Construction drones and reclaim

The command base supplies the construction workforce. A level-1 base begins with capacity for three construction drones. Base development and Commander choices improve the workforce and its efficiency.

Each drone can use Build first or Reclaim first during the current run. A change takes effect when the drone becomes available; it does not ordinarily interrupt a live job.

Build first considers base repair, base upgrade, funded new construction, existing-building upgrades, then reclaim. Reclaim first looks for recoverable own-building or wreck Matter while storage has room, then falls back to ordinary base and construction work.

Within building work, High, Medium and Low priorities still apply. Dispatchable new construction can take precedence over an existing-building upgrade. A reclaim job stays with its drone until completion, cancellation or full Matter storage.

Storage and cancellation

When Matter storage is full, drones leave reclaim for other useful work. Remaining recoverable value is retained. Once capacity opens, work can resume. Canceling recovery leaves the remaining value recoverable rather than destroying it.

Own-building reclaim is considered before wreck recovery. Wreck selection favors nearby eligible work. The Paired Matter Reclaim passive can let one drone recover two nearby enemy wrecks at once.

Reclaim Overdrive

While this active skill has eligible reclaim work and storage room, every drone temporarily prioritizes reclaim. Drones beyond the available recovery jobs continue ordinary work. With no eligible reclaim, or a full Matter store, the ordinary scheduler remains in effect. The temporary skill never rewrites the drone's chosen preference.

The active increases reclaim throughput and drone travel speed; it does not increase the amount of Matter contained in a wreck.