Ranks H…S***
A rank is the UL item quality from 1 to 90, ten points per letter. The drone has one, and so does every drone mod. From loot, traders and the workbench the drone and its mods come at rank H. Higher ranks come only from upgrades at the Maintenance Station: research points, parts, and at the top ranks journals and legendary parts.
Where a mod relies on your own UL skills (charisma, Medic, turrets, club, Salvager), the rank only sets the ceiling: the drone never goes past what you have learned.
Nine modules
The drone has at most 8 slots for 9 modules, so one stays at home.
Mod slots
The number of slots depends on the drone's rank: 1 at H up to 8 at S***. You can swap the mods of a deployed drone right in the world. Plain UL had 1 to 5 slots.
| Rank | H | G | F | E | D | C | B | A | S | S*** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slots | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 8 |
A smarter drone
The drone's own rank unlocks skills that need no module.
| Rank | Skill |
|---|---|
| F | Alert. Warns about a strong enemy within 30 m: radiated, charged, burning, mutants, bosses. |
| E | Stealth. You crouch, the drone goes quiet and turns its lamp off. Stand up and it is back. |
| C | Self-repair. At 10% health with no enemies near, it repairs itself with a repair kit from its cargo. |
| B | Cell charging. Swaps power cells at a UL charging station by itself: takes the full ones, leaves the empty. |
Armor
Each armor rank adds 10% to the drone's maximum health. UL derives drone durability from its health fraction, so with S*** armor durability drains half as fast.
| Rank | H | D | A | S*** |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health | +10% | +50% | +80% | +100% |
| HP (base 5000) | 5500 | 7500 | 9000 | 10,000 |
Cargo bay
One mod instead of five: inventory rows and carry weight both grow with rank. The UL cargo weight skill multiplies the total. An S*** drone with an S*** bay and the full skill carries about 937 — between a motorcycle and a car.
| Rank | H–F | E–C | B–S | S*** |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rows of 8 slots | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 |
Carry weight grows evenly with rank, from +12 at H to +125 at S***.
Support
In UL charisma works on allies only, never on yourself. The Support mod hands you the Charismatic Nature nodes you have learned. The rank sets how many tiers get through.
| Rank | Gives |
|---|---|
| H | +10% stamina |
| G | buff radius 48 m instead of 32 |
| F … B | 1 … 5 charisma tiers |
| A, S | all 6 tiers |
| S*** | all of it plus +2% to bonuses and +1 to attributes |
- Tiers: regeneration, +20% damage, −10% damage taken, +10% / +20% loot, +5 attributes.
- If an ally already gives you the same node, the better one works; they do not stack.
- Clicking the drone's buff shows what works now and what the next rank adds.
Machine gun
In vanilla the machine gun mod could be installed but the drone never fired. Now the drone shoots like a flying junk turret, with turret ammo from its cargo.
- It only shoots those who attack you or the drone. Sleepers and passers-by are left alone; it does not fire through walls or through you.
- Your turret skills add up, capped by the mod's rank.
- Firing wears the drone down like a turret. At S*** there is no wear.
- Works together with the stun weapon and the medic.
Stun weapon
The drone shocks an enemy that gets within 3 m of you or the drone. It is a power attack, like a stun baton, and knocks the enemy down. Kills and XP go to you.
- Knockdown 2.5 s; your stun baton skill makes it longer.
- Cooldown 8 s, 6 s at S***.
- Power from the cargo: UL power cells, otherwise small batteries. A hit costs 2 charges.
Headlamp
With rank the beam grows longer and brighter, and zombies in its light are blinded. It works in the dark: at night and indoors at full strength; outside in daylight it switches itself off.
| Rank | H | E | C | S | S*** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blinding radius | 6 m | 9 m | 11 m | 14 m | 15 m |
| Sleeper sees the player | −20% | −40% | −53% | −73% | −80% |
| Slowdown | −5% | −13% | −19% | −27% | −30% |
| Damage to blinded | +5% | +12% | +16% | +23% | +25% |
| Beam range | ×1.0 | ×1.45 | ×1.75 | ×2.2 | ×2.35 |
A power cell lasts about 15 minutes, a small battery about a minute and a half.
Medic
In vanilla the drone heals as soon as you drop below two thirds of your health, even mid-fight. With this mod it waits for a lull, heals with your Medic skill and keeps an eye on food and water.
- Waits for calm. A couple of weak walkers are fine; a feral, a crowd or a boss is not. The tolerance grows with rank.
- Heals at once when health is critical: below 20%, below 35% at S***.
- Heals with your hands: your Medic bonus and healing XP are yours.
- Treats injuries by your Medic tiers: abrasion, fracture (splint, cast), concussion, infection.
- Feeds you from rank G: only safe food and drink, by what you lack; cans and bottles go back to the cargo.
Recon
While the drone carries the module and has power in its cargo, zombies and animals around it show up on your minimap: radius 30 to 120 m, marks from every 4 s at H to live tracking at S***. From rank E animals show, from C sleepers, from A dangerous zombies get their own colour.
The marks are drawn by the Advanced Minimap in my UL port, which is not published here because the minimap is someone else's mod. Without it the module installs and uses power but shows nothing.
Scavenger
You stand still, nothing is around — the drone flies to a visible UL tank and fills empty containers from its cargo. From rank S it also searches loot crates. The rank is capped by your Salvager skill.
| Rank | H | F | E | D | C | S | S*** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radius, m | 5 | 10 | 13 | 15 | 18 | 27 | 30 |
| New | murky water | mineral water | gas | coffee | beer | crates | — |
It leaves players' tanks, locked safes and quest containers alone and does not fly through walls. Needs no power.
Upgrading from the old mods
This mod replaces the separate Z_DroneArmor, Z_DroneCargo, Z_DroneCharisma, Z_DroneJunkTurret, Z_DroneLamp, Z_DroneMedic, Z_DroneModSlots. Delete their folders, or everything works twice. Saves carry over: item and recipe names are unchanged. Mods crafted before installing have quality 0 and count as rank H.