I have a few questions about controlling drones that all circle around the same thing. First, based on the text of Drone Operations on page 233, it seems to be that telepresence is not required in order to use your action and maneuver to give a drone an action and maneuver. So, first question, is that true?

Regardless of that answer, if I'm controlling a drone, am I forced to control it via telepresence and therefore use my skill ranks? Also, when using telepresence, am I forced to use my ranks for everything or can I choose the higher skill.

Basically, the TLDR of this is if a drone has better skills than me, can I take advantage of that? If not, it seems like being a focused drone operator is going to be pretty lame since I still have to dump all the XP into those skills anyway which kind of defeats the purpose.

Telepresence just gives you the option of directly controlling the drone, or having it act on its own. That's the only effect of the ability. You can always use an action and a maneuver to command your drone to do something.

Ah, I see. I think that was the subtle difference I was missing i.e. ordering vs controlling. That makes more sense. Thanks.