Stealing Drones., New rigger, Strapped for cash. Options

[Vantive]

Drones are everywhere...I can't stop bumping into them.

I had this idea that I could spoof a command to shut down, or drop a weapon clip, Or even land.....

Then have my mage friend Levitate it into the back of my van and I could shove a jammer on it..

I figure that the drone would not be able to recieve any more signals and would sit there idle.

From this point what do I need to do in order to make this drone my own, so nobody will rock up at my house with a bunch of trolls and say wtf.

I have a mechanic shop and the know Dice. What do I need to call and roll


Thanks,

[DireRadiant]

All possible, assuming the drone hasn't got a set of instructions to go home when it loses contact.

[crizh]

Stick a Faraday cage in the back of the van and you can dispense with the very obvious and hugely illegal jammer.

A Non-Linear Junction Detector is a good investment as is a Tag Eraser.

You'll want to tear out it's entire OS and software codebase, they can be full of Trojans, and you might want to rip out and completely replace it's dog-brain but that's kinda paranoid. Speak to your GM about that one.

[Prime Mover]

Faraday cage, tag eraser and replacing OS and Pilot. This should cover all the bases for even the paranoid.

[LynGrey]

Faraday cage, tag eraser and replacing OS and Pilot. This should cover all the bases for even the paranoid.

Could you just slap a GIANT magnet on his brain...? And just replace what you are going to ruin?

[Chibu]

Could you just slap a GIANT magnet on his brain...? And just replace what you are going to ruin?

Well, basically that's what they're saying. However, you need the tools mentioned to do it. Almost all tech in shadowrun uses fiber optics. The memory in the drone is Optical, using light. Magnets have null effect on it.

[Vantive]

Don't they put Tags on the parts of the machine to track where it all is?

[deek]

Don't they put Tags on the parts of the machine to track where it all is?

Depends on your GM.

If the GM is pissed that you just stole a drone, he can do a number of things to track you down. If he doesn't care, then you probably don't need to worry about it. A one-liner saying you are removing/erasing anything traceable would suffice.

All in all, it depends on just how much you abuse stealing drones and home much you GM wants to get them back or prevent you from doing it in the past. So far, any drones I have thrown at my PCs tend to get shot up and they don't want to salvage them.

[Vantive]

GM:

"Drones are very expensive and worth alot to people, alot of the time it is cheaper to hire an actual team of shadowrunners to recover stolen drones than to replace the drone itself, Go for it if you like but beware the consequences."

Sound like im going to have a problem? Lol.

[Malachi]

I conditionally agree with your GM, depending on the drone. If you are stealing drones that show advertisements or count traffic or something, then I would say no one will miss them; unless you go on a huge spree of stealing them. OTOH if you're starting to steal the drones that Lone Star uses for checking ID's and catching criminals, or combat drones that corps use to guard there stuff: beware.

[Octopiii]

That's an interesting assertion by the GM. Unless you're stealing a Cyborg Walker, drones are characterized by being cheap. Steel Lynx = 5k. Shadowrunner team? 15k+.

[deek]

GM:

"Drones are very expensive and worth alot to people, alot of the time it is cheaper to hire an actual team of shadowrunners to recover stolen drones than to replace the drone itself, Go for it if you like but beware the consequences."

Sound like im going to have a problem? Lol.

Haha...yeah, sounds like it will be a problem. Its his table though and if he has a problem with you wanting to steal some drones cause you are strapped for cash, then he needs to rectify the cash situation first...which should likely take care of the second (you wanting to steal drones).

Personally, at my table, I wouldn't care about just one. But if you started doing it often, you'd probably get some heat your way...

[Vantive]

I really like drones that fly around...

My GM doesn't really care what we do, he isnt against us. However he throws alot of spanners in the works and has an answer for just about everything we do.

If I can get one to shut down and get away to it. I have the tools to open it up. I could reprogram it. Im just affraid of it having some sort of tag in it that they can check where the hardware is.

[DWC]

If stealing drones gets teams of runners sent after you, you could always go full cannibal. Make your living luring out and killing other runners, then looting and selling their stuff.

[Screaming Eagle]

Um... unless you are stealing some pretty good drones (I'm not saying your not) or your Shadowrunners are cheap mo-fo's (and frankly I'm not saying they ain't) I think your GM has the math wrong.

The other problem is... well I've (A Mr. Johnson) hired a runner team to get my (companies) drones back: I give them the make and model. What motivation does said runner have to track YOU down? Won't any drone that fits the bill suffice? Am I the corp who hired you now starting a VERY low profit (and relativly traceable) drone theft ring? Ain't these drone things INSURED for just this sort of event?

I may hire or use a retainered PI or security forces to look into it if it occures more then once, but if you the rigger are doing your work right his job is going to be hell and proving it was you is going to be worse.

This of course breaks down as you drag this closer to lifting a whole production run from an Ares warehouse. Ares will come get you and anyone you know and love. Or rather they will get somebody and everyone they know and love. How well did you frame that other guy anyway?

No one is going to hire a runner team to get back their stolen car (unless it's the batmobile or they are the most vindictive ass in the world or something).
Low end Runner team for an "easy" job - 1000-6000 nY? Salted to taste.
A "good" car - 30,000 - 60,000 nY

Using your GM's logic EVERY car insurance company from here to doomsday is going to hire runners for their clients and provide a rental during the down time to "recover their car" rather then pay out for a new car.

Oh man... CAMPAIGN IDEA!!!

[Blade]

Stealing things is one of the job Shadowrunners do. According to this, every kind of gear can be stolen. But nothing is free. It costs less nuyens but has more risks. You risk being seen, being caught, being shot at, being tracked down...

And the more expensive the item is, the more risks you run. So for every x nuyens you save, you have a y=f(x) (where the higher x is, the higher y is) chance to have trouble. So the more you steal, the more likely it is that you'll get trouble at least once.

It's up to you to decide if it's worth the risk.

[Inncubi]

Along the lines of the non-junction linear detector and the tag eraser... There are tags that are hardened and the simple, standard tag eraser can't touch. My group played Thrash the body electric adventure in Denver. They decided they'd get as many trucks as possible, and to make it untraceable they had one of the mages get Detect RFID tag spell and Wreck RFID tag spell. It works wonders: They spam magic into the trucks, no subsystem is damaged and they are sure to have squeaky clean trucks for sale as well as the parts.
These two spells I see on a smuggler's list.

[Night Jackal]

From Unwired page 93

Jacking a vehicle or drone 8R Hacking skill x 200Â¥

Hmm you could always hire a hacker to go steal one for you, looks pretty cheap.

[Jaid]

Along the lines of the non-junction linear detector and the tag eraser... There are tags that are hardened and the simple, standard tag eraser can't touch. My group played Thrash the body electric adventure in Denver. They decided they'd get as many trucks as possible, and to make it untraceable they had one of the mages get Detect RFID tag spell and Wreck RFID tag spell. It works wonders: They spam magic into the trucks, no subsystem is damaged and they are sure to have squeaky clean trucks for sale as well as the parts.
These two spells I see on a smuggler's list.

wreck RFID is no good (you need to see it, which means you can probably reach it anyways, which means no need to spend karma/BP on the spell). detect RFID, on the other hand, is an excellent choice.

[Inncubi]

Hell... That is true it would have to be sludge RFID tag since its an elemental indirect combat spell.
It would do the same job albeit at a higher drain. I hadn't thought the sight needed for the direct combat spell, but that is totally my bad.

**Oh and it wasn't Wreck it was the area of effect one... Demolish. nyway as a direct combat spell the LOS caveat is still valid.

[Jaid]

well heck, if you're gonna bend the spell design rules to your whim, my make it elemental? you're pretty much already breaking the spirit of the concept by putting limited target onto an indirect spell, why not make it indirect and non-elemental? (who needs the drain anyways)

(note: i don't particularly support using those two particular spell design options largely due to realism issues i have with it; how do you make acid that only dissolves RFID tags? however, so long as you're gonna abuse the design rules, there's not much point in going halfway on it)

[Screaming Eagle]

Any such indirect spell: regardless of how hard you make the rules squeal, will be blocked by physical barriers.

Fire balling the inside of a truck only fireballs the guys outside if the truck if the truck explodes.

<EDIT> Another hazza for the detection spell though</edit>

[The Jake]

If stealing drones gets teams of runners sent after you, you could always go full cannibal. Make your living luring out and killing other runners, then looting and selling their stuff.

That's diabolical. I love it.

- J.

[Vantive]

Well what if we say it is your drone.

You have a nice Ford-LEBD-1 partrolling around your house, then when you get out the shower it is gone and you dont know where...


What do you do?

[Jaid]

call the police, maybe. hire a team of shadowrunners and pay them more than the cost of replacing the drone? no.