Messing with drones with out any cash., Trouble with drones and no weapons. Options

[Frag-o Delux]

I can't let the rigger take on all the trouble, mainly because I need a ride, I don't own a car either. Yes I am a mage, Snake shaman to be exact. I lose spell dice when I fight and the character is a slight pacifist because of his totem. So I look for ways to do things before I go throwing spells around. Magic is a very powerful edge best served to the unexpecting. He is building his masking up to hide a foci or 2 but generally tries to look like he is no body important. It has worked well in the past, people just don't pay attention to him since the rest of the group is a troll wired to hell, a slutty street Sam (played by a girl so calm down) and the rigger who has foot in mouth disease ( he lokes to speak before thinking sometimes) I can usually keep quite and pretend not to be with them and can get to a lot of security places talking a good game and not carring anything illegal or out of place. He almost never wears armor and rarly carries a weapon, other then a Leatherman tool. Also dressing like Joe Everyday no one pays me much attention, being clean cut with no scars or tattoos, some of the players forget my character is a shadowrunner. I usually only use magic as a last ditch thing (even thought I have a vast array of spells and metamagics), I do this to avoid the "Geek the Mage First" unwritten rule. I hold actions to avoid moving fast like a SAM, especially canners will show I have no ware. I hold attacks to make it look like I am just lucky diving out of the way of things or blocking an attack or something. I do help in combat, just in a sneaky way. Last time we were in a stand up shoot out, my character screamed like a school girl and dove for cover. Everyone laughed including the GM, saying the enemies pay me no mind, then I started throwing concusion grenades at their feet from under the car. Acting like a bitch or a normal citizen can let you get the drop on the enemy, even during a shot out, mainly in crowded places.

So in short I am looking for ways to take care of drones with out resorting to magic, if at all possible.

My character still improves his sneaking skills and athletics skills for climbing and such. It is sort of like the Jedi train of thought, build a solid base of skills and only use the force when absolutely nessecery. And no this guy is not a Jedi wanna be.

[ShadowPhoenix]

mono whips are nice slicey dicey, but might be too pricey for you to handle. steel cable, katanas, crowbars, firehose, pit traps, Tasers/raw voltage. Fire Extinguishers, shooting out/breaking out it's sensor systems.

magically: wreck, illusion spells, lightning spells, levitate, invisibility, silence, and a rust spell would be cool :D

[Rev]

[fctarbox3]

Speaking of brainstorming, and maybe I've played too much battletech, but since you already have the narcoject pistol, what would be the feasability of loading a narcoject round with some sort of incendiary (gasoline?), and replacing the needle with some sort of "On-impact-shatter-and-ignite-round" device?

(RE: The battle tech reference, I'm thinking of the gooey payload of inferno missiles...)

[BitBasher]

Considering that a narcojet dart probably is less that 1/4cc It wouldnt be useful for anything except a chemical delivery system, where you only need a small amount of something to be useful. It's not shooting water balloons at the target after all.

[Nikoli]

Actually a taser would do nicely to a drone. excess voltage + electronics = need to buy new toys usually. They can also transmit that damage directly to a rigger when he's jumped into the drone. Also, while direct attack magic may be tough for you, what about the various indirect manipulations, like ice sheet to play with the ground pounders and wind for the flying ones?

[Lindt]

Chemical foam fire extinguishers should work pretty damm well Id guess. If they didnt crash a flying drone, they would certinly blind the sucker...

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Man & Machine: Cyberware, p. 112.

[fctarbox3]

Line a coat/blanket with foil or metal threads and you might convince your GM to let you use it as a Faraday cage to block the rigger's control signal(s). Of course, then you have to be able to "net" the drones, but I can't think of everything.

[Frag-o Delux]

For anyone out there that really knows electronics, mainly the ones in cars. How suseptable to electric shock are they? Electronics are usually in insulated and isolated, meaning not much electricity should get to them. I wouldn't think a Taser could get through to fry the electronics, maybe a high voltage power line that feeds your house, but a little taser?

I maybe wrong but doesn't a Faraday cage need to be grounded?

[fctarbox3]

If you can grab the antenna, you've got a conductive line straight to the electronics. That's one heck of a called shot, though.

As for Faraday cages, it depends on the power of the incoming signal. Even an ungrounded cage can hold off a certain amount of EM.

[Fahr]

police use shock devices to kill fleeing cars today.

they are fairly suseptible if they have Electronics, otherwise, you might make it skip a few beats, but it would keep running, unless you burned out the wiring, but that takes a lot of voltage to do.

big capaciters, can deliver massive amounts of power over a short time, they may just have a long recharge.

-Mike R.

[Frag-o Delux]

I believe those cop things lay on the ground and touch the bottom of the car's engine, throwing the timing and alternator and such thinks in to a fit, stalling the car. I would think if it does not do enough damage to fry the car a smart get away man would throw the car into park re-start and go on. Most people panic whent the car stalls and try to get it started again with it in drive. You have to put it in park then re-start a car will not start in drive, at least none of mine do.

And the antenna would really only go to the cars radio, why would it go to their electronic ignition or electronic fuel injectors? Tasering the antenna migh piss of the rigger becuase he can't hear his favorite station now, but I doubt it would do anything worse.

[Fahr]

most of todays IRL cars have enough computers running stuff like fuel injection and such that they can get totally fragged by one of these ground zappers. it does in fact sit underneath and zap the engine or frame, though it matter not much, as the voltage difference it causes is enough to fry any electronics that are grounded to the frame.

but older cars that have a timing chain and a carbeurator, are almost un-affected by these, as the only thing to get any damage is the alternator, and you can drive a long way without an alternator. often it won't even stall the car.

-Mike R.

[fctarbox3]

Actually, I was thinking of the antenna on the drone. Y'know, the one being remote controlled by the rigger? Should go straight to the control circuitry.

Hey, if it's a slimline drone with a surface antenna, that called shot with the taser may not be so bad.

[Frag-o Delux]

[Darkest Angel]

[Austere Emancipa...]

I know nothing about aerodynamics, but it seems to me that a turbo prop engine would have a few edges over a ducted fan. Mainly the fact that a turbo prop such as in a C-130 or a Tu-95 blows the air over the wings, causing additional lift -- how significant that effect is, I have no idea. And then there's the fact that a ducted fan will be quite limited in diameter, while the propellers of conventional turbo props are quite a lot bigger -- again, I have no idea whether that makes any real difference.

[Nikoli]

[The Burning One]

Digression Alert.

Sorry the whole chicken vs. windshield test reminded me of an old joke/urban legend.

Supposedly some while ago NASA built a cannon which was designed to fire chicken carcases at speeds similar to the high end capability of a jet fighter/space shuttle. The idea being that if they could simulate an impact with some sort of airborne fowl they'd know whether their windshields would survive the impact or not. Regardless another country caught wind of this cannon and asked to borrow it so they could test the windshields on their high speed trains.

NASA being ever generous agreed to lend the cannon and it was shipped over to the other country where they proceeded to run a series of tests. When the chicken was fired at the windshield of the train it not only punched straight through the glass, it snapped the pilots chair in two and embedded itself in the rear wall of the cabin. Horrified the country, which had borrowed the cannon, contacted NASA and after passing on the details of the test asked what could be done to fix the design flaw.

NASA responded with a single comment:

.

.

.

"Defrost the chicken first."

TBO

[Kagetenshi]

So what would the Power of a frozen chicken be as compared to an unfrozen one?

~J

[Lantzer]

[Darkest Angel]