Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Drone Setups
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
klinktastic
Looks like I'm going to be playing a rigger. However, I don't know much about drones and how to tool up drones. I guess I don't know what you can actually put on drones and what you can't. If anyone has some templates or custom drones, I'd love to see them. Be wary, I might jack the designs. But at minimum, I will give me some ideas of what you can do.

My first stab at a recon drone is this:

Lockheed Optic-X
Camera w/ vision enhance 3, thermo, low-light, vision mag
Directional Mic w/ audio enhance 3, select sound filter 3
Motion Sensor w/ vision enhance 3, low-light, vision mag

I'm not sure if I should upgrade any of the software.

Idk, let me know if I'm in the right direction or if I'm making a crap drone. There's a lot of upgrades, not really sure what they all do.

Thanks for any help you can provide. I appreciate it!
Neraph
First off, Motion Sensors can't take visual upgrades as they aren't visual sensors.

Personally I'd choose the C-D Dalmation since it can hover. Interesting that I don't have any drones in my Gear file...

If you have access to Arsenal you should look at the vehicle and drone upgrades from there. If not, you're missing out on a lot of versatility.

Let me know what books you have available and what exactly you're looking to do.
Whipstitch
I wouldn't worry too much about a lot of the upgrades, since many of them are pretty situational or aimed more at vehicles than drones. There's also something to be said for keeping your drones cheap and expendable.

Both the Dalmatian and the Optic-X are pretty good. The dalmatian has limited hover but the Optic-X still has Improved Takeoff 2 and is smaller so while it can't just sit outside somebody's window for a while it can still get around pretty well. Both are pretty situational advantages and basically depend on GM fiat. I kinda like the Optic-X just because you could give it a Chameleon Coating for 2k nuyen if you wanted to.


Anyway, as long as we're on the subject of vehicle and drone mods, most of my favorites are the cheap ones that are also nice, practical and familiar (and thus easy for the GM to adlib rulings on.) For example, I'll take stuff like Ejection Seats,* Anti-Theft Systems, Vehicle Tag Erasers, Manual Control Override and Smoke Projectors over more expensive/esoteric upgrades like Nanomaintenance or Missile Defense Systems and a laser turret.

*The rules are fuzzy on that kinda thing, but I'd rather eject early and pray the GM is nice to me than Hand of God and pray the GM believes that seat belts can save you from anti-vehicle missles.
Shin

If you are not going to be riding your drone, you'll want to get the clearsight autosoft. Drone sensor (perception) test = Sensor Rating + Clear Sight
SleepIncarnate
Cheap and expendable he says, drones are usually my biggest nuyen dump on any tech character, more so than lifestyles and vehicles just about, depending on how many I buy, but it doesn't take much.
Doc Byte
Drones are some kind of a mess. Technically speaking this configuration's very hard to pilot as it lacks a means for determining distances to obstacles (laser rangefinder) and the ground (barometer / altimeter). According to RAW one doesn't get a singel fight controll sensor for free (speaking of slots).
KarmaInferno
My personal favorite "general use" drone is the Ford LEBD-1.

Free weapon mount and mechanical arm, matrix ratings at 4 since it's a 'security' device, has flight capability. What's not to like?

Kit it out with Chameleon Coat and some extra armor. Maybe a Re-trans Unit so it can extend your control range. You can trick the mechanical arm out with some Cyberlimb mods too.



-k
Whipstitch
QUOTE (SleepIncarnate @ Oct 17 2010, 10:57 AM) *
Cheap and expendable he says, drones are usually my biggest nuyen dump on any tech character, more so than lifestyles and vehicles just about, depending on how many I buy, but it doesn't take much.


Man, I think I've had like, 9 drones for 60k nuyen before. What are you doing? Coating Steel Lynxes in ruthenium?
Neraph
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Oct 17 2010, 10:04 AM) *
You can trick the mechanical arm out with some Cyberlimb mods too.

Just to clarify that's O-RAW. Most people run it though.

But I was mainly trying to see what the character concept is. A rigger that uses one super-drone to jump into and use as a high combat form is played differently than one that takes his meat to the field and has drones on stand-by. It sounds like he's trying to do the latter, in which case he'll have to sink cash into his drones so they can function autonomously and not like run into glass doors or follow someone home from school or something stupid.
Whipstitch
Yeah, that is a fairly important distinction. I tend to build my transportation more along the "super-drone" lines and everything else I tend to mod fairly lightly. Losing a steel lynx is expensive, after all, but at least you won't be sitting in it if it blows up. Anyway, LEBD-1s are some of my favorite drones, but mostly because you really don't have to mod them very much. Some more Armor, a couple good Autosofts and maybe Fuzzy Logic (goes nicely with the arm) but that'd be about it.
SleepIncarnate
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Oct 17 2010, 10:21 AM) *
Man, I think I've had like, 9 drones for 60k nuyen before. What are you doing? Coating Steel Lynxes in ruthenium?


Dobermans with LMGs and all autosofts. The steel lynx is my ride spin.gif But when you add in roto drones, minidrones, microdrones, etc etc, unless you're a heavily augmented character (i.e. trying to be a sammy as well), drones quickly surpass your vehicle, wares, and even link for costs unless you're REALLY tricking out that ride. It's even more so if you're a TM and don't need the special link and wares.
Whipstitch
Yeah, I don't think I ever went with more than 2 purely combat drones, although that was actually a pretty decent amount of firepower considering that I backed them up with a trio of LEBD-1s that would help with recon. I kinda figured more would do more harm than good. For one thing, I'm not sure people realize how big Steel Lynx in particular are. I know table top games have gotten people used to fighting in amusingly large courtyards and office buildings, but in the games I run a Steel Lynx is often going to be put to best use in a highway battle.
SleepIncarnate
Hence why I use doberman drones, usually one with 2 roto drones, but sometimes I mix it up. Granted, I tend more towards the hacker route than the rigger, but it never hurts to have some drones on hand, if only to help out the squishy hacker in combat.
Whipstitch
Yeah, using Doberman drones instead would certainly help, since Steel Lynx are wheeled and a bit bigger than people. I've played in games before where I had to repress my inner snark as 5 runners had a shoot out with 7 security guards and 6 Steel Lynx (which, are you know, wheeled) drones in what was described as a small cubicle farm in a building that apparently only had one elevator. wacko.gif

I mean, I didn't really mind, per se. It's just if I had known we were playing it that way I would have brought my van to the fight.
Yerameyahu
Was it on the ground floor?
Whipstitch
Of course not. That would have come dangerously close to making sense. I guess they kept the Lynx in a closet somewhere with the staples. I just figure if you're going to roll like that then you should go all the way. We coulda drove out through the side of the building from several floors up and made Baracus look like a wussy.
Neraph
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Oct 17 2010, 09:48 PM) *
Of course not. That would have come dangerously close to making sense. I guess they kept the Lynx in a closet somewhere with the staples.

Wait, that's not where you keep yours?

I'm waiting for the game that I get to use a Nimrod, which is effectively the Eagle-C of the drone world.

My most used drone though, for jumping into or using autonomously, has to be the Renraku Manservant-III. I just absolutely love those guys.
Whipstitch
I know you're not really asking, but I do tend to favor the dispatch station approach to rigged security forces, at least for scary drones that pack LMGs. There isn't much reason why an ambulance station style garage couldn't provide backup to good sized radius. Otherwise I favor rail drones, weasel perimeter drones and a few big nasty Lynx in the parking garage.

You know, unless you're in a pink mohawk game and thought crashing MCT zero zone or SK-Prime was a good idea. If that ever happens it'll be drop bears and ringu from hell to breakfast.
Neraph
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Oct 17 2010, 11:03 PM) *
... from hell to breakfast.

Didn't you know that they don't serve breakfast in hell? (~44 seconds in)
klinktastic
I'm thinking of starting with 3 primary drones each with a specific niche.

1. Arial Recon Drone - Something that can stream real time tactical feeds to my and my teams HUDs. Low light, thermal, etc are obviously going to be important. Probably equip it with some sort of radar and other sensor equipments.

2. Arial Support Drone - This drone would carry out two primary functions. First would be E-WAR. ECM and other such gear could be used to support ground forces. Second, would be some sort of heavy weapon. I'm thinking a grenade launcher filled with smoke, frag, and HE with ammo skip and airburst link. That way, I could provide tactical cover (smoke), anti personnel (frag), or anti armor (HE) on demand.

3. Ground Support Drone - This would be your standard doberman style ground and pounder. LMG with some decent armor, it allows you to provide mobile suppression fire and some tanking for the ground combat team.

This sounds like it would cover most of the main niches. Maybe a few mini drones that the ground team can use to check hallways and what not as well.

Do these three set ups sound good? Or should I spread out ECM, Recon, and Support? What would be key activesofts and additional gear for each of these drones?
Fauxknight
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Oct 17 2010, 12:21 PM) *
Man, I think I've had like, 9 drones for 60k nuyen before. What are you doing? Coating Steel Lynxes in ruthenium?


The big costs are usually from improving the response/signal and pilot, and then buying all relevent autosofts (particularly if you don't use Unwired to get pirated software). If you stick more to off the shelf drones with just an armor or weapon mod here and there and maybe only 1 relevant autosoft then they're significantly cheapaer.
Neraph
Man, now I want to play Skynet.

You people are bad.
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Oct 17 2010, 06:20 PM) *
For one thing, I'm not sure people realize how big Steel Lynx in particular are. I know table top games have gotten people used to fighting in amusingly large courtyards and office buildings, but in the games I run a Steel Lynx is often going to be put to best use in a highway battle.


Yeah, they got clipped pretty hard once they changed the weapon mount rules so that they couldn't take reinforced or double mounts. That used to be the Lynx's thing. It was a drone tank the size of a sofa that could mount a rocket launcher or 12.7mm autocannon. If you rolled out a Lynx, it was HEAVY.

You know what? I really disagree with the neutering of large drones. For instance, the Nimrod comes with two weapon mounts standard, and it really wouldn't have the versatility of function that it needs without them both. I think that the Lynx should either come with a flexible turret mount and a fixed forward mount or just a fixed reinforced mount. (Or, the standard turret mount that it comes with doesn't count towards the max mounts for mod rules..) The thing is supposed to be a rolling weapons platform. Let it be one again.
Yerameyahu
*shrug* It's already as fast as a motorcycle, lots of armor, and a turret. For almost no cost.
KarmaInferno
QUOTE (Saint Sithney @ Oct 19 2010, 12:34 PM) *
Yeah, they got clipped pretty hard once they changed the weapon mount rules so that they couldn't take reinforced or double mounts. That used to be the Lynx's thing. It was a drone tank the size of a sofa that could mount a rocket launcher or 12.7mm autocannon. If you rolled out a Lynx, it was HEAVY.


The amusing thing, of course, is that a medium size Otomo CAN mount a Reinforced mount...

I have the sudden urge to create an NPC named "Gunhead" now.



-k
Yerameyahu
Yeah, the body/size/weapons rules don't make any sense: in same cases, they're too restrictive, while they're much too loose in others.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012