Just wondering what people think of drones around here.

Personally I think that for the price most GMs underutilize them. Especially in corp settings. Cheap and effective.

Personally I use drones mixed with metahuman forces, and lots of drones outdoors. I'm a bit sparing with the heavily armored stuff, but in 4th even the heavily armored stuff isn't all that well defended so I'm letting up on that.

I also think they're good for game balance. Giving mages a reason to know more than manabolt and keeping Hackers busy. Though some drones will be operated by a trailing fibre link or operate in autistic mode so that trick doesn't always work.

In principle drones should be much more common than guards for all the obvious reasons. But as a GM I hardly ever use drones because I never owned the advanced rigger sourcebooks. Practically speaking I didn't want to have to buy and memorize a whole new sourcebook just to be able to run scenarios. Also it's mentally easier to just plunk sentries everywhere rather than figure ou exactly how drones would be positioned. But, if you think about it, why would someone use human security with all the baggage that entails when they could just automate everything?

Drones are still plenty useable, especially in 4th, without extra books.

Though another book would really help with 4th.

But seriously instead of plunking down Redshirts #217 and #153 over there you could just plunk down a pair of dobermans with some weapons and upgrades. Maybe a smart firing platform if you're feeling elaborate (though maybe save those for the lynxes).

Or at the least just have some drones rolling in to take point when corpsec responds to alarms.