Drone mods don't include natural attacks (so no rake or bite), but they can get a melee weapon arm and/or mount a flamethrower or other ranged weapon. While they could pick up the opening volley feat they couldn't link a ranged weapon to a melee weapon the way you describe.
Don't expect them to be as sturdy nor has accurate as characters.
On the other hand they don't worry about disease, bleed, poisons, ability damage and a number of other things that characters would need to worry about. If they are destroyed, you can put them back together with only a short delay.
Best I can tell, you need to get Weapon Specialization for them. Unlike characters, they don't appear to get it for free.
I think they can be fun, but they certainly aren't overly powerful. I have been running a mechanic with a Combat Drone and having fun with it. I try to destroy the drone each scenario. I've had to leap from vehicles to provide cover to a player, charge directly at an enemy as the players circle around to flank, and other things you wouldn't want to suggest a player do.
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One fun thing to do is give your melee drone all your explosives and have it praise the sun every time it's about to go down. They're easily replaced.
Best I can tell, you need to get Weapon Specialization for them. Unlike characters, they don't appear to get it for free.The drone gets basic melee or small arms proficiency for free, and specialization for that feat for free at level 3.
It's in the 2 paragraph of the drone section on page 74.
Thanks, I had missed that.
In my drone's case, it didn't really matter since I've given them Advanced Melee proficiency meaning I still had to spend on Specialization. The good news is I can just jump to the Versatile Specialization when I rebuild next level. It will not matter until I can add another weapon anyways.
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our party's drone started out stealth in our dead sun campaign, and he was total garbage. three non-stealth focused characters just outclassed it ridiculously and it was killed in every. single. fight.
after level 3 it was repurposed as a combat drone with a melee focus. gave it a polearm for reach. now it's a fantastic combatant, although it's still mighty soft. we are on level 5 and it's on version 8.
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As others have pointed out, melee drones tend to suffer but can be viable, for certain meanings of "viable". After all, they are still a body with a reasonable attack bonus that can carry a weapon. And if you have relatively few encounters per day, then even if they die every encounter, that's not so bad. It does suck if you have 4 encounters and they die on the first though.
The melee drone tends to suffer from four issues:
1. Lower AC than a proper tank, even with the Armor mod.
2. Less HP than even a 10-CON Technomancer (SP+HP).
3. They are extremely difficult to heal.
4. Drones suffer from action economy issues, and melee characters need to move + attack more often than ranged characters. Also, unlike Soldiers or Solarians, they never get options like a standard action charge.
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As others have pointed out, melee drones tend to suffer but can be viable, for certain meanings of "viable". After all, they are still a body with a reasonable attack bonus that can carry a weapon. And if you have relatively few encounters per day, then even if they die every encounter, that's not so bad. It does suck if you have 4 encounters and they die on the first though.
The melee drone tends to suffer from four issues:
1. Lower AC than a proper tank, even with the Armor mod.
2. Less HP than even a 10-CON Technomancer (SP+HP).
3. They are extremely difficult to heal.
4. Drones suffer from action economy issues, and melee characters need to move + attack more often than ranged characters. Also, unlike Soldiers or Solarians, they never get options like a standard action charge.
Our drone (SQUANCH!) died in the beginning of the third part of INCIDENT AT ABSALOM STATION... which meant we had to go through the rough parts basically as a man down, since a drone mechanic really can't do anything in a fight.
As far as...
3 - A technomancer gets some spells (make whole, mending) which allow for some healing of the drone. Which makes sense. The drone moreover, can act as an effective hit point sink. Our drone's died EIGHT TIMES. So he's sucked up a tonne of damage that would otherwise have gone to a party which isn't well built for melee combat.
4 - Our drone has a polearm, which really helps with the movement problem. But also, as a drone mechanic can be pretty close to useless in combat, if you squirrel him away from the fighting the drone can have a full action economy.
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Going to 0 hit points just makes it inactive.
If a drone is reduced to 0 Hit Points, it becomes inactive until it is restored to 1 Hit Point or more. If a drone takes damage from a single attack equal to or greater than its maximum Hit Points while it has 0 current HP, the drone is destroyed.
It goes on to say that if it gets destroyed, it takes 24 hours to rebuild from scratch.
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I've run my mechanic with a stealth drone with moderate success. Climb speed gives me interesting positioning options and its modest damage (I'm shooting for two, after all) means it's rarely the target of enemy fire. Plus, Camera mod means we have a disposable scout when the party wants to take a more cautious pace.
The mechanic has okay damage with sniper proficiency and the weapon overcharge trick, but her bonus to hit is a little low because I started with 14 dex. I expect that to even out as I gain levels.
I honestly couldn't see myself taking a combat drone as a primary melee. Way too squishy and it doesn't look like it will scale well. I do have one, but I use it as a mount for my Gnome mechanic. Fixes a lot of action economy issues. It uses energy based longarms and I simply pray that the d20 will boost me past EAC.
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. . . huh. It just occurred to me. Does a drone actually "die" when it hits 0 HP? Or is it just incapacitated? Because, if it only is destroyed if it takes massive damage. . . you could still repair a 0 HP drone after a battle.
there are technomancer spells that let you repair it during battle as well, bringing it back into the fight.