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Picture of a drone.

Drones appear in the sky randomly and can be tapped or dragged on (to avoid mistapping a building), knocking them to the ground and giving you a cash/Golden Egg reward. They used to be extremely important but were nerfed in update 1.9. It's helpful to use Farm to Table when taking down drones because the camera can be moved freely and you can see your entire farm at once.

Since update 1.12, the active running chicken bonus affects farm value and hence the value of drones. Specifically, your bock earnings from drones will be multiplied by the square root of your running chicken bonus, so maintaining a running chicken bonus of x400 will yield drones with an x20 value over no running chickens. As the value of the drone is calculated when the drone hits the ground, you have a small window of time to raise your running chicken multiplier between the time you hit a drone and the time you get the reward.

Drones[]

The epic research Drone Rewards works as follows: from 10% to 100%, that is your chance of doubling the downed drone's reward. From 110% to 200%, subtract 100 to get 10% to 100%; that is your chance of doubling the reward again. This makes upgraded drones one of your most reliable sources of small amounts of golden eggs - at maximum upgrade, drones that drop golden eggs will never drop less than 24 at a time.

Because of how drone cash rewards are calculated, in addition to the above, you can raise the amount of cash drones drop with the epic research Accounting Tricks. Drones spawn at a rate of about 154 per hour (actually one drone every 23.375 seconds, on average). Neodymium Medallions modify this amount per hour directly, although note it is not exactly 154. Of these, 92% are regular and 8% are elite, i.e. about 141.69 regular drones per hour and about 12.32 elite drones per hour.

Regular Drones[]

Regular Drones are extremely common and quite slow. Each wave is 1-3 drones and they spawn about every 30-45 seconds; you can expect about 142 per hour.

  • Cash Rewards: A very small amount of bocks, with higher rewards more likely with higher drone research). Unmodified by artifacts, 70% of regular drones carry cash. Assuming a drone is both regular and carrying cash, its drop rates are as follows, across three tiers; note that for chicken farms with very small populations, drones carry fewer bocks relative to farm value (and, of course, farm value is also smaller due to said smaller population), but this very quickly becomes meaningless, so the full formula is abbreviated here:
    • The base value for a drone is based on Farm Value multiplied by the square root of your running chicken bonus when the drone hits the ground. Call this your modified FV.
    • m = 1+drone research/100, so 1 at level 0 and 3 at max level.
    1. With percent probability 100 - m*10 (100% going down to 70%), a drone drops .01% of your modified FV.
    2. With percent probability 7m (0% going up to 21%), a drone drops .05% of your modified FV.
    3. With percent probability 3m (0% going up to 9%), a drone drops .25% of your modified FV.
    • This means that at maximum upgrade, a regular cash drone drops, on average, 0.04% of your modified FV.
  • Golden Egg Rewards:Golden Egg}}6 or Golden Egg}}12 before upgrades, 24 or 48 when fully upgraded, with odds of 99% of being the smaller value and 1% of being larger. Unmodified by artifacts, 30% of regular drones carry golden eggs. Unlike with cash rewards, drone research does nothing to impact the odds either will drop. When either one drops, its value is randomly modified.
    • m = drone research, so 0 at level 0 and 200 at max level.
    • When a regular golden egg drone hits the ground while m is from 0 to 100, with odds m% (0% to 100%), the egg's value is doubled.
    • When a regular golden egg drone hits the ground while m is from 100 to 200, the egg's value is always doubled once, and then is doubled again with odds (m-100)%, so 0% to 100%.
    • So a fully upgraded regular golden egg drone drops, on average, 24.24 golden eggs; each regular drone has a 30% chance of carrying this, so said drone drops 7.272 golden eggs on average.

Elite Drones[]

Elite Drones, added in update 1.1, are very fast and can turn mid-flight, making them harder to catch. They appear approximately once every 4 minutes, but two Elite Drones can spawn at the same time. You can expect about 12 per hour (statistically, one every 5 minutes).

  • Cash Rewards: A very large amount of bocks (typically 5% of Farm Value multiplied by the square root of your current running chicken bonus, which does not seem to be modified by drone research at all).
  • Golden Egg Rewards: Golden Egg}}24, Golden Egg}}48, or Golden Egg}}96, scaling up to 96, 192, and 384 after drone research. The odds of each dropping from an elite golden egg drone (without artifacts, each drone has a 30% chance of being a golden egg drone) are 70%, 29%, and 1%, respectively. When fully upgraded, an elite golden egg drone drops, on average, 126.72 golden eggs

Drone Farming for Golden Eggs[]

If you have a little time on your hands, drone farming can be an extremely effective way of collecting Golden Eggs for any player. Although it works best for more advanced players, any player can do it to some extent. The three artifacts that increase the effectiveness of Golden Egg drone farming are the Aurelian Brooch (increases drone rewards), the Beak of Midas (increases chance of gold from drones), and the Neodymium Medallion (increases drone frequency. Even though owners of the Pro Permit can activate up to four artifacts at once, there is no fourth artifact that affects Golden Egg drops from drones. If you have the standard permit, the best artifact to leave out is usually the Neodymium Medallion, but it may take some experimentation to find what works best for you.

The best possible Golden Egg drone farming set consists of a Tier 4 Legendary Eggceptional Aurelian Brooch, a Tier 4 Legendary Eggceptional Neodymium Medallion, and a Tier 4 Legendary Glistening Beak of Midas. The fourth artifact is irrelevant, so long as it is not a Rainstick.

For maximum effect, the artifacts should be fully equipped with 50% or 100% clarity stones so that the set can be used on the Enlightenment Egg. If the artifacts are completely filled with 100% clarity stones, drones on the Enlightenment Egg will be guaranteed to drop Golden Eggs at a minimum of 168 per drone — this becomes even more powerful during a Generous Drones event, which multiplies all drone rewards by four.

(Note: the Tier 4 Legendary Beak of Midas only needs a single 25% clarity to function at full effect on enlightenment.)

(Note: the Tier 4 Rare Beak of Midas will function like the Tier 4 Legendary for drones only if it holds a 50% clarity stone. The Tier 4 Rare cannot guarantee Golden Eggs from random gifts or video offers because the chance of Golden Eggs is different than for drones. However, for drone farming purposes the Tier 4 Rare Beak of Midas works just as well as the Tier 4 Legendary.)

Sometimes it can be frustrating for a player to try taking down a drone only to miss it by a few pixels and open another menu such as the silos or the habs. There is a simple fix for this! Simply go to the nine dots menu found near the bottom of your screen, tap “shells”, and open the “editor”, not the “showcase”. This will give you a zoomed-out view of your farm that allows you to take out drones without having to worry about opening any other menus. Be aware that taking down the drones from this screen can be slightly less responsive so a swiping motion is often better than a single tap.

Every drone will also fly through the same area on your screen, found between the second hen house and the second silo. Even though Elite drones have a curve to their flight path, making them tricky to catch, they still go through the same area as all the others. Knowing this will save you a lot of effort and help you catch even the fastest of drones so you can collect their rewards.

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