Drones

Poor social conditions and overcrowding will turn citizens into red Drones. Whenever your base has more drones than talents, there will be a Drone Riot, shutting down all production and research. The best way to contain drones is to ensure you have plenty Psych-producing facilities, which reduce the number of drones generated.

Riots
Drone Riots occur when the number of red Drones at a base exceeds the number of green Talents. Other citizens, such as Workers and Specialists do not directly affect riots. Drones appear as the result of population pressure and cramped living conditions.

One direct method of controlling drone riots is to use military units as police. Military units will automatically function as police if you move them into your base. The number of police units you will be able to use depends on your society's tolerance for police, as represented by your POLICE rating on the social engineering screen. By changing your society to a Police State, for instance, you will enable more military units to work as police and suppress riots.

One particularly draconian means of controlling drone riots is to nerve staple your citizens. Nerve stapling will prevent drone riots for at least ten turns, but it is considered an atrocity.

A humanitarian way to prevent drone riots is to build facilities which alleviate cramped and depressing living conditions. For instance, a Recreation Commons will satisfy the complaints of up to two Drones, turning them into regular Workers. Building facilities is an excellent long-term solution to drone problems.

Creating Doctors (or later, Telepaths and Transcendi) is another, albeit short-term solution to the problem. Doctors, by increasing your Psych  output, will create more Talents to balance the Drones. To change a citizen into a Doctor, click on him here in the population bar.

If you have many large bases producing a great deal of energy, you can divert some of your energy to Psych on the social engineering screen, which will improve your citizens' quality of life. Every two units of energy diverted to Psych turns one of your Workers into a Talent. To divert a percentage of your energy production to Psych, go to the Social Engineering screen by selecting it from the HQ menu on the main display.