Right now, mining drones will abandon their posts and go fight enemies if a structure is damaged. This lead to me losing 120 mining drones an hour in to my deathworld game as I was trying to clear up a nearby nest. They just walked into acid and died.

Could the area by reduced for how far drones will travel to defend the base, or even have them ignore if buildings are being attacked and only fight if a fellow drone is attacked (or the depot)?

+1 to this. Is there a way to disable drones in combat all together?

My drones all reacted to a nearby fight and left their work, which led to no coal being mined --> no electricity. At the midgame they aren't very useful in combat anyway. Any ideas?

It's handy for them to go defend nearby buildings, but right now they can travel up to like 3-5 chunks, which is way too far away, especially if they walk onto creep and acid.

Yea its dumb :D