Another possible ship system:
This is meant to make The Hive more of a support ship
If you look at the picture you can see that i have marked of 2 areas on the ship.
These areas will work as a hangar for special drones, more specificly it is gonna be based on your drone idea.
It will spawn 1 drone from each of the marked areas, which will have a drone that will be of the size of a hound class frigate (might as well be smaller) which will be equiped with long range weapons. they are gonna be relativey slow or not able to move at all and provide long range support with the ship. I have not made any sprite to resemble them but they are either gonna be circular or like maximillians shield drones just bigger.