The Drone Ship is the Scrin faction's Mobile Construction Vehicle and unlike its GDI/Nod counterpart the Drone Ship can become airborne. Once the Drone Ship has been deployed it is known as the Drone Platform. The main advantage to the Drone Ship is that it is a lot faster than the GDI/Nod and only anti air units can target it when in flight. The Drone platform is Scrin's radar, just like the GDI/Nod MCV. With its ability to fly, the Drone Ship can fly over terrain, structures and water.
An additional Drone Ship can be constructed from the Gravity Stabiliser for a cost of 3500 credits and a build time of 35 seconds.
Using Support Powers and abilities on the Drone shipThere are few support powers or special abilities that can affect the Drone Ship. These are:
- Cloaking Field
- Phase Field
- Wormhole
- Teleportation
The Cloaking FieldYou may be sitting there and thinking to yourself "The Cloaking Field can only be used by Nod or Mok", but this is not completely true. The Cloaking Field can be used in conjunction with the Drone Platform, if a Operations Centre is captured or if there is an ally playing as Nod or MoK. Although this may sound simple it can go terribly wrong. This support power must be timed perfectly for it to work. It can only be applied when the Drone Ship is in the process of being lifted. This will stealth the Drone Ship while it is airborne, but once it is redeployed it will no longer be stealthed. So use this wisely as if it is used incorrectly, it will have wasted a precious 3000 credits.
Stealthed Drone PlatformThe Phase Field is infamous for its combination with the Eradicator Hexapod. The Phase Field will make any unit invincable for a limited time. Once again this support power must be timed perfectly when the Drone Ship is lifting. This can be used to your advantage when an expansion is under attack and you wish to save your MCV. There is a downside to this and that is that the Drone Ship will be unable to redeploy until the Phase Field has worn off.
Drone Ship with the Phase FieldThe Wormhole is a Vanilla Scrin support power that creates a 'portal' between two different locations on a map. The Wormhole is placed and a unit is able to travel through it to the other end. Many players think that ground based units are the only units that are able to travel through this. But the Drone Ship can travel through it as well. This has been used quite alot when playing on Tournament Rift and your opponent has expanded to the centre Tiberium field. Send a Drone Platform through the Wormhole to your opponent's south expansion and surprise him.
The Drone Ship about to travel through a wormholeThe Drone Ship can be teleported with the aid of the Mastermind/Prodigy. This is the trickiest ability that can be used with the Drone Ship. It can be used two ways, either teleporting as it is being lifted or as it is being deployed. Firstly, when the Drone Ship is being lifted, use the Commando's ability to teleport it. The Drone Ship wil be teleported to the location and from there it can be redeployed. Teleporting the Drone Ship when being deployed is very tricky. When the Drone Ship is airborne, command it to deploy, then once it is about to touch down, teleport it to your expansion. This will make the Drone Platform (now that it has been deployed, it is called Drone Platform opposed to Drone Ship) able to begin construction immediatly as it was teleported while deployed.
The Prodigy about to teleport a Drone PlatformMany players consider an MCV to be a means of construction only . Yet the Drone Ship has a special ability of its own. Many players fear the Mothership as it can take down everything you have built in one shot. A Drone Ship can be used to take down the Mothership. Simply, when a Mothership has been deployed (99% of the time it is inside you base) lift the Drone Ship and fly it straight into the centre of that Mothership. The Mothership will be instantly destoyed which will place a massive dent in your opponent's economy as it cost him/her 5000 credits to deploy the Mothership.
The Drone Ship destroying a MothershipOn the topic of the Mothership, there is a tactic that involves you undeploying the Drone Platform and flying to the edge of your opponents base, but still out of the line of sight. Once the Drone Ship has been deployed, place down the Signal Transmitter and deploy the Mothership. Force fire the Mothership on your own Signal Transmitter but then lift your Drone Ship and fly it out. Lifting the Drone Ship will ensure that it is kept safe.
