If people can give me some feedback on the software rules that will be great, I'm still learning them and digesting unwired. However this is what Lone Star uses in "Questionable" areas of my game. This is a rules legal mod using arsenal with the only tweaks being modifying the body from 10 to 12 and increasing the base car price to 25,000 . All together the car costs @71,500 minus drones and amuniton. Usually has 2 officers in it.Sort of like a Honda Ridgeline: the pickup part is where the landing pads are.


Lone Star Partrol Car Mk. II

Hand:+3
Accel: 10/45
Speed: 180
Pilot: 4
Body: 12
Armor:15
Sensors: 3
Avail: 16R
Cost: 80,000 (That is retail from Lone Star if you have the right licences and with no LMG, it cost them @75,000 with drones)

Software/Hardware:
Response: 5
Signal:5
System: 5
Firewall: 6

Pilot: 4
Clearsight:4
Manuver: 2
Targeting:4

Equipment:
One way glass
Run flat tires
Ammo bin (for LMG)
2 Small landing racks
Searchlight
Road Strip Ejectors
-Spike Strips (4)
- Zapper Strips (2)
Termination System (enhanced)- This can be manually triggered from the inside of the car to just shut it down if hacked.
- Knockout gas
Weapon turret- normal- AV rounds with a total of 500 rounds due to ammo bin
-Remote control
-Gyro Stablizer
-SA Nemisis

2 Ford LEBD-1 Drones (standard)
Weapons:
HK MP-5 TX SMG (Gel Rounds)

Software/Hardware:
Response: 3
Signal:3
System: 3
Firewall: 4

Pilot: 3
Clearsight:3
Manuver: 2
Targeting:2
Chaser: 3

EDIT: EDITED Response to 5 for the patrol car to make it rules legal.

Let me guess, it's still based off the Ford Crown Victoria, right?

Hells no, this is 2070. It's based on a light SUV like the Ridgeline and Avalance. Lets face it there are times when a Crown Vic is to small and a Citymaster is just overkill.

I'm not really taking the time to digest the stats, but I like it in concept. The Ridgeline pic with the image of drone racks in the back made it for me. Thank you for the inspiration.

I figured that people might want the stats so they can use them in thier games. I tend to find to many stats a little mind numbing too.

As for the image, I was trying to think of how to have the drone racks on a Crown Vic trunk realistically when I saw a Ridgeline outside of work and thought "Thats a great place for a drone rack!". From there it fell together pretty quick.

I think it's a clever idea for a vehicle and a good use of a ridgeline.

I don't know that it fits the star though. They operate in their jurisdictions and so could generally operate their drones out of their stations. I generally consider them to have people watching drones in the air much of the time.

Also I think they are supposed to have a fair number of citymasters(and mobmasters) that they'd bust out pretty quick. And there is also the old Black Mariah.

However I think this would be a good military/paramilitary force for a lot of the newer countries that have a lot more territory than budget. Allowing them to range out with the truck and then deploy drones to check stuff out.

EDIT: On a technical note you can't have systems/softs higher than the response rating. The sole exception being firewall.

The Star might use this for patrolling the harder parts of Seattle. Like that border between the Barrens and the 'Burbs.

Take out the passenger seat and you could fit in a troll with suicide rear doors.

But those areas would already be in aerial drone range. LS could patrol the Barrens/NAN border pretty easily with drones launched from the station.

I mean Seattle isn't so much of a "big" setting as a "dense" one. There is a lot going on but it's only ~24 miles across. Even counting the barrens I doubt there is a point in the city more than 12 miles away from a LS station. If you ignore the barrens as LS generally does I doubt you can get much further than 4 miles from a LS station. Trivial drone range.

But like I said I like the vehicle concept. I could easily imagine it operating in, say, Siberia, Africa or some of the depopulated areas of the NAN. Going out on long patrols with a pair of these, a supply truck, and a light scout vehicle.

yeah, I can see that in use a lot with the NAN territories, and especially with the border area between CAS and Aztlan. I can see the desolate areas outside of cities and other important sites where they'd use more aerial drones for recon, and they would use this vehicle as a supplement for anything of interest before sending any substantial.

Does the Star have enough drones to play overwatch for every patrol vehicle out there? I think the idea behind this is that the patrolman has his own drones to use for traffic stops and such without risking himself. The fact that the Star station is close would be handy when the drek hits the fan and then the heavily armed drones could close and destroy. It just seems too costly to have that many drones watching that many patrolmen when they could have their own when needed and use the bigger ones as back up. thats my 2 worth.

Thats the intent, to have drone back up and to send the drones into dangerous situations. Ganger runs into a building send in a drone to sweep rather than walk into an ambush. Besides having drone scouring the city is just not effective, they don't have hunches or contacts or "notice something out of the ordinary". Some things you just can't program.

My point is instead of spending more for a drone carrying vehicle where the drones are down most of the time they could instead spend less on a model not made for drones and instead just keep the drones on patrol in the air or have them do overwatch for the cops full time.

Also that way if someone shoots up the vehicle or it gets in an accident the drones don't suddenly go uncontrolled.

I see the design as an economical and generally solid way to take drones with when a force wants to travel outside of drone range of any permanent base.

Also I see it more as carry a couple extra troopers as opposed to prisoners. The reason being it makes more sense to have some people on board to operate the drones.

Well, I suppose you'd probably lose one of the rear seats to storage and the turret workings. But you could at least have a third guy back there rigging the drones.

I guess that it could be converted to a military vehicle. The turret is external and doesn't take up any space so you could make it take a few passangers.

Also those drones (and even the car) can operate on their own, they have the right software and they wouldn't every really go "uncontrolled". Hell shoot the cop and the car will probably paste you.

Also keep in mind that Lone Star is much larger than just Seattle. This car would be deployed all over the UCSA. Seattle is just its trial by fire as it has one of the highest crime rates and is used to showcase what it can do.

there's a world of difference between 'drone backup is 1 second away' and 'drone backup is 30 seconds away' in shadowrun.

imo, having the drones right on the vehicle makes sense.

Sounds like a solid pursuit truck. Even if it cant catch something that happens to be a lot faster than it, the drones can keep an eyeball on whatever it is they are chasing. Not to mention the ability for the truck to act as a temporary support base. Im thinking these would be the first armed response, while the SWAT team arms up and gets into the citymaster.

Add a Turbocharger and a Ram Plate, and it'd make a damn fine Heavy Interceptor.

I thought about the ram plate, but I just didn't have the slots. As for the turbocharger I might make an "Intercepter" version of it. Besides who needs to ram when you have a LMG with 500 rounds of belt feed AV rounds

Right now I'm trying to figure out what to remove from it to make it off road capable and use it as a coyote hunter.

So keep the drones flying over the vehicle full time, then they'd already be in a position to act. Again it's trivial range for drones to keep with the squad cars. There isn't any reason for the truck to carry the drones when you're operating so close to the station.

Lone Star does operate in other places. But I don't think they ever do wide open areas. They do cities right?

They do cities, yes, but some of those cities are filled with Wide Open Spaces.

One of the cities they do, Sudbury, Ontario, I know intimately, and there won't be Wireless Matrix connections everywhere there (Too many damned mountains!) so having this as a "Rapid Drone Patrol Vehicle" would make great sense there, even if it is a city.

The drones are for tracking subjects, patroling a vehicle and making arrests. They stay on the truck the rest of the time.
Examples:
1) Patroling a highway: The drones are deploied when the pursuit starts. If the person pulls over they then take flanking positions on either side of the car and the cop can scan for anything that looks "wrong" and can just issue a ticket or have the drones make an arrest. If the person does not pull over the LMG is used to disable the vehicle and the drones used to order teh people out of the car and onto the ground for arrest while the car gives them overwatch.

2) Patroling a complex: The car patrols the grounds while the drones scan the outside/inside of the buildings.

3) Stoping a crime in progress: The drones are deployed and ordered to bring down the supect/s or track them. The car disables any get away vehicles and hard targets.

As for who uses Lone Star? Lots of small corperations and mid to small towns. Remember Lone Star is a Texas based company and probably covers most of the southern UCSA.

Yeah, that's badass. Definitely using that in my next game.

Yeah the ridgeline pic is what really did it for me as well.

@BRodda You made a lovely case for while LS should use drones. Not for why they need to be in the truck instead of just flying along with a cheaper vehicle.

The mountain thing is a bit more relevant but again the things could just flying within signal range of any vehicle.

I suppose for slower drones or ground based drones it'd make sense.

Honestly they don't need them in Seattle. I was thinking of the larger picture. It fits nicely into the fact Lone Star would then be able to get more contracts with places that are more rural. I see it more as a "State Trooper" type car than as a patrol car. Still, as they can't just sign up for Desert Wars to show off how great it is, they have to get great footage on "Cops" and get some test data from taking out Go Gangs and Shadowrunners.

Even I can't give a great reason for why it needs the drone carriers while its in the city.

I love this concept, but if I was going to use an image I would have to go with the Lamborghini LM002 (1986–1993):

• Wikipedia article
• Images (1987 example)

The LM002 has the same seating and cargo arrangement as the Ridgeline (2006—).
While the Ridgeline is slicker looking, I have long admired the LM's no nonsense look with it's hummer-like cab, and hood bulges.
And what trooper wouldn't want to drive the "Lamborghini LS-2072"

My only problem is that it looks to military. A modified SUV is fine, but folks don't like being reminded that their cops are just mercenaries enforcing the law. Its a PR thing.

Hense why the Riot Police never get any air time. Or respect, really.

The Citymasters come out, and there goes the media feeds.

Um. By the time you have an SUV with a turret you're pretty much there.

I'm not sure the lamborgini has enough room in the back. And I do like the Ridgelines "slick" look.

Also BRodda is this something you already have in your game or just something you've been thinking about?

If the latter why don't you just rebrand it as something developed by, say, EVO for the Russian/Siberian market that has gained popularity in the NAN and Africa and have Lone star pick up a few turretless(or pop up turret) models for trial purposes and for some smaller city ops where maybe it isn't profitable to run the drones all day long when 99.9% of the time the biggest bit of excitement in the day is when little Billy steals a pack of gum from the stuffer shack, or Ms. Furguseen's cat is stuck in the tree again.

*Slams muzzle of Autoshotgun to back of Billy's head* "DROP WHAT YOU HAVE IN YOUR HAND, PUNK!"

*Later on* "We successfully disarmed a terrorist threat at the Stuffer Shack. We believed that the object in his hand was a detonator, as it had the physical characteristics of a detonator. It was shiny and box-like. He also had all the components for an IED on him, batteries and wires. Lone Star, keeping you safe!"

You are pretty much there, its just a style preference on my part.

And my game starts next month, I plan on having hte new cars be a part on 2-3 big plot lines. And part of the reason that I choose Lone Star over Ares or some other corp is that in the old Lone Star book it talks about how much they spend on R&D and they haven't really produce anything in a while. I was rereading the book last night and totally forgot Lone Star has a straight up private army for rent. That and their magic users are available to hire to do warding. Lets face it everyone love to give Knight Erenet all the toys. Just thought it was the Stars tern to get some respect.