Sensors for Drones Vehicles for Riggers/Dronomancers, Checking my sanity at the door. Do I even understand this? Options

[suoq]

The following comes from various places in Arsenal and the main book with confusion added by the errata.

Belief #1: To upgrade the Sensor rating of the drone/vehicle you upgrade the rating of sensors on the the vehicle.

Belief #2: Vehicles come with the following sensors.

• Atmosphere Sensor (taking up 1 Capacity)
• 2 Cameras (front and back, taking up 2 Capacity)
• 2 Laser Range Finders (front and back, taking up 2 Capacity)
• 2 Motion Sensors (front and back, taking up 2 Capacity)
• Radar (taking up 5 Capacity)

Belief #3: Here's the cost for those sensors.

Atmosphere Sensor (Rating 1–3) 1 2 Rating x 25¥
Camera (trideo) (Rating 1–6) 1–6 / 1 — Rating x 100¥
Laser Range Finder 1 8 100¥
Motion Sensor 1 4 50¥
Radar (Rating 1–6) 5 8 Rating x 200¥

Belief #3: Here's the sensor capacity of various drones/vehicles

Sensor Packages Capacity Signal
RFID 1 0
Micro 1 2
Handheld/Minidrone 3 3
Mounted/Small Drone 5 4
Medium Drone 6 4
Large Drone 8 4
Vehicle 12 5

Here's where it all goes sideways.
I don't see upgrading the Atmosphere Sensor as making much of a difference and it doesn't appear one can upgrade the Laser Range Finder or the Motion Sensor.

So... What I'm seeing is to get the vehicle/drone sensor rating up to 6 you'll want to buy 2 rating 6 cameras and a rating 6 radar. (cost of 2400 ¥ total)
For the Medium Drone it makes sense to toss the Radar and Atmosphere Sensor, meaning anything Medium or smaller is just camera upgrades (1200 ¥ total for rating 6).

Not sure what to do about the large drone, although I'm leaning towards assuming they removed the Atmosphere Sensor, the motion sensors and a single rangefinder and leaving the upgrades the same as the vehicle.

This post has been edited by suoq: Jul 26 2010, 07:14 PM

[Neraph]

SR4A gives more in-depth rules for this, I believe. To find the new Sensor rating of a vehicle, make an average of all rated sensors the vehicle has. I can't quote a page number as I still don't have that book.

For example, a R3 camera, R3 microphone, and geiger counter would be a R3 sensor, since you do not count the geiger counter.

In order to get a R6 Sensor, you need only fill up on unrated sensors and put in one R6 sensor. There are obviously better ways to get R6 (get multiple, fully-kited out R6 sensors so you can see everything), but that's all that is required.

[Yerameyahu]

The solution is to simply never use the 'Sensor rating'. Instead, use the rating of the *relevant* sensor for a given Test. Usually, Camera, or Radar. If your group doesn't want that level of detail, then be aware that 'Sensor rating' is nothing but a shorthand average, just like Professional Rating, etc.

[sabs]

The solution is to simply never use the 'Sensor rating'. Instead, use the rating of the *relevant* sensor for a given Test. Usually, Camera, or Radar. If your group doesn't want that level of detail, then be aware that 'Sensor rating' is nothing but a shorthand average, just like Professional Rating, etc.

WHat do you do if the relevant sensor is 'laser range finder'

[Yerameyahu]

What test is that? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sabs]

driving in total darkness?
Or in heavy fog.
Otherwise, what is actually the point of LRF's you'd be better off just using Radar.


The laser range finder lets you know how far away objects are. It's a proximity alert system.

Honestly LRF's should have ratings based on how far away they provide you with feed back.
Your basic LRF would have a range of say 20 feet, just enough to warn you if you're backing up into something.
Then as they go up they could scale up based on S/M/L/X ranges for weapons.

[Yerameyahu]

I think it's just for finding ranges. Vehicles have Radar standard, right?

To me, a LRF is a single-purpose, 100% effective tool, so you'd never make a test with it. Point it at something, range obtained. I always assumed they're on the cars for use with following-distance while driving, for parking, etc. They'd work on things that radar might not bounce from, are invulnerable to jamming, etc. A LRF should have a huge range, even for a crappy model.

You're right about the overlap, though. LRF, Radar, Motion Sensors, Cameras: all of these are standard vehicle sensors, and they can all perform the same task (presumably, in concert). Which is a Good Thing™. However, it's not often a task you'd make a Test for (parking, GridGuide driving, etc.).

[Udoshi]

AUGH.

Arsenal errata!

You need the arsenal errata! It fixes this stuff!

The short version summary is:
Vehicles have certain Sensor Types for free, as you already quoted.
And capacity/signal dependent on your size (which may be increased by 1 category with the Improved Sensor Aray Mod)
If you use a custom sensor loadout(and you should!), then you average all Rated sensors (ignoring the unrated sensors, like Motion sensors), and round it up. Important: Round up, not round half up like most people do by reflex.
If you must roll a nonrated sensor, it uses the vehicles(new) Sensor to do so. So yes, unrated sensors DO get upgraded by using a better overall array.
Further rules potholes come in the Fourth Edition/Anniversary Edition split: Several sensors were giving ratings that were previously unrated, such as Cameras. Yes, this means the master table in the back of Arsenal is full of lies, even with the second printing.

That being said, a general Good Practice for your sensor loadouts, if you have money to spend:

Grab 2 camera 6's, with Ultrasound, and vision enhancement 3(to counteract stupid metahuman Signature rules). (front and back) (2 cap)
Now that you have ultrasound, ditch the motion sensors. (2 cap freed up)
Grab Radar 6, because its cheap, good, and long ranged. (5cap)
Use the two points you saved with the motion sensors to grab Ultrawideband radar 4 (2 cap)
This gives us an average sensor([6+6+6+4]/4) of 5.5, which rounds up to six. Viola, done.
3 more capacity of Whatever for a standard car.

[suoq]

Grab 2 camera 6's, with Ultrasound, and vision enhancement 3(to counteract stupid metahuman Signature rules). (front and back) (2 cap)

Missed that. Thanks. Those are much better cameras.

And I have to remember the round up, not round half up. That almost saves me the issue I was having with the Atmospheric Sensor (which, since it's still there changes things at best to [6+6+6+4+3] / 5 = 25/5 and... That's not the math I wanted to see. And Ultrawideband Radar is capped at 4 and Atmospheric Sensor is capped at 3).

So, do we toss the Atmospheric Sensor or ignore it?

This post has been edited by suoq: Jul 26 2010, 11:12 PM

[Yerameyahu]

It does nothing, so keep it only if you want it to do nothing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Jaid]

i'd swap it for microphones, personally.