Hello. I am new to the Shadowrun universe, and this is my second character made. So, if you would be so kind and tell me things that I missed in his creation. I was seeking to create a Rigger who has a good ride and is also competent with drones, while being semi useful in other things beside that. I am not seeking a very powerful character, more like a Jack of many trades.

needs moar contacts.

You probably want to replace the AK-97s on your combat drone with a belt-feed weapons. Only belt-feed weapons get access to the 250 round ammo bin that comes free with every weapon mount. Drones don't take recoil, so you needn't worry. You're using Arsenal, so go for the cheapest LMG you can find.

Instead of a pair of dissimilar combat drones, trying using a pair of Dobermans with Gecko Tips and extra armour. You save one locomotion type (2x Anthroform instead of Ground + Aerial) and they can go near enough anywhere as makes no difference. They are also significantly quieter than a Rotodrone, and small enough to fit in tighter spaces than Steel Lynxes. Having two drones with the same loadout gives you backup in case one breaks. If possible, have more.

I'd seriously advocate dropping Pilot Aircraft alongside the aforementioned switch to Dobermans. Those skill points should be going to your main Pilot skill or Gunnery. Your Fly Spy will have more than enough dice to throw for piloting just off Pilot + Autosoft, and there's no point investing 12 BP in a using 3 BP drone better.

I recall that Wired Reflexes and Reaction Enhancers do not stack due to the "initiative enhancers" line, though it seems that this is debated.

You don't have Autosofts. You want Autosofts.

You might as well get your Common programs at Rating 6 with Ergonomic + Optimised (1).

The Fly Spy is blind for spotting Metahumans as is. You want Autosofts and Sensor 6 to have even a reasonable chance of spotting obvious things (accounting for the -3 Gimp Drones penalty, and the -2 Not in Immediate Vicinity penalty). You can drop the Kanmushi once you have the Fly Spy up and running. The Microtapper is a niche application that you can probably get included in the budget of any run you need one for.

Try a cheaper vehicle, like the Rover 2068. A Drone Rack is not all that important and the Valkyrie module is easily replaced by a high rating Medkit. Even if no one has the First Aid skill.

Cybercombat is for chumps, just Encrypt and Data Bomb your Drones. Run them in Hidden Mode. Load them up with a high rating Firewall as well.

You don't have any Watercraft, don't take Pilot Watercraft.

In practice, an eye-in-the-sky really ain't that useful. The Stormcloud is slow, visible, and tracable. If you need an overhead view you can use your Fly Spy, or just get up on a tall building with a good camera.

The Ferret appears to have no purpose since you have a spy drone already. Get rid of it, or give it a use through mods.

As per 4A they do


Gimp Drones penalty?


A sure it's visible, otherwise people could not see the billboards it carries


Full ACK to the ammo belts and drone types however. The Steel Lynx and other heavyweights always seemed to large to me, unless you want to enter some AA's headquarters through the front door.

Rather than refer to it as a Signature modifier, I just call it the Gimp Drones penalty. It's more memorable that way.

k, thanks

Thanks for the replies.

So how to improve a sensor rating of a drone? I'm not sure where to find those rules. I know you can upgrade signal and response like a commlink, just never found when and how to upgrade a drones sensors.

Ok Ill balance my skills a bit more. Lower the Pilot Aircraft to rank 1. That should save me some points. However we are in a location near water so all piloting skills might be needed. As I figured I have a high edge so can use that in a emergency. That is also why I don't like to lose any skill I have there.

The DocWagon Ambulance vehicle is expensive but it is also a part of my characters backstory; and as I understand it might be a good idea for a getaway car from a hot scene be a Doc Wagon ambulance.

As for the eye in the sky blimp, I was thinking of keeping it at around 2 km height. It might not work for corp territory, but for low level runs it can be good. Good idea on the panels, I was actually thinking of putting a chameleon coating on the thing and make it look like a cloud or something, but this is even better.

Will lose the lynx, the rotodrone, the ferret and the microtapper. That should leave me enough to buy the dobermans. My idea was to be jumped in to one drone, and for the other to use suppressive fire when it sees enemy contacts.

Any other ideas?

Every sensor has a rating and the drone's sensor rating is the average of all installed sensors (unless you are using a specific one).
For example the Fly-Spy is a minidrone, which gives it a sensor capacity of 3. Install an R6 camera (600 ), microphone (300 ) and radio scanner (150 ) and you've got a sensor rating 6 for 1050


Well...what are those wired reflexes for?

Probably in case the poor guy has to do some face-to-face work, I would guess. The build is supposed to be a bit of a generalist, right?

Ahh thanks a lot. That will help soup up those Dobermans. Yes he is supposed to be a generalist, a edgemonkey if you will.

Also it makes little sense that the Improved Sensor Package is actually a downgrade, as you have to install more expensive stuff to keep a higher sensor rating. On the stormcloud for example, I put 3 cameras for orientation only, and have 2 special cameras for spying. Guess those ordinary cameras hurt me. So do you think a DM would allow me to treat the Stormcloud to have a sensor rating of 6 when spying with those special cameras?


Wired Reflexes are for the boost to reaction mainly. The extra IP certainly doesn't hurt, and should help when I decide to command drones via AR, and if he has to personally get involved in combat.

As for the Autosofts/ Pilots, Im pretty maxed out on my nuyen budget. I could probably juggle some things around, but what would you recommend as your top picks? I take it they are more useful later, when you have a lot of drones and can't jump from one to the other as needed.

There's an important rule that you may not have been aware of (the Vehicle Combat section is kinda hidden).



Maneuver, Targetting, Clearsight are the three main necessary Autosofts, and both of the first two are subdivided based on the type of locomotion/weapon they apply to. This is why I remarked that replacing the two different Combat Drones with a pair of similar Combat Drones is a sensible idea.

Thanks for pointing that out.
The Dobermans come with Targeting 3 and Clearsight 3 autosofts. I took it I can pick for which weapon the targeting autosoft applies?

I will pick up a maneuver autosofts for my drones though.

That's completely RAW, see the Sensors section in the Gear chapter (and common sense;))


I always consider wired reflexes too much of an investment for chars that don't have combat as main profession, but if you have other preferences don't be discouraged.

I presume you can. Though, you could argue both that the Targetting soft that comes with Dobermans is useless, and that it applies universally. All of those interpretations has the same evidential basis in the rules text so far as I can tell.