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Recon Drone
September 11, 2026 at 10:13 PM
Initial version (2026-09-11)
The Recon Drone is the Protectorate scouting flyer, a Tier 0 special unit capped at three per player. It costs 25 hexite, takes no supply, carries no weapon and has the widest vision on the faction's cheap units at 18. Figures below describe build ZS.c36778 of 11 September 2026 and move with the patch cadence.
Stat | Value |
|---|---|
Cost | 25 hexite |
Health | 75 |
Shields | None |
Armor | Not published in the entity data |
Armor type | None |
Status resist | None listed |
Move speed | 650 |
Vision | 18 |
Supply | 0 |
Build time | Not published in the entity data |
Tier | 0 |
Domain | Flyer |
Infuse / Reanimate / Replicate | Not eligible |
Built by | Operating Tower |
Two gaps are real. The entity data publishes no build time for the Recon Drone and no flat armour number. The flux half of the cost is likewise unpublished, so the cost above is the hexite figure only. Armor type None is a genuine value, one of the six live armour types, not a missing field.
Scouting is the whole job. A drone parked over an enemy expansion tells you whether the opponent is on a fast third, whether a Skydock has gone down, and whether mercenary outposts are being contested, and at 25 hexite that information is close to free.
The three unit cap changes how the drone is used compared with a disposable scout. Losing one is a real cost against the limit rather than a rounding error, so drones tend to sit at the edge of vision rather than flying over an army. Vision 18 is what makes that viable: the drone sees further than the Sentinel rail cannon can shoot.
Since 28 August 2026 a killed scouting drone no longer refunds a 25 hexite bounty to the player who shot it down, which removed the small income incentive for chasing them.
Like the Prospector and the Protectorate Build Drone, the Recon Drone comes out of the Operating Tower with no research behind it, so it is available from the first outpost.
The Protectorate has no other dedicated scout. Early information otherwise comes from the Commando jetpack crossing terrain, or later from the Griffin, which carries detection. Vision ranges and the intelligence they feed matter most in Skirmish and ladder play.
The Recon Drone is one of the few units that carries the None armour type. No weapon in the game holds a damage bonus against None, so nothing gets a multiplier on it, but nothing is blunted either: with no published flat armour value, every point of damage lands in full.
It carries the Flyer tag, so only weapons that can target air can shoot it at all. Against a composition with no anti air the drone is effectively immortal, which is the main reason three of them can be worth the hexite.
No attack, so no favourable matchups.
Weak to:
Unit | Why |
|---|---|
+200 percent against flyers removes a drone instantly | |
+100 percent against air | |
its STX Fanus Twin Missile reaches 14 range against air, further than the drone can see safely from | |
12 damage per shot against air at 14 range, and it carries detection |
28 August 2026: scouting drones no longer provide a 25 hexite bounty when killed.
11 August 2026: health reduced from 100 to 75.
11 August 2026: supply cost reduced from 1 to 0.
11 August 2026: the Shield ability can no longer target scouting drones or Prospectors.
The engine name is Troop_ScoutingDrone_C, without a faction prefix, because the Legion and the Xol field their own scouting drones built on the same base. Those are separate roster entries, the Legion Scouting Drone and the Xol Scouting Drone, and their stats are not identical to this one.
For the rest of the roster and how to read a stat block, see Units. For hexite, flux, supply and the power pool behind unit conversions, see Resources and Economy. For the commanders that lead a Protectorate army, see Heroes and Commanders.
All figures come from build ZS.c36778, stamped 11 September 2026. ZeroSpace is in Early Access and its versus numbers change most weeks, so this page records a snapshot rather than a settled value.
