Drone/Fighter/Bomber Balance

Long post ahead. TLDR at the bottom.

I spent a ton of time today playing games where drones were my only weapons. I did this to get a feel for exactly how strong drones can be. I'm not saying using them without other weapons should be totally viable, that was just part of how I did my testing. I'm not including repair drones in this post because I feel they are a bit of a different issue. Keep in mind I am guessing at some of the current stats since they are not shown, sorry if I make any bad estimates.

Here is my impression of the different drone types:
Plasma Bombers: Well balanced (maybe a little weak)
- Decent at killing ships, bad at killing fighters, drones, and missiles
- respawns too slowly to be useful for blocking fire
- range is fine, but often coasts on top of enemies
- Plenty of good upgrades, doesn't get OP

Missile Bombers: Well balanced
- Very similar to Plasma Bombers
- Don't seem to require quite as many upgrades as plasma bombers for similar performance

Bolter Fighters: Poorly balanced (compared to bolter drones)
- Seem to have a larger hitbox than drones, this makes them die too quickly
- Can actually be upgraded to do better damage than bolter drones
- These aren't actually that bad, bolter drones are just way better

Bolter Drones: Poorly balanced
- These do a ton of damage with just a few upgrades
- Very strong at defense and offense
- Effective at blocking incoming fire, high respawn rate makes this effective
- Occasionally are countered by enemy point defense or fighters. Usually can kill a few enemy ships before drone fleet is wiped out and the rest of the fight is easy.
- Pretty much always a better choice than all other drone types due to the fact that they excel at both defense and offense.

In my opinion, the problem here is not that bolter drones are actually too strong. The problem is that they are good at too many different things, and that the bolter fighters don't have a clear role. The bombers aren't weak, they just aren't better than bolter drones at anything. I see three clear roles for combat drones: defending your fleet, destroying enemy drones, and destroying the enemy capital ships. Here is what I recommend:
- Adjust bolter drones to be best suited for defending your fleet
- Leave bombers where they are for the moment
- Let fighters be ok at both defense and offense, but not excellent at either, they are a flex pick

This will make bolter drones the right defensive choice, but will limit their ability to outperform other fighter types in other roles. Bombers will be the strongest for destroying enemy capital ships, and fighters can do both pretty well.
Here is what I would change:

Bolter Drones:
- Keep their high damage, accuracy, and maneuverability. This will keep them strong at defending the friendly fleet from incoming threats.
- Reduce their movement speed. This should mean they are more easily destroyed when approaching a target.
- With these changes, the bolter drones should probably have slightly reduced purchase and upgrade cost.
- Now bolter drones are still a strong defense, and can fight enemy capitals, but they won't be better at capital killing than bombers.

Bolter Fighters:
- Reduce their hitbox just slightly, this will make them take a little less damage.
- Increase their base hull slightly and add an upgrade to increase hull or grant a small shield. This should probably a 1 point upgrade so they can't get too tanky.
- Increase movement speed slightly so the fighters can quickly move around the map.
- This increased usefulness should probably be accompanied by a slight increase in purchasing and upgrade cost.

Now all the drones are good at different things. There is no best option for everything.
- If you need defense pick bolter drones.
- If you want to kill capitals, pick your favorite bomber flavor.
- If you need flexibility, or drones with enough health to stick around during a fight, pick the bolter fighter.

TLDR: Bolter drones make other drones seem weak. Make bolter drones be best at defense. Give bolter fighters something useful to do.

Here are the spreadsheets I used to help figure this out if anyone is curious.
Plasma Bombers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing
Missile Bombers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing
Bolter Drones:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing
Bolter Fighters:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing

Let me know what you guys think! I can do a similar analysis for repair if there is any interest.