Here's a presentation of what you can do in SR with drones + agents for discussion.

The system is a computer (comlink), several ornithopter micro-drones, and a small re-charging station for the drones. All of this fits into a fanny pack or similar form factor. As the drones have quite short loiter time, they fly back to the recharging station on a regular basis to top up.

The comlink runs an agent which directs the drones around the wearer in a constant security perimeter.

The drones watch for:
Anyone with a criminal SIN close to you (outgrowth of registered sex offenders database + facial recognition).
Any people, vehicles, or drones that seem to be following you (or just looks at you too long).
Checks out any alleys or other danger zones you are approaching (cross referencing where you are with local crime reports) to tell what areas to give more attention.
Sends you a warning and highlight for any weapons it sees (by simply looking).
Spots all broadcasting cops in your area.

Proposed bonuses for the system:
+3 AR bonus to detect ‘close’ shadowing (~25 meters?)
+1 AR bonus vs ‘far’ shadowing (~50 meters?)
+2 AR bonus to reaction roll vs ‘close’ ambushes (~25 meters, danger zones)
+1 AR bonus to reaction roll vs ‘far’ ambushes (~50 meters?)
+2 AR perception bonus to spot drawn weapons (~25 meters?)
Chance of detection of anyone with a criminal SIN within 50? Meters (roll 4-6 dice for perception? With penalties from disguise skill, if any?)
Automatic detection of any ‘broadcasting’ cops/LE personnel (user set distance)

The user just straps on the fanny pack, subscribes the drone controller (comlink) to his own so that it can feed him the info and goes. The agent/drone pilots do all the complicated work.

Discussion?

Awesome hacker fodder.

pretty slick concept. i think i'd give it two modes, though. one, direct feed--you get the bonuses listed above, but you take a penalty to perceive anything except threats. two, early warning--the system doesn't feed you data, it feeds you results, automatically notifying you of such threats if the drone network spots them. the drone network confers those listed bonuses on itself.

i'd also suggest allowing the setup to focus on subjects other than the wearer. in other words, your bodyguard could wear it, and have you as the designated protectee. the drone network will provide your bodyguard with the listed bonuses (if the bodyguard's using it in direct feed mode) for threats to you, but not necessarily threats to the bodyguard himself. if the bodyguard is in close proximity to you, that won't matter, but if the bodyguard is staying a discreet distance away, it might.

What a great target for a Pulse spell. or some even more nasty ones.

Keep in mind that drones are terrible at targeting things that aren't made of metal with a decent signature.

Your average drone loses three dice in its perception test versus people (metahumanity in general) and other drones. If it's not a large IC powered metal object, it is hard to spot.

The commlink test isn't a bad way around it, but each drone will be constantly scanning for wireless nodes to interrogate, and if someone has a PAN in hidden mode... that's going to throw a wrench in your plan.

I'd think it would be easier to have three rotodrones with SMGs, you subscribe to drone 'Moe' and drones 'Larry' and 'Curly' subscribe to Moe. If you tell Moe to shoot someone, Larry and Curly join in.

The coming discussion will also mention how hacking a drone is a really great way to frag with people, etc.

And if there's not a high enough firewall, etc, I'd hack the dronecomm and tell the drones to all fly into the user's face. That will then require a 'how much damage does an ornithopter micro-drone do if it hits you in the face' thread.

The drones might do a little better at detecting if you use the teamwork rules.
Also, maybe battletac for vehicles will reappear in Arsenal, that would really help this concept.

Definitely do not want to parade around in Spam Alley with all of this,,,Hacker Spammers would have too much fun.

Of course, if this system is trivial to hack, then so are your bank account authorizations, automobile, email account passwords, and so on. They've made hackin way too easy in SR4...

On that I agree Crusher Bob, I hope that the upcoming publication will address some of this.

Edit

Changed from Demon Bob to Crusher Bob

Erm, I'm not Demon Bob.

Damn there are too many Bobs here.

My apology I have several screens open on the Dumpshock forums here.

Will edit it.

WMS

When you can hijack and decrypt a fairly highly encrypted com signal from a hidden PAN in under 30 seconds pretty consistently something is definitely broken pretty bad..