#1 - Understand the rules very well - The ECM jamming, Robotic Command Tree, and P/G advantages/disadvantages are key to unit/strategy design. The same is true for remotely piloted Drones.
#2 - Build the Queens - Robots are very ungainly to reorganize, re-task, and slow to act by design so you need a good Queen Unit that can keep them on mission. You should have a Queen that is context specific (different vehicles, one or two Mechs, Dropship, Warship, Space Station, don't use Fighters or Small Craft for this) too if you intend to build out a successful robot army.
I like speedy heavies for this with the Hellbringer being the optimal Mech 'Queen' for this role IMO fulfilling its fluffed role as an EWAR machine, something like the Hi-Scout or Mobile HQ also works and is in character for that machine. Any Pocket Warship can serve as an effective Space Queen too if you devote comms tonnage to it mostly because their Cap Missiles can be used Surface to Surface (or Orbit to Surface) against targets that its ground robots spot. Although it often goes to Warships or Space Stations because that unit class gets a better bang for its buck with NCCS and can deploy swarms of robot fighters on their own.
#3 - Then build out the 'Castes' - Since you have to spend extra tonnage on the SRCS system that you don't on human piloted ones you won't be able to carry as large a payload. Also since re-tasking units is annoying and/or slow it is better to differentiate the units into roles and not have a multirole unit so they don't need to be issued new commands as a battle develops.
For my
SXR series these broke down to two recon roles (a fast 'spotter' and slower 'sniffer'), a fire support role, main battle role, and endurance/artillery role. Even the Voidseeker family of robot fighters have very clear roles (Interceptor and Striker). Spacing these roles out over time by changing their move rates will probably work out better than having multiple unit types arriving simultaneously so have 'succession/progression' plans prior to deployment.
#4 - Augment weaknesses with specific choices - Robot mechs are terrible pilots so making them quads goes a long way to fixing that. IMO vehicles should be drones rather than SRCS but if you want robot tanks don't make them hovercraft or VTOLs. Also since you will almost always lose initiative chose long range or pulse weapons (or long range pulse weapons like the VSP, ERPL, Streak LRM, or iATM) so you can still make a shot.
Aerospace Fighters/Small Craft are kinda weird because there are limits to the human pilot but at the same time it is the one unit class that makes the most piloting checks. If the AMS rules weren't so broken it would be a clear winner for Teleoperated missiles, but as they are those robot fighters are better off being Anti-Warship/Station (since big ships lose initiative more frequently still) while Missiles will be Anti-Fighter/Dropship. IMO another good use for robot Small Craft are Missile Defense/extra ECM layers/outrider recon platforms for Warships while still having enough space to pick up ejected pilots as they don't need to make as many rolls and fight by position.
