Destroying Drones

[Gorlom]

So could you pull the same timing trick on an enemy drone? That is, hold your fire until the drone is directly in front of your weapon?

the timing is incredibly tricky and the movement isn't circular around the ship, it's randomized. It could take a very long time for it to get into position that it just isn't worth it. Besides they are just going to send a new antiship drone.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I once had my defence drone shot down by a missle. How ironic is that?

If it couldn't do its job one way, it did it another.

[Alblaka]

So could you pull the same timing trick on an enemy drone? That is, hold your fire until the drone is directly in front of your weapon?

Definitely possible. However, keep in mind enemy ships usually have abundant amounts of drones and missiles (10-20)... and they replace the shot down drone instantly.

[Zaffre]

You can time it but it's difficult. For instance, look at this video and you'll see that when the Artemis was fired it collided with the Breach missile and saved his run. It might be hard to do but timing is certainly possible.

[Mr. Mister]

I can confirm that both asteroids and missing shots from enemy attack drones can take down your defense drones too. Hilarious.

It shouldn't be that hard to intentionally kill an enem defense drone with a beam: the defense drone floats following the shield perimeter.

[Mr. Mister]

GROUNDBREAKING RESULTS:

I'd venture saying that any pair of non-beam (and non-ship) bodies can collide, anihilating one another.

Just saw a (heavy I) laser collide with a (not sure which version) ion ball.

[bigfuzzy]

Or.. you can disable their drone control device on the ship.. or disable it with Ion. Then you don't have to worry about actually shooting them down?

[Moldevort]

All projectile weapons can 'accidentally' hit drones. It appears the game is actually calculating every projectile's flight path for real...
Had a ludicrous event recently, when I showed the game to my brother: He bought his first drone system, launched a first drone, which decided to fire at the ship from it's front and rightout catched a laser-shot from the enemy Basic Defense Laser, lifetime < 2 seconds.

I've seen Defense, Anti-Ship and Hull-Repair drones being occasionally shot down. I'm pretty sure same applies to Beam Drones.
You cannot explicitely target drones and I'm not 100% sure whether every projectile coming in contact will cause a drone death. In-code, there's a 'dodge' value associated with drones, indicating there may is only a chance of drone and projectile connecting.

Overall it's a pretty random aspect.

Have seen the same with missiles, maybe it was just me but I think that Missiles can be destroeyed with lasers too

[UberFubarius]

Have seen the same with missiles, maybe it was just me but I think that Missiles can be destroeyed with lasers too

From experience I believe that may be correct (or I just missed something).
Not sure if spoiler...
Was fighting boss ship when it launched a volley of three missiles at me.
At the same time, both my lvl 3 burst laser fired (5 shots each, for a total of 10).
Next thing I knew, I noticed three explosions near the edge of the screen, and the complete lack of any missiles entering my screen.

[Mr. Mister]

ANY pair of projectiles can collide (one yours, one enemies), including those that already missed the ship and asteroids.