I was looking through Rigger 3 and didn't find any bombs, missiles, but no bombs. Is there a canon rule for dropping bombs from flying vehicles/drones and the damage?

If not I was thinking of using the formula for explosives in SR3 and making them anti-vehicle, like the BlockIII Outlaw missile. There would also be anti-personnel and high explosive (not AV) types.

2d6 seems the standard for scatter, but I'd expect them to scatter more than that; maybe 3 or 4d6? The bomb's intelligence and bonuses from target designators would reduce this as the rules for indirect fire. There's also the issue of ranges (altitude I guess) and how it affects the target number.

If there isn't a rule, has anyone made their own?

AFAIK there are no rules for dropping bombs. The best I can come-up with right now would be to use mortar (or heavy mortar) rounds jury-rigged onto missile racks.

bombs should do naval damage. as such, i would set the scatter to 2d6*5
meters, -10 meters per success. smart bombs would have an intelligence rating that works the same was as for missles. for skill, i would make bombing a specialization of gunnery.

for JSOW type munitions, which scatter smart munitions over an area, simply apply the attack roll and scatter to every target in the impact area as if that target were the target (eg, if the scatter ends up being 5 meters, every target in the area takes the base damage of the attack, -5 power). micromunitions have a damage code of (1/2 base bomb power)LN. the impact area is equal to the base power of the attack x 5.

I'm not sure if "bombs", as opposed to missiles, would still be around by the mid-21st century given the current level of advancement in military weaponary and the trend towards self-propelled smart munitions today, especially given the versatility of drones in the SR universe.

Even the most useful "bomb" that I can think of (cluster munitions) that is more commonly dropped by strike aircraft than fired can be delivered today by artillery. With improvements in the range and accuracy of delivery systems by the 2060s, you won't even need to risk pilots for that, anymore.

But, you're right: there are no rules for dropping bombs in SR but you could probably work out something pretty easily with house rules.

Dropping a dumb bomb is probably a two step process. The first involves aquiring a target and runs off a standard sensor test. The second would involve dropping the bomb itself which would be a piloting test to get into the proper position and drop the bomb. You might let math or trajectory knowledge skills play in there somewhere, but I'm not sure how.

Of course, since most weaponry would be of the "smart" variety (even beyond what we have today), you should probably just use missile rules for bombs

Also note that the dumb bombs in use the NATO come in commonly come in 500, 1000, and 2000 pound varieties. Those are pretty big *booms* on SR scale.

Yep, you'd have to write your own bomb statistics

And probably do a scatter on the order of 3d6 x 5 meters or the like, for truely dumb bombs. With a reduction of x meters per success, determined by how many you think would constitue "dead on target".

bombs will still see use because they're much, much cheaper than a missle of the same power.

as far as targeting, how about this: base scatter depends on the bomb's damage level--LN, 2d6; MN, 3d6; SN, 4d6; DN, 5d6.; all times 5 meters. successes reduce scatter by 10 per. adding a smart package to the bomb halves the scatter die, round up.

Can't jam gravity!

exactly.

Why do you all automatically start to think in dimensions of military operations? Sure, the military uses bombs in sizes of 250kg an bigger, but what about a rigger, who wants to use his drone to drop something on a specific spot? That could be dropping an armed contact-triggered bomb on a target you want to take out (think of it this way: You can easier built a dumb bomb yourself than buy a decent missile through a fixer), dropping a remote-controlled/time-triggered bomb in a place you can't otherwise reach or dropping a paket full of euipment near - but not on - your teammate to help him out of trouble.

Although, from a military standpoint, I can't think of a single pilot aircraft that drops dumb-bombs (or airdrops cargo for that matter). Apart from rockets and divebombing, I can't think of just dropping something somewhere without someone doing the navigation and another person doing the flying. Its not a matter of it not being possible, just that its one of the more difficult things to do well. I suppose it must be much easier with shadowrun technology (and much easier with something can hover) but I don't think it would be out of the question of requiring Battletac FDDM or something similar for vehicles incapable of hovering to represent the difficulty of timing a bombing run without a copilot or a navigator.

a rigger should have no problem with it. normal pilots, maybe you could limit the number of dice on their gunnery test to the rating of their autonav.

I still reckon my idea of just dropping a (heavy) mortar round on the thing would work. The mortars weigh 12KGs each (14 for a seeker) and would probably weigh a bit less if you removed the propellant charge. You get a damage code of 6LN for the high explosive one, which is probably about all you'll want against any ground targets except tanks. However, you may want to put a heavy launch control system on the dropping vehicle (to let it fire weapons with a naval damage code) which takes a hardpoint and 1-2 CF.

On second thought, the best way to handle scatter would be some based on height and plane speed. Maybe:

Altitude
0-10 meters = 1d6
10 - 50 meters = 2d6
50-100 meters = 3d6
100-200 meters = 4d6
200+ meters = 5d6

Plane speed
x - y m/sec = +1d6
y - z m/sec = +2d6
etc.

I would anticipate that things like air currents, bomb resistance, etc, could have a huge effect on your ability to drop the bomb properly, from any height. You should get to roll your plane's sensor rating somewhere in this, possibly as complementary dice to the targeting test which would reduce the scatter by some number of meters per success (4 sounds good).

Actually, beyond 3d6 it's probably better to use multipliers than to add extra dice, or the amount of variance will be very small. So I'd suggest modifying TinkerGnome's table just a bit:

Altitude
0-10 meters = 1d6
11-50 meters = 2d6
51-100 meters= 3d6
101-200 meters = 3d6 x 2
201-400 meters = 3d6 x 3
401-600 meters = 3d6 x 4
601-800 meters = 3d6 x 5
801-1000 meters = 3d6 x 6
Etc.

Aircraft speed
21-50 m/CT = x2
51-150m/CT = x3
151-500m/CT = x4
501+ m/CT = x5

That would get you a rather slight base scatter of 3d6x2 with a (rather) still drop from 150 meters (6-36, avg 21, 90% between 12 and 30). At the maximum unmodified speed of a Stallion (190m/CT, 228km/h), that'd be 3d6x8 (24-144, avg 82, 90% between 48 and 120).

Without air resistance, it would take ~5.5 seconds for the bomb to drop to the ground from that height (((2x150)/9.81)^0.5), which means that it will also travel forward ~350 meters from the point where it was dropped from at the speed of 190m/CT.

In this case, it might be reasonable to reduce scatter by 1 meter, multiplied by the appropriate modifier.

Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh with the accuracy, especially with the modifiers from speed. But the point is that, with semi-decent sensors, it should be very easy to drop a packet with a very small air resistance (like an iron bomb) very accurately from a very high altitude. Add some velocity, and the accuracy degrades significantly.

If you don't plan on doing this a lot, and don't care much about suspense of disbelief, using a static 3d6 x 2-5 depending on what kind of mood you're on is probably better than using a table.

i would, instead, base the speed part on what percent of the aircraft's base Speed score it's travelling. 1/4 or less, 1/2 or less, equal to, great than.

That would make dropping something from a slow aircraft (like some rotodrones, let alone a blimp) a lot harder, while making it really easy to drop something from, say, a thunderbird. While it's true that bombing would probably be more accurate from a thunderbird going at 400m/CT than from an Osprey at the same speed, I still think the fact that the aircraft is moving at 400m/CT is a greater factor.

Thanks for the advice. I have some numbers to crunch and this has helped a lot. I'm not very familiar with the vehicle design rules, but I'll have to figure out the CF and type of modification for a rack for bombs and internally stored bombs (with the bomb bay doors).

Signature would decrease, like the rules for weapon bay doors (pg. 137 R3) when the door was open. A complex action seems a bit harsh for just flipping a switch (or thinking a thought, in the case of riggers). It should probably be free to open the door, but it's not open (or closed) until the next pass. Admittedly not canon, but neither are bombs to begin with.