Just saw this article about the USAF's experimental "X-37B Robot Spaceship" and I thought to myself, "Hey, that sure would make my players wet themselves..." This thing hanging in orbit waiting to drop in and bomb the ass off anyone, anywhere gives a whole new meaning to the term "loiter time".

So how would you stat this bad boy? Would you just use the Nimrod with Extreme Environment Modification or start from scratch?

What factions would have the space infrastructure to support the use of such drones? Obviously Ares (who would have a vested interest in weaponizing the thing), but who else?

Ideas?

Thor shot. That is all.

Hmmm. And what about tactical flexability? Or close air support anywhere in the world on a few minutes notice? Thor shot is an awfully blunt instrument...

Evo likely would too. Maybe Saeder-Krupp.

The advantage would be delivering something specific anywhere in the world intact. The energy required to climb in and out of the gravity well limits payload and efficiency for most platform applications, but you can imagine if a corp or group had something really expensive (in that they can't just make a lot of them), they could store it in high orbit in a drone spacecraft, and deploy it as you like.

It would have to be something less rugged than a bomb, but rugged enough to hang out in high orbit for a while in the drone, or a stealth-ed station. A bio-weapon? Cyberzombies? Some incredibly expensive AI driven combat drones? Magic artifacts you need to deploy, and also keep out of the reach of other magicians most of the time?

I would have it have a bay full of launchable Helmdall drones, to be honest :[]

Reentry would be handwaved for awesome purposes. Some mod or something to compensate maybe hopefully.

There's also that vehicle (for ships I think) only laser weapon that can be fired precisely up to 15 Kms and only because the horizon will not allow for more.

All this is off the top of my head.

...I want to see a street sam squad delivered from orbit by heavily armored drone with the sams in rigger cocoons.

hi hi

Maybe the corporate court could launch disposable fighters from their mass driver, but an ICBM is not a trivial expense so whatever their stats are they'd need to be tough and super deadly to justify the cost.

If I were to base its stats off of any existing vehicle, I'd probably choose the Federated-Boeing Eagle-C as a reference point.

We're getting there.

hi hi

We've been there for over 50 years.

An article from today's New York Times on those weapons.

hi hi

Not all totally awesome unstoppable weapons reach completion. I'm pretty sure most of them get cancelled along the way.

I think cyberzombie delivery system might be the best use for this platform actually. I've never actually run the stats on one, but judging from the literature, a high performance cyberzombie would be worth an orbital boost. I guess the question is, would the magic staples that hold their soul in stand up to the void of space?

But a really, REALLY effective one...

Reentry shielding for the Heimdalls would do the trick. Simple ablative shell that burns away as it enters the atmosphere. Then once it finishes breaking off, the missile fires up its engines.

The main gun laser you mention would have a bitch of a time penetrating the atmosphere. By the time it reached ground, or even a low- to mid-altitude air target, the beam would be just enough to etch your initials onto them. Barely.

But really, a fight between orbitals and down-the-well attackers would have the same issues as undersea warfare across the thermocline layer. If both combatants are above or below the respective barrier, then it's all good. But if they're on opposite sides, good luck with any kind of precision combat. Hence the Thor shot kinetic weapons.

If you take the RAW description of Astral Hazing, then cyberzombies ignore the void of space for their own background count.

...Could we use this thing for anything that isn't killin' folks? Seems a little uncreative, somehow.

"Project Crossbow"

You could use it for popping tons of popcorn at once

You could use it to deploy one shot items (that can be used to aid in killing things). Such as communications satellites in an unstable orbit that give a team comm for a mission but then burn up on re-entry so nothing can be traced.

Ok now this is what I always thought the thor shot in Shadowrun was. Hell, it's even referenced in the wikipedia article.

Quite Simple Really.

Nimrod
Extreme Enviroment Modification – Space
Suncell Modification
Additional Fueltank [Rocket Fuel]

Payload
Ares Heimdall
Extreme Enviromental Mod – Space

Starship troopers (the book), anyone?

And when all you've got is a hammer...