I'm not impressed by drones, especially on ships with their piloting or especially weapons/drone control stuck into the "no detect" zone. I consider cloak/hack/tp *strictly* better than cloak/hack/drones on literally any ship that can send something the quality of two humans or better on offense w/o compromising evasion. Regardless of weapons. Unless I start with the system or *need* that offensive slot, I only buy drones for dd1 because it's the only option that keeps missiles from ruining me in the near future (and build can't reliably shoot them out first).
Crew TP isn't just "pay itself back" investment. Crew TP directly harms enemy evasion in practical cases and along with hacking serves as a replacement for proper weapons. When I bought it in that stealth A run, I did so fully anticipating to use boarding to kill every non-auto scout fight remaining in the game with minimal damage using just TP + hack with cloak for missiles. I wasn't wrong either; that setup can go sectors w/o taking damage and safely bank > 150 scrap on hard routinely. Without hacking, crew TP is a lot more situational and contingent on weapons (can't just hack scout shields and blow up their weapons for relatively safe fights, or completely trash them like I did with breach 2/flak 1/halberd on Mantis A which is a competent gunship setup).
It also carries more utility in the flagship fight than defense drones if you have cloaking/hacking. After 0 hull damage crew kill in phase 1 you board missiles instantly in phase 2 and can break them before they fire, freeing up your hack to go on anything you feel like - typically shields, piloting, or drones. This is more utility than even drone control with dd1 + anti-drone. Finally in phase 3 if you don't have a bypass, drones might save you 1-2 hp compared to crew TP, since you're probably going to eat first missile wave and cloak the missile + laser + surge alignment, it's not enough to boost drones.
Assuming you already have one of hacking or cloaking, I actually consider drone control an inferior purchase to mind control, and definitely inferior if you have both. Not just for anti-MC in phase 3, but also for hacking weapons + still reducing evasion substantially or using MC to block repairs (if you wait for two crew in one room, MC will force fight in that room and block repairs...you can finagle to force MC vs enemy crew fights while boarding too). Bonus points for not using up a drone resource alongside hacking.
Edit: There's another reason crew TP is pretty good - its 90 cost is less expensive than purchasing weapon + upgrading weapon control after weapons 4 (weapons 5 costs 50, weapons 6 costs 75). Depending on what you're carrying at present, the combination of crew kill rewards plus ability to abuse AI into having no pilot when your weapons hit make this an attractive option in general when there aren't good weapons for sale, again as long as you have humans or better to send. The cost scaling into mid sectors compares pretty well, and is amazing if you have hacking.
Crew TP isn't just "pay itself back" investment. Crew TP directly harms enemy evasion in practical cases and along with hacking serves as a replacement for proper weapons. When I bought it in that stealth A run, I did so fully anticipating to use boarding to kill every non-auto scout fight remaining in the game with minimal damage using just TP + hack with cloak for missiles. I wasn't wrong either; that setup can go sectors w/o taking damage and safely bank > 150 scrap on hard routinely. Without hacking, crew TP is a lot more situational and contingent on weapons (can't just hack scout shields and blow up their weapons for relatively safe fights, or completely trash them like I did with breach 2/flak 1/halberd on Mantis A which is a competent gunship setup).
It also carries more utility in the flagship fight than defense drones if you have cloaking/hacking. After 0 hull damage crew kill in phase 1 you board missiles instantly in phase 2 and can break them before they fire, freeing up your hack to go on anything you feel like - typically shields, piloting, or drones. This is more utility than even drone control with dd1 + anti-drone. Finally in phase 3 if you don't have a bypass, drones might save you 1-2 hp compared to crew TP, since you're probably going to eat first missile wave and cloak the missile + laser + surge alignment, it's not enough to boost drones.
Assuming you already have one of hacking or cloaking, I actually consider drone control an inferior purchase to mind control, and definitely inferior if you have both. Not just for anti-MC in phase 3, but also for hacking weapons + still reducing evasion substantially or using MC to block repairs (if you wait for two crew in one room, MC will force fight in that room and block repairs...you can finagle to force MC vs enemy crew fights while boarding too). Bonus points for not using up a drone resource alongside hacking.
Edit: There's another reason crew TP is pretty good - its 90 cost is less expensive than purchasing weapon + upgrading weapon control after weapons 4 (weapons 5 costs 50, weapons 6 costs 75). Depending on what you're carrying at present, the combination of crew kill rewards plus ability to abuse AI into having no pilot when your weapons hit make this an attractive option in general when there aren't good weapons for sale, again as long as you have humans or better to send. The cost scaling into mid sectors compares pretty well, and is amazing if you have hacking.