Crazy Idea I had. Think Cait Sith from FF7.

Troll Rigger uses a small anthromorphic cat drone. Using SR technology, how can we fake them out.

There are no small anthromorphic drones, so i'm allowed to use a small walker and get freebie arms, under the condition that I cannot move at full speed on two legs. Fine.

How to make this seem real:

1. Smart materials can flex and such, so it can give the appearance of muscle tissue.

2. I have to assume that there are robo-pets around, with so many people living in apartments. we can use that technology to give the cat fur, realistic eyes, warmth, etc.

3. Give it a Retransmission Unit. If it is receiving a signal and also putting out a signal, at first glance you would only detect the signal it is putting out I assume, since it's stronger.

4. The real issue is it's aura. Something would need to be done so that cruddy mages couldn't look at it and say "yeah thats fake". My character is coing to be a conjurer, so spells would be a last resort, and I don't want to put my ally inside it, because with a body of 1, it'll be easily destroyed.

Any ideas? And yes, it IS a silly type of game!

There is the ares felix the synthcat drone from the Sprawl Survival Guide.
its has a robot brain and is said to pass almost exactly like a cat, at least from their first glance, at least thats if I remember it right.

doesn't look like it has enough room as is for modifications you might need, but I've found these drones very useful for watching ally's and other surveilance, to be honest upgrading sensors might be better than retrans, leave that for the blimps, you'll get better range out of them and can outfit them with different forms of retransmitters.

as for the mages viewing the aura, the machine itself doesn't give off an aura of life, its just an object like its surroundings. if your worried about it maybe make it a psychopathic killer and drench it in blood of children for days so that it has a background count giving the mage an aura they'll want to forget. (give the cat some red eyes and pointy teeth, you'll give some awakened some nightmares)
Or you could go the pansy route and use some aerosol that prevents astral viewing.

Could I extend masking to it if I made it a low force foci, in theory? Also, the retras was not to get range, but to mask my signal.

Aura: vat-grow some kind of critter to live on/in the frame, with appropriate nutrient solution.

Signal: you'll need to be putting out a signal anyway, at least if the Rigger wants to get any kind of info back instead of just driving blind (play a computer game of any variety with the monitor and audio turned off to get the idea), and putting out a signal will be the surest sign that it's a drone. Unless you use a highly directional transmitter, it'll be impossible to tell that the drone is receiving a signal anyway; at best (for a non-directional transmitter) you'd maybe be able to determine certain characteristics of the signal and then figure out that the signal is always present at usable strength when the drone is around. There's no real way to solve this outside of hare-brained schemes involving non-broadcast signals (like laser links).

Anything else?

~J

If you're touching it, yes.
If the focus does not have contact with you, it will deactivate.
The spirit approach won't work as a disguise either, not because of the low stats (a posessing spirit could remedy that quite effectively), but because it wouldn't be too hard for an assensing mage to recognize that it's a spirit aura.

I'd second kagetenshi's idea with vat-grown critters.
Probably based upon some GenArt pet from Augmentation.
This would, of course, also include the option of using a real cat rigged as a biodrone, which would include a perfectly normal cat aura, but i personally find this idea (in fact, the whole biodrone issue outside of using genetweaked, mindless jellyfish warforms) totally abhorrent.

The drone itself, however, shouldn't be much of an issue.
Catlike, realistic drones where included in the German edition of the SR3 rigger sourcebook (the infamous IFMU Kitty 3000, my favourite spy drone), so they should still be around by 2070.
Use a small walker with the mimic option for stats.

BTW, when you're going Cait Sith, you'll absolutely want to stand on top of an obese moogle anthroform.

You may as well just use stuff from the Riptide Confederation if you're going to pull in non-canon material.

(SR3, Augmentation need not apply likewise the year 2070)

~J

SR3 is no longer canon, is it?

I'd say SR3 is canon in a thread with a giant "SR3" flag next to it marking that as the edition being discussed.

Is that a misquote?
What exactly is non-canon about Augmentation?

If you have qualms about using any additional material published in German SR3 sourcebooks as canon, that's fine.
I understand that; non-existant line developing and balancing is a good reason to be biased about that stuff (even though the cat drone mentioned was, as an exception that proves the rule, neither particularly imbalanced nor improbable).

Augmentation, on the other hand, is as canon as it gets.
Hence the "medtech core rulebook" line on the cover.

It's SR4. Ok, my use of "canon" may be a bit inflammatory, but it's from a game with a totally different and incompatible setting and base mechanics, so again you might as well just hit the CP2020 sourcebooks if you're going to suggest drawing from those.

~J

After rereading this post for the third time and making the connection to scroll to the top of the page, seeing the -not so giant- SR3 flag next to the title, i have decided to crawl into some nearby corner where i'll curl up in a fetal position, start crying my heart out for the fact that people still dare to post SR3 questions on this board and die unnoticed.

Fair enough.

You wanna convince the admins/mods to resplit the forum, be my guest. Get them to even acknowledge it as a possibility, and I'll even weigh in with all the effort I can spare on the topic.

In the meantime, we will continue to talk about real Shadowrun here ( , but only slightly).

~J

Use the Mimic system from arsenal - the price was missing but posted on DS by Synner

Mimic Modification (Rating 1-3)
Slots: 2
Modification Threshold: 15
Tool: Facility
Cost: Rating x 3000¥
Availability: Rating x 3
Special Skill: Cybertechnology