[X] My Assistant

[Venom]

Finally, the important thing is that, well, drones are expensive and complex, people are cheap and simple.

In Shadowrun the reverse is true - drones are cheap - properly equipped humans are expensive plus drones dont have families and cant vote...

[CanRay]

Dupli-post.

[CanRay]

Drones also don't have traditions of being in the military for generations. And those people vote as well. And typically make up the Brass, who make decisions like that.

[stevebugge]

I am listening I just dont agree but your posts have been useful in developing the idea of a drone army.

I think your probably right that in the early stages drones would have very limited roles but that these would quickly expand displacing most of the normal troopers roles.

I think the key issue that would push this is not military but political - no politician wants to see casualties on the news every night.

Using drones the politicians can fight wherever they can afford the drones...

Actually politicians don't like wars, they take money away from their various pet projects. Politicans love military bases that employ people in their districts though, drones certainly hurt that.

[Doc Chase]

You're still going to have your people in the area to rig those drones. I don't like the idea of it because it concentrates all your eggs into one basket, to use the term again.

You've got a team of riggers in a hardened bunker. Okay, offhand the best distance signal you can get for rigging is what, 20km? That means your rigger's going to need to travel with the drones on patrol, which means you've got one heat signature surrounded by metal. If it's any distance, it means he's got to drive, or fly - which also means he's not controlling those drones and he's at the mercy of their dog brains.

If they're any good at information warfare, they're going to be battling that rigger for supremacy of the network, lock them out so they have to hack their own network again should things go badly, and then he's surrounded by hostile metal while he's working on it.

So, surround him with meat and let him have a few drones for support. Now you have a dozen heat signatures with no idea which one's controlling the metal. You've also got 11 other guys to scrap the drones should the network come under fire, and one of them might get lucky and be able to tag the insurgent hacker while he's busy trying to phreak the nodez.

Drones are an excellent force multiplier with infantry, vehicles and magic, but one can't replace the others.

[Yerameyahu]

Satellites. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Besides, if you're down to a 10% human:drone ratio… that's basically what they saying.

Drones DO have traditions of being in the military for generations. Like…. all of them.

[CanRay]

Hey, here's a good question...

Do MULES still have a place in military operations?

[Yerameyahu]

What, hybrid jackasses?

[Venom]

You've got a team of riggers in a hardened bunker. Okay, offhand the best distance signal you can get for rigging is what, 20km?

Even with current tech we can operate drones from the other side of the world so I dont think distance would be an issue - military drone comms would be relayed via sattelite and extremely heavily encrypted so the riggers could be sitting in a military base in their home country.

I agree about the battle for electronic supremacy but with hundreds of riggers on seperate channels you'd need a hell of a lot of enemy riggers.

[DWC]

Hey, here's a good question...

Do MULES still have a place in military operations?

Yes. Anyone who says otherwise has never talked to someone who's flown a helicopter in Afghanistan.

[CanRay]

Mules have one prime advantage that drones don't have. Humans also have this advantage.

They're stubborn as hell!

A drone will fight until broken. A person will fight until... Well, they stop fighting. It varies from person to person.

It doesn't from drone to drone.

[Yerameyahu]

Well, again, not in Shadowrun. There is no 'gut factor', no special 'humanity', except Edge. Does everyone get Edge, or just players and Primes?

[CanRay]

I'd say everyone has Edge. But unless they're PCs or Primes, they only have 1. (Even Humans.).

We'd have never progressed as a species without luck.

[Yerameyahu]

Only if you believe the Puppeteers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I don't think Edge 1 is enough to justify that, then. It's nice to have, but robots are robots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Are we having an argument about Shadowrun rules, or about dramatic narrative set in the Shadowrun world? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Doc Chase]

Even with current tech we can operate drones from the other side of the world so I dont think distance would be an issue - military drone comms would be relayed via sattelite and extremely heavily encrypted so the riggers could be sitting in a military base in their home country.

I agree about the battle for electronic supremacy but with hundreds of riggers on seperate channels you'd need a hell of a lot of enemy riggers.

My current drone knowledge gets spotty after this point, but I'm not sure they can run a ton of drones from one satellite. Natural cover such as caves is also going to kill signal, so you're still going to need people on the ground to control them off a PAN.

[Yerameyahu]

I think you can basically run any number off a satellite (or multiple satellites, or blimps, etc.), but right, caves would be a problem. Still, I don't think it *is* a problem to say there's some field riggers. The point is that there'd be vastly more drones.

[Venom]

My current drone knowledge gets spotty after this point, but I'm not sure they can run a ton of drones from one satellite. Natural cover such as caves is also going to kill signal, so you're still going to need people on the ground to control them off a PAN.

Actually I think the answer to spotty coverage is... More drones (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

You could have drones with signal boosters to relay the signals all over the place in theory.

Bunches of those zeppelin style drones forever maneuvering above the battlefields reinforcing the signal networks and relaying to ground based signal amplifier drones mixed in with the traditional combat drones?

Edit: Oh and pretty much everything we have said about the drone signal applies to communication with human troops.

[Doc Chase]

I think you can basically run any number off a satellite (or multiple satellites, or blimps, etc.), but right, caves would be a problem. Still, I don't think it *is* a problem to say there's some field riggers. The point is that there'd be vastly more drones.

By that point, we run into the problem that they enemy is going to know who the HVT is, and a team with a 121 is going to turn the field rigger into so much meat. You want ablative meat to protect your specialists. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

It depends on the situation, yes, but I'm not saying the rigger would be on foot in his underwear. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) He'd just have to be in-country, instead of in-bunker.

Who better to protect that rigger than a cocoon, a vehicle, and bunch of drones? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Maybe some spirits...

[stevebugge]

I think you can basically run any number off a satellite (or multiple satellites, or blimps, etc.), but right, caves would be a problem. Still, I don't think it *is* a problem to say there's some field riggers. The point is that there'd be vastly more drones.

What prevents the opposition from Jamming or otherwise disabling (being shot down is pretty disabling) one or more of the satellites in this scenario? It seems like a serious weak link. Sure Afghan Militias aren't going to be likely to do this, but that's a very major oversight for general planning when your future opposition could be another country (or Corp) with space assets.

[Yerameyahu]

Seriously? If that's a concern, your entire military is screwed, meat OR drone. It's not even worth thinking about. And it's not *one* link, it's thousands. Comm systems of all kinds, some mentioned above.

[Venom]

Sure Afghan Militias aren't going to be likely to do this, but that's a very major oversight for general planning when your future opposition could be another country (or Corp) with space assets.

Armed Satellites - basically this stuffs already up there but no-ones crazy enough to get into a shooting war in space because sats are too expensive and the resulting shrapnel is a hazard to everyones satellites.

[stevebugge]

Armed Satellites - basically this stuffs already up there but no-ones crazy enough to get into a shooting war in space because sats are too expensive and the resulting shrapnel is a hazard to everyones satellites.

In 2070 Ground Based weaponry can reach Satellites, (it's likey that it can today) yes it's potentially expensive and could cause a lot of collateral damage, but it's certainly an option. For some states it may be a good option if they are less reliant on satellite communications for both Military and commercial operations. Shrapnel is probably less of a concern, it would just be some more debris but low earth orbit is already quite polluted with debris just from what's already been sent up, in 60 years it will be quite a bit worse.

[Doc Chase]

It depends on the situation, yes, but I'm not saying the rigger would be on foot in his underwear. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) He'd just have to be in-country, instead of in-bunker.

Who better to protect that rigger than a cocoon, a vehicle, and bunch of drones? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Maybe some spirits...

Well if he pissed off the CO and didn't get the chem light batteries...(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Okay, put the meat in a metal cocoon. It's bigger than the rest of the metal, so now the insurgents know where to point that shoulder-mounted missile. He's going to have to get out of the cocoon to go into the cave, though.

[LivingOxymoron]

Here's a sick little question for armed forces in 2070: Do you suppose smaller and poorer military groups would supplement their combat drugs with HMHVV infections? I'm thinking Ghouls in particular, as they mostly just need cybereyes to clean up their disadvantages for combat. They end up with a huge body, strength, and reaction, and lose out on charisma and logic. While you generally don't want really powerful, idiotic, contagious monsters running around, they would make fantastic shock troops.

Even sicker would be the groups that currently just drug up children before sending them into combat doing the same with Infection qualities.

I feel like a bad person for even being able to think of this stuff.

I think you've just made the point of why Asamondo is the most stable nation in Africa.