perennial drone sensor question Options

[Johnny Hammersti...]

I know could probably search this,but let's face it, search isn't a good interface and we're all here to talk about Shadowrun anyhow;-)

I'm making a Troll Rigger for SR4, on a whim basically as I'm the GM in the game we currently run and I don't see how I'd incorporate this fellow into the story. He's a surveillance rigger who was a hacker but got burnt when he was young and instead directed himself towards rigging drones. Small for a troll, not much of a fighter, carries a knife and lives in a quiet if low rent neighborhood near the sound(Everett maybe?)



Anyway, I want to boost the sensor rating on his renraku stormcloud. This will be my uber visual scout drone, floating above our mark.

As per Arsenal, one enhances the rating of the sensors in the sensor package and this increases the sensor rating of the vehicle (see pg. 105 Arsenal). I haven't included all the details here.

Now, a medium drone has a capacity of 6.

Following the example in the book, loosely:

Drone has:

atmospheric sensor, rating 3 out of the box. That's the highest they come so I can't modify it[capacity 1]
2 cameras, front and back: boost em up to rating 6 and throw on vision enhancement 3 and vision magnification[2] (probably low light as well)
2 laser range finders, can't be enhanced[2]
1 motion sensor[1]

We've filled the capacity of the drone. We've boosted the sensors we can to 6.
I know could modify this drone to take more sensors but let's not for discussion sake.

What is the sensor rating of the drone? 6?
we should probably note that this drone will never hear anything coming:-)

Per RAW, I think it is 6.

Oh Rules Sages, am I doing this correctly?

When I'm done with him I'll unveil him in this thread, inshallah. Also, would love anyone's suggestions if they've made snooping riggers before. We're talking physical snooping here.


Thanks all.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

What is the sensor rating of the drone?

The rounded up average of Ratings: 5 - that's rolled when using unrated Sensors.

Just, when using the Cameras, pretty much the only Sensors that matter here, it's 6.

[Karoline]

Does the atmospheric sensor come with the stormcloud? If so it doesn't count towards the maximum capacity.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Does the atmospheric sensor come with the stormcloud?

Standard Sensor Packages are up to the GM.

If so it doesn't count towards the maximum capacity.

No, that would be Modifications. Sensore Package are a different cattle of fish.

[Johnny Hammersti...]

Cool, thank you everyone. I had a suspicion it would be 5 (6+6+3)/3 if we rule out the sensors that don't have a rating.

[MikeKozar]

If it were me, I'd pull out some of the unupgradable and mostly-useless stock sensors and replace them with R6 snooping gear. For instance, a directional microphone and/or a laser microphone will allow you to gather audio data as you're hovering overhead. I'd also recommend the RF sensor - it allows you to snoop on electronic communications.

[Jaid]

odd, i thought there was a rule that even unrated sensors could be upgraded by spending rating x cost nuyen, which would allow you to upgrade the sensor value to 6. for that reason, i would even include the 'unrated' sensors themselves (unless i'm just remembering a suggested houserule that gets used a lot or something)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Unrated Sensors work at the Sensor Package Rating, which is the average, rounded up of the rated Sensor Ratings.

So there is neither need nor point in upgrading unrated sensors.

[Karoline]

Unrated Sensors work at the Sensor Package Rating, which is the average, rounded up of the rated Sensor Ratings.

So there is neither need nor point in upgrading unrated sensors.

So what is the rating if you only have unrated sensors? 0? Thus making the unrated sensors non-functional?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

So what is the rating if you only have unrated sensors?

In that case, it would be the default Sensor rating of the drone, or none if no drone.

Thus making the unrated sensors non-functional?

Unrated Sensors don't need to roll to perform their function, so that's not the real problem here.

The real problem is that any drone fitted only with unrated sensors is pretty much non-functional - go pick something useful.