Drone armor, hardened?, does drone armor act as vehicle armor? Options

[Slamm-O]

I was looking at the drones in rigger 3, and besides their laughably low availibility, i noticed that a number of drones have godlike armor.

for instance, the ares sentinal and p series drones each have 12.
the doberman, which is like the least armored drone, has 6
lonestar americars only have like 2
dragons only have 8!

here is my problem, armored drones as they are are too hard to kill, so i was wondering, do they really follow vehicle rules to a tee? i.e. stage down divide by half then compare to see if it passes the hardened armor? or do they not stage down and divide by two? or are they not hardened?

now if they dont have vehicle dividing and such, arent most drones sitting ducks? with only 2 body and no dodge pool?

please tell me if drones use vehicle armor and hardened armor rules. Please cite page numbers. thank you.

[Kagetenshi]

They do. I personally think it's because they're small and heavily-armored, so it's hard to get a good shot in on them. When the bullet actually goes in rather than pinging off the armor, though, it destroys them right quick.

~J

[John Campbell]

I actually think the problem is with the vehicle damage rules in general. With the low Bodies vehicles get and the degree to which vehicle armor simply ignores fire, I've found that when you shoot basically any vehicle, it will either ping off ineffectually, or completely destroy the vehicle; very seldom anything in between. Riggers offset this effect somewhat, because they can use their pool to help the vehicle soak damage, but otherwise it's pretty binary. I suppose this might be considered cinematic, but I think it's mostly just broken. I'd rather have battered vehicles limping away from a fight than vehicles exploding the first time a bullet penetrates.

[Kagetenshi]

Once you actually manage to hit anything of importance, you're usually damaging a vehicle beyond its ability to function. For instance, if I'm firing into the hood of a car, if I penetrate the hood odds are I'm going to stop it from working within two or three shots, one if I get lucky.

~J

[The White Dwarf]

nt

[Kagetenshi]

If you toss a sniper rifle onto a Lone Star Strato-9, sick, sick things can ensue.

~J

[Viewer666]

Kagetenshi your talking about shooting into the hood of an unarmored car. Try doing that with armored one, odds are it's going to take you more than 3 rounds if you can even hurt it.

White Dwarf what weapons out there (not using AV rounds) are going to take out a Steel Lynx? With 10 points of armor they can wade through any non AV weapon. I think that's where the issue is. It's the issue that was stated above, you either scratch it or kill it.

One good weapon combo is a Doberman with a sniper rifle or one of those balloons with a sniper rifle. Set them off some 900m (under their max range) and let fly. Sure they don’t' hit all that often, but they can't be hit with most toys that a runner can use in the field either.

[TinkerGnome]

[Kagetenshi]

[The White Dwarf]

nt

[Cray74]

[Viewer666]

Tinkergnone, that's right they don't. If a rigger is controlling a drone they use sensors right? By using sensors you have to spot your target and be able to engage. If that target is in the city with they receive a +4tn modifier to hit.

Kagetenshi, I never said otherwise.

WhiteDwarf, bod two drones are pretty small and can easily mounted in the back of a van. For that matter you can armor a skimmer for next to nothing and put that in the back of car it's so small. So yea a steel lynx, would make for a better back up team than two trolls and be smaller than one dwarf. A crawler can do most of what you've just tried to nay say. It can go into buildings, go up stairs, etc. Even if it can't, a skimmer sure as hell can. If you have problems with the size of drones, write to someone. In my book it still says BOD 2 and bod 2 drones have a listed size (which isn't that large). Failing that you can always build a small fuelcell vectored thrust uav, skimmer, etc. Small, overly armored, easy to move, easy to get around with, quiet, etc. You stay by the rules and call bullshit when you see one you like.

[Kagetenshi]

No, but you seemed to be trying to say that my example was invalid. If not, why the response?

~J

[TinkerGnome]

[snowRaven]

Never mind the Steel Lynx - runners are more likely to encounter Ares Guardians, and at armor 12 even AV rounds will have a tough time against it unless you are using sniper rifles or MGgs/HMGs...

[Kagetenshi]

Or a shotgun, or a sport rifle, or an assault rifle, or even a heavy pistol if you've got a GM who doesn't forbid AV rounds in them. It doesn't matter if the power ends up being 2 if the drone only has enough body to soak one level of damage.

~J

[BitBasher]

Let's not forget that fact that AV rounds are about damn near impossible to get, and grigging expensive. It's easier to find guided SAM's and other heavy ordinance than it is to fond AV ammo.

[The White Dwarf]

nt

[TheScamp]

[Kagetenshi]

For a steel lynx, you'd toss the thing in the back of the rigger's van and then use it to cover your escape. On the defensive side it can fit most large hallways no problem, and if the things are being used for security you can bet they'll have put in ways for it to change floors (or they'll just have a bunch of the things). Think the security bot ports from Deus Ex.
I do say you ought to be able to fit two Steel Lynxes into the back of a van with little trouble. Nothing else, but they ought to fit IMO.

~J

[The White Dwarf]

nt

[grimshear]

You guys keep bringing up the poor maligned Steel-Lynx. To that I say this: find a copy of Fields of Fire (I think that's where it is anyway). The SL is on 4 independantly suspensioned "legs," and can draw itself up on them to about the height of a person.

Also, as to hiding it, a personal favorite is to dress it up like a cart or closed trolley. :) This works best if you're infiltrating under cover of "Hi, I'm here to fix the (whatever)."

With the legs pulled in a bit and a nice little breakaway shell on top of it, it's about the size of a chest of tools.

As to it's armor... yes it's kind of silly. That's why I typically give it an Assault rifle with/and some form of grenade launcher. Even with IPE-HE, it can't hurt itself. :)

Grim Shear
"Finer, Shminer!"

[Viewer666]

Tinker Gnome, how do you propose that a drone sees said targets?

Kagetenshi AV rounds aren't that common in any game I've been in. But you're right anything loading them is too powerful.

Whitedwarf, yea the size of a motorcycle. Are you really suggesting that the steel lynx is the shape of a motorcycle? I think that it has the same cubic footage, but it's displaced much much more. And to put a thought into your head. VEHICLE CUSTOMIZATION look in the rules, buy a base line skimmer and modify it. If you GM doesn't allow that…well I'm sorry you play in vacuum of common sense and near Gestapo like control issues. Back to your question, do you really need 5 minutes to open a door and let a drone out? No. You simply open the door and let it out. Drone racks store drone for convenience, no one says you have to stuff it in a box. And depending on your run, situation, what have you, you may want that. From your tone you do stealth only missions where run off like gust in the street. That's fine for you isn't it, are you in the rest of the games WE ALL PLAY, nope. Some people like to toss dice for stealth, technical stuff, and combat.

The Scamp, vehicles are listed as rough sizes. Do you think that a steel lynx is the same size and shape as a person lying prone? Or you think it's same the cubic footage with a different set of dimensions? So it really could be 1m wide, 2 meters high and 2 meters long, but squarish, like in the picture. Plus what Grimshear said. People don't design things to be totally lame and unusable. They design them to be practical. Why make a security bot that can't get past most internal doors?

[Kagetenshi]

White Dwarf, if you tossed in little drone bays with doors into various points around the facility, the wageslaves would never see the things unless the alarm was triggered.
Also it would be decently easy for it to roll down a ramp, cover an escape, and then roll back up the ramp afterwards.

Viewer666, AV rounds aren't common in any game that doesn't have a Face with Good Reputation 2, Aptitude (Etiquette), and maybe some Tailored Pheremones. That's the nature of the beast. Nonetheless, if you manage to get them, they can be for just about any weapon and still have a decent chance of taking down a vehicle/drone in one shot.

~J

[Lantzer]

As cool as the Lynx is, I don't expect to see it very often. It's well-known that the availability of drones is messed up.

In my opinion, the Lynx and its flying twin brother are obviously Milspec drones. After all, look at the size, armor and weapons load. As such, the availability should be higher, and you should only see the buggers in locations where it makes sense that they have milspec security. You know, the same places that use Red Samuri for security guards, for example. As such, I don't have a problem with the armor being hardened (to return to the thread topic).

As for runners - if they manage to get their hands on milspec equipment, and are in a situation where they can use it, and think its desirable to do so, all power to them.


Now, to discuss the topic of: "Is it reasonable for vehicle armor to be hardened when they have such low body ratings...," Well, The system is designed so that machines have two main modes of operation: Working and Broke. There is a little space between them, but not a whole lot. This isn't so bad, in my opinion.

Why? When a vehicle takes damage, either something important gets busted or it doesn't. It's not like cars and trucks can 'tough it out'. If you want to make a vehicle tougher because it's _designed_ to be tougher than most machines its size, I suggest looking at a few of the design options (like ?redundant controls?) or simply give the thing more body than its size would indicate.

That way you could make something like an A-10 - It takes a lick'n and keeps on tick'n.