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The Repair Drone is a drone that can repair Soviet vehicles directly on the frontlines. It is deployed through a support power available once a War Factory is built.
Once an Industrial Plant is built, the support power becomes Repair Drones which deploys one additional Repair Drone but are slightly more expensive with a slightly longer cooldown.
Description[]
During the Second Great War, the Soviet Union employed service depots much like the Allies to repair damaged and barely functional vehicles to make them battle-ready once more. During the later stages of the war, the Allies began using field mechanics to repair vehicles directly on the battlefield, and while these mechanics were later merged into the regular Engineer corps, the Soviets still lacked dedicated personnel for repairing their armored forces.
Before the Third Great War started, Soviet High Command commissioned the development of repair drones that could be deployed directly on the battlefield via a supersonic jet. Once on the ground, the drones will immediately start repairing all nearby Soviet units, and thanks to a hover propulsion system, the drones can move over water and thus repair naval units. Repair Drones, however, lack protection against any form of threat and their light armor means they must be defended by the very units they're repairing to avoid destruction.
Overview[]
The Repair Drone's primary function is to, as its name implies, provide repair services to Soviet vehicles directly on the frontlines.
One major advantage that Repair Drones have over the Allied IFVs and Epsilon Stingers is that they do not need to be manually ordered to perform repairs (its equivalents, save for Foehn's Minermite, require direct orders or to be set to guard mode in order to do so) meaning that they will automatically approach any damaged friendly vehicles and commence the required maintenance. Their nature of deployment means they can be dropped anywhere on the battlefield instantly in scenarios that may require a repair vehicle in the area immediately (for example, a Soviet tank infested with a rogue Terror Drone). The only way to prevent the MiG Transport from delivering the Repair Drone is through the Blasticade superweapon. They are amphibious, meaning they can escort Soviet warships to keep them well-maintained for prolonged battles.
Repair Drones cannot be mass-produced in short periods of time, as they are only available for deployment via a support power. These robotic units also lack armor and weaponry, so they must be kept out of harm's way if possible.
AI behavior[]
Unused by the AI.
Appearances[]
Act One[]
- The Repair Drone makes its first appearance in Bleed Red, at the beginning of the Third Great War. However, it cannot be called by War Factory until Side Effect.
- In Road to Nowhere, Meltdown, and Earthrise, instead of being called via support power, Repair Drones are directly buildable from the Stalin's Fist or Soviet War Factory.
- Enhanced version of Repair Drones support power is first usable in Think Different, and Dragonstorm in Soviet main story missions.
Origins[]
- The Repair Drone is also available from the Allied War Factory in The Great Beyond and The Remnant.
Cooperative[]
- In Ego Ergo Hax, Repair Drone can be called by the 2nd player without the need of a War Factory, as the players do not have access to bases.
Assessment[]
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Behind the scenes[]
- Prior to 3.0 Repair Drones were deployed into the battlefield in a similar manner to Coronia's Knightfall support power, and will leave a temporal platform.
Trivia[]
- The Repair Drone is based on the Soviet repair drone, a unit cut from Red Alert 2. It is also similar in appearance to the Multi-Drone, another unit cut from the same game.
- The Repair Drone uses the voiceset of the Chaos Drone from Yuri's Revenge.
- Interestingly enough, Repair Drones are not dropped with a parachute, yet Terror Drones summoned by the Terror Drop support power are. This is because Repair Drones can simply use their hover jets to slow down their descent.