I remember reading in various forums that drones do not suffer from recoil penalties, as well as the reference to it in arsenal (pg. 105), however I can find no reference to it in either the fourth edition core book or the 20th anniversary book. Can anyone point me to a reference?

Chances are there are no such references in the core books, 4th or 4a. I've skimmed through SR4a and cannot find anything.

However, Arsenal expands upon and clarifies some of the vehicle/weapon options and all, while the SR4a is largely a reprint of the previous core book (with some modifications to the core game rules). Probably why you can't find it outside of the Arsenal book. Dig around some more between the two, and I'm sure you'll find some of the contradicting rules; err on the side of Arsenal.

And do note too that Arsenal page 105 does say a GM can impose a recoil penalty if the weapon is rather large and the drone rather small (such as an LMG on full auto mounted on a small drone), including the drone's body as additional recoil compensation (representing the drone's mass).

Drones are vehicles, and the rules for vehicle recoil apply to them. That being said, as SpellBinder pointed out, there is nothing (that I was able to find, anyways) in either version of the base rulebook (SR4 or SR4A) that states that vehicles follow different rules than people. Arsenal notes on page 105 that "Theoretically, vehicle weapons mounted in a weapon mount do not suffer negative recoil modifiers" but suggests that you should assume that a vehicle has recoil compensation equal to its Body.

EDIT:

In re-reading SpellBinder's post, I see that I've essentially said the same thing. Long story short: whatever recoil rules you choose to apply to vehicles should, by RAW, apply to drones as well.

that's not entirely true rumanchu

you've got the quote about vehicle mounted weapons would normally not suffer recoil modifiers, but it doesn't go on to say you should assume recoil comp equal to its body... it lists an optional rule of using that for small and medium sized drones... since it makes sense that a van or bus or even a heavy ass low center of gravity steel lynx, wouldn't have any issues with full auto... but it doesn't really hold up that say a doberman or even smaller drone would be able to do the same, then use the body rule for them... that's the gyst of it anyways

it's in arsenal tho, so you can read through it yourself

I personally like the Body=RC optional rule. A sports car gets 10 free points of RC, before you start modding the weapon, so rolling full-auto, HV, or a minigun starts to look very possible. Bigger rides, especially military vehicles, can usually write off recoil entirely. On the other hand, if you want to mount a minigun to a robot the size of a dog, you're going to have to maybe brace it or something.

I've seen some heated threads about this, and I figure the other side knows something about weapon mounts that I don't...but my Roto-drones and I'll take my 3 free points of RC cheerfully.

Well, my friends and I are about to start our first game of Shadowrun (using SR4a) (We've played lots of DnD 3.5)
The only one of us who has played SR at all is going to be the GM (he played SR3 once)
As it's our first game, he doesn't want to use anything that isn't in the core book, he wants to keep it simpler.
I have pretty much decider to play a rigger technomancer, this prompted me to try to find where it said they don't suffer recoil (I lurk a lot on forums for games I play)

Real world examples provide a good reference for this rule as well. A minigun mounted on a Hummer can empty it's entire ammo bin while not budging an inch from recoil. The Ma Deuce is the equivalent of a Shadowrun HMG and it gets mounted on even smaller vehicles like old Jeeps and modern LAVs.

But there's a good reason you never see them on motorcycles, and when they are mounted on simple tripods they require sandbags or other means of anchoring to keep them from jumping around. This is why I like the Body = Recoil Compensation optional rule.

Uh, you see, while in DnD you can get by with only the core book set (while I'd still suggest otherwise), it's not that true for SR. I really advise using the rest of the books, at least the Arsenal-Street Magic-Augmentation trio. There are some complicated mechanics there, true, but a lot of awesome options, too, and the GM can always prohibit the things he doesn't like.
And failing to admit rules given in the books other than the core book is just...weird.


That's...actually, quite far from being true. Otherwise, you wouldn't see all those gyroscopic and recoil dampener mounts and all that. Sure, it's less likely to tear your arms off and fly away, but the barrel still keeps dancing like mad if you have it on a simple non-stabilized mount and shoot long bursts.

An HMG like the M2 requires a double-sized reinforced mount to operate. That's pretty serious. Like "tank turret" serious. If you wanted to slap a structurally-reinforced tank turret on a motorcycle, I suppose you could. I just can't for the life of me figure out how.

Not sure where you get that information from... It is not all that "Serious"... especially NOT Tank Turret Serious... saying that (or even implying that) makes it pretty plain that you have apparently never seen one up close, let alone fired one... (though I could be wrong about that, but teh at is what it sounds like)... Yes, the M2 requires a somewhat heavy tripod, but once it is bagged, you can fire the M2 with an uncanny degree of accuracy, expecially if you have had some training... they are routinely mounted on vehicles with Ring Mounts, which is a far cry from a Tank Turret...

Keep the Faith

But you've got the added mass of the sandbags on the tripod feet (AFAIK not accounted for in SR4a or Arsenal RAW), or the mass of the vehicle like the HMMWV (chosen because most all of us have seen pics with a guy standing up with a machine gun) to aid in the recoil compensation. A lot more weight and stability than your typical metahuman.

Drones and vehicle mounted firearms suffering from recoil is largely subjective, and GMs should take the power of the firearm and the weight of the vehicle/drone into consideration. A Doberman drone with an SMG mounted in the turret probably won't suffer any recoil at all, though it might with anything larger. A Thundercloud Morgan with any kind of LMG probably won't at all (Body 8 for suggested RC from its mass, plus any RC the firearm might have).

just a quick note...

if we're all playing by the rules and dont have a problem with a tripod giving 6 points of recoil comp then you shouldn't really have a problem saying most anything with 3-4 points of ground contact and atleast a couple feet across should give AT LEAST the same, probably more since they're probably a much heavier base than a tripod...

so I dont see it as a big problem to say most crawler / wheeled drones medium size + dont suffer RC mods

anything smaller (or a walker drone) I'd say use the body as RC mod

if you wanted to really be a stickler about it I could possibly see reason behind saying med crawler drones like a doberman, only negate RC when standing still, since in order to move they have to use / loose some of their stability granting legs... although doing this I'd think is more bookkeeping than it's worth since most med drones would likely still have atleast 3-4 body which means that with weapon mods like gas vent and such you're likely to still end up with 0 RC

I can see the old thread is heating up again. Can anybody find a page number for the OP he can point to proving vehicles don't suffer recoil? I think that was his question.

Fatum covered this pretty well, but I wanted to back him up - My first character is a Rigger, and it was pretty much not a playable class without Arsenal. Riggers get *maybe* five pages in the main book, and the info on building drones and vehicles is sparse. It wouldn't be a dealkiller, but most of the drones in the core book aren't even armed. With Arsenal, you can cook up some very effective drones, with armor, complex sensor suites, and custom weapons. In the core book you get four combat drone models, and no mod options beyond mounting a weapon to them. It's pretty complex - I'll see if I can find my Drone Builder Cheatsheet for you. Still...Arsenal is critical for a Rigger.

Nothing in the core rule book about vehicle countering recoil for vehicle mounted weapons. It's all in Arsenal. Not in SR4 or SR4A.

I was talking about in game

A regular mount tops out at LMG, so to mount an HMG, you'd need a reinforced mount. When you consider that you can mount GM Heavy Cannon on such a mount, a little thing like a .50 cal seems hardly the issue.

Yeah... Perhaps... Sorry for the implications then...

Keep the Faith

I can think of 1 drone which doesn't quite follow the rule.

Smart Firing Platform is a drone in tripod form w/ a heavy weapon mount. Tripods have 8 points RC by the book IIRC, though granted it has no movement systems to make up for it outside the servoes to aim the gun in a limited arc.