A Spy Drone is a facility in 112 Operator provided by the Facilities DLC. It can be placed on the map for €4,000. Spy Drones have a small radius around them in which they can provide surveillance of incident sites, and will also automatically search any sectors within that radius. The Drone flies in straight lines like a helicopter, and can move around at a speed comparable to a very nimble motorcycle. Any number of Spy Drones can be placed down, so long as you have the money.
Placement and Removal[]
With the Facilities DLC installed, a Spy Drone can be placed by accessing the Facilities tab between duties, clicking the Spy Drone entry in the list, and then selecting a position on the map. You must have €4,000 available.
A Spy Drone may be placed anywhere on the map, including over water and even outside any accessible districts, if you wish. The money is spent only once the Spy Drone is placed; you may cancel the purchase before then without any penalty.
The Spy Drone's radius of effect is marked with a green circle whenever you hover over the Spy Drone's icon, both during and between duties.
The Spy Drone may be sold for €2,000 (half the purchase price) by switching to Facilities mode and clicking the small "$" button next to the Drone's icon.
Movement[]
A Spy Drone can be ordered to move around just like any other vehicle, both between and during duties.
Spy Drones are airborne, and can move like helicopters in perfectly straight lines. They may fly over land, water, parks and traffic without losing any speed.
The Spy Drone's movement speed is 180 - the same as a Police Motorcycle. It has an acceleration value equal to or close to that speed, so it can effectively reach its top speed instantly when it starts moving, making it one of the most nimble "vehicles" in the game.
The Spy Drone cannot be ordered to "visit" an incident site like a vehicle; it can only move to that map position. As a result, it cannot follow a moving incident automatically like a vehicle can.
Patrols[]
The "waypoint" system works differently for a Drone compared to normal vehicles. When commanding the Drone to fly to a waypoint (Shift + Right-Click in the PC version of the game), the game creates a patrol route, instead. Adding more waypoints expands the patrol route.
Once a patrol route is created, the Spy Drone will move from one waypoint to the next, until it reaches the final waypoint - at which time it will return to its initial position and start the same patrol route automatically. It will only stay in one place if explicitly told to move there without setting a waypoint (Right-click), which will also delete any existing patrol route.
Surveillance[]
The Spy Drone acts as a surveillance tool within its small radius of effect. During a duty shift, as long as an incident is within the drone's radius of effect, you may inspect the On Site picture for that incident even if no units are present. This is done by selecting the incident and clicking the "On Site" tab in its details panel. If either the Drone or the Incident moves away, you lose that ability unless an actual emergency unit is already at the incident site.
The displayed "On Site" picture is complete, showing all relevant information including weapons, names and descriptions, scene layout, elements blocked by other elements, and even the actions of the individuals (e.g. during gang fights), as if one of your units was present at the scene.
Searching[]
When Search-type incidents occur, the Drone can be used to search them much like a normal vehicle, with one exception: The Drone simultaneously searches every sector that touches its small radius of effect.
The Drone has a Search skill of 0.7 - close to that of a rookie police officer (0.75). It applies 0.7 Work Seconds to each search sector within its radius of effect simultaneously; therefore, it is a good idea to place the drone on the border of two or more adjoining sectors, so that it can search all of them at the same time. Doing so effectively increases the Drone's search speed to 2.8 per second (0.7 for each of the adjacent sectors), which is very fast indeed.
Unlike normal vehicles, the Spy Drone cannot perform an automated search by visiting the Search Incident site, since it cannot visit sites at all.
Tactical Benefits[]
The Spy Drone is an alternative version of the stationary CCTV camera, trading the CCTV's large radius of effect for the ability to move freely. One Spy Drone costs the same as two CCTVs.
The ability to move allows the Drone to cover a much larger area than the CCTV, but requires manual commands to do so (where the CCTV remains in place but requires no attention from you at all). As such, the best use for a Drone is in large park or wilderness areas where installing multiple CCTVs would be a waste; or over large bodies of water where the land-based CCTV's radius simply cannot reach.
As with the CCTV, the Drone's ability to provide an on-site picture of incidents before any unit is sent there can significantly boost your efficiency; improving your ability to send just the right number and type of units to an incident and avoid wasting time and effort. It also increases your teams' safety by knowing exactly what dangers await them, and sending the right specialty units to deal with each incident.
The search function of the Spy Drone is also of extreme importance. Being as fast as it is, it can reach the search area very easily; and then assist in the search very effectively, even on its own. Unlike the CCTV, however, its search must be manually managed to make the most of its abilities, primarily by always placing it at the junction between two or more sectors so it can search all of them simultaneously.
Overall, the only case in which Drones should be completely ignored is in case you've managed to cover your entire city with CCTVs; but doing so is extremely expensive, and often wasteful.
Description[]
"A small unmanned aerial vehicle. Tracks and provides a picture of nearby events and helps with your search. You can designate its permanent patrol points."
Availability[]
Available only in the 112 Operator Facilities DLC.