Drone Launcher

Overview

 * Unlocked at Rank 29 for players, that have The Pursuit DLC.
 * Fire modes
 * Primary Fire
 * Launches a small drone, that will automatically seek an enemy, then rapidly fire armor-piercing lasers when in range. (5 shots/second, dealing 80 damage/hit for 4 seconds). It will stick to a target for 8 seconds, but will damage it half of that time, hitting it 5 times every two seconds.
 * If not aiming at a specific enemy, drones will target the closest possible lume.
 * If the drones' target dies before they reach it, they will instead seek the next closest enemy.
 * Each drone will eventually self-destruct, either after landing 20 hits, if the enemy they're attacking dies, or if there are no other enemies currently spawned. Unlike the secondary Fire, this self-destruction does not deal any damage.
 * Multiple drones can target the same enemy, limited only by their lifespan.
 * Rather than moving around obstacles, drones will simply pass through, which allows them to be fired from anywhere and still find a target.
 * Secondary Fire
 * Signals all launched drones to detonate immediately, dealing damage in area at their current location regardless of whether they've reached it yet.
 * Unlike the primary fire, it does not pierce armor.
 * This fire mode does not trigger character-related damage bonuses.
 * Character-related damage bonuses are Sweet's burn, Skye's warming-up, Haigen's proximity damage, TSYGAN's empowered last shot and SiMo's weakspot dmg bonus.
 * While the self-destructing drones seem to simply fall down, they would actually affect both flying and ground ground lumes.
 * This mode cannot damage partially-invulnerable lumes (Hoverers, Hoverer Queens, Bobble Heads & Fiskeplaske) and if the explosions don't deal damage, they wouldn't trigger any damage-related bonuses such as Sweet's burn.

Notes & tactics

 * Drones will home to its closest target mostly disregarding accuracy, so using the Spray 'N Pray perk will result in the drones causing 40% more damage, seemingly not afecting this weapon's "accuracy" in any way, thus making this perk technically perfectly fine for this particular weapon.
 * Drones have a high tendency to land critical hits if the target's weakspot is on the top or side of its body. One can take advantage of this by equipping Penetrator Rounds or Headache.
 * Drones are good at prolonging debuffs, such as Slowing Rounds or Synergy.
 * Despite the drones' fast rate of fire, the Drone Launcher is considered a slow weapon, and is affected by Tactical Juxtaposition as such.
 * Using the weapon with Hip Fire is mostly fine, since the weapon's natural crit bonus is below 40% and the damage dealt with the perk would be more, regardless of whether hitting weakspots or not. Technically this appears the weapon, which this perk can find arguably the best use with, since hitting weakspots with the Drone launcher is mostly rare (although it is more frequent against Soakers & Bobble Heads), and even if the Marksman perk is used instead, the overall damage is very likely to be less than with Hip Fire.
 * Every hit by the drones counts as a hit from the player, so drones are really useful for quickly gaining and maintaining stacks of Skye's damage bonus or the Warming Up perk.
 * The Drone Launcher is very good at rendering Soakers more vulnerable, especially if used by Sweet, as each drone shot will activate her debuff, increasing the Soaker's vulnerability very quickly.
 * As of Patch 1.4.29826, Armor Shredder no longer applies to the primary fire of the Drone Launcher. Technically this perk would affect only the secondary fire.