Bay 12 Games Forum

Also, check if the Terror-Drone idea is a good idea and if they could be designed, perfected and mass produced in time for the coming battle:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The terror drones are a bunch of small spiderbots designed to capture ships. Individually they are weak and stupid, but the more they are the better they become, because they gain more processing power and the ability to combine into more useful hunting packs.
Their primary purpose is to board ships and cause havoc, disabling the ship or even capturing it.
They would be launched at enemy ships in great numbers, with missiles. One missile would carry many drones. The drones would be disguised as scrap and debris to increase their chances of reaching their target intact, should the missile get shot by point defence lasers.
There would be many kinds of drones, each suited for a specific task.
The main kind of drone would be the Light Laser Drone. The LLD would use a relatively weak laser/generator combo to move around the enemy ship as stealthily as possible (through vents and maintenance areas probably) and kill targets of opportunity (lone crewmen for example). Its main goal would be to defend other, more important drones, use their lasers to carve new paths to their objectives and destroy equipment. Even things like killing the lights would help.
Then there will be a variety of less common drones. For example:
Breach Drones would carry some sort of heavy weapon or explosive they can use to bypass heavy armour. Probably something one-shot, like nuke or chemical laser or a mini-plasma projector. If one of those manages to make it inside the ship, it would seek the most juicy target to use its heavy weapon in.
Gremlin Drones would be equipped with engineering tools, specialized programming and a more powerful radio that will allow them to bypass some of the ship's electronics (and thus most of its security) and directly control its systems. They could, for example, take direct control of the engines by messing with the appropriate wires instead of trying to hack the computer.
Uplink Drones will have a powerful transmitter and receiver with which to communicate with us and in turn receive orders. This will be extremely useful if gremlin drones manage to gain control of some of the more important systems like weapons and engines.
CPU Drones will hang back in safe areas and provide extra data and extra processing capabilities.
Repair Drones will repair other drones or even create new ones if the materials are available (recycling dead drones for example or using scrap laying around).
The drones would probably be programmed by giving virtual drones combat scenarios and all info we have on UWM ships and weapons and then being left to figure out the best course of action on their own. The data would then be used to program the actual drones. Alternatively, the Doctor could design brains for them.
What makes the drones great is their small size and ability to remain undetected and avoid confrontation, essentially infesting a ship and slowly killing it or taking it over like cancer. Another great thing is their ability to work as a team. For example a Gremlin or Breach Drone could bypass a heavy door a light laser drone can't get through on its own while the light laser drone protects it.
While not great in direct combat, they would be able to cause significant damage if they are deployed near the jump point, thus giving them ample time to work their magic. And if they are lucky, they should be able to take over ships instead of just disabling them. The only 2 problems I see is Repair Drones creating too many drones, to the point where the ship they captured becomes unusable and some drones getting damaged or corrupted and refusing to listen to their shutdown signal.
A great feature, if it could be made to work, would be the ability to literally combine to form larger tools. For example, many light laser drones combining into one heavy laser drone (although I guess they could achieve the same effect by concentrating fire on the same spot) or a CPU drone could combine with a gremlin drone to give it a better ability to control the ship.
I guess they could also be used on the ground, but probably not on this ground battle. Hephaestus doesn't have enough cramped spaces for them to be useful. Maybe if we attack a world with skyscrapers full of humans and usable tech.