Here are my Spina Drone recommendations:
The Spina Drones have a resist against incoming Impact damage, therefore, check your weapon's damage before heading out there. Most Laser guns, like ArMatrix LR/LP for example, are fine, as they usually do a combination of Burn & Penetration damage. Be sure to also check the damage type of the amplifier on your weapon; the crafted MindForce amps for example deal Impact damage, so that makes them useless against the Spina Drones. If you get a yellow number with a shield symbol appearing above the Spina Drone every time you hit it, that's a warning that some amount of the damage your dealing is being blocked by the Spina Drone.
Entropiawiki said that the Spina Drones do a total of 79.3 damage through a combination of Stab, Penetration and Acid damage, evenly distributed. I set out to confirm this data by going to East Scylla Mountains and testing this myself. The reality is much more complex than this.
Spina Drones do indeed inflict a combination of Stab, Penetration and Acid damage, however it seems that it does this in 2 seperate attacks; a ranged attack and a close combat attack. My instinct at this time tells me that the ranged attack mostly consists of Acid damage, with maybe some Penetration damage. Receiving this attack gives Dodge skills. On the other hand, the close combat attack probably consists mostly of Penetration with some Stab damage. Receiving this attack gives Evade skills.
It is rather easy to favor one or the other; if you wish to tackle the mob at range, just shoot at them with a ranged weapon, they will stay at range from you and attack you by shooting their nasty venom in your direction. If you get to within 6 or 7 meters of them, they will switch to close combat mode, using the stinger on their face to attack you with instead.
The situation becomes more complex however when you get swarmed by 2 or 3 of them at once and it becomes a bit more difficult to "choose" which one of the 2 attacks you will be hit with. So for that reason, I have come up with Armor setups that takes care of both attacks so you can survive and deal with whatever happens out there:
Limited Armor options (strongest to weakest)
Armor | Plate | Stab | Penetration | Acid | TOTAL |
Vain | AP-36 Acid | 50 | 51 | 45 | 146 |
Rutuba | Serpent Scales | 42 | 49 | 42 | 133 |
Spartacus | AP-36 Acid | 44 | 48 | 36 | 128 |
Eon | AP-36 Acid | 28 | 52 | 41 | 121 |
Perseus | AP-24 Penetration | 43 | 42 | 24 | 109 |
Polaris | AP-36 Acid | 24 | 52 | 36 | 112 |
Ozpyn Beetle | Mk. 6A | 25 | 21 | 15 | 61 |
The cheapest option is the Polaris armor with the AP Acid plates. That is the armor I used for testing and I can confirm that with the Polaris with AP-36 Acid plates, the maximum amount of damage that ever got through to me was 28 points. The average was around 10 points of damage, with some hits being deflected completely. Since I have 5% lifesteal, I found that I almost never had to heal while using this armor setup.
Also, looking at the decay on my armor plates, I could tell that the armor part most hit by the Spina Drones was the Harness, the Arm Guards were the 2nd most hit armor part. This knowledge can be helpful in a situation where you find your armor protection is a bit weak; you can place a bigger plate on the armor parts that are hit most often, or you could just use a stronger armor/plate combo for those 2 body parts.
Vain, Rutuba, Spartacus and Perseus armor sets can be found in my Animal Armor shop. I have Eon in stock in the Robot Armor shop. Polaris is currently in the Armor Plate shop, on the "Cold" display. All of these shops are located at Twin Peaks mall, 2nd floor.
Unlimited Armor options (strongest to weakest)
Armor | Plate | Stab | Penetration | Acid | TOTAL |
Perfected Gorgon | AP-42 Penetration | 41 | 42 | 36 | 119 |
POTE TWEN | AP-24 Acid/Pulsar 4 | 43 | 25 | 44 | 112 |
Mayhem | AP-30 Acid/Pen | 43.8 | 13.1 | 43.1 | 100 |
Mod Shadow | AP-30 Acid | 30 | 30 | 38 | 98 |
Improved Imperium | AP-36 Penetration | 19 | 44 | 25 | 88 |
Adjusted Jaguar | AP-36 Acid | 17 | 22 | 42 | 81 |
Mod Viceroy | AP-42 Penetration | 15 | 42 | 19 | 76 |
Obviously, if you were to use the Adjusted Jaguar armor, you should probably favor taking on the mobs at range, since this armor has a Dodge buff. If you choosse Improved Imperium or Mod Viceroy, you should take on the mobs in close combat as much as possible in order to take advantage of the Evade buff.
I have some Adjusted Jaguar armor parts at the Robot Armor shop at Twin Peaks mall, 2nd floor. Ingredients required for the Viceroy armor upgrades can be found in my Viceroy Shop, at Sanctuary Cove 1, on Arkadia.
I hope the above data and recommendations is of some use to you.
Best of luck,
Legends