Rigger's choice Astral Combat?, What about drones that have a 3D-ward around them? Options

[cyronc]

so imagine this:

a drone which can maneuver in air free and fast
a ward surrounding all sides of the drone
high object resistance
a watcher/whatever can see in the astral informing the rigger of position of target
a rigger with remote control who is having lots of fun playing 'destruction derby'

any suggestions?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

so imagine this:

a drone which can maneuver in air free and fast
a ward surrounding all sides of the drone
high object resistance
a watcher/whatever can see in the astral informing the rigger of position of target
a rigger with remote control who is having lots of fun playing 'destruction derby'

any suggestions?

Explain the 3-D Ward on the Drone , how would you actually implement this?
And how would the Rigger actually Target/Attack objects in Astral, since even mages must be on same plane of existence to actively target with spells, and I cannot see how you would get the Drone to occupy Astral Space?

Unless all you are doing is Ramming them... which does seem to be the intent of the question...

[Psikerlord]

I thought wards were immobile, so... don't think this can be done, can it?

[crizh]

I thought wards were immobile, so... don't think this can be done, can it?

No.

This was altered in Errata and 'clarified' in the FAQ.

Wards are immobile except when they're not.

If you can ward a shipping container you can ward a drone.

[Kingboy]

If you can ward a shipping container you can ward a drone.

Except I thought part of what made that possible was the presence of walls all around the area being warded. In essence, the warded area was restricted to the enclosed area delineated by the physical boundary of the container (back of a van, shipping container, whatnot). I guess you could ward an internal area of the drone, say an ammo bin or other "space" within the drone, but I didn't think you could make an enveloping ward in a form that could be moved. I could be wrong though, I've never really used wards as a character.

Regardless of the feasibility of warding a mobile drone, I don't really see any way of ramming anything in the astral (short of immobile targets) without some pretty hefty targeting penalties. The most direct line of communication you'd have would be a rigging mage Astrally perceiving and trying to control the drone by issuing commands. Anything else would be sort of a comedy of errors I'd suspect.

Mage:Ok, the watcher says the target is at position [X,Y,Z], hit it.
Rigger: Roger that. (Gives drone coordinates). Did we hit it?
Mage: Er, apparently not. Lemme go look myself. (Switches to Astrally Perceiving)
Rigger: Now what? That was the eighth time in a row we've missed.
Mage: (Still Astrally Perceiving) Pipe an audio feed to yourself and go VR, Ill guide you in. Stupid watcher anyway...
Rigger: Er....ok.
Mage: Ok the target is above and to the right, no higher, higher, more to the right. Damn it! In dodged, now it's behind you, drop down. Left. Left. Down, right...gun it! Crap, overshot, ok loop around left 60 degrees and bank up...
Rigger: (Getting slightly nauseous from herky jerky aerial acrobatics of piloting a drone in what appears to be a drunken fit) You know what? No, not doing this anymore...will you just manabolt the damn thing already?

I guess if you could get the wards working you could have a swarm of warded micro/mini-drones buzzing around you as an orbiting Anti-Astral shell, but that sounds like far too much trouble to be worth the benefit, not to mention the costs involved.

[crizh]

You could just ward the Ram Plate. Link the Drone up to a Tac-Net that includes a dual-natured spotter and you're good to go.

[Telion]

why not just rig a dual nature critter? While you won't get their astral senses translating you'd know hey there's something over there not on my sensors.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

why not just rig a dual nature critter? While you won't get their astral senses translating you'd know hey there's something over there not on my sensors.

Overall, it seems like a lot of work for little to no gain...

[Draco18s]

You'd never be able to ram an astral critter, it can simply move out of the way (that whole "astral speed is as fast as the speed of thought" thing).

[Stahlseele]

which, techically speaking, ain't all that fast to begin with O.o
neither in real life biology, nor in the game mechanics ^^

[Draco18s]

which, techically speaking, ain't all that fast to begin with O.o
neither in real life biology, nor in the game mechanics ^^

Only a 1000 meters per second...

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Only a 1000 meters per second...

A Pittance, really...

[Draco18s]

A Pittance, really...

Certainly far faster than drones.

And sorry. The walking rate is 100 meters per combat turn, the running rate is 5 kilometers per turn.

[DireRadiant]

Yep, built a rigger shaman to do this kind of trick. Expensive and not really worth the effort for the one trick. There are far more useful things to do then use a drone to attack an astral target. And in the OP list, the coordination between the astral watcher conveying the targeting information to the rigger is where you have some real difficulties.

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

Actually, by the RAW, you can't ward most drones:

A ward must also extend at least one meter in every direction from the physical anchor that it is attached to (see below), which prevents ward shapes that are very tiny or very thin in any dimension.

So anything much smaller than a car should be right out...unless they changed that in 4A, anyway.

[TBRMInsanity]

why not just rig a dual nature critter? While you won't get their astral senses translating you'd know hey there's something over there not on my sensors.

Or better yet why don't you just have a cage on the drone and put a dual nature creature in it.

[Screaming Eagle]

Looking at this I'm seeing something that might be viable more as a defensive and security measure. A security rigger paired with a mage summoning watchers could shift astral barrier bearing drones (or just heavily armoured boxes on wheels sized to the corridors) around. Assuming decent to solid astral security at the site with warded walls etcetera you could box in astral intruders allowing your security mage (the ward creator) to assence intruders at leisure. I'd have to give it some more thought to figure out what kind of facility would be using this slightly odd/convoluted scheme, but it sounds like it could be fun. Espesially when the remainer of the group realizes something has gone terriably wrong with the astral scouting and they have to haul hoop to get on site and save the mages buns from a cat and mouse game before the astal projection clock counts down.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Looking at this I'm seeing something that might be viable more as a defensive and security measure. A security rigger paired with a mage summoning watchers could shift astral barrier bearing drones (or just heavily armoured boxes on wheels sized to the corridors) around. Assuming decent to solid astral security at the site with warded walls etcetera you could box in astral intruders allowing your security mage (the ward creator) to assence intruders at leisure. I'd have to give it some more thought to figure out what kind of facility would be using this slightly odd/convoluted scheme, but it sounds like it could be fun. Espesially when the remainer of the group realizes something has gone terriably wrong with the astral scouting and they have to haul hoop to get on site and save the mages buns from a cat and mouse game before the astal projection clock counts down.

Boy would that ever suck to be the mage in this instance...

[Screaming Eagle]

The point is of course the turn around: suddenly the groups mage is out: no invisability, no powerball, no mask, no spirit aid no "insta healing". So while hes off dodging the astral security system trying not to get pincered (and getting a good idea of the layout of the place) the rest of the crew needs to A) free him before he falls into astral limbo and B) finish the run without magical support (Hopefully for the mage in that order). Frankly I like the idea from a storytelling stand point... not that I'd try this crud until my current group has alot more karma under their belts. To the rest of the teams advantage if the mage has managed not to get cornered both the security rigger and mage are tied up somewhat...

Some sort of research facility investigating toxic magical threats and blood spirits perhaps? Underground... probably run by a wendigo technomancer or some crap just to go all the way over the top. Mmm over the top, every once in a while its just awesome.

[nezumi]

Astral objects effectively have 0 mass. You can't hurt them by ramming into them, even with a ward. The only advantage here would be if you created a warded tunnel, with the end of the tunnel also warded, then used your giant, warded flying bulldozer drone to herd the astral mage into the tunnel, where you trapped it with your drone, then drove the drone to the end of the tunnel where you 'crush' the poor mage between wards (sort of a variant of the dual-natured in an elevator that goes through a ward attack). The one critical part is that the mage doesn't successfully evade (due to astral speeds), so you can actually get him INTO the tunnel - which is complicated by virtue of your not being able to actually see this mage you're trying to bother.

All in all, not the most useful tactic, even if it would be pretty funny.

[crizh]

Cavities in walls, floors and ceilings connected to tanks full of FAB II. Glomoss to trigger the system.

Cavities fill with FABII, bulkheads close across corridors and fill with FAB II and a sprinkler system fills the air with it.

Heimdall Drone Missiles with Biofiber nosecones and UV sensor suites are fired at the 'holes' in the Aerosol FAB II.

Good night.

[cyronc]

Cavities in walls, floors and ceilings connected to tanks full of FAB II. Glomoss to trigger the system.

Cavities fill with FABII, bulkheads close across corridors and fill with FAB II and a sprinkler system fills the air with it.

Heimdall Drone Missiles with Biofiber nosecones and UV sensor suites are fired at the 'holes' in the Aerosol FAB II.

Good night.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) now we are talking hehe