Consider that we can produce research and production drones as quickly as we can produce military drones. Military drones represent mass that must be moved over large distances, while research and production drones may be retained close to the production centres and therefore be more efficiently supplied. Note also that the bipeds likely possess area-destruction weaponry that would be extremely effective against a massed assault.
It's not easy to produce economic drones when we are geearing up for war and one of our queens is specialized in making soldiers... too late to change strategy. As for area destruction weaponry, I'd not overestimate it's quantity and power. Besides we are planing to use hit and run strategy
Also consider that soldiers can loot supplies
We have one queen specialised in making technology and technical drones and one specialised in making war and military drones. One queen can produce, what? 50 drones over a few days? We would need thousands to overwhelm the bipeds with numbers, and that is just one planet, the bipeds have a whole empire, it would likely take at least tens of millions to capture a single planet, and they would need to be transported. Even assuming that they could be stored as larvae, stripped of their energy requirements, and grown to maturity on the battle-field from locally acquired materials, it would still be a logistical achievement well beyond anything that we have considered thus far. One queen is not a massive investment into massed military drones, it is an investment into the quality of future military drones that is of value regardless of how many we choose to produce.
The bipeds operate on an energy and technology basis, most energy production and storage devices can be manipulated into releasing a comparatively large amount of energy in a comparatively short space of time. We should never underestimate the capacity of any entity to produce an explosion.
Large forces are more difficult to manoeuvre and more likely to leave valuable evidence of themselves than smaller forces and therefore ill-suited to strategies involving mobility and concealment. While a stationary force is more vulnerable to such weapons, it is still vulnerable when advancing, especially if their target is prepared. A massed attack strategy would likely be effective against unprepared targets, but if an attack failed to completely destroy the target, and the target had an opportunity to prepare for future attacks, then repeat attacks would likely become extremely costly. A fortified and prepared target, with resources to prepare explosive mines and incendiary particle weapons could likely withstand an attack until they exhausted their resources.
The total supply of salvage is dependant upon the supply of hostile entities. The value of salvage is distributed amongst all recipients. Therefore a larger entity benefits less from salvage then a smaller entity does.
2: Develop a sensor/processor/weapon combination to automatically detonate explosive devices approaching at high speed. This would probably involve a visual/thermal scanner, a processor to identify large projectiles and adjust for weapon inaccuracy, and a high-intensity laser to cause surface explosions on the projectile.
3: Develop a similar combination to locate magnetic disturbances and direct magnetic deflection fields to direct magnetic particles away from the warded entity
Strongly against, it's basically a waste of R&D and production potential, because such system will be useful and effective in very few situations.
Basically there are three scenarios
1) Humans use no such projective = useless equipment
2) humans use small amount of such projective, we shot down all. It looks good, but that small amount wouldn't hurt us much, It's cheaper to repair the damage
3) humans use large amount of such projective - system overwhelmed and destroyed
Why are you so afraid of losses and ready to spend huge resources to avoid it?
1: The bipeds have demonstrated the possession of such resources. The absence of such resources would likely indicate the success of the counter-measures. If such resources were not deployed then the countermeasures would continue to operate as a deterrent.
2: If the costs incurred by unrestricted operation of hostile military equipment is less than the cost of operating our own military equipment then there is no advantage to possessing military equipment. If, however, the value of a soldier is greater than the cost of a weapon discharge, and the proposed systems offer little capacity to exceed the costs of our current weaponry, then it would, in fact, be more expensive to repair the damage.
3: The quantity of countermeasures would be proportional to the size of our forces. An entity capable of defeating the countermeasures by means of exceeding their numerical capacity would also be expected to exceed the damage capacity of our associated forces, but should also reduce the numbers within such an entity and in doing so may well preserve some of the capacity of our associated forces. Assuming such an occurrence, the reduction of intensity would permit a greater degree of freedom in the affected forces, resulting in options for escape or advancement that would not otherwise be possible.
To choose investment in resources that preserve resources over investment in resources that are expected to suffer high rates of attrition does not seem to be a position that requires significant defence. Further-more, there is no reason to believe that the investment will be particularly drastic.
4: Develop a fully automated weapon array to identify and destroy all hostile entities with maximum practical swiftness. This should not be provided with effective weaponry until significant testing has been completed.
Do you mean system with dozens of guns (or more) ? Big no.
And I like your wording... Basically it's develop system that can fight without us and kill everything easily, another way to avoid any losses and another unpractical solution
Automated turrets on the other hand, may be much more useful and easier to develop
The number of weapons in the array would be dependant upon its role. A system designed to provide support to other entities may require precision over a large area, and dozens of weapons may be appropriate. The purpose of possessing such systems would be to bypass the limited capacities of our soldiers. It should be possible to create an automated system with greater accuracy and reaction speed than our soldiers possess. The only difficulty is in calibrating its identification algorithms. While such a system may not be viable with our current resources, such a thing is a prime example of a device that could completely nullify a numerical advantage, destroying our forces before they have opportunity to retaliate and with a capacity that exceeds our capacity to manoeuvre into their vision. Automated weapons systems will become a necessity.