Damage ratio of Combat Drone Mark I vs II

[stylesrj]

I'd take the extra energy penalty for the Defence Drone II if it shot down missiles faster. Making it shoot down lasers makes it a liability.

Captain's Edition has you covered for Anti Drone Drones that actually do a decent job at shooting down drones... of course they do add more drones you want destroyed ASAP, like Missile Drones.
They also have a Burst Scatter Drone which is the Defence Drone I but on steroids. Fires every 0.3 seconds and hits missiles rapidly. You can tank the Flagship's missile barrage most of the time with such a drone orbiting around your ship.

[Arthur Dent]

Somehow I go the impression that especially Drones are somewhat unbalanced, don't you think?
--> The added functionality of Defense II makes it apparently less attractive

Yes, but depending of your own setup, it might be a major annoyance for you when your opponent has one.

--> Anti-Drone Drones, do they get used actually?

I occasionally use one in the second boss fight. With the extreme amount of drones of the enemy, they can make a difference there. Sometimes I will even buy one in the store. It's very cheap and only costs 1 energy bar, that's a great cost/benefit balance against the right opponent.

--> I never were in a situation where I thought I had to launch a Repair Drone or an Anti-Personnel Drone. I did have them ready for a few times just to test them out but they are awfully slow. I usually try to have a full crew so whenever hull damage or an invadeing party comes over etc I can fix that very swiftly because, at least, 2-3 crewmen will be already very close to the situation. So in about 50% of all cases these shipdrones will arrive too late. There's an Augment for that but is it really worth it?

I would never buy one of these, but if you have one from the start of otherwise get one, it might be useful - until you have enough crew to do the job. And getting enough crew is ALWAYS important, so in a game that runs according to plan, you will have gotten rid of these drones long before you approach the final sector.