Hi everyone,

I am currently playing a drone rigger with a heavy creation element. But I find myself feeling limited by the game not having any actual drone creation rules. All I can do in the game is modify previously created drones. I was wondering if anyone has ever made a "from scratch drone creation" rule set for SR4.

The mod rules seem very basic and I really enjoy getting into this type of thing a little deeper when playing characters like Riggers.

I was also wondering if anyone out there has ever made a dedicated drone character sheet or record sheet. I have seen really nice setups for guns with lots of mod slots and the like as well as vehicles. But nothing that really seems to match the kind of needs a combat drone would have for information.

Thanks for any help you guys might have on these topics.

There aren't any rules for it in SR4 to my knowledge. They were always kind of a waste, though, as all they really ever did was open the game up to abuse. I mean, very few players ever seemed to make well-balanced vehicles or drones using those rules. It was always some kind of super James Bond sports car or a drone that could single-handedly eliminate all opposition with ease.

The rules in Arsenal cover most of the options you had in previous editions anyway. The only thing you can't do is build a custom design from scratch, but there's very few core designs that don't exist in the SR4 handbooks. Especially if you consider biodrones, emotitoys and all the other myriad options available. So taking one of those and customizing it should be enough for most any requirements. Just find something that's close to what you want, give it a new label, describe it how you want, and modify it until you get something close to what you want.

As for a custom sheet, I haven't made one yet myself. I do make my own character sheets from scratch, though, so I might try putting something together later today. Usually just listing the modifications under the vehicle or drone has been sufficient for my needs. But I can see where it would be handy.

Building a drone from scratch particularly a large combat drone would be like building a car from scratch. A shadowrunner just isn't going to have the necessary manufacturing plant necessary to actually build a whole new drone. Even if they did it probably wouldn't be worth the time either. Drone creation rules would be like asking for car creation rules. And even if you got them you'd have to run them by your GM.

With the various modifications available from both the main book and Arsenal(do you have the Arsenal book?) you can modify a drone to the point that it has completely different stats then the original. Remember many vehicle modifications can be done to drones and vice a versa. You could in theory modify a Steel Lynx with a hover conversion.

yea, I have both books and there are many options for modding a drone. However, unless I am missing some key part of modding, it seems like its somewhat limited. To use the given example a Lynx drone has only 8 available slots for modding. This seems like a pretty heavy limitation to me, if I am missing some key part of this process please let me know

as for the creation rules being kind of unnecessary, I get that but for me its just fun to design these kind of things from scratch. Even if for example my character just made the design and then took it to a trusted drone manufacturer. I just think it is fun to start from scratch with these things and build up.

it is possible to modify beyond the capacity at the GM's descretion. of course it could lead to functionality problems

Then modify a Aries Citymaster for your heavy combat drone. The bigger the body the bigger the size.

I thought a Steel Lynx (heavy drone, body 4) only has 4 slots for modification, not 8. According to Arsenal:
"Vehicles have a slot maximum value of 4 or their Body Attribute, whichever is higher. Firearms have a slot maximum value of 6."

Was this errata'ed? I didn't see it in the errata.

Oi Chums,

Does any one remember the nightmare of the magic numbers in Rigger 2 for 3rd Ed. Those rules sucked. You would come up with a basic design and go through all the number crunching and end up with a vehicle that would cost like 2mil. Not worth the time and effort.

You're not alone. I also lament the absence of vehicle creation rules. I haven't attempted to produce one for SR4, although I've thought a lot about it. Unfortunately, it's one of those projects that would be a lot of work for something that ultimately would never be anything more than a house rule your own group - and maybe a few others - would use.


Sounds like either the rules weren't written properly - and we all know there are cases in which that was true! - or there's some sort of problem with your players. Vehicle creation rules are, for many groups, very useful. Gartic clearly finds them to be so, as do I. The fact that some players abused them doesn't make them a waste, although it does indicate the rules should be more carefully calibrated to prevent such abuse.

Or don't play with people who only want to create vehicles to make up for their tiny penises.


There are many core designs which have no SR4 equivalent, including vehicles previously a part of the game. This absence is what makes the lack of vehicle creation rules so troubling: you're told to simply modify existing vehicles, but in many cases, no template is available. The solution, of course, is to simply invent something [and take it to the GM, if you're a player], but this can hardly be considered an improvement on the previous version: abuse is precisely as possible - if not more so! - and design is now arbitrary, with no common framework for sharing vehicles between groups, or for balancing vehicles between published materials and group-designed ones.


Definitely true. However, there are two cases for which this does not apply:

1. When the vehicle has been created by an existing manufacturer. The player isn't looking to build a new vehicle from scratch, only to purchase one on the market with these particular attributes. The GM can certainly rule certain vehicles just don't see production, and invalidate certain designs based on that alone. But in this case, although the player creates a vehicle, his character just buys one from the dealership.

2. When the vehicle is a hobby-scale production. Many people genuinely do build their own drones and full-size vehicles "from scratch," usually from an assembly of prefabricated parts. In Shadowrun, small-scale fabrication of basic parts is even more prevalent than today, meaning you can do more than build your own flimsy model airplane, or hand-welded frame buggy, you can, in theory, build yourself something nearly professional-quality in capability and finish, presuming you've provided professional-quality design.

I recently made a drone rigger and had great success using DamienKnight's character sheet, carefully selecting ranges of cells and printing only the selection. I used selections from the Vehicle tab to make my vehicle sheets, but there's a dedicated portion of the sheet set aside for vehicles, as well, which is pretty useful.

I've got a draft, but I'm not sure I covered the sensors correctly. When I've got that sorted I'll post it somewhere. (I've actually been working on rewriting the lot of the character sheets, I don't like the basic version at all. None of those boxes are big enough for a specialist in a field. My solution is a basic sheet with extra sheets for particular character types.)

I have completed a character sheet for Drones. I have one blank spot that I didn't filly because I feel like I am missing a stat for the computer brain of the drone (response, system, signal and I think there is one more, but can't remember)

So I hope you guys like it.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MQRF9GQH

Also this is editable and has a couple of formulas for somethings so good luck

Firewall.

Also 'ECCM' rating, if it has an ECCM autosoft to reduce/break through jamming. It's one of those ubiquitous autosofts, like Clearsight, Targeting and Covert Ops.

Just a thought.

I have updated the file. Hopefully this one will have everything properly. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TR04CKJ0

You're probably gonna hate me for this, but...

1. You might want to group the stats at the top in a bit more of a logical way... Meaning; drone stats, "brain" stats, and Autosofts.

Example: three vertical columns of five.
1st column, Drone stats: Body, Acceleration (Accel, which you forgot), Speed, Handling, Sensor.
2nd column, CPU stats: System, Pilot, Response, Firewall, Signal.
3rd column, ubiquitous Autosofts: Targeting, Defense (which you have two of on your sheet, top and bottom of the second column), Clearsight, Maneuver, Covert Ops.

2. Add a "Sensor Notes" area above Armor for those times when you need to know what sensors you have, such as when detecting an invisible mage with Ultrasound or Radar.

3. I know I told you to put ECCM up with the others, but...

Add an Electronic Warfare entry above Armor, but below the "Sensor Notes". Electronic Warfare is one of your available Autosofts (see P. 225, 227, and 240 of SR4, sorry, don't know the pages in SR4A if that's what you're using), but it needs it's own area, so you can note the ECM and ECCM with it. A derived version of Signal + ECCM is also a good idea to quickly note the drone's effective Signal when being jammed.
EW is the Autosoft.
ECM is the rating of a jammer if there is one on board.
ECCM is a hacking program (filter) that allows you to filter out jamming signals.

To use ECM and ECCM you need an EW Autosoft so putting them together makes sense. I'd do it like so:

| EW- Autosoft rating# | ECM- Jammer rating# | ECCM- Program rating# | Signal vs. ECM- derived Signal+ECCM# |
|Notes: *for the type of jammer; directional, area, smart, etc. And, if you're using a Non-standard Wireless Link (Unwired P. 196), or not.*

But, it's your call.

4. You need multiple values for your rigger's Initiative and IPs;

AR- Meat speed, the rigger's meat world Initiative and IPs which is used when working the Matrix through an AR interface.
Cold Sim VR- Normal VR.
Hot Sim VR- When using a commlink modified for Hot Sim.

For details see P. 228 SR4.

Add these entries with your rigger data on the right, either as six blanks to be filled by the user (three for IPs, and three for Initiatives), that auto-fill to the rigging modes; or as just AR and VR slots that the sheet calculates and then auto-fills (it would have to use the VR initiative and IPs twice each, with Cold Sim modifiers for one, and Hot Sim modifiers for the other). Your choice.

Move IPs down to the right of the Rigging mode (Jumped In, Auto, Remote), because they can be different for each mode.

The Drone IPs (Auto) should be set to a permanent three, because that's what it always is. "Auto" Initiative is fine as you have it.

Remote IPs can be AR (the rigger's normal meat IPs) or either of the VRs (Hot or Cold Sim, the two possible Matrix IPs), and all three need to be shown, along with the AR, Hot Sim and Cold Sim Initiatives.

Jumped In is VR only, so show Cold and Hot Sim IPs and Initiatives.

5. Add a 4 or 5 line "Subscriptions" field down with your "Modifications, Weapons, Autosofts" fields, because a drone can be subscribed to multiple riggers, or sent off unsubscribed after getting orders. It can also be subscribed to other drones so they can work together, as well as subscribed to a TacNet (Tactical AR Software, Unwired, P. 124) or Telematics Infrastructure (Unwired, P. 62). So, keeping track of what a drone is subscribed to is kinda important.

6. Don't take all this as criticism, I like your sheet and I'm trying to help. Get it all set and I'll probably use it. I know fuck-all about Excel, so, I can't check your formulas, you'll have to do that yourself, sorry. If I seem kinda picky, I'm sorry, Riggers just happen to be my favorite.

Cheers.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. The other way is that the creation rules allows the GM to create more mass produced vehicles/drones beyond the ones in the books. If you're talking about building it up from scratch, sure that is unreasonable....

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A combination of Ares Citymasters and zeppelins (highest body vehicle between Arsenal and SR4) should give you a decent fleet of drones for modification slots. Not sure on the cost....

This is awesome. Thanks for all the input here, I am going to attempt to get this worked into the sheet as quickly as possible. Though I am going to have to read up on a couple of the things you mentioned there, hopefully I will have a new one to you guys by the end of the day

Thanks again for the post.

No problem. I'm sure I'm missing something, but, I don't know what.

BTW, you should pick a different download hosting site. THe one you're using has malware in it's advertisements and annoying pop-up adverts with intentionally backwards design to make them hard to get rid of. Just a thought.