Yeah but in real life you could grab somebody and yell "Oh my god, stop moping about how scared you are of explosives and just put a goddamn steel blade on your flying murder-drones so they're not one-use-only."
Yeah but in the book he's literally having to ration his drones because he can't figure out how to kill a gorilla any way except suicidally ramming them head-on.
To be fair, he's still his old self with his old human skills only. The only thing is he's faster and can compute better. His skills may not have included military tactics but it took him pretty far!
He had a massive library to learn from. My skills don't include tactics either but he worked on this problem for months and never came up with anything better than a flying headbutt.
There are a million ways to build a drone to kill something that would not destroy the drone.
- String a wire between two drones
- Stick a spear to the front
- Have it drop acid
- Have it lift then drop the monster
- Have it lift and drop a stone on the monster
- Build in crossbow/ballistae
etc etc....
