Fighting drones with magic Options

[StevenAngier]

Btw regarding OR 3 (Sensors) vs OR 5 (Drones). You have to fool the drones sensors, not the drone to appear invisible for it. IF you want to cast invisibility on the drone it would be OR 5. That's the consensus most often found. Besides that it's still a hot topic at most tables.

[Elfenlied]

Mhm, kind of tricky since there is no spirit with the combination of elemental aura and natural weapon. Making it hard for spirits to hurt drones.
You could go with elemental attack. Or augment the spirit with an elemental aura(spell).
Or just go with the electric elemental aura and hope for a lucky roll.

Rotodrones have either hardened armor 9 or 12, so F5 or F6 with Elemental Aura (other than electricity) should do the trick.

[Irion]

@Elfenlied
You are doing stun damage as melee fighter...

[Elfenlied]

@Elfenlied
You are doing stun damage as melee fighter...

Only if the element is stun damage. Certain elements are always physical damage.

[Dakka Dakka]

Also a melee attack isn't necessarily an unarmed attack. In SR all close combat is called melee. So you could make a flaming attack with your nodachi.

[Irion]

@Dakka Dakka
The one of a spirit is, unless natural weapon power.

@Elfenlied

Certain elements are always physical damage.

I do not recall any.

[Dakka Dakka]

Spirits can wield weapons (melee and ranged), especially guardian spirits.

Acid damage is treated as Physical damage and resisted with half Impact armor (rounded up)

Cold damage is treated as Physical damage and resisted with half Impact armor (rounded up)

Treat Fire damage as Physical damage, but Impact armor only protects against it with half its value (round up)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And this is why the BEST thing you can do for your Imp Invis spells is Street Magic Spell Design it to Multi-Sense.
Problem solved.

Also, the humble Ice Sheet spell forces crash tests and doesn't need to bother with object resistance. Drones don't tend to have the best dice pools for that. And a rigger can only rig one at a time.

Ice Sheet does not work so well for those Drones that Fly...
Besides, any competent Rigger will always make his Crash Tests. So they are generally a waste of time on your part to try an inflict them.
Spirits using Accident are generally a better Option, due to the Negative to the Dice pool that is inflicted.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Rotodrones have either hardened armor 9 or 12, so F5 or F6 with Elemental Aura (other than electricity) should do the trick.

Ummmmm... Rotodrones have an Armor of 2... You should really look at the Rotodrone's Stats... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Dakka Dakka]

I guess he is assuming the worst case - drones with maximized armor. the LEBD is BOD 3 so maximum 9 armor, the Dalmatian with BOD 4 can have 12 armor.

[Elfenlied]

Yeah, by Rotodrones I meant the LEBD and the Nimrod.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, by Rotodrones I meant the LEBD and the Nimrod.

And yet, none of those have that high of an armor unless you mod them that way. These mods are not a given, due to the low Body ratings involved. Why would you spend money on a Drone that is designed to be replaceable (Well, admittedly, the Nimrod isn't, but it is not a Rotodrone either). It often costs as much money for the amor as the Drone is worth. There are so many more options than just armor.

But no worries. Just remember, APDS or AV rounds are your friend when it comes to vehicles. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Irion]

@Dakka Dakka
The question is, if it applys. It is quite questionable if the damage code of the elemental section overrides the original ones.
Lightning would always be stun damage, but there is the lightning spell having physical damage.

[Elfenlied]

@Tymeaus: It's mostly out of habit, I guess. Every rigger I've played with or against, be they NPCs or PCs, always maximized all armor on their combat drones, to fully utilize hardened armor. Then again, armor is cheap, and if it helps to keep your drone and its attached weapon alive, why not?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

@Tymeaus: It's mostly out of habit, I guess. Every rigger I've played with or against, be they NPCs or PCs, always maximized all armor on their combat drones, to fully utilize hardened armor. Then again, armor is cheap, and if it helps to keep your drone and its attached weapon alive, why not?

Understood. It does help with survivability, to be sure. But with a Limited number of slots to mod Drones with, Armor is often the last thing that I think of. Drones are so cheap that they are easy to replace (Unless they are a Nimrod Drone). Hardening them a little tends to not help all that much. As I said, AV or APDS rounds make mincemeat of almost any drone out there. Not to mention any Spells that deal with them easily enough.

Of course, My philosophy on Drone usage may be a factor here. Rarely do I utilize Combat Drones with Weapons. These are the last resort. Information is much more of a commodity on a battlefield, and most of the drones my character uses are geared for information acquisition. I only field a few actual combat drones. Think I have a few Predators (Anti-Air Assets), a Few Rotodrones (Anti-Personnel), and a Tower with a load of Heimdals (Anti-Vehicle Assets). The other 50 or so drones are various versions of Elint-Capable Drones.

[Rubic]

@Tymeaus: It's mostly out of habit, I guess. Every rigger I've played with or against, be they NPCs or PCs, always maximized all armor on their combat drones, to fully utilize hardened armor. Then again, armor is cheap, and if it helps to keep your drone and its attached weapon alive, why not?

Also, it's cheaper and easier for a corp to write off the drone as an expense and send in another. The listing in the book is what you're paying after mark-ups. The corps who build them spend less, and build them en mass. I'd even posit that modding more than a handful of specialty drones would be more costly to the corp (resources and manpower) than just building a fleet of them to put on racks until needed. If they REALLY wanted that rotodrone with obscene amounts of armor all of the time, then they'd simply make a line with that armor as a standard load-out, PLUS modification slots.

[Mäx]

Drones are so cheap that they are easy to replace

Well the Lone Star Strato-9 might only cost 3,5k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and as such be easy to replace.
But the 11k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) medium gatling gun or 20k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) Fleche Hail Barrage Rocket Launcher its armed with, not so much (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Ryu]

Understood. It does help with survivability, to be sure. But with a Limited number of slots to mod Drones with, Armor is often the last thing that I think of. Drones are so cheap that they are easy to replace (Unless they are a Nimrod Drone). Hardening them a little tends to not help all that much. As I said, AV or APDS rounds make mincemeat of almost any drone out there. Not to mention any Spells that deal with them easily enough.

Of course, My philosophy on Drone usage may be a factor here. Rarely do I utilize Combat Drones with Weapons. These are the last resort. Information is much more of a commodity on a battlefield, and most of the drones my character uses are geared for information acquisition. I only field a few actual combat drones. Think I have a few Predators (Anti-Air Assets), a Few Rotodrones (Anti-Personnel), and a Tower with a load of Heimdals (Anti-Vehicle Assets). The other 50 or so drones are various versions of Elint-Capable Drones.

The information-gathering drones are often the ones easily replaced due to their small size, deploying a bunch of medium drones is not that easy. The price of unavailable replacements does not really matter.

Rotordrones are my heavy-duty combat drones, and armoring them to the max makes them immune to most small arms fire. It is the first thing I do to those. Improved Sensor Array is also a must.

[whatevs]

I took a look at some of the illusion spells in sm, and couldn't flak or chaff handle the sensors? And then an indirect combat spell of choice i guess, but indirect targeting allows for a dodge roll. Is it likely the op would even hit?

[longbowrocks]

nope. This physics bogus with Imp. Invisibility bending light is gone. It just affects nonliving objects in addition to living objects. No Predator stealth mode.
And I appreciate the Crush spell (even for simplicities sake I dubbed it "Improved Clout" for my character).

Invisibility affects the minds of viewers. Improved invisibility creates
an actual warping of light around the subject that affects technological
sensors as well.

I don't see any amendments to this in the errata.

[Makki]

Rock<Paper<Scissors
Sam<Mage<Rigger

[Udoshi]

I don't see any amendments to this in the errata.

Physical vs Mana spells. Learn the difference.

[longbowrocks]

Physical vs Mana spells. Learn the difference.

Wow, a physical spell that effects physical light? What will they think of next?
Just be satisfied with the fact that improved invisibility will foil most technological vision enhancements.

[Fikealox]

Physical vs Mana spells. Learn the difference.

Unless you were agreeing with Longbow in a strangely belligerent way, I don't understand what you were trying to say. Learning the difference between physical and mana spells (in this case illusions, see p. 208 SR4A) precisely backs up Longbow. Invisibility = mana spell = affects the mind/senses directly; Improved Invisibility = physical spell = creates actual images or alters physical properties such as light or sound.

[Hayate]

I know some folks here detest the spell from what I have read, but what about Ignite? Is the threshold too steep?