I'm putting together some combat drones for a run I'm about to send players on. I'm planning on giving them some reasonably hefty weapons, LMG or similar. However, I can't find any information on what kind of recoil compensation you can put on a drone hardpoint - gas venting, sure, but that's a whopping +3 when full bursts are -9. On top of that, if it wasn't on a drone I could put it on a tripod - tripod plus gas venting is +9, which is enough.

Should I just consider it to be a tripod if the drone is heavy enough? Should I sit down and make up my own numbers? Should I simply assume that hardpointed weapons are immune to recoil? Does it say anywhere in the book that I've missed?

I'd give a drone of at least human size the equivalent of a gyromount (6 points).

Remember that the LMG in the book comes with a Gas Vent 5 as standard.

I posted about this in past myself, in past editions drones hard/firmpoints had set recoil reduction. Current edition seems to allow any of normal recoil comp devices to be added to drone mounted weapons.

Now that might seem little odd considering double penaties with heavier weapons and even -9 to normal autofire, not to mention weapons that havent been converted yet that might fire 15 or more rounds.

But after haveing one of my players useing two drone with lmg's. The Gunnery autosoft makes huge difference hits scored with gunnery count towards all future shots and with enough dice a dedicated rigger can almost cancel out those recoil modifiers.

as i've pointed out before, there's nothing that says that drone weapons cannot have accessories.

thus, you can have a tripod built into your drone-mounted LMG. personally, i would probably rule that it is a different thing entirely from a normal tripod (ie it's a weapon mount with superior bracing or something like that), but there is no real need to change the mechanical effects imo.

I'll just invent a set of "hardpoint modifications" then, and provide them for hardpoint use - Stabilized Hardpoint perhaps, based on the weapon accessories item. Right now though I'm just going to ignore all those details and give the drone some recoil reduction. Sometimes being the GM is nice.

Thanks all

Having a drone count as a Bipod if its heavy enough might be fair. This assumes its a ground drone of course.


Recall heavy weapons only double UNCOMPENSATED RECOIL.

Now the Ingrim is also the largest weapon you can mount on a drone as the only LMG in the game until Arsenal at least.
The Ingrim White Knight has 5(6) points of recoil compensation. Thats enough to fire two short bursts in a IP with out penalty. Which is good as it can't fire in anything less then BF.
Give it a bipod and you now have a recoil comp of 8. Hmm that should be enough for full auto with only a -2 penalty.
If you say the drone can't take advantage of the Ingrim's stock then its only -4.

The drones should fire in wide bursts unless they have a hefty dice pool. +9DV means squat if you only get a hit or two on your attack roll.

But giving your foe a -9 penalty to dodge the attack almost guarantees you'll score some net hits


Gunnery hits only count towards future rolls if you lock on first with sensors. Which suffers huge penalties against metahumans for there size and lack of emissions

Don't forget about tracer ammo. That pulls the recoil penalties down fast.

I'd probably use the bipod rules on anything mounted on something that gets up toward car sized. Not areal drones though.

Where does it say that gunnery hits add to future rolls? If you use active targeting you spend a simple action and make a perception test using sensors to lock on and any hits are added to future gunnery rolls until you lose sensor lock. I didn't see anything about your gunnery rolls adding to future rolls.

I still remember one player of mine trying to mount a .50 cal 'sniper' rifle on one of those super-light mini-blimp drones, because the rules said it was technically possible.

He honestly could not understand why I kept laughing at him.


-np