Mechanic Drone costs?

[retzlaffmd]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but is there any cost involved in the initial construction of a Drone by a Mechanic character? I've looked in the character creation section, and I found nothing about costs involved, leading our group to wonder how tough it can be to have my character build them better/cheaper weapons, since she can apparently build/rebuild a well armed combat drone out of scrap and spare parts... :)

[Xenocrat]

It’s free

[Metaphysician]

And no, this has zero effect on a Mechanic's ability to supply equipment to their party.

[Tyrnis]

Because drones are a class feature -- essentially part of the character -- they don't have an associated cost, no. That's also why they're almost impossible to permanently destroy, when regular equipment is afforded no such protection. They've moved away from Pathfinder's model of punishing the character pretty badly for losing a familiar/eidolon/animal companion/etc.

Regular equipment, on the other hand, is much more disposable, and as such, _does_ have an associated cost, as detailed under the equipment lists and crafting rules. It's better to think of this less as a function of how the Starfinder universe itself works, and more as an OOC abstraction for the sake of not penalizing the player of a drone by potentially leaving them without a major class feature for a significant amount of time.