in the same Hive as you.

• Build nests for dangerous hosts (Humans) in a checkered pattern. This allows Sentinel castes to guard a lot of hosts at once safely, and gives any caste a much better chance to neutralise an armed host that just got out of their nest without damage.

• When the assault begins, tag along at a distance unless you are needed to guard hosts. You are not a front line combatant, but you may be needed to plant weeds and build defenses. Don't be that Drone hiding in the command trench while your sisters scream for nests to be set up and for weeds to be planted in newly contested areas.

• When the full Hive is defending/attacking, Drones should to be in second line, placing weeds and nests as the main forces advance. Also, listen carefully to Hivemind, place weeds and nests on request.

• If the Queen dies, you are first in line to replace her. Make sure to stay safe, even excessively so. The last thing the Hive needs after losing its Queen is Drones throwing themselves to the Marines and dying.

Drone Evolution and Upgrades

Drone Upgrades focus on making his all around decent statistics even more decent, along with boosting his plasma reserve and plasma regeneration. Don't forget your pheromones will also get better along the way. Drones are unique in that they are the only caste in the game that can Evolve after having upgraded, into a Queen.

Drones can Evolve into three possible castes:

• The Queen. If the old Queen died, you will have to wait until the Hivemind restores from the frenzy. You may then rise up as the new Queen of the Hive. You will have to, however, as a Hive cannot survive long without a Queen. You can check if other Drones want dibs, but if you hear nothing, take one for the team.

• The Carrier is a more combat oriented caste, gaining the ability to store and throw facehuggers at the Marines. In exchange, you lose your ability to build, although you keep weed planting as a free ability. Your pheromones are also preserved, and you will be relatively fast for a big Xenomorph.

• The Hivelord is an even more effective Hive builder, with more tools up its sleeves and an insane plasma reserve and regeneration. It also gains a strong ability allowing it to virtually phase when on weeds, and the ability to dig tunnels linking any two places together in a few seconds.