I started with Easy Earth Start. Looked around the base a bit while drones were attacking and found the fighter, decided to go find where they came from.
Mild spoiler. Not really, but just in case.
The mining base nearby was spawning them from the antenna.
It has a gatling turret, a missile turret, and two interior turrets.
I flew in and blew up the gatling turret with rockets. About that time another drone spawned, so I shot it down with rockets too (thankfully before it did any significant damage). I then shot the interior turrets that I could see through the window with gatling guns, and disabled the antenna with gatling fire too to prevent further spawning.
Then I hacked the door and went inside and started hacking everything in there. Disabled the power, got control of everything, took control of the missile turret, etc.
So basically I took control of the place spawning the drones without any damage to my fighter craft and was all patting myself on the back and stuff. I go to hook my ship up to a connector on the landing pad and remember I had power flipped off. So I flipped the power back on... and this happens:
Missile turret now under my control shoots antenna on roof, which apparently is still seen as enemy. Supports under antenna are destroyed, antenna isn't damaged much.
Antenna, now devoid of support, falls over off the roof onto landing pad.
Explosions. Ship is bisected along the narrow bits holding all the engine pods on. Engine pods fall off and bounce around the uneven landing pad a bit, exploding and tearing away a bit of the landing pad - already damaged in my assault. Ship, now missing the engines from one side, tilts over and falls through the hole. More explosions.
So I went from a successful mission - having captured a base with near zero damage to my fighter (just very minor armor damage); to a completely botched mission with my fighter in pieces on the ground and me stuck way away from my base. All with the flip of a power switch.
TheDarkStar:
Not sure yet if the other pirate base on the planet will send drones yet, but this one seems to be disabled and not spawning more.