Drone

ALIEN - TIER 1
Drone	Evolves From: Larva Evolves To: Burrower, Hivelord, Carrier, Queen Role: Build the Hive and expand it with new weed nodes. Support fellow Aliens 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 most other castes make themselves useful 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 Aliens, 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

A weed node can cover a 7x7 area so spread out when planting them

As a Drone, your job is to assist the Queen by building, 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 will usually be critical for you to build the main core of the Hive as soon as the Queen has picked a spot to nest in, if she allows construction. If not, beg her to allow construction until she does. Then, build these in this order as soon as the hivecore makes hive weeds: a spawn pool, five evolution pods, nests, and an egg morpher, while begging your sisters to assist you in filling them with plasma.

Afterwards, you may designate yourself to these jobs as you wish:

MAINTAIN THE HIVE

Maintain the hive by planting eggs near nests, pooling burst bodies, filling egg morphers, and providing plasma to the queen and your sisters. It cannot be overemphasized how important these tasks are to your hive's survival: planting eggs near nests ensures hosts will be instantly-hugged if a sister regurgitates a host on top of a pile of eggs; pooling burst bodies allows aliens to boost and replenish their numbers; filling egg morphers is a must when the hive runs out of eggs; and most importantly, providing the Queen and your sisters with plasma ensures she and your sisters will always be able to use their abilities, especially the Queen's ovipositor abilities, which include making leaders, relaying announcements, and providing heals and plasma to your sisters in the heat of the battle.

BUILD THE HIVE

Weed EVERYWHERE possible, even in the little nooks and crannies you think may not matter. Weeds are the foundation of your hive! They allow you to create structures, they allow all members of the hive to move more quickly whilest slowing down marines, and they help aliens regenerate plasma and health many times more quickly than on any other surface. Also, build defenses. Build doors anywhere you can find natural horizontal or vertical gaps of one to three spaces and build sticky resins in front of them to slow the marines down. Finally, build walls. Lots of walls, especially on the frontlines and places you want to make extra doors in. However, build only enough to make it difficult for marines to navigate, not for you and your sisters to navigate.

SABOTAGE THE MARINES

Make the hive as unfriendly to marines as possible! Slash and melt anything in your way, especially shocked doors! Slash APCs until the box flips open, then slash them again to release a rain of sparks and shroud the building in darkness, just to your mother's liking! Slash and structures and melt down everything you can vomit your corrosive acid on, including metal and plasteel weapons, ammo, gear, food, and mostly anything in research, medical, engineering, security, and the cabinets the intelligence officers want to stick their hands in. After melting down doors, make your own, and maybe make checkerboard sticky resin in front of them. Attrition warfare at its finest.

In conclusion, Don't underestimate how much work a single building caste can do. Trying to excuse yourself of the responsibility of building the Hive on other Drones is a high way to total and utter failure. Two drones per ten aliens should be the absolute maximum needed in the hive.

Abilities

Abilities:	Description:
Rest	Used to rest and get up. Aliens heal faster when resting on weeds.
Regurgitate	To devour, grab a host with Ctrl + Click or Grab intent (3 in hotkey mode) then click yourself, standstill. To stop the host from getting up and running away, you can switch to an empty hand (X in hotkey mode) and keep tackling them using Disarm intent (2 in hotkey mode) when you are devouring them. Xenos with devoured humans inside them can not vent crawl but Xenos with devoured monkeys can. Hosts with boot knives can injure the Xenomorph they are inside if they are conscious. Using this ability with a host devoured will regurgitate them back up, giving a moderate stun. (Edit this template)
Plant Purple Sac	Can't be planted if there is already a sac on the tile or if it's on unsuitable ground to plant it on. An example would be grass or water. Can be removed by one slash with harm intent for re-plant. Costs 75 plasma.
Choose Resin Structure	Click to choose what resin structure to make. The default structure is a Resin Wall.
Secrete Resin	Secrete the chosen Resin Structure on your tile. Costs 75 plasma.
Order Construction	Orders the construction of a hive structure to be built. Costs 500 plasma.
Transfer Plasma	Transfer 50 Plasma to any target within 2 tiles. You have to stand still when transferring, and the target must not be out of range when the transfer is made.
Corrosive Acid	Vomit a glob of acid on item to dissolve it. Multiple items can be clicked at once as long as you are standing still. Costs 75 plasma.
Emit Pheromones	Emit one of the three Pheromones. It is advised to emit the pheromone that are not already being emitted, as pheromones don't stack except for Frenzy pheromone. Your pheromones will grow stronger as you mature.

Attainable Strains

Healer

Gardener

Strain Abilities

Healer

Abilities:	Description:
Transfer Health	Transfer Health to another Alien at the cost of your own health. Costs 0 plasma.
Plant Lesser Fruit	Plant a lesser resin fruit on the ground beneath you. They heal directly as much as greater fruit, but do not have the regeneration boost. Costs 50 plasma.

So, you are a healer.

You've sacrificed your ability to build resin structures for better pheromones and the ability to heal your sisters. Hooray! This strain is best taken mid-to-lategame when the Queen is not on her ovipositor providing heals, especially on the dropship. Your pheromones 'Strong' at ancient, so you should always at least have one pheromone toggled at all times, preferably, the one pheromone you and your sisters are currently missing or whichever is currently the weakest. With your Transfer Health ability toggled, Shift+click or middle+click on an alien sister or your queen to give a bit of your health to them. Be careful; spamming clicks could cost you all of your health. Oh, and your life.

Gardener

Abilities:	Description:
Resin Surge	Boosts basic structure health by 6000 (wall, door, membrane) when used on one. Creates 3x3 of sticky resin when used on unweeded tile. Creates a temporary wall (100 health) when used on weeded tile. Skips 5 seconds when used on a plant, helping mature it. 20 second cool down. Ranged. Costs 75 plasma.
Switch Fruit Type	Switch between Unstable, Greater, and Spore fruit. Icon is whichever fruit is currently selected. Costs 0 plasma. Fruit Types: Effects Fruit Types: Unstable Fruit Grants a temporary overshield when consumed that last for a minute. 45 second maturity time. Costs 50 plasma. Greater Fruit Directly heals and increases regeneration when consumed. 30 second maturity time. Costs 100 plasma. Spore Fruit Decreases ability cooldowns when consumed, and passively emits weak regeneration pheromones when mature. 15 second maturity time. Costs 50 Plasma.
Plant Fruit	Plant a resin fruit on the ground beneath you. (Healing plant drains your health when planted, by a little bit) Costs 50 plasma. (100 plasma for Greater Fruit)

So, you are a gardener.

Keep your fruits as close to the front as safely possible, so that fellow sisters can get them easily. Use surge to irritate marines by making doors or walls virtually impenetrable. Use the rights fruit for the situation: If there are multiple healers and the queen is on ovi and healing from there, possibly prioritize unstable fruit for shields. If less of those resources are available, plant more greater fruit for bigger heals. You can only have 3 fruit planted at a time, so choose wisely.

Building Tactics

• Try to build nests and place eggs away from the queen so she will be safe in case a captured host sets off a bomb in the hive.

• If you run out of places to construct structures, make a hive pylon and fill it with plasma; it will make hiveweeds and allow you to construct more structures.

• If you no longer need a pylon, destroy it, then fill the area with regular weeds. Structures stay active even if there are no hive weeds beneath them!

• In large areas that require weeding, space out your weed nodes seven tiles in every direction until you make a square, then place a node in the middle of that square. This saves plasma.

• An alternative strategy to weedin is to going as far as you can until you cannot spread the hive any further, then weeding your way back.

• 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 easily 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 aliens to suffer from living in the same Hive as you.

• Keep in mind that Boilers need an unobstructed line of sight to the enemy in order to bombard properly. If you are building fortifications in the field, ask them if they can shoot properly or they'd rather have less walls in front.

• In open spaces, a 2x2 wall can take a beating while providing enough cover for aliens to retreat and regenerate their health. This wall design is important since they allow aliens to close in to the front without being shot at.

• It is discouraged to build corridors 1 tile wide because aliens will body-block each other. Try to always leave a 2 tile wide corridor. Protip: The Tank and APC are 3 tiles wide.

• Spread the eggs out around the hive to allow easier infecting. Remember that eggs can only be planted near the Queen when she is in her Ovipositor form. Ideally, avoid leaving unplanted eggs laying around so Marines don't steal them.

Combat Tactics

• When the assault begins, try to tag along at a distance. While you are not a front line combatant you may be needed to plant weeds and build defenses to assist the frontlines. Don't be that Drone hiding in the egg room while your sisters scream for nests to be set up and for weeds to be planted in contested areas.

• When the Hive is defending or attacking, Drones should be in the backline placing weeds and defenses for the frontline. Listen carefully to the Hivemind so you can fulfill requests from fellow aliens.

• The Drone is one of the most mobile castes which have access to facehuggers, making it highly desirable to work together with most offensive castes to net the Hive one or two more infected Marines.

• 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.

Facehuggers

You can pick up Facehuggers by clicking a mature egg with an empty hand to open it, then clicking on the facehugger with any intent active to pick it up. Next, click on a host when you're next to it and the facehugger in your selected hand should attach. You have two hands and can use two facehuggers if you click quickly. If you need to return a facehugger back inside of the egg, drop it on top of the egg and after 30 seconds it should crawl back inside or click on the empty egg with the hugger in hand.

Drone Evolution and Upgrades

Drone Upgrades focus on making their 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 without a full Evolve timer, into a Queen.

Drones can Evolve into four 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. A sister 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. It's not needed to have full Evolve progress to evolve to a Queen. Be careful: You are very vulnerable if marines find you alone, so plan on evolving somewhere safe.

• The Burrower trades in the Drones monstrous plasma pool, pheromones, and hive building ability for the ability to make resin hole 'landmines' and build tunnels to help their sisters get around the map more quickly.

• The Hivelord is an even more effective Hive builder, with sturdier resin structures and an insane plasma reserve and regeneration. It also gains a strong movement speed ability allowing it to get to the frontline or away at a safe speed.

• The Carrier allows the drone to specialize in the infection and capture of hosts. It grants the alien the abilities to store facehuggers and eggs safely around the battlefield for later use They can create hugger holes that act as infectious 'landmines' that will infect individuals that step on them.