Base Drones

Protectors are AI controlled units who defend the spawn area of both teams in Team Deathmatch and Domination. They are launched by Battleships, and are also generated by the team mothership in the Mothership gamemode. They are not to be confused with Drones, which are generally larger and slower.

Team Deathmatch and Domination
In 4 Team Deathmatch and Domination there are 12 Protectors in the center of the base. In 2 Team Deathmatch there are 30 Protectors and they are spread in pairs all around the base.

They slowly circle around in the Base area of a team. Whenever an enemy player gets too close, they will rush out at them and dispatch them in short order. The only way to survive after they have locked onto you is moving out of their range. This makes farming enemy players near their base impossible. However, players can clump out of the protectors' range. They damage polygons when it crashes into one, and they also destroy bullets. Protector have stats as maxed Bullet Damage, Bullet Speed, very high bullet penetration and a lot of health.

Note that Protectors are faster than Boosters, making it impossible to linger around a base without getting hit.

For fact, Protectors will defend the base from The Fallen Booster and The Fallen Overlord, but they don't target polygon-based Bosses, such as The Guardian, The Summoner and The Defender unless those provoke them first, making it harder for players to survive the Bosses' attacks.

Battleship
The Battleship's Protectors work very much like the Base Protectors, except for the fact that they also target polygons as well as tanks. They also de-spawn after a certain amount of time, and have a low penetration, however. Battleship's drones are much weaker than those in a base.

Mothership
In the Mothership Gamemode, half of the Protectors the Mothership launches are controllable, like Drones, and the other half work like the Battleship's Protectors, albeit much stronger. When the Mothership controller does right-click, it makes the Protectors go the opposite direction, similar to the Overseer, Manager, Necromancer and Overlord. Both types may be destroyed, though doing that is quite difficult.

Mini Crasher
In any game mode, a Guardian will occasionally spawn. Should this happen, it will quickly spawn 24 of these Protectors to protect itself, much like the Mothership. These protectors are drastically weaker, although this is offset by the astronomically increased respawn rate and greater numbers. They are considered a type of Crasher, the smallest of its kind.

Appearance
The Protectors resemble the drones of all summoning tanks, excluding the Necromancer. They are in the color of their team (though of darker shading) and are smaller than regular drones.

Trivia

 * They were previously nicknamed Guardians, but were shortly renamed after a boss with the same name was released.
 * Due to not having a name, Protectors are referred as "An unnamed tank"
 * Many players believe that Protectors are immortal, however their health is not infinite. Indeed, they have a lot of health, small size and high speed, and that's what makes them highly durable. Protectors respawn if they get destroyed.
 * Their health pool is currently unknown, but they probably have more health than the Alpha Pentagon.
 * Arena Closers can kill them, and indeed whenever it shoots or comes into contact with the Protectors they will swarm and die upon it.