What's a good mix of combat drones for a rigger on a budget? Ferrets make good spotters, with plenty of space for extra goodies. The Steel Lynx is good for heavy fire support; the crimson samurai starts with max armor and has better handling, but the lynx is considerably cheaper (even when you upgrade its armor). Those are my initial impressions; I don't have the patience to slog through all the different options when I'm sure there are plenty of informed, opinionated people right here. Thoughts?

My personal fav is the Dobermann.
It has good armour, handling, a turret and its a walker. Which means it can climb stairs

And its smaller than the Lynx so you can get it into places where the lynx won't go.

The Doberman is also a Medium Drone so it can use Gecko Tips for more fun.

My suggestion is to not mix your Drones at all. Pick one propulsion mode, and one Firearm Skill. Specialise in that. For each extra type of Drone/Gun you support in your loadout you could buy yourself a whole new Drone.

Who's bothering with any Firearms skill at all, unless it's a secondary skill for self defense? Gunnery is all sorts of win for riggers!

Unless, of course, you mean choose your specialization in Gunnery and stick with that, which would make good sense.

Aside from that, I actually like armored-up MCT Roto-Drones. They can mount the same guns as everything else, and there's almost nowhere they -can't- go. My rigger has two of those for general use, and two Steel Lynxes for when things get heavy. Though after reading this thread, I'm considering replacing the Lynxes with Dobermans for the extra utility and the go-anywhere-ness of them.

Autosofts, dude. There's one Targeting Autosoft for each skill you can use to fire a weapon. That's what I meant when I said "Firearms Skill".

What the point in paying for Gunnery when you can get a Skillsoft for it? Skillwires are cheap, and there's no rule that prevents you using chipped skills for Rigging so far as I can tell.

Roto-Drones are too noisy for a game about stealth in my opinion.

Doesn't matter what drone, really. Put a gun on them capable of suppressive fire and have them fire away.

Autosofts don't help at all if you're jumped in, but agree that focusing on one or two types of weapons for the drones that you don't plan on directly controlling is a good idea.

I prefer actually having the Gunnery skill over Skillwires, but I agree that it's an efficient enough option. Other thing about skillwires, though, is that you can't specialize with them, if I remember correctly, so you're potentially giving up a couple of dice there.

Didn't see anything in the OP about stealth... only about combat drones. Don't make the Rotos your only option, obviously, but they shouldn't be overlooked as combat tools.
If you meant that Shadowrun as a whole is a game about stealth... well, that varies from table to table.

Suppressive fire lets the targets roll Edge in addition to everything else. You only benefit if there are a number of targets close together. Otherwise, you should abuse the fact that Drones don't take Recoil and throw down a trio of short narrow bursts against the same target for maximum average damage.

I am a cheesewhore.



Hitting the target with your other Drones isn't help? You are employing the Buddy System with your Drones, right?

Unaware enemies don't get Defense rolls. That's worth at least an extra point of damage in the average case. Anyone who tells you that Stealth is not a Combat Skill is tragically misled.

But, Shadowrun is a game about stealth since you don't get anything for shooting people pointlessly. You lose money for shooting people, in fact, so it's best to avoid situations where you end up shooting people unless you really need to do it.

I agree that Nissan has really nailed the market with the versatility of their Roto drone and their Doberman. A must for any rigger.

"Defender has defended against previous attacks" + wide burst if necessary + narrow burst + narrow burst ad infinitum. Win.

Probably a Stormcloud or a Tower for long-term survilance or stuff. Fit them with chameleon-coating and disguise them as ad-blimps...

Does the Doberman use pilot ground or pilot anthroform? I've seen convincing arguments for both.

Couple of thoughts.

First, not every run, campaign, or indeed every game (game being defined as "the way that group there plays at their table), is about stealth.

Then, there's simple situational consideration. If you're tracking a mark with a small rotodrone in downtown Seattle, outdoors, in a public area, your drone is just another drone, unless its obviously out of place. That's where knowing the area of operation comes in. For example, if you're rigging a LEBD-1, who is going to know it's you and not LS?

Per Arsenal it has walker-mode. This means it has legs. So you have to use pilot anthroform, probably specialized for quadruped.

This is blatantly NOT the case - read the entry for Walker Mode in Arsenal - it can represent independent treads designed to handle stairs, etc...

EDIT: Rule in question -

Well, Its still walker mode, so you use anthroform. Also, it does have legs since its described as a "perimeter-patrol crawler drone" and if you have the original SR4 corebook on hand, I believe there is a picture of one on the top left of 342. I'm not sure about the picture though, I've never found any sort of confirmation.

If you need to deploy armored combat drones the time for stealth is already gone. Its like wanting a stealthy tank platoon. Besides, you can cover from hundreds of meters out.

personally, i'm a fan of the sentinel. just attach it onto another drone to turn the combined drone into one that has an action for moving, and an action for shooting in each IP (special equipment: rail track... alternately, it's arguably possible to mount them on a tower drone's launch rack, turning it into a rather scary gunship, though at that point you're obviously not going to have a ton of manueverability)

the GMC chariot has the advantage of having a concealed turret as opposed to an obvious one. this makes it potentially a lot easier to bring along with you to some locations. in the event that having any combat drone at all is better than no combat drone, it can really shine.

the LEBD-1 is really cheap, flies, has a weapon mount, includes an arm, 2 sets of handcuffs (and presumably the ability to use them) and presumably some kind of shock-hand type weapon that isn't statted out (it does mention it can zap people, maybe call it a DV 3S electrical attack? only available to people in the handcuffs). plus, since it's designed to do your paperwork, you can rent it out in your spare time to fill out tax returns

They really need to be more clear about which drones are associated with which piloting skills. I'm not seeing any pictures of the Doberman, and the term 'crawler', to my mind, most commonly describes tracked vehicles. *shrug* I don't know - without official clarification, this would seem to be a murky issue, at best.

ummm... you do realise that the object that string is attached to is a carabiner, and is likely not more than 3-4 inches long (assuming it's a large one, that is...)

that's the kanmushi in that picture, if anything.

Which is, in turn, explicitly stated to be a four-legged crawler, which further enforces my interpretation of 'crawler' as generally meaning a tracked vehicle. Else there are no tracked drones in the core, right?

Drones v. piloting skills is a really confusing situation, given the vague descriptions for most drones. The only ones that are really clear are aircraft (because that's a wide piloting skill - anything that flies, but not in space) and skimmer (because that's really narrow - if it's a skimmer, it's a skimmer).

Add on that the Lynx is said to have "four wheeled legs". Okay, are those articulated legs with wheels on the end, such that to go up and down stairs is brakes/locks the wheels and walks?

That's how I run it, but "official" answer seekers have a bit of a point that it's a problem, even if it's a very easily solved one.

Dunno... there are pictures floating around of the Steel Lynx (that we know are the Steel Lynx) and it looks like the legs aren't articulated. They're hinged where they meet the body such that the body can rise and lower in order to take advantage of cover and still be able to shoot over it.

As such, I've always ruled that it uses Pilot: Ground Craft, but it's also a prime candidate for the Walker Mode, since it already has legs - they just need a bit of modification.

I haven't spent a lot of time with the art, so I just go by descriptions. Trying to nail down art to what it supposedly depicts has always been a fool's endeavor when it comes to Shadowrun.

You could make an army of Bust-A-Move Chuckies. Or a bunch of anthroform robot child suicide bombers. For added creepiness, have them plead that they don't want to die when they get shot/are about to detonate.

But seriously, the Roto-drone's got speed, space and it flies. Not to mention being 1k cheaper than the Ferret to boot. Get a fistful of them, customize to taste, then add a sound system and play Ride of the Valkyries as you send them in.

THIS is kinda cool...
I think i'll try it

You need to put suppressors on the machine guns to get best effect.