So I have been exploring some old threads today and I came up with this potentially game changing idea.

What if there is a Rigger Mage who construct a drone and calls a Spirit to INHABIT THE DRONE?!

Yeah that will take care of spirits mucking around with the drones wouldn't it? Plus that gives each drone Spiritual Powers!

So say you have an army (100+) of such spirit inhabited drones. You wouldn't actually have to control them directly as the inhabited spirits are already controlling those drones. And the spirits can communicate with each other and the PCs via the communication devices inherent in each drone. Thus allowing for the PCs to create an army of intelligent, PC-like soldiers.

I shiver at the mayhem.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're trying too hard.

What if there is a Rigger Mage who construct a drone and calls a Spirit to INHABIT THE DRONE?!

Yeah that will take care of spirits mucking around with the drones wouldn't it? Plus that gives each drone Spiritual Powers!

So say a corp has an army (100+) of such spirit inhabited drones. They wouldn't actually have to control them directly as the inhabited spirits are already controlling those drones. And the spirits can communicate with each other and the Security Riggers via the communication devices inherent in each drone. Thus allowing for the Corps to create an army of intelligent, PC-like soldiers.

I shiver at the mayhem.

FTFY

It's not a new idea. Here are some problems that came up last thread: the spirit can't use any of the technology, so what's the point of using a drone at all? No VR-grade IPs, no guns, no sensors, etc. No comms, which you mention. Might as well just inhabit piles of sand, critters, or people.

As far as I know only free spirits have inhabitation. So you'd have to convince a free spirit to inhabit that drone. And once you do that, well, you have a free spirit inhabiting a drone that probably hates you for making it inhabit that goddamn chunk of metal.

And as per Yera's post, the spirit wouldn't have access to any of the 'ware in the drone. That only applies to metahumans that have paid for 'ware via essence.

It would be easier to spend the cash money on response upgrades and pilot 6 with maneuver 6, targeting 6, and tactical: 3
those drones would have 15 dice for their gunnery checks

Why can't the spirit use any of the technology?

Says here in the spirit guide that "A spirit possessing or inhibiting a vessel can do anything the
vessel can do normally. A car vessel can drive and play the radio,
a toaster can make toast, and a dead body without legs can pull
itself along by its arms."

As long as the spirit can move the drone and fire a gun, which are the normal actions of a drone, why can't the spirit use the drone?

*shrug* I dunno, I'm just reporting from the last thread. Honestly, my group rarely uses spirits, so maybe I was misled.

What skills does the inhabiting spirit use for Gunnery, Piloting, Elec Warfare, etc?

Hmm. There's this:

Says here in the SM, "A new Inhabitation Test is not required for inhabiting
ally spirits, though the conjurer can provide a new vessel and
have the spirit merge with it instead (leaving the old vessel a
discarded husk)."

So it seems that ally spirits do inhabit too.

Now, as I mentioned before, an inhabited spirit would need to use the software in order to move and use the drone. The homunculus doesn't have any software, does it? Yet it moves about just fine

But there would be nothing to prevent spirits from attacking the drones then. The main purpose of this tactic is to defend against spirits and astral attacks.

Per my quote above, it seems like you could move and fire, but no sensors, smartlink, comms, software, etc.

Okay, so you get one AllyDroneSpirit. That's not so bad, but remember what happens if your Ally get ganked.

And I guess you can use the mechanics, but not the software. So no comm devices. You could always have an agent operating those though.

So if a rigger tried to jack an inhabited drone via jumping in, how would that work?

Drones are immune to astral attacks.
You /cannot/ target a drone while astral or from astral space.
Drones also use object rules for resisting spells.
Drones have an object threshhold of 6+ for spells. It's one of the ways to deal with Magicians/Spirits



Sadly I don't have street magic, so I can't figure out what it looks like when a spirit inhabits a drone with a pilot of 6.

You aren't trying hard enough.

Summon a Guardian Spirit with the Heavy Weapons Skill power, stick it inside of a suit of heavy milspec armor.

Get a Lockheed Sparrow with an upgraded Pilot, Fuzzy Logic, and a pile of combat autosofts.

Put commlinks on the heavy weapon, the armor, and the drone, cluster them, and put an AI in charge of the whole mess.

Have a spirit inhabit the armor suit, the drone, and the heavy weapon.

Get a Holocaust Cloak.

Set it all on fire.

Politely ask your Apocalypse Monster to smite your enemies.

There was a thread about that, Johnny B. Good. Some people suggested that the spirit controls the mechanicals and the rigger/Pilot/whatever controls the technologicals; others thought maybe they'd fight over control; others said they could share control based on their IPs (spirits only get 2, riggers get at least 3). You should look up the thread if you want better details, but I can't recall the title.

A what now?

turn in your geek badge at the door, and don't disgrace us with your presence ever again.

Heathen devil worshiping impersonator

Not recognizing a Princess Bride DnD quote!

off with his head!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yokQ0_8__ts Skip to 1:44

Here are the rules for spirits possessing inanimate objects. I will just state the relevant parts.

"If the vessel is inanimate or dead, the spirit’s
Force is added to any appropriate Physical
ratings (at the gamemaster’s discretion). For
instance, a corpse’s attributes would be appropriate,
as would a jar’s Barrier rating, or a vehicle’s
Body, Armor, and Speed—though not it’s
Handling."

"The spirit does not enhance any techor
software-based statistics such as an object’s
Device rating or a vehicle’s Pilot software. While
the spirit may use all of its powers on the physical
plane through such a vessel, it may only
animate it to perform actions the vessel could
otherwise mechanically perform."

"For instance,
a possessed gun would be able to fire or eject
a clip, but would be unable to move by itself or
access its smartgun functions. Likewise, a possessed
bright-red SAAB Fury would be able to
drive itself, but not access GridLink, use a Pilot
program, or target weapons with sensors. As
a rule of thumb, spirits can control mechanical
functions, and not those which require complex
electronic, DNI, or wireless controls."

So mechanical actions are allowed as I previously stated..

Double

I just posted that (prettier, too). You quoted all of my post except the redundant part… bu-wha?

Anyway, to reiterate: move, shoot mechanical guns, but no sensors, comms, etc. Anyway, I was asking what skills the spirit is using for that. I feel like it doesn't necessarily know Gunnery.

Suppose the spirit inhabit the drone for defensive purposes but leave the handling of the movement and weapons to the drone ware?

Thus the drone will still be in charge of the movement and aiming of the weapons. But the Body, Armour, Speed of the drone would be increased. Since it did mention that the physical attributes of the vessel would be enhanced by the force of the spirit.

Inhabited Spirit would focus of defending against spiritual attacks or use its powers to add more attacks of its own or complement the efficiency of the drone.

Hmmm.. I see a two-pronged defense coming up..

Said drone attack mage.
Mage order spirit to attack drone. Mage use fire spell on Drone.
Drone spirit attack Mage spirit. Drone ware dodges out of fire spell.
Drone ware move drone and aim/fire gun.

Or.. a two-pronged offense..

Said drone attack troll.
Drone ware move drone and aim/fire gun.
Drone spirit use fire spell on troll.
Troll becomes bbq troll meat.

You get the idea..

And if the drone gets hacked, then the spirit will take over the mechanical actions of the drone and deny control of the drone to the enemy hacker

I will restate - you are trying too hard. There are plenty of ways to break the game. Spending that much time and energy could be easily spent in other areas breaking the game more easily. Just summon a guardian spirit and give it an HVAR loaded with stick n shock ammo.

What happens if you turn a fleshform spirit into a jarhead drone? Any ideas apart from "the universe implodes"?

It's not clear that an inhabited drone *can* control itself, is it? It certainly seems munchkin-y to claim a Speed boost (for example), and then say that the spirit isn't otherwise involved in movement.

X-Calibur, yes, the game is totally broken. That's no reason to ignore these questions.

It's not a matter of ignore, it's a matter of trying to over convolute readings of rules to allow for things that are already "balanced".

The HVAR is a gun and can't move by itself.

No, the Guardian Spirit *carries* the HVAR.

Then how the heck are you gonna command an army of 100 guardian spirits in a coordinated attack?

The purpose of having such a high number of drones is to cover all angles of fire and you can't do that without communication with each other.

You can interpret it as the spirit enhancing/enpowering the attributes of the drone but leaving command of the drone to the drone ware.

You have the magical power available for 100 Guardian Sprits, and you're worried about *talking*? You can cover all angles of fire with maybe 12 drones, not 100.

No, pattyhulez, you can't: "Likewise, a possessed bright-red SAAB Fury would be able to drive itself, but not access GridLink, use a Pilot program, or target weapons with sensors." The possessed vehicles can't use a Pilot program, or any other complex tech; it doesn't say 'the controlling spirit', but the combined 'the possessed vehicle'.

100 *Free* guardian spirits. That's bloody insane. Even if it was 100 ally spirits, it'd still be bloody insane.

Not mention, if you're even summoning 12 spirits of decent force you're just asking for a thor shot.

6 bullets in a revolver.
Charisma 6.
Now we have the roger rabbit weapon focus.

You ever watch the possessed car movie Christine?

Imagine a human driving that possessed SAAB. Now the spirit inside that possessed SAAB leaves control of the car to the human.

Same thing with spirits and drone ware. You are thinking that when the spirit takes over the drone, it takes over or ASSIMILATES the ware as well which is clearly not the case as the game clearly shows ware and electronics and other high-tech stuff are alien to spirits.

Thus when the spirit takes over the drone, the ware isn't assimilated by the spirit. It is still a functioning piece of equipment.

You infer the term "controlling spirit" from the sentence "The possessed vehicles can't use a Pilot program, or any other complex tech."

In the worst case scenario, take out the cpu which contains the ware before preparing the whole drone for inhabitation. Then after the spirit has taken over the drone, insert the cpu with the ware.

You will have two distinct controlling entities in one drone then. Much like the possessed SAAB with a human driver.

And yes I would worry about "talking". I would wanna end any and all battles with no casualties whatsoever.

Did you know that Sustained critter powers don't cause any modifiers? Engulf a drone and use it like cyberware.

you should read Street Magic matey.. nowhere did it say possessed/inhabited modifiers will be lost after some time..

Inhabitation has a Special duration. Engulf has a Sustained duration. So instead of inhabiting a cyberfreak, the spirit could engulf a drone with skillwires and act like it's skin.

No, I don't. I infer that the possessed vehicle can't use a Pilot program from the line in the book that specifically says it can't. A possessed drone is a possessed vehicle; it specifically can't use a Pilot program.

But the human driver or drone ware can use the Pilot program.

All munchkin stuff aside this does make sense to do if you are from a possession tradition.

Some stuff to consider.
-The possessed drone would have a stun track because spirits have a stun track. After the spirit leaves the drone would no longer have stun damage because drones don't have a stun track, but the spirit would still have the stun damage.
-I don't know if a possessed drone could be destroyed by a mana spell but it would damage the spirit inside for sure and damage modifiers would affect both until they separated.
-For non-humanoid drones and vehicles there are not a lot of applications for using the stat boost that a possession spirit brings. Body gets used for damage resistance, knock down tests, and ramming. Reaction raises initiative. Strength helps for mechanical arms. Agility might help for handling but there are no rules for that.
-It is a little tricky to figure out what gear can be used. Things that are always on stay on. Body stabilization would probably still function, but then again maybe not. Smoke projector would probably work. It is just heating a volatile liquid and is not much different than a gun.
-Object resistance is a big issue. It is a hindrance for the spirit trying to possess something, making possession no sure thing. Also what happens to the object resistance once the drone is possessed. It is a two edged sword either way. Making it more vulnerable to hostile spells makes it less resistant to helpful spells. When possessing a human with image magnification cybereyes: the cybereyes work but the image magnification does not because it is not always on and can't be activated by thought. But if there were voice or physical controls... could they be used?

I probably missed some stuff.

Also just want to point out possessing a vessel is different than inhabiting them. They are two different powers.

No it cant, as the rules state that the vehicle cant use a pilot program.
There's nothing uncertain about that statement.
The rules dont talk about the spirit, they talk about the vehicle as whole.

I hate to say this but I just found this quote in SM.

"Unlike possession spirits, hybrid form
merges can operate a direct neural interface
and the host’s cyberware (if any) continues to
function for the spirit."

"The combined entity retains all of the memories,
abilities, and skills (both Active and
Knowledge) of the host, and its appearance
is virtually indistinguishable from that of the
original vessel. A flesh form spirit is a dualnatured
creature (p. 287, SR4), has Immunity
to Normal Weapons (p. 288, SR4), any of the
vessel’s natural and augmented abilities,"

I guess that settles the part where any of the drone's mechanical/electronic devices can be used by an inhabited spirit.

double

Not really, as stuff that has been paid with essence are part of the natural body as far as magic is conserned.
Drones are a completdly different think,also the inhibition rules seems to be written with the assumption that the spirit is inhibiting a body(living or dead) not a drone, as they make no mention of anthink related to drones.(not trying to say that you cant inhibit drones, just that rules dont mention anythink about it)

And considering that you can only get a spirit with inhibition by creating an ally spirit(or summoning insect spirits) i dont exactly see the plan of getting an army of hybrid merge drones as a valid for a PC.

I think pattyhulez's point was the "Unlike possession spirits" bit.

Meaning that while hybrid merges can do all these things, possession spirits CANNOT.



-karma

Based on this and his other thread, I'm vairly certain that he's under the falce impression that possession and inhibition are the same think.

So, to recap:

1) Possessed vehicles can't use Pilot or any other complex tech; that's *vehicles*, not 'the possessing spirit', so there's no option for a driver or 'drone ware' to do anything.
2) Possession is not Inhabitation, and even Inhabitation can only access *cyberware* in an Essence-paid living creature (not a drone/vehicle).
3) It's incredibly hard to even get Inhabitation-powered spirits.
4) Since someone asked, Possession specifically does not increase Handling. It increases Body, Armor, and Speed. (Apparently not Accel.)
5) Because of these facts, a Possessed drone is almost certainly much less effective than a rigged or even Pilot-controlled drone, in terms of skills, available tech, comms, TacNet, etc.
6) As X-Calibur pointed out, Possession is utterly broken for almost any *other* application.

Sounds about right. The only real advantage to doing this would be the bonus body and immunity to normal weapons. Most other critter powers can be granted from astral. If it is more important that the drone or vehicle simply not break then it would come in handy.

Actually the other advantages would be spirits are not dumb (usually), they are fully sentient, and they can not be hacked.