Are the drones able to operate in atmosphere to support ground vehicles with all three roles, repairing, refueling, and rearming?

Short answer, yeah. I think that's the one thing, anywhere that needs it.

Yeah. They're not particularly heavy things. So whilst they do have small thrusters on them, they can still work in atmosphere.

Yeah, there's a ton of versatility for the Vulcan right there, because the Vulcan, with its greater maneuverability, flying through atmosphere, once the full atmospheric flight model is in and the VTOL engines come online and people aren't just using maneuvering thrusters to hover in atmosphere like they're doing, when all that system comes online, the Vulcan's going to be much more effective in atmosphere than I imagine the Starfarer is.

Vehicle items are much smaller than the rest, so you can fit a lot more in that cargo bay. And from all the stuff I've seen on the forums and Reddit of people going on little expeditions around planets in their rovers and Greycats and Cyclones at some point, they all have components in, just like the ships. So they're going to suffer from the same item degradation and wear. They're going to wear out over time if you're doing stupid things.

The amount of people thrashing those vehicles around. We'll be seeing sandstorms and atmospheric effects like that. The harsh realities of frontier life are going to require some support. And I think the Vulcan getting down to the planet and lending a hand is something that a big, weighty, huge flying factory or fueling station is not going to be interested in. Especially when, oh no, I'm out of fuel, I can't get back to base camp.