1) Well you can look it up which bots are free and test them by yourself:
there is also an open source bot by Freshek which is way better than most of the other free bots (WARNING: it may not be safe to use it as of right now):
I am using Candybot at the moment. Sometimes it flies to the wrong map, it gets stuck in the corner of a map, it stops working at all, not repairing when HP is below certain level or trying to repair at port even though it has full HP
, it misses a lot of boxes and takes a lot of time to kill npc's but it is still free and doing the job
2) I would suggest not to bot 24/7 if thats your plan. Rather try to let it behave like a human. Like playing 3-4h straight than 10-20 min break. There also some guys which bot like 12-16 hours straight. Its your choice.
Regarding boxing: After 3-4 hours of boxing or even earlier the amount of u/h sinks drastically. There is no clear answer to that how many hours you should do boxing and change to shooting npc's. Just test it and see for yourself (If there are any guys which tested this explicitly you are welcome to post your experience).
Maybe you can try 2 hours boxing on PVP and than change it to 2 hours killing npc's. But I don't know if it is even worth the effort.
I personally just let my Spearhead with P.E.T collect on PVP maps (Candybot sometimes flies to the wrong map so I sometimes let it collect on x-8 due to the fact that your ship doesn't need to change map = less risk that it gets stuck on map when you don't have the time to check it every now and then)
3) Well if you want to make the most out of it from boxing than you should stick to PVP maps with P.E.T (auto looter gear level 3 with 3 Radar Protocols + 9 Salvage Protocols + boxing doubler if you want to get more content from boxing).
If you want to change maps every few hours you can change it in order to get killed less. But otherwise I don't see the point in doing that. Most people get home in the evening from work so it is more probable that they will play the game in the evening and thus it is more probable that your ship will get killed in the evening regardless of the map (it depends on server - on GE1 you can get killed any time on PVP maps).
Generally if you are weak just go for boxing or kill npc's on x-2. If you are UFE or near that than just go on upper maps and let it kill NPC's all day long.
4) It depends on your equipment and on the bot. If you can choose on your bot which npc's to kill, I would go for x-3 or x-4 only letting it kill Saimon and Mordon. Kristallins and Boss Kristallins on x-7 are also good. But if you use Candybot and you have a weak account (3-4k damage or less) than it would be better to stay on x-2. But thats just my opinion (I am more into boxing). Configs and drone formations: just try man - depends on equipment. imo wouldn't be wise to have no shield with full speed and full damage. For the drone formations just look at your equipment and decide if it is better to have more damage but less shield and HP or the other way around. If you have small account you could use leonov on lower maps with Arrow or Chevron formation (HP 160k, your shield, laser damage and rocket damage get doubled on lower maps for the leonov + it is harder for enemies to click on leonov + leonov just gives 600exp for shooting so it is not worth for enemies to kill you).
