I have a LEBD-1 helicopter drone and I want to move it around the city without getting Lone Star on my tail. I already have the Chameleon Coating vehicle mod but I want to know whether being detected by Radar or some other form of non visual sensor would be a problem, and if so how could I prevent being detected by those sensors or appear to be a harmless object?

Force 6 concealment, improved invisibility, silence. I think there is an option for radar absorbing materials too.

arsenal, pg 104. and sr4, pg 224

Attach a Coca-Cola banner to the bottom of the it... advertising is everywhere and no one will look twice at the drone since it's clearly just part of some ad campaign.

In an environment with crowded skiesv like most cities I'm sure that most of the drones flying advertising will be registered, broadcasting some sort of license code and flying predefined routes. After all nobody wants a midair collision over a built up area and if one does occur Lone Star will want to know who to pay a visit to. While I'm sure that there are unlicensed advertisers out there I doubt it's easy to get away with, except in areas where there is very little air traffic anyway.

It is all an elaborate guerrilla marketing campaign for the X-Sniper ARORPG. If you have a promotional code you can even select and fire the rifle.

Where do you plan on using this drone, exactly? If you want to fly it around Manhattan, you're kinda fucked unless you go to extreme measures, but if you're flying it around, say, Tacoma, no one is even looking.

Fake License, several of them.

Don't be seen.

When seen, look like you belong.

Seconded. In a world where there are literally hundreds and hundreds of small traffic cams, ad blimps, floating drone wifi routers, camera drones, and other assorted junk in the sky, very few people are going to notice another drone as long as it looks 'in the system' like it should be there. Visual detection - as long as the sniper rifle is concealed in the drone housing, or chameleon-painted - is pretty much a non-issue.

Probably in either Seattle or Miami, but I have Chameleon Coating, giving at least -4 to visual perception or making it look like an ad balloon. What I'm really worried about is non-visual detection, like sound or radar.

Clearly you need to see this.

Set the Chameleon Coating to look like LS and make it broadcast a forged LS ID - if you want to go one step beyond, have a hacker manipulate the active drone database of LS.

Thermal damping, radar-absorbent materials, that kinda thing. Make sure the weapon has Ceramic/Plasteel Components 3 on it.

If some one spots you...Shoot them!

Or you can accept that a flying sniper drone is a one-shot pony and call it good. You're blowing a huge wad o' cash to keep something together that you should be treating as a throw-away.

Shoot the target, destroy the drone to limit your chances of getting caught, and get paid enough for the job and the drone to make it worthwhile...

ARORPG?

And make sure to put some thermite into the drone, melted wreckage is less likely to leave traces that lead to you.

You know. Just yesterday I said to my group, "Why aren't there there thermite grenades in SR? It'd be great for the work we're doing."

That is a VERY good question.

Also, ARORPG:
Augmented Reality Online Role-Playing Game. Think an Alternate Reality Game from nowadays, like Majestic, but with augmented reality aiding you so that you can play Tank Commander Europa while driving to work.

The only problem is that getting the drone to be anything like an accurate sniper already involves tens of thousands of nuyen. I'm looking for a way for this to become a permanent part of my arsenal, not a one-shot.

Then you got the wrong drone - sorry: It's a security drone, it will be spotted.

The problem is that there are nearly no big civilian flying drones for intra-city use except blimps - the Kull has no VTOL capability (and only can be modified to have it if your GM allows overmodification or allows an alternate model with the standard upgrade) and thus won't cut it as airial delivery drone. (Of course, whoever came up with the concept of a resupply drone requiring a full runfield...)

Keep it Simple: Design a Drone yourself. Make up the numbers and look if they are okay. Hell, you can actually calculate RL Speed and the gravitational force.

One question, uh, probably doesn't matter, but... How do you intend to keep a flying platform stable enough for a sniper shot. Full auto is easy, sniping from a constantly moving ground vehicle is bad enough, but how would you do it with a flying drone, what with the MANY thermals in a city, plus dodging air traffic that can't see you (if you make it stealth), etc. This isn't necessarily criticism, I'm actually curious about how you worked it out. Or did you just hand-wave it? You'd probably have to take the shot from inside 600 meters, in which case the drone would almost need to be disposable. But, I could be wrong.

SR is not that realistic.

No, it's not, but I do at least require plausibility from my players. Unless they came up with a good way to do it, I'd hit them with a stiff penalty to the attack. It doesn't have to be perfect, a full turret with stabilization or something (like in Arsenal's vehicle mod section, though I can't remember the exact name of it). Otherwise you'd be lucky to hit the general vicinity. Or maybe a vehicle test with a penalty for trying the hold perfectly still. Nothing to detailed or crazy, I'm just curious..

Well, keep in mind you're screwing with game balance (such as it is in SR4) when you arbitrarily make things harder like that, and that such an approach can make the players opt for strategies in which they won't get GM-slapped. If you're fine with making crazy-autofire miniguns guns the most attractive option to your players, go right ahead.

prepare the sniper rifle with someone elses finger-prints or something like that, have the sniper-rifle be detachable from the drone, have drone drop sniper rifle after shot.
drone scampers away, rifle gets found, someone else gets blamed.

I'd probably have it land on a building if stability was an issue. Hmm, I wonder if a helicopter drone could take advantage of a bipod?

I'm with Tachi on the issue of stability, flying drones can be good as artillery platform but lack the level of fine control that milions years of evolutions have given to the metahuman body; also if the drone is considered disposable why not using one of those dragonfly drones? The granade version might be noicy but, unless it cause unacceptable collateral damage, it's a viable way of disposing the target.

With a feedback loop of the integrated ypr-sensors - you know, like drones stay stable.
Then with the feedback loop of the optical sensors - you know, how drones (and humans) stabilize targeting.

Sure, normal movement penalties apply, but the gyro link modification eliminates even those.

..which is why they have the much finer level of technical evolution that allows mbts to engage moving targets while moving through heavy terrain.

It´s a question of drone position monitoring and automatic compensation for drone movement. Quite doable, I believe most video cameras can compensate for movement to some degree.

Not that easy, it could be done easily for a landbound drone but a flying drones is a much different story, it's subject to turbulence, there are no boundries to limit the drone's movements so internal forces need to be compensated or they are going to cause problems with keeping the drone perfectly still and the actuators are going to be much slower in their action than the ones used for landbound drones; if you think how little variation of angle can affect accuracy at long range you can understand that a flying drone should snipe very close to its target (at which point go for a LMG).
Probably it could be done but the resulting drone would be bulky and hard to disguise (also if it can be done by drones, why hiring deniable assets for wetwork?).

P.S. I'm studying to become an engineer, and it happens that automated control systems are part of my curriculum (even if not in deph), so I can tell you that there are limits beyond which it's not possible to reduce disturbances, which is a big problem when the drone is supposed to be a sniper.

Currently, you mean - that's why there's heavy research in this field today.

Ang given the techlevel of Shadowrun, it's obviously perfectly possible and plausible for airial drones to engage in longrange attacks.

Don't try to lecture me, as it happens that what I've said had been mathematicaly proved.

it is SHADOWTECH and NOT LOGITECH.
In the SR rules it does work. Your Real life Physics does not apply here, no matter what you study . .
Well, if you were in Game-Design maybe something would work, but not Physics . .
It can and DOES work. End of THAT Story.
If someone starts to argue things being realistic in a GAME with MAGIC i tend to hand them a pre-made character sheet with all attributes at 1, no cyber, no magic, no contacts, no usefull gear, no usefull skills except stuff that might help with being a wageslave and tell them to play something realistic then, instead of an elfish mage with cyber and bio in the mix . .

I want to play a free blood spirit in your game. I love those perfect RULES. Yumm.

wow. what a wonderfully scientific attitude "it doesn't work now, so it won't work evar". good luck with that engineering.

indeed. hasn't anyone told you that if man were meant to fly, he would've been born with wings yet? get with the program, people! clearly, this nonsense about flying drones is just rubbish, because machines can't fly anyways. duh.

(for those of you who may be impaired in your ability to detect when someone is blatantly sarcastic, that was very sarcastic.)

I'm confused what was the question again?

I had considered that... and I came to the conclusion that the cops would see through it. I suppose there are people who can make a 600+ meter shot who are stupid enough to assemble and load their weapon without gloves just before committing murder, but most of the shooters I know would never make that mistake. What you have to do is leave a partial print in a really obscure spot, as though you missed one.

You read my mind, I was laying in bed thinking about just that. Fly to a nearly inaccessible point (even vertical walls) on an oddly shaped building (if available), land, and if you add walker legs with gecko tips (and/or foot anchors) and a stabilized turret, you can walk around to get the perfect angle, anchor, fine tune the shot, and commit murder. Sounds like loads of fun, you wouldn't even have to leave the comfort of your favorite chair. Take the shot, then fly off covered by the ruthenium (SP?) and radar absorbent materials. Post your finished drone build here if you please, I'm really curious now.

That was my thought as well. Even a millimeter off at the muzzle puts you off quite a bit at 600 meters. With turbulence (or even just normal air currents) and such it would be a nightmare, IMO.

Don't flying drones usually use launched, homing weapons and heavy artillery at extreme range? Missiles, and miniguns and such? So perfect muzzle stability doesn't matter? One shot, one kill. Not spray and pray.

The existence of magic in SR really has no bearing on my thoughts where physics and common sense are concerned. I understand your point but I just don't see how the fact that magic has returned suddenly renders all physics moot, especially in a situation where we are dealing specifically with drones, not magical phenomena. Besides, that is mostly a question of game 'flavor' in my opinion. Some like pink mohawk, others like noir, I (and my players) like plausibility and gritty, die in an instant if you make to many mistakes, realism. As I said before, I mostly just require plausibility, and as GM, that's my call whether I like it or not. I don't require perfection, you just have to show me that your character considered the main obstacles and has, at least, a general plan to deal with them.

1. Me and my Group, we're still firmly lodged in SR3
2. If we were playing SR4 and i was GMing, i'd probably let you do just that.
3. as soon as you say how something would realistically be somehow different, your character sheet gets replaced with the aforementioned wage-slave.

okay, yeah, i guess the bit with the fingerprints is a dumb idea, but otherwise, throw-away-weapons ain't for biological ones alone *snicker*


Only the bit about REALISM in a Game with MAgics, when REALISTICALLY, you would not be able to commandeer just such a Drone as you mentioned in the first place is what constantly irks me ..




Edit: Ack Double-Post <.<

Hey, if I can play bloodzilla I won't complain...

Though after about the 12th victim everyone else might.

*Emphasis added by Tachi*
When did I mention commandeering a drone?

And, as I said, I don't see where the Awakening suddenly rendered physics null and void. Yes, you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief where magic is concerned, but that doesn't affect scientific reality, IMO. I don't think there is any reason for us to argue the 'realism in a world with magic'. Our perspectives on it are very different, and I doubt they are going to reconcile.

@ Stahlseele

Wait, are you referring to the vehicle test to hold perfectly still that I mentioned? Because what I was thinking is that you'd have to make a vehicle handling test to try to hold the drone perfectly still in the air. I'd apply modifiers due to weather and such, but I'd allow each net hit to reduce the flying/movement penalty by 1 for the shot, then you'd add in the stabilizer from a turret, ending with a minimum penalty to the shot of -1. I wouldn't allow lower than that because it is hovering in the air.




I like this idea. Hiding in plain sight.

Again - you forgot the word 'currently'.

Currently, drones can't even truely operate autonomously on a set of order like they do in Shadowrun.
Any stabilization issues completly pale against the sheer image/sound/etc processing voodoo that allows drones to perceive the real world in shadowrun - and allows them to execute rather complex tasks.


Maybe you really should read your own signature.


The gyro link allows to ignore any modifiers from movement whatsoever completly.

Without it, it is subject to movement modifiers - weather, etc just changes the terrain 'level' in air which in turn changes the movement modifier.


Bloodzilla was killed by the mighty errata.

The beautiful art of engineering... you don´t need an unmoving firing platform at all.

Know the position of your aircraft. Calculate velocities and accelerations. Make gunner select target.

Position the "magic dot" so that calculated movement will carry it on the target. Fire at calculated time.

Now your deviation (which has to mathematically exist, but may well be inconsequential) depends on your ability to calculate your position at the time of firing, not on your ability to keep a flying object still.

No, I didn't forget 'currently' when I asked the question. I was asking you about SR's flying drones because I couldn't remember any off the top of my head that used weapons other than rockets/missiles and firearms with burst/full-auto for long range shooting/shooting on the move, as such weapons do not require even remotely the same amount of stabilization as a sniper rifle would.

As for the gyrolink, we'll, you're right on that one, I hadn't realized that it negated ALL movement penalties, I thought there was a limit to what it could do, my brain was (apparently) tied up with the thought of the most definitely not perfect stabilization we have now that still leaves sizable discrepancies between aim point and impact point. WAY to sizable for sniper work if moving, or even standing still a lot of the time.

Any idea what the MOA would be on something like that in SR? I'm just asking because I'd like it in terms I understand. If it's was more than 1/4 MOA at 600 meters I'd suggest landing the drone anyway.

Actually, burst-weapons using close bursts need more stabilization than a sniper rifle - those weapons quickly have the same ranges as sniper rifles, too.

Of course, the vehicle weapon mount allows to completly ignore recoil - an optional rule reduces this to Body RC provided.

The problem of stabilization is not with movement generated by the drone itself (for example, by vibrations for motors) but by small movements generated by micro air currents. While the drone is able to compensate for them once they begin effecting the drones movement, it's question of how fast and how exactly the drone can correct from small movements. So, you might have no trouble firing at a target a few hundred meters away, but shooting at a target further away might not be possible.

Pulling some numbers out of my ass:
Assuming the very best of (meta)human snipers are able to engage man-sized targets to a maximum range of around 2.4km.
A flying drone might be limited to somewhere between 500 and 900 meters max range using the same base weapon.
and a ground-bound drone could basically match the meta-human's max range.