With the "similar Models" rule you could make a sturdier BOD 21 bus and have 7 Gunmounts.

I'm seeing another problem, here. Though I don't know any rules to confirm that, it is stated in the books that agents have very little to no knowledge of the real world, let alone being able to interfere with it. So having an agent take over your gun turret seems impossible to me. At least, that may be the reason why agents and pilots are listed separately - there seems to be a (somewhat small) difference between them.
This is where I'd make the cut to that discussion.

And that bus of rolling doom is far from subtle. I've seen Mechs constructed for Shadowrun, it's not impossible to sport an army's firepower. A dozen flying drones with LMGs and a tacnet would do, too.

DOOMBUS (Mad AI)
BOD 21
X5 Flexible Guns (90 Degree) Front, Left, Right, Rear, Top (10 Slots) (Mount+Flexible)
Gridguide Modification (1 Slot)
Gridguide override (1 Slot)
Chameleon Coating (2 Slots)
Sensor Dampening 3 (6 Slots)
Regular Armor 42 (1 Slot)
Middle Drone Lifestyle (0 Slots)
Improved Sensor, Firewall, Signal
Improved Pilot Rating: 4 (Guns)
Gunnery Pilots X5 Rating 4

Weapons: Ares heavy MP Laser
Mod: Burst Fire / Full Auto / Smartgun Link (Top mounted)

Chameleon Coating (Hard to see)
Sensor Dampening (-3 removes large vehicle sensor penalty)
Electric Vehicle (-3 Sensor targeting)

It also has Zapper strips, Smoke and oil dispensers.

DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!
The Doombus prowls the city in the night, vaporising bystanders as it zooms past.

Sorry about the above, i had a stroke of insanity

The biggest problem to me is arguing that more than one person/agent can remote control something at the same time without stepping all over each other.

For large vehicles I don't see a problem if systems get segmented. IE: this one is handling EW & sensors, this one is handling this weapon turret, this one is driving the vehicle. More or less no different than a crew served vehicle. But I have issues if you say two different things are using the same gun mount at exactly the same time.

Even with the above... the system doesn't breakdown. Autosofts only run for pilot programs not agents. So an agent is hard pressed to do any drone actions (no clearsight, targetting, or even maneuver autosoft available to them).

You could just repeatedly staple a gun with its own Pilot (which exists as a weapon mod!) to a car until your weapon mounts run out.

As a note to the doombus, I thought the vehicle armor mod only went up to (Body * 2, max 20)?

I've got it. Strap a bunch of smart weapon mounts to a flock or Busy Buddies. Mod them out just a tad and...

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday it's Doombus vs. Roombas!

If you're not there, you'd better be dead! Or in jail!

Brainpiercing, MRSI isn't the same as linked fire, in the sense we meant. It doesn't even work for bullets, right? We're talking about automatics.

Lol. Chameleon coating was errata'd to 1 slot, so what do you want to do with that last slot?

Nice! I was looking for something like that.

Initiative is a mental thing. Since the vehicle doesn't need to think, it would act on its user's initiative.

Umm. . .
The book says:

Drone Initiative
Like any program, the drone’s Pilot acts at digital speeds. Drone
Initiative equals Pilot rating + Response, and they receive two extra
Initiative Passes (three total). When a rigger has jumped into the
drone, it acts on the rigger’s Initiative instead. If a rigger jumps out
of a drone, it acts with the same Initiative Score for the remainder of
the Combat Turn.

SR4A
245

Thanks. I didn't want to look it up. So now we have both RAW and my explanation of the RAW.

more like misrepresentation of raw.

I think I saw some confusion above, so let's recap straight from p245:

• Autonomous drone actions ('issued commands'): drone initiative.
• Remote Control: rigger initiative (AR or VR).
• 'Jumped In': rigger initiative (VR).

That's it. If agents or sprites Issue Commands or Remote Control (if possible), it's no different. Cyborg? Jumped-In. AI? Jumped-In if it's got the Pilot Origin, otherwise not. At no point is anyone getting more than 4 (possibly 5, depending on the GM) IPs, because only one thing can control it at once, and the initiative system doesn't *have* 6 IPs or more.

point two i wonder about tho, as RAW do nott mention the initiative at all in the related section. Both the sections for point 1 and 3 get a initiative mention tho.

It does, though. It says, "a remote controlled drone acts only when it receives commands (ie. on the rigger’s action)."

Based on discussion thus far, I don't see how this is wrong.
User = rigger for both rigging and remote control (this is when you use rigger initiative).
User = drone when drone pilots itself (this is when you use drone initiative).

Yup. That's what I just said, pulled directly from p245. The only other vehicular option is, of course, driving from the driver's seat. But that one's obvious.

Your wording earlier isn't very helpful though. The Pilot really *is* the vehicle, so you could just as well say that it does need to think.

Enough of this.

I demand more doom bus!

Actually, I believe I have a write-up of a highly modified bus of doom/poor man's IFV somewhere in my old files...

Ok, well, I admit I only skimmed the thing, and thought "what madness"....

It works for several FullAuto-Grenade-Launchers though . .

Undiscovered Country, Stahlseele... *shakes Head*


EDIT: Damn, Tanegar got to it first...

Ah, right, country . . the more correct translation . .
i went from the german title, which is Das unentdeckte Land.
Forgot that land means something different than country <.<

@Stahlseele
Not to be rude but unconquered means "nicht erobert".

Yeah, AFAIK 'Das unentdeckte Land' means 'The Undiscovered Country'. It's okay, we don't love you any less.

One of my group got bored and came up with "The latest in mass transportation in the high-threat areas" in making the Luft-Bus. I think we had some slots available still so could probably mount a few external turrets for MGs or something.

If you feel feisty, please post its stats to my threats database. I've mentioned "the gun bus" in our campaign every now and then for SINless living in Redmond or Puyallup, since you can't even take a real bus without a SIN these days, and no real bus would go into those neighborhoods anyway.

He's got it, and I'm busy trying to beat more ShadowSkool out of him.

Except that a drone pilot is not as much mental as computational...

tho i guess one can argue that a brain is also a computer, especially in SR.

I guess the one line just took me by surprise, as it had no justifications for its claim.

I guess so, tho that line is somewhat problematic as it makes it seem that the drone is still doing things on its own, it is just being prodded into action by the rigger.

a simple "all actions take place on the rigger initiative" would have removed the ambiguity, imo.

The line also reinforce the poor naming of the Command program, as it talks about "receives commands" even tho that kind of wording would fit better under "issuing commands" then "remote control".

It makes it seem like it *isn't* doing its own things. It says "acts only on rigger commands", and specifically "on the rigger's action". No, the writing is never really perfect.

Agreed about the Command Program. I assume they didn't want to make the hacker/rigger buy two separate programs (though maybe they should!).

Huh? there is no program involved in giving commands. You do that much like you do with a trained animal.

Oh, duh. I was thinking of Spoofing commands, I guess.

heh, shows how convoluted things can get when it involves drones