Drones with multiple weapons systems. Options

[chrispasseno]

How do you handle multiple weapons systems for a Drone in combat.

I recently ran a session where I grafted a converted "food fight" on and one of my players has a Steel Lynx with two LMG's on it. Can he fire both at the same time? Are the independent? Can you hit seperate targets with each?

[Backgammon]

No to all your questions. You can only fire 1 weapon system at a time. It's in the rulebook. Don't have page number, sorry.

[TonkaTuff]

The rules, as far as I recall, limit you to arming and firing one vehicle-mounted weapon at a time, regardless of how you're controlling it - mainly b/c pulling a trigger (or, in most cases, pushing a button) magically becomes a complex action if you're not holding the gun in your hand (p. 160). And independent attacks on separate targets are generally ruled out because the gunnery sensors are only capable of maintaining a lock on a single target, and there are no provisions for telling the drone's Pilot to fire one gun while you manually aim the other. Though if you did acquire a lock, you could fire either of the drone's weapons at that target, even spread out over multiple passes (assuming they don't shake the lock).

However, I'm not certain how your player was able to put two guns on his Lynx in the first place. With the new weapons mount rules (p. 341), nothing under Body 6 can carry more than one mount - which the factory-standard Lynx already has installed. Unless integral mounts are exceptions to the rule, that's as good as it gets. And since the Doberman now only comes with one mount, I assume that's how it is. Though since that situation wasn't specifically addressed in the rules, it's up for interpretation.

In any event, it's your game, so you do with it what you want. To resolve a broadside, the most difficult part would be deciding exactly what sort of modifiers to apply to the power and AP of the attack. There'd be just the one attack/defense roll b/c the weapons are trained on the same target. And considering most guns would be in a side-by-side configuration, a defense modification for a virtual wide-burst wouldn't be uncalled-for. Though this would tend to bring the attack into insta-gib territory fairly easily - especially if you simply double-up the attack stats for the gun.

[neko128]

As folks have said, it's really not supported by the rules, and trying to make rules up for it gets complex quickly.

One way you could handle it is just to treat the two weapons as a single weapon - say that a single six-bullet burst from each actually counts as a single 12-bullet burst, and then sum all recoil before applying modifiers. On the other hand, this works better with more flexible burst-fire rules; in our group, we allow "mixed bursts", where a 3-round burst can be for damage (narrow) or -2 for defense (wide) or +1 damage and -1 defense ("Middle"). Similarly, a 6-round burst now isn't +5 either way; it's any combination.

[Big D]

Or just mount a GL modified to feed from a large magazine, and target everybody within a 10m radius. :)

[UndeadPoet]

As TonkaTuff said, a Steel Lynx can already have a single weapon mount. That's it.

[Butterblume]

I could probably weld a few smart firing platforms on my van.

The answer isn't that simple, because there are few, if any, rules about stuff like that (yet).

[UndeadPoet]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Actually, if every turret has it's own Sensors and Pilot, it's treated like a Drone, too. ;)

[Konsaki]

< hijack thread >
Speaking of turrents on cars, how do you guys work the hardpoints on the bulldog? There are 5 of them and I ruled that there were 2 above the head lights, 2 above the tail lights and one on the top that could be upgraded to a 360 by 90 degree auto turrent. The ones above the lights were straight shooting forward and back respectively.
</ hijack thread >

[James McMurray]

I like Rotbart's method. I'd probably allow a large drone to carry one drone weapon mount. The mount would be disabled when the primary drone was. I'd just use the stats from the doberman but without the movement capabilities.

[Lagomorph]

technically, there is no specified limit to the number of drone brains in a drone, so you could essentially have stuck on an extra smart firing platforms to a drone, and as long as they are all subscribed, you have one vehicle with multiple brains multitasking (one for shooting and driving, the rest for shooting their own weapon)

[James McMurray]

A drone has a single pilot rating, i.e. a single "brain". To get multiple pilot ratings you have to have multiple drones.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Indeed.
Now what happes if someone bolts some Smart Firing Platforms to a car?
Instant area denial. ;)

[James McMurray]

What happens is that the car gets surrounded on all sides by Lone Star and turned into a smoking wreck. :)

[Austere Emancipa...]

You don't need to surround it. One HMG (and a few MMGs) is enough. (In case Raygun stumbles over this thread, it sure looks like they're firing Mk 211s from the M2. Or do standard .50 BMG APIs flash that noticeably when they hit metal?)

[Big D]

The sparks appear to be from the tracer rounds impacting.

[Edit]Duh, misread M2 as a Brad, not Ma.[/Edit]

The photographer appears to be in the gunner hatch; I think the tracers may be from the coax, not the TC position. Not sure if they normally load tracers on TC guns. Towards the end, you hear .30 and .50 firing without tracers, so the loader may be in on it, too.

[Austere Emancipa...]

I was wondering about the flashes because some of them are pretty massive -- some of the fireballs look like they're a meter across -- and they don't always coincide with visible tracers (although that might be because of the low framerate of the clip). I take it you've seen enough .50 tracer impacts to know they can create a flash that big?

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Apr 19 2006, 09:03 PM

[stevebugge]

I think the rule probably exists for game balance and game play speed, because for realism it would make no sense at all when applied to say an Aegis Equipped Destroyer or Cruiser (how's that for a rather extreme example)

[Austere Emancipa...]

You can find plenty RL examples of slightly lower tonnages, like helo gunships. :)

[Shrike30]

Hell, that'd be easy... simply have each gun node be a seperate drone, then use "captain's chair" mode to order all of the guns to open fire. The fact that your 3-5 weapons systems are all mounted to the exterior of the helicopter that the guy in the chair in front of you is rigging while you rig the guns shouldn't really matter that much, and if you need more precise control, you can always "jump into" one of the weapons.

[Austere Emancipa...]

That sounds... expensive. At least, compared to just routing the wires to one button.

Not a real problem until Rigger 4 comes out, I guess. And then you'll get a hell of a lot of ther problems as well. :)

[Shrike30]

AE, how do you get to be the one who brings up helo gunships, and then poke at me for talking about things that are expensive? :P

This would actually be an inexpensive addition to the overall cost of the gunship, and drastically increase the firepower, especially for engaging multiple targets. The Pilot and Clearsight software for all of the gun node "drones" could be duplicated, you'd only need Targeting for each type of weapon system you were mounting... and if this is a military/security application, that basically means one master copy and possibly some licensing fees for each unit it's mounted on. Sensors would be the iffy part... it'd be GM's choice if you could use the Sensors on the gunship or if you'd have to mount them in each weapon system independently. But imagine it... running hot VR, roaring towards a ridge, the helo pops up, and within a couple of seconds has the AT missiles flashing off towards the armor under drone control, the miniguns tracking and sweeping the infantry he's just lifted above, and the 25mm working over the sandbagged bunker a bit further back into the target area... and the gunner is working the EW suite, since there's a drone brain handling each weapon, and his input mostly consists of monitoring and changing fire priorities, or the occasional override of a target selection.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Aaron]

Aren't there already rules for firing two weapons in the same action?