Steel Lynx=Big enough to mount a wide variety of automatic weapons and fit through most office doorways? For reference most door frame are a little less than 1 meter wide

or

Steel Lynx=Small Tank, usually has to make it's own doorways.

Also, what's the most common drone in your campaigns? I don't necessarily mean the drone your rigger buys the most of but what's the camry of drones? Totally ubiquitous and about as exciting as a drink machine?

Quick answer: clicky
(from Fields of Fire)

Edit:
To answer the second question, the most common drones in my campaigns are Dobermans (cheap, less lethal version of the SL)
And of course Rotodrones because death from above is always fun.
Ho and as a bonus, some vicious iBall & FlySpy (now replaced by the dragonfly, the minidrone killer from Arsenal) to up the paranoia factor...

Aww Fields of Fire, how I miss you so...

By the way, I have pretty much the same question for the Rotodrone.
Can it go through a door or a window? I had some argument about this with my players.
I ruled it to be small enough to go through it (it would have become lee fun otherwise), bu I'd like the Canon answer.
I know there is a picture of it in one of the Riggers' book and I have the card from the CCG, but there is nothing to compare its size...

Edit: Here is the card.
He looks bigger from what I remembered from rigger3 :/

Hm... I've always thought roto-drones more or less existed solely for the purpose of flying through open windows. At the very least they should be able to navigate most hallways and door frames regularly.

Yeah, exactly. I always used them like some sort of SWAT-like fast attack units. coming crashing through the windows guns a-blazing.

Furthermore, it's only a 3 body medium drone, it shouldn't be that big.
Definitely smaller than a metahuman anyway.
Which goes pretty well through any window I must say.

I knew there was something about the size of the drones in arsenal:

Yeah I'd say a medium small then

The problem with that, though, is that, while a rotordrone may be of about the same size as a motorcycle, that could well mean that its rotor blades are long enough that it'd be like trying to push a motorcycle through the doorway sideways. I think there's a good reason that the card can't be used against indoor challenges.

I tend to think we're talking about total size here, I mean... a drone the size of a motorcycle that only mounts... an SMG. I'd be kinda pissed off at that.

I always viewed its size to be able to fit though a window WITHOUT its rotors extended. But to get the appropriate lift they are much bigger. I think that is where the "motorcycle" size comes from. the length from rotor tip to rotor tip.

I thought a rotodrone was teh size of a trashcan basicly,

Less lethal? Equip one with Chameleon Coating an Gecko Tips and think again - it still can carry a LMG.

Body wise maybe but you have to take into account the size of the rotors.

I meant the way I use them, not their best potential.
If I just wanted to kill my players I'll just use Rotor-Drones with Barrett 121 (and AV ammo for the lulz) firing from maximum range.

By the way, If you intended to make some Tachikoma-wannabe, a steel lynx with the walker mod is more adequate...

This is a damn problem in SR. There are two types of drones - those that fit through standard doors, and those that don't. And Body 3 drones are the most particular problem, especially the roto. And there's no good answer in canon.

I have always thought that the size of a drone is just the main body of the drone.

Aerostats are a good example. A dwarf-sized blimp (including envelope) would have less than a pound of payload.

I interpret that as a dwarf-sized _payload_ with a transparent envelope the size of a commercial shipping container.

Likewise, a dwarf-sized minicopter would likely have an 3m rotor diameter.

But slower.

With size 4 stuff you have to wonder, but certainly the body of any size 3 stuff could get through a door.

From the pics a rotodrone doesn't have blades all that much wider than it's body. I'd allow it though doors and many windows. At the least you could have a slightly different model of rotodrones that can.

The trick is that if it drifts a little to the side or isn't careful indoors it'll clip something with a blade and then it's hosed. Everything counts as tight terrain inside and going through doors/windows requires a test like trying to make a jump with a motocycle would.


Anyway at the OP the doberman is the everyday indoor drone that your runners should see about as often as flesh and blood guards once and alarm goes of, and outside it's the rotodrone. Though don't always have it actually be a doberman. Nobody has that much market share. At least change the name if not the layout a little. If you're worried about breaking RAW just switch up the software and pay for it if needed, and go with a range of different weapon options.

With me a lot of corps go with a Taser model to avoid trouble should there be a misunderstanding involving the drone.

Note that I don't believe Dobermans or other crawlers can really do stairs. They can still get everywhere usually due to the popularity of elevators. But it's something to note.

With SR4 I've seen a sudden increase in the number of drones used by non-riggers. Fly-spy and other surveillance drones are quite common. Doberman and Steel Lynx are still rigger drones, though.

Or, if you want to make a Ghost-In-The-Shell themed campaign, you could make a heavy use of Otomo (and maybe a few Akiyama).
Anthropomorphic drone body are the new black.

Then again, it *is* a flying drone. If a wheely motybike can carry an LMG (and fire it on full auto), then the flying equivalent shouldn't be able to carry as much weight or handle as much recoil.

one option for rotodrones are the ones seen in metal gear solid 2, or ducted fan ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducted_fan

I suppose one could put something around the drone blades to keep them from clipping walls and the like (It would still be tight terrain indoors though). Maybe even the metal cage you see on the sorts of fans you keep on your desk.

Realistically there should be a performance hit for that though. There's a reason they don't do that in real life.

That said there are also vectored thrust type drones.



Nah. For the price and with the free targeting, clearsight programs and decent pilot/sensor you really don't need to jump into those drones or do anything fancy. Just subscribe the drones to one of the corpsec guys, have them all operate in hidden mode, and maybe require security level access to use them at all.

They can just handle the drones via the Issue Commands option. Usually something like "attack those guys".

Dobermans really do make decent goons. And they'd act more like the retards most GMs have goons act like, giving the players something to shoot at. But with multiple initiative passes and compensated wide bursts drones can actually pose a threat and get some hits.

one quick google:
http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/RCM/RCM/DroneProject.html

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/iss...arch/Demand.htm

I can't source it, cause I don't remember where I read it, but I have read that larger rotor disks are more efficient than smaller disks, and for any given materials, open rotors can be larger than ducted fans.

So, you will give up payload for the safety of the ducted fan.

According to the wiki it sounds like ducted fans are ideal for small low speed (under 90 mph) drones. Larger is better after a certain point and that point sounds to be a full size aircraft of some sort.

Oh, randomly, a picture to show your troll gun bunny the next time he wonders why he can't tote the HMG around:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_50cal-GAU-19_MG.htm

Or if he can lug an HMG, why everyone either runs like mother fuckers or tries to shoot him first.

heh, whats this, the little bro of whats under the nose of the ah-1 cobra?

that's not an HMG, that's a halved down ghatling gun . . MGs have one Barrel or don't they?
further-more this weapon is only huge and heavy for human standards . . now imagine that same gun next to someone who is about twice as big as the fella in the one picture . . and it only weights in at about 70 kilo, that's more or less what todays soldiers are expected to lug around . . at least in grunt training with the whole shebang one comes close enough i've been told . . and in shadowrun terms one would not even have to roll to carry that thing . . ESPECIALLY not a Troll who gets a +4? on STR so a Troll starts out at the same strength that is allmost maximum to usual pinkies . .
on a Troll, that weapon would in SR3 be considered no Problem . . because if you declare it to be an HMG and not a gatling with the extended firing rate it won't get above 10 recoil . .

Yeah, that's a minigun.
Here's a HMG.
Another view.

And a russian HMG. This one looks just like a troll weapon...

in SR4 you create a gatling/minigun by grabbing a (L,M,G)MG and bolting on a template found in a arsenal sidebar (p30)...

so just through rules you could have a single barrel minigun? O.o
i don't really think so . .

more that miniguns have a special behavior and restrictions on use vs other MGs...

the number of barrels are not covered...

someone else remember the old 3 barrel heavy mg from duke nuke 'em 3D?
that's about as far as i am willing to go regarding heavy MG's, anything with more barrels or at least moving barrels is a minigun, and not a heavy MG . .
http://mac.softpedia.com/screenshots/9-771_1.png
yes, that one . . and now i realize, duke nukem 3D was pretty SR somehow O.o
if you forget the shrink and ice-ray and say those monsters are metahumans and you're playing a humanis member, it pretty much fits the bill o.O

Minigun are multi-barreled to allow higher rate of fire.
You're using 6 (or 3, 4, 7, whatever) rotating barrel to drastically decrease the heating.
And then, where a standard MG will have a ROF around 600 (M2) - 1100 (MG42) rounds/min, a Minigun has ROF of 4000-6000 rpm.

Of course, improvement in cooling and use of better alloys could allow higher ROF on standard MG (like the super machine-gun from Fields of fire).

From this, we can assume the Minigun modification from arsenal is basically slapping additional barrels on a rotating mechanism to the firing mechanism of the weapon and unlocking the ROF.

The wiki says that this weapon produces 500 lbs of recoil. The video off the wiki reveals a weapon that forces a HMMV to rock back and forth everytime it's fired.

A maxed out troll probably can heft one of these but firing it on full auto should require a strength check or something

I think the phrase "Heavy Machine Gun" is a description of the round that a weapon throws down range. Whereas minigun refers to a weapon that has a multiple rotating barrels.

LMG's typically fire assault rifle rounds, 5.56 for example. A "medium" machine gun fires something larger like 7.62 and a heavy machine gun fires something like a .50 cal.

Of course this is all crazy SR abstraction weapon mechanics so YMMV

I'd also like to note that the above .50 machine gun has an ROF selectable between 1000-2000 which isn't incredibly fast but... jesus christ it shoots .50 cal. That's a round that's used to shoot down aircraft and chambered into anti-material rifles.

And there are even bigger caliber machine guns on vehicles.
It goes easily up to 30mm...
Like the Rheinmetall RMK30 or the insane huge GAU-8 Avenger minigun of the A-10.

Ok that isn't a minigun on the A-10. In fact I believe the rather ironic term "minigun" came into being because they were making similar designs in gatling style rotary cannons and comparitively the assault rifle round firing one was mini.

the A-10 uses the 30 mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling gun with a rate of fire of 3,900 rounds per minute, Basicly you are firing large depleted uranium armor-piercing Milk bottles

Minigun, Gatling gun... that's pretty much the same thing.
I have difficulty using the term "gatling" for anything other that the good ol' first-machinegun-ever 1862 Gatling gun.

And actually:

Let's be fair, the GAU-8 is a Volkswagen that fires depleted uranium milk bottles...

If you attach an electric motor to an old gatling gun you get the initial test model that became the vulcan 20mm cannon. It apparently works just fine.

IIRC, Ducted fans are more effective in producing lift for a given rotor size, but have a significant weight penalty due to the duct. I'm not sure where the break-even point is.

Best weapon ever.

From the wikipedia article, it seems to be around 90mph (or 40m/s).
So, with a smaller diameter. it's producing higher thrust at slower-than-delorean speed...
I guess that's make it kinda perfect for attack drones like the Roto-Drone (33m/s).
Hell, it can even give some limited thrust-vectoring (+1 handling?)...

So.... We agree? If you don't like saying Gatling just say "rotary cannon" for 20mm and up weapons, which is less of a mouthful anyway.

By the way what did Arsenal add to this discussion. I don't have it yet.

not much more then a sidebar...

Oh that sucks. I suppose there is some kind of Rigger 4 book on the Horizon right?

No. Arsenal and Unwired are supposed to have taken care of everything related to the rigger. It has been said repeatedly that there are no plans for a new Rigger book.

Regarding recoil, I can easily see a troll 3 times my weight and strength handling a 7.62mm battle rifle as easily as I handle a 5.56mm AR, but .50cal BMG is another critter entirely.

500lbs is a LOT of force, and I don't see even a 600lb troll handling it in combat, or even keeping his balance long. On the upside, the recoil probably wouldn't seriously injure him like it would me.