I've been working on a concept for a rigger character who wears an automated backpack full of mini and microdrones, as well as having one or two small drones attached and possibly being a drone itself. I was thinking of having several commlinks built in to use the pack as a drone hub/retransmitter. The character would subscribe the pack (or the packs commlinks separately depending on what you all say) to the characters commlink allowing him to monitor/run more drones than normal. Obviously this would have both strengths and weaknesses.

I'm expecting the whole thing to weigh about 15-35 kilos (30-75 lbs). I figure there would be a chute at the bottom, from which the rigger can cause drones to fall, either into his hand or onto the ground, by accessing his headware commlink, as well as a mini/microdrone landing rack (solely for recovery, not charging, that would take place inside the pack) at the top. Possibly also a "mass launch" hatch for those swarm logic moments.

I'm looking for ideas to expand this concept as well as limit/balance it.

And, GO....

use a Cyber-Torso instead of a removeable backpack? O.o
internal capacity for comlinks and the such useable?

I'm looking to keep the character mostly meat. I guess I shoulda specified that. Good idea though, I'll keep that in mind.

It's a neat idea, I had a similar one with my first Rigger. He had a four legged drone that usually hung onto him like a backpack. It had two of the ball drones and a little bit of carrying capacity with some odd tools and such. Since he was the groups only 'tech' person he got all the hacking jobs as well, so if he had to split up from the group at all he'd have the Troll in the group wear so he could keep a little more of a direct eye on them.

a mostly meat rigger . . gotta say, i did never think about that O.o

sounds like you need a GTS tower. you wouldn't really have to wear it as a backpack at all, but you presumably could do so (if you redesigned it slightly to allow for a different than normal orientation, the drone could basically just idle and let you pull it around). that being said, i don't think it's exactly backpack-sized...

well,if the rigger is a troll, anything below a motorcycle is more or less backpacksized O.o

medium drones are human sized. the tower is large sized. and has a vehicle mod that is only allowed on vehicles with a rather large body (10, iirc) normally...

Speaking of a motorcycle, take the Harley-Davidson Scorpion, give it walker mode, maybe like SatCom, and a drone multi-launch from Arsenal. Asthetically it's a leg-braced backpack mobile-frame that supports itself and moves with you, and has all that drone capacity. This is just from memory, but I think with the 6 (or 5 with SatCom) mod-slots you can fit a drone multi-launch that holds like 20 micro or 10 mini drones.

Useful, thanks.




MOSTLY, not entirely. Just headware probably.




I was thinking of upgrading the signal of the commlinks in the backpack by a few points (1-2) and using that for the retrans to other drones. Send the pack off by itself like a drone carrier then retrans through it to increase range, possibly with other dropable retrans units along the way. If you load it with two retrans units that are actually liked by wire you could even get past Wi-fi inhibiting paint/wallpaper or even a Faraday cage by dropping one on each side of the inhibitor. This isn't something you'd need all the time, but, when you did need it, you'd REALLY NEED it. Most of the time it'd just be a drone carrier/service depot kinda thing.




I was actually planning on making this rigger a troll, That way I could make it a hundred kilo pack if necessary.




I was making something kinda like that for the troll's sidecar on his motorcycle. Plus trying to fit a smartlinked weapon mount.



Would it be out of line to put a nanohive in the pack for minor drone repairs? (Mini/microdrones only probably.)

ask your GM if it's out of line . . preferably, after you just suggested to pick up drinks/Pizza tab *snickers*

If you go with the motorcycle suit, you can get that nanohive autorepair.

Sorry folks, I'm just gonna bump this once to try to get a few more ideas.





What do you mean exactly?

i think he means that if you use the idea with the motorcycle, there are nano systems that reapir vehicles.
and a motorcycle, even if it is used as a backpack, is still a vehicle and thus can get the nano repair kit O.o

Theres a couple of allowances that need to be made here, but this is what it would look like if it works like it should.

- Dodge Guardian. Remove the integrated weapon mount, dropping availability to 8 and freeing up two more mod slots (bringing the total slots to 10), and dropping the total to 12,500 nY.
- Walker mode: 2 slots, 4k, avail. 4.
- 2 full arms: 4 slots, 8k, avail. 6.
- r16 armor: 1 slot, 3,200, avail 6R.
- Satellite Communication: 1 slot, 500 nY, avail. 4.
- Nonconductivity r6 (Text says max rating 10, chart says 6): 1 slot, 3,000 (5,000 if r10), avail. 8.
- Repeat above step for either Fire Protection, Insulation, Chemical Protection, or Radiation Shielding (your choice). Same cost as above, and your vehicle's slots are maxed.

End result:
H Acc Spe P B A S Avail Cost
+3 10/17 50 2 8 16 2 8R 34,200

You can further play with sensors: getting multiple (2+) cameras with the eye enhancements and a microphone with all the audio enhancements will still leave you enough capacity for like a r6 Radio Signal Scanner, r4 Ultrawideband Radar, r6 Olfactory Booster, and one or two other neato sensors, while still keeping the availability under 12 (or at worst, under 20 and within the realm of Restricted Gear).

This will net you a suit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkf_mXuNFJc...feature=related

you can't remove built-in mods to get more slots.

It can be done with weapon mods for sure, for vehicles I don't remember

Just the mention of this gave me the image of Invader Zim and his backpack... Here

Not quite. You can indeed remove built-in modifications on weapons, but I'm pretty sure you don't actually get the 'slots'.

yeah, the crafting system in shadowrun has allways been a bit curious in those regards . .

If that's the case, leave the weapon mount and drop the SatCom and the other Special Armor Mod (Fire Protection or whatever you chose).

Motorcycle/mecha. Interesting thought. Not for this probably, but I've already got 50 new ideas springing from that, thanks.

Scratch that, mecha/drone depot. Holy shit. When it absotively, posilutely has to be destroyed in 30 minutes or less. Oh dear, my players are in so much trouble.

i still fondly remember my concepts for a transport-hovercraft that acted as an air-craft-carrier for drones . . including the sidewalls folding down to the sides so there was a bigger airstrip O.o
only skimmer and vector thrust drones on this one, with the odd zeppelin thingie . . sadly, doing something like this from a ZEPPELIN was way too expansive ^^

I thought there was a drone carrier based on a zeppelin?

no, there'S a small zeppeline-drone that carries micro drones that also fly/hover somehow . .
i was talking about a big, Hindenburg Style Passenger Zeppelin with built in living amenities and Shop for light vehicles like motorbikes and drones ^^
slap some armor on that baby, ruthenium polymer it and install one boatmurdered load of electronic warfare equipment, and you have a home for your rigger ^^