Hi

I have a question on sensors in drones. Each drone has a sensor rating. Does that mean that each drone HAS sensors or do they only have a sensor-package with a capacity of the sensor rating and I have to buy the actual sensors?
If they have 'real' sensor, which one (perhaps at minimum a camera on each drone)? Or can I choose which sensors they have (at no extra cost)?

Thanx for replies
Mike

I would pretty much go with SR 3 on this one.. Sensor 1 is pretty much just visual, with some audio perhaps, certainly not much in the way of über zoom.
sensor 2 you add perhaps full audio, low light, and something more..
sensor 3 you add even more, flare comp, motion detection, thermal, etc..

You get the idea..

So if I buy a drone (with sensor 1) at chargen, it has a camera on board at no extra cost?

Pretty much yes..

In SR4, its a bit different - Senor Attribute replaces Intuition and gives you normal perception.

Anything extra, like Vision Enhancements comes with Sensor Packages - Capacity specified by size.

But how does a drone sense if it has no camera or equivalent? And then what's the difference between sensor 1 and sensor 2 (or 3...)?

Or what do I 'see' if I as a rigger jump into a drone?

This has been covered in a couple of other places, but the general concensus seems to be that the standard vehicle/drone sensory package appears to be a form of radar - perhaps a version of the proximity detectors already available on modern cars with the added ability to differentiate between various objects. Higher-rating systems generally feature more sophisticated and/or precise detectors or a broader range of identifiable objects (and, so, grant more dice on your perception tests). Regardless of rating, they're still likely to be based on the non-visual model because a spherical or hemispherical perceptual zone is much more useful in most applications than binocular vision and hearing.

The fact that they're not cameras is likely the main reason that you have to rely on the given vehicle's Sensor rating instead of your Intuition when targeting and such. If it were as simple as peeping out through a camera, you could just turn the drone (or independently aimed camera) around until you found your target and open fire. Of course, if they move, you have to hunt them down again. With the detection field system, as long as they stay within sensor range, you'll know where they are. Your Perception training comes in because you're given the basic read-out, and you have to decide which blip represents your target. It also explains why vehicle targeting systems don't function with smartlinks and aren't affected by range penalties.

Your average passenger vehicle has a rating 1 sensor system because most of the obstacles they need to worry about are fairly large: landscape features, other vehicles, and metahuman-sized objects. Details aren't that important because running into anything of that size or larger will probably cause the owner's insurance rates to go up. Drones tend to have more advanced sensor systems because, being smaller, they're more likely to run into a greater number of things that can hamper their progress or be given tasks that require them to tell the difference between a trash can and a fire hydrant. So they need to be able to "see" better than that automated tractor convoy that spends most of it's time barreling down a largely-vacant highway.

And as has been determined here - the objects on p.325 are add-ons you can install in your vehicles and drones (or other devices) to expand their capabilities or to make them better-suited for a particular role. And which would be why the capacities are tied into platform size rather than sensor rating. Though it doesn't make it entirely clear on the table, I think the capacity units for the various sensor devices (cameras, mics, etc) are also independent from their capacity cost for whatever you're installing the thing into. That is, a camera with vision mag, flare comp, and low-light mods takes up the same amount of room in your device as a standard camera with no enhancements.

I think you've hit it square on the head there Tonka Tuff...

The way I've interpreted it is also that any vehicle that has a sensor rating stock includes the vehicle sensor package (except for microdrones which have the smaller sutie). Actual sensor suites don't come stock so you have to purchase those normally. Any vehicle without sensors can have a vehicle package added on giving it sensor 0 (instead of -) and allowing them to add suites up to capacity.

As best as I can figure, seeing as the only vehicles with a null sensor rating are planes, choppers, and t-birds, it's probably meant to be assumed that they don't rely on the standard vehicle sensor package - instead they use much more sophisticated radar arrays and the like. To represent a sensor array that powerful, using the given metric, would probably require ratings (and dice pools) that would throw the general dice-test balancing calculations off. Either that, or (as with the reason car sensor ratings are so low) the types of objects that these vehicles have to concern themselves with don't generally include those the size of metahumans all that often - and subesquently, they aren't designed to pick them out. Of course, that causes a problem when you want to retro-fit them for anti-personnel duty because the publishers didn't see fit to include the price for vehicle sensor packages by grade in the basic book - though I suppose that's why the gods invented splatbooks.

It's more likely that they simply have forgotten those ratings - when making Damage Restance Tests for Vehicles, you grab a pound of dice, too.