I have a character with 3 Renraku manservants with AK-97s - do smartguns give +2 dice for drones?

I'm fairly sure they do, but I don't have my books handy to look up a reference for you. Conceptually, they're getting information from an expert system dedicated to targeting just like anyone else is. Why wouldn't they get the bonus?

They only do if their cameras have the Smartlink option. And that would only give them their Sensor +1 dice (for a total of 3), as they're defaulting unless you give them the appropriate Autosoft.

They have one - but isn't it Pilot+Autosoft for shooting?

Yes, if you have commanded the drone to attack it rolls : Pilot + targeting (automatics) with any modifiers, i believe Clearsight is added to this pool as well, ill check for ya.

(edited for spelling)

I was incorrect, it is just pilot+targeting + smartlink or other modifiers.

Sorry, can someone explain why a drone would only get a +1 for a Smartlink instead of a +2? I'm assuming the mounted weapon has a standard smartgun upgrade here.

They get +2 like everyone else... if their Camera hat an Image Linke, a SmartLink and the Gun has a SmartGun.

he was assuming the defaulting modifier in the event you didn't have an autosoft.

although technically, without the autosoft they actually can't even make the attempt (it's in the autosoft description, iirc)

Ahh, I stand corrected.

For the record, it is Pilot + Autosoft +/- Handling + Any other modifiers. You can attempt a Sensor Lockon to add more dice, or the drone could do the standard Take Aim Simple Action to add one dice per Take Aim action, up to a +3 Dicepool total. Another perfectly reasonable option is using a wide burst to decrease the defender's Dicepool.

Okay, firstly, handling is NOT added to vehicle attack tests. (search the BBB for every occurance of the word handling). I know you add handling to REACTION tests to avoid getting hit or detected. I have no idea where you're getting that you add it to attack rolls.


Secondly, I disagree. Drones shouldn't get smartlink bonus. Smartlink bonuses are because you have additional sensors and ballistics software overlaying on your normal field of vision and you're not just using the guns iron sights and mark I eyeball. However, what if anything is an actual gunnery autosoft except a smartlink software in it's own right. (it uses the vehicles sensors, calculates the ballistics and aims the gun...). From that perspective, it doesn't make sense that a vehicle would get smartlink and the gunnery autosoft. I don't know if tha'ts RAW/RAI, but it's a grey area in the rules as best I can tell.

1) I must be confusing rules for Cyborgs, in which they add handling to their agility, and you use agility for firing a weapon. Interestingly, it seems that while cyborgs do in fact have an agility score, they still use Gunnery + Sensors for attack rolls. This is poorly designed.

2) This is how the RAW goes:
You have a drone.
Your drone has a gun.
Your drone has an autosoft for using said gun.
Your drone's gun has a smartgun system.
Your drone has a smartlink camera.
The smartgun system adds +2 dice for using the gun.

If it helps your explanation, the smartlink system is a more specialized and fine-tuned set of information for the targetting computer. It's like a dual-core processor in a computer. Both ballistics systems are working synchronized in order to give much more advanced targetting parameters to the drone.

Which makes a lot of sense, but now wants me to start stacking targeting programs up to the system maximum and add them

That wouldn't work since it is the same program. Try running 5 Internet Explorers (or Firefox or whatever) and try and get them to all go to the same page and see if it works faster. I'd have to look at the rules again to doublecheck the invalidity of this idea, but I'm sure it is in there, and I have to go pick up peoples for my SR game soon, so it'd have to wait.

The reason the autosoft + smartgun would work is because you're using a specific outside program with it's own processing capabilities and networking them together. The autosoft is not simply a smartgun system targetting program, but the smartgun and autosoft compliment each other nicely.

It functions similarly to a medkit with first aid. The medkit is effectively just a nurse helping you remember things, which is why you get the bonus (and the bonus is rated by how good the "nurse" is).

Oh, I know it is not workable RAW or RAI. But it is amusing.

Not quite like a medkit though, or agi+skill+targeting loaded in a cyberarm

actually, smartlink works for drones just like people because it IS an additional sensor that is integrated into the drones normal sensor feed. Remember, every smartlink is a camera.

When an unsmartlinked drone fires a weapon the Pilot identifies a target using the normal sensors and the gunnery autosoft builds a trajectory based on the weapon's factory profile. Then the aiming mechanism points the weapon in what it thinks is the right direction.

So with a smarlinked weapon the Pilot gets feedback from the coaxial sensor so it knows where the weapon is actually pointed, not just where it thinks it pointed it. Plus the smarlink provides another vantage point, creating parallax and improving the aim. Smartlinks do some other ill-defined stuff in their description which IMO includes autocompensation for wind drift or the affect of heat buildup, or recalibrating the aim point on the fly based on past shots so the gun acts like it was just zeroed in.

Laser sights work for drones too, or do you think having a confirmed aim point would give no advantage to an AI?