Subtle Drone Tricks, For when guns aren't the point. Options

[BlackJaw]

I'd love to gather up some interesting tricks for using smaller and cheaper drones. If you have some, please post them.

Signal Ball
My next special use drone (or more likely set of drones) is a repeater iBall. The LoneStar iBall is about the size of a softball and moves by rolling, thus is limited to flat surfaces. It has a body of one, and according to Arsenal it has the "limited mobility" feature built in, which gives it 4 extra expansion spots for a total of 5 (4 + body 1).
(1) Retrans Unit (Retransmitter)
(1) Gecko Tips
(1) Laser Emiter
(2) Chamealon Coating
Load it up with a the best Response, Pilot, and Covert Ops Autosoft it can take.
Now I have a repater drone that is small and blends in anywhere. It can roll on floors, up walls, and across ceilings. It can repeat signals I send through it with a signal of 6, and I can link to it through windows thanks to the laser link. If I can get a few of these buggers (around $10000-$8000 each I think) they could be deployed in groups, forming chains of laser links through secure facilites to maintain connectivity.
Variant Idea: Instead of laser links set the buggers up with the "special machinery" option so it can leave a trail of Mesh RFID tags, sort of a less visable optical cable.
Variant Idea: Instead of laser link install a rating 6 Directional Antenna so it can maintain signals in one direction and try to power through signal blocking materails or jamming with ECCM software (an idea for when there are no windows.)
Variant Idea: Replace the Laser Link with a Satelite Uplink (1). Although terrible for hacking through, a Satelite link is considered Signal 8 and is hard to jam or detect compared to other systems.

Decoy Drone
An idea from Stahlseele:

Wanne be really mean to people trying to follow/track you? built comlink into small little flying/hovering drone and send it on a wild goose chase through the megaplex at about your usual walking speed with some bursts of speed or using public transports.

I think a the Fly-Spy drone in the BBB would fit the bill here. The SRA has a 1 unit upgrade, and the flyspy has a body of 1, for modular computer parts that would let you install better then normal (exaclty like those of a Commlink) Signal and Reponse modules. You could then equip it with resonable systems, an agent program, and have it run standard commlink functions like making random phone calls, browse searches, etc so it looks like an active system to boot. Also pull the RFID tags out of some clothing, food, etc and attach them to the drone too, so it will seem to have the full tags of a person instead of just a drone. Have it fly at just above head level around the streets. Land in open air cafes around noon, etc.

Other ideas?

[Stahlseele]

Equip a flying drone with ruthenium polymers and image scanners and theft denial or however that vehicle electro-shock-thingie is called.
Basically invisible, silent flying little drone that dishes out 10DV of Electro Damage.
Or install some kind of dart mechanism and use it for injections.
Or put in as much explosives as your GM or your inner Not Munchkin will allow.
Or a Slip-Spray-Dispenser. Or Smoke-Blower. Or let it drop (micro)grenades.

There's RF-Toy-Boat-Loads of fun to be had with drones ^^

[crizh]

Just so you know, I don't like doing this, I hate it when other people burst my bubble.

An iBall cannot move at all under it's own steam. I don't know why they reprinted it in SR4A without changing it. Limited Manoeuvrability completely removes it's acceleration and speed stat's.

Satellite Communications is a Standard Mod only available to drones of Small size or larger.

On a positive note I really like the idea, I would go with the RPD-1X Ferret. It is the same size, faster and ubiquitous in corp facilities.

It also has 8 Mod slots.

edit

To actually contribute, I recently realized that the Ares Heimdall is a Mini-drone and is therefore a legal payload for the Multilauncher on the GTS Tower.

It's a missile with no scatter, you roll a Ram Test to drive right into your target, and has a range of 18km.

Bwahahahahahaha!

18km! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

[BlackJaw]

Equip a flying drone with ruthenium polymers and image scanners and theft denial or however that vehicle electro-shock-thingie is called.

The full body zapper anti-theft feature is a (2) slot ability, and most "subtle" flying drones I can think of have only 1 body (and thus slots). That means you couldn't fit Chameleon coating (2) and Anti-theft (2) into most drones smaller then a person.
A Lonestar iBall is an exception here. A small Chameleon coated rolling drone that rolls up to someone and then zaps them is an interesting option for stealth take downs...

crizh: Thanks for the update. I don't take offense at being told I'm wrong when I am wrong. I prefer to learn, and you haven't been rude to me yet when correcting me.

Question: can iballs steer when rolling (such having been tossed)? I know they won't have the inertia to roll up a wall with gecko tips, but just along the ground, or down a wall, etc.

I guess the Gecko tipped iBall is still useful for being thrown onto a wall or ceiling and having it stick (and then detach on command?)

Aren't Ferrets kind of bigger then an iball? Somewhere bigger then a bread box but smaller then a dog? I guess that's cat sized? Hmmm... Maybe give it legs and the organic/skin option to make it acutally look like a house cat? That's like 4 slots, so if it has 4 left then it could still be made into a retrans or stealth attack unit right?

[crizh]

Cool!

I get to be nice.

All drones have at least 4 slots.

iBalls and Ferrets have 8.

[Stahlseele]

OK, i am at work, i don't have the books here ^^
Do this:
Use one Ruthenium coated solar powered Zeppelin-Drone-Carrier and drop iBalls modded to your liking all over the place.
Also:
Sorry, i got out of line there . . exploding mini-drones are probably not all that subtle ^^

[BlackJaw]

All drones have at least 4 slots.

iBalls and Ferrets have 8.

Oh I am so very happy to hear that.
That means even the crawler bug drone in BBB has 4 slots to play with.

I can have a lot of fun with this later.

[crizh]

Yes iBalls can steer whilst in motion.

Ferrets are a good choice for Chameleon Coating. As most corp facilities have dozens of Ferrets roaming around the place, program your ones up to look the same as the locals and you have an excellent infiltrator.

I quite like the grenade version of the Dragonfly, I'd fit a Splash Grenade as Special Equipment to such a Ferret.

I'd also give it a little retractable arm for manipulating things. Build a Hardware Toolkit and a Mini-welder into it and give it Gecko Tips so it can drive up walls or elevator shafts at 40 miles an hour.

[Stahlseele]

40 Miles an Hour ? O.O
Damn, forget about outfitting them with close combat weapons.
Vehicle ramming rules alone should more or less make them instant kill for anything hit . .

[crizh]

Unfortunately both Ram Plates and Weapon Mounts are Standard Mods.

I figure the built in grenade is fine. Hell on a mini-drone you could probably go all the way up to a mortar or rocket warhead.

[Stahlseele]

Which would give INTELLIGENT WEAPONS a whole new Meaning.
Imagine that, an Anti Tank Warhead capable of in building navigation.
While outfitted with Ruthenium and maybe electronic warfare.
eeviil and ugly O.o

[DuctShuiTengu]

Requires a bit more GM discretion on whether this is doable (and how well it works) but...

Shiawase Kanmushi, add a grapple or mechanical arm (talk to your GM to see which is needed), the right toolkit, and a high-rating radio signal scanner. Unleash it on any new hardware you pick up to find and remove any pesky RFID tags that might have been slipped into it. With the right programming, it should even be capable of dealing with there being other machinery in the way (note that there is some room for variation between GMs on how much is required for the drone to be able to remove pieces and parts and then put them back correctly. And be sure to turn things off before setting the drone to work.)

MedicBot May be a little too big to really qualify as subtle, but...

crizh's point about ferrets being a good choice for infiltration because of how common they are is a good one, and one that can be applied to other types of drones as well: going with models that are ubiquitous in the areas where you're using them is a good first line of defense against them being hacked, jammed, or destroyed. Finding the one Nimrod circling above the facility is easy; picking out which of the stormclouds hovering over the city is being used to spy on you (and may be carrying a sniper rifle) is much harder.

[Dumori]

Always use lasers on remote operating drones so they don't need to carry ammo as the can recrache by solar power.

Tips wise an injector on a drangonfly make a nice assassin/take down drone. Also one could alwasy drop the limited mobility on the Iball and take something liek this:
(1) Gecko Tips
(1) Laser Emiter
(2) Chamealon Coating

or if it fit the anti theft system so you have a 10S(e) stealth drone.

[crizh]

And in more good news..

I am happy to report to those that don't know that the Arsenal Errata reduced the slot cost of Chameleon Coating to 1.

[Dumori]

Cool must have missed that in my reading.

Oh god what is Lilth going to do with that extra slot (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[DireRadiant]

Can a small drone be fit with a medkit or slap patches, trauma patches or an injector delivery system? Then it could make a great independent emergency first aid kit.

[crizh]

Don't see why not, technically a Transys Steed is a Small drone and it's capable of carrying a full grown human.

You might have trouble squeezing a Medkit into a Mini-drone but that would be a GM call.

[Traul]

Add in biomonitors for everybody and the drone could decide to come and heal you by itself.

[BlackJaw]

Well, if Chameleon is (1) unit, and all Drones have at least 4 slots... then most of my plans for the iBall repeater stealth unit should work with a Bust-a-Move drone instead.

[Octopiii]

Just so you know, I don't like doing this, I hate it when other people burst my bubble.

An iBall cannot move at all under it's own steam. I don't know why they reprinted it in SR4A without changing it. Limited Manoeuvrability completely removes it's acceleration and speed stat's.

Curious, because it says it can in my copy:

"Designed to be tossed or rolled into a room, this minidrone can roll on its own but cannot handle stairs, lips, or large obstructions." SR4A p.350.

[Cthulhudreams]

I've always thought a fun thing would be a 'carjacker' program - a cheap commlink that you cover in something sticky and put on cars. It connects back to something else and channels and agent in that pwns the cars systems, but doesn't do anything to alert the locals.

Then you have one or many completely denialable and fairly cheap assets.

You can do all sorts of cool stuff - like start 40 cars and ram all the police cars in the chase - or all the ancients motorbikes. Or take ram raid to the next level. Or run interferance with the cars - make the guards think they are the issue while you sneak in the back.

And if you have any left over - drive them on autopilot to your nearest friendly stolen car dealers.

[Cheops]

Can micro or mini drones be outfitted with chem spray units? Seems like a good way to sneak in some gas or poison to neutralize your target.

[crizh]

Curious, because it says it can in my copy:

"Designed to be tossed or rolled into a room, this minidrone can roll on its own but cannot handle stairs, lips, or large obstructions." SR4A p.350.

Did you notice I said that I could not understand why the text had not been altered in SR4A?

Arsenal p106 has a list of Mod's that vehicles listed in the main rulebook possess. The iBall gets Limited Manoeuvrability which raises the number of Mod slots it has to 8 but removes any propulsion system. It may steer if thrown or rolled by an outside force but may not accelerate.

[FlashbackJon]

Curious, because it says it can in my copy:

"Designed to be tossed or rolled into a room, this minidrone can roll on its own but cannot handle stairs, lips, or large obstructions." SR4A p.350.

His point was that Arsenal gives the iBall the Limited Maneuvability mod built-in, which removes its ability to move under its own power.

On a related note, the iBall! How large is this? Softball-sized is how I originally saw it too, but the ocular drone (a literal eyeball) uses the same stats. Would it be unreasonable to assume that the iBall itself (or one of its "similar models") would be that size?

[BlackJaw]

On a related note, the iBall! How large is this? Softball-sized is how I originally saw it too, but the ocular drone (a literal eyeball) uses the same stats. Would it be unreasonable to assume that the iBall itself (or one of its "similar models") would be that size?

I think it's described as the size of billiard ball (but I may be thinking of something else there.) I always figured the removable eye drone cybertech was smaller then an iBall but lacked expansion slots at all. I don't really think anyone should be putting 8 drone modifications into their cyber eye, nor should it have the full set of sensor slots, the option to have smoke grenade and flash back installed, etc. That makes it too good as a cybertech eye.