Ok, most of the content in Runners Black Book was kinda meh, but then I see this one "Obsolete" Drone in the "This Old Drone" section called the Ares Air-Supply and this thing is all sorts of wrong.

For starters, I feel guilty for wanting to pick it up for my Technomancer but it's clearly worth the value. But here's where the responsible player/GM in me comes around to beat me upside the head...

Sometimes the art doesn't accurately portray the stats or write up for the drone sometimes but GOOD GOD this thing is huge! Look at the mounted mini-gun in front then compare it to the rest of the mass of the drone. Did the writers just make a new size category for Drones and forgot to tell everyone about it?!

Normally I wasn't even aware Drones could go past Body 4, I thought anything bigger and that's when you move into Vehicle territory, but with a Body 6 (if this isn't a typo), you can upgrade this VTOL Drone to have an 18 Armor.... 18! Most Military Drones can't even get past 12!

Now, this is primarily a Re-Supply Transport Drone that has tons of cargo space so my question at this point is, why would you ever need to buy a Plane or a Helicopter if this Drone could seat you for transport? Most flying vehicles easily break the 100,000 Nuyen price point so while this drone is only 8,500!!! I mean unless your Shadowrunners demand to travel in comfort and style (Which at this point, you should probably have a Luxury Lifestyle if your runner is this picky) why is this series not still in mass production by Ares? Better yet, why isn't in vastly popular amongst Smugglers and Riggers alike?

I mean, this Drones stats and write up literally make no sense in terms with fitting into the Shadowrun universe on an economic, rules, or statistic level at all. Is their an addendum or errata that was released saying "Oh yeah, we forgot 2 digits off the price point" or "Yeah the Body was suppose to be a 4" I mean high-body Drones give you the opportunity to push Armor ratings WAY up and being that it's only 8,500 there's no reason why every Rigger doesn't have at least 2 or 3 of these at their garage.

Why is it not in mass production by Ares?

Their other lines weren't selling well enough, and have a better cost/profit ratio.

Also, "Tons of cargo space" is still "Supply a platoon with ammo and food for a week" or thereabouts (That's what I figure, at least.). Grunts out there want to shout out on how much that is?

Even so, yeah, it's priced a bit low, methinks.

Well ok, let me clarify there's a ton of cargo space for a DRONE, that makes it easily accessible to be a 1-2 passenger flying transport... Priced at 8,500

At some point, 'drone' doesn't really mean 'drone' anymore. The drone body definitions really only apply to the groundcraft we're familiar with, and especially not to autonomous cargo aircraft. It'd obviously be a 'vehicle' that just happens to have no cockpit.

But yes, it's clearly a total error. Shock!

Well, easy enough to find out. Figure out who the author is and duct tape him to a chair until he confesses his thoughts.

Food and Ammo for a platoon for a week?

Figure a case of MRE's is 1 cubic foot and 20 lbs... 40 men to a platoon...
840 meals per week, 12 per case makes it 70 cases of MREs, filling 70 cubic feet and weighing in at 1400lbs.

Ammo is a much bigger question, are we talking small arms, HMG, MK-19 grenade launchers, mortars? And just how heavy is the fighting...

1k rounds of 5.56 comes in around 26lbs
100 round belt of 7.62 is 7lbs, 1k rounds comes to ~70 lbs
100 rounds of .50 is 35lbs
and it just gets heavier from there.

Say a standard mobile unit in the field (It's not like you'd be able to air-drop supplies to a firebase under siege!), one man per fire unit (squad?) having a M203 and another having a M240/M249 if I recall correctly. It's been a REALLY long time since I looked that up, and my sources were all civilian books, so I could be BADLY mistaken.

Still, that's a LOT of cargo... Yeah, someone didn't think this one through, methinks.

That said, I want five!

Just FYI, but like the rest of RBB (each individual PDF and the extra stuff), it's Peter M. Andrew, our e-book line dev. I'm not sure what his DS or SR4 forums name is, off the top of my head.

Thanks Critias! We'll let him know who ratted him out while he struggles against the tape!

I was thinking more along the lines of "shoot him a note and ask," and less along the lines of "tape him to something and beat it out of him," or whatever it is you've got planned. That said, it's just a Canadian making the plan, so I think he's fine.

Hey! We're the Masters of Duct Tape. Nothing is beyond our sticky talents. Have you never watched Red Green?

I don't think its too bad. Its basically like a slightly bigger Kull airdrop supply drone from Arsenal.


If its toned down to body 4, is it really so broken?




I would point out that Rigger Cocoons fit on any drone with body 3 or 4. Its no more broken than putting one on an Dalmation.

.... LOL, dude, a Rigger Cocoon on a Dalmatian is "Ignore the cocoon, shoot the Drone itself and then when it's disabled, go get the blowtorch."
Being IN a Drone that can sustain a beating is a much different story, especially when Vehicle/Drone armor ignored any DV that doesn't even pass it's Armor Rating

If the Air-Supply was Body 4 then obviously it'd be much more balanced.... But as it is in the book, it ain't

Just because a rigger cocoon 'fits on something' doesn't make it okay.

Body 6 is an issue, but it's in conjunction with that price, and the (apparently?) huge size.

I was thinking something more along the lines of doing it appropriate to Shadowrun. Get someone to dress up as an Ork, someone else as an Elf, find a Dwarf, and there you go.

The next April Fool's Movie.

When I think of a rigger cocoon on a medium drone, I think of this.

"On" being the operative word, rather than "in".




-k

Yeah, except it's more like a strong large duffel bag.

I don't know if the art was changed in the print version of RBB, but the image shown for the Air Supply in the .pdf version of This Old Drone is a re-hash of a drone from SR2/3, which was called the Aeroquip Redball Express (not sure why the name change).

Anyway I always pictured the Redball as approximately the size of a small car. While large enough to carry a meta-human the design might preclude that in the same way as a human can fit in a wheelbarrow but a wheelbarrow isn't an effective means of transportation. Maybe the storage space isn't amenable to human passengers (multiple small cargo compartments or one compartment that's too narrow or shallow). Sure you might be able to squeeze in, but its not going to be a comfortable ride.

Plus the real question is whether the cargo compartments are pressurized or environmentally controlled. You could of course upgrade the thing with Living Amenities or a Rigger Cocoon, but as is I would say the thing just isn't designed to carry meta-human passengers.

You could just rig it while sitting gecko-gripped on top of it's hull.*





-k

* - I may or may not have done this in Missions.

Yeah, Method, you'd think a cargo supply drone would just have a rack for attaching multiple small (even air-droppable) containers. For foot and ammo, there'd be no reason to deal with the engineering constraints of making it a flying truck.

I was going to suggest perhaps the department isn't pressurized or environmentally controlled and lacks a bathroom and other functions which would be required for a human occupant.

Assuming they don't have to go to the bathroom on the run, one or two guys wearing life-support gear could probably be transported in the drone in a pinch, although they'd be uncomfortable.

I can see the drones being used to get a couple of HALO jumper operatives over their target area. They'd already be wearing gear to operate unprotected in high altitude environments. You'd probably want to stealth up the drone a bit for that, though.




-k

Both of which are easily ignored.

For the first problem: "Bundle up and grab an oxygen tank, we're going to be in the air for two hours out and two hours back."
For the second problem: "Why didn't you go before we left?"

I wouldn't say that's 'easily ignored', just because it can be dealt with.

Congratulations, you just figured out the problem with using one stat as a catchall for a vehicle's size, survivability, and modifiability

What about the drone having the actual lifting capability to take off with a metahuman passenger?

RFID Tagged Balloon with a ring on it, and some poor schmoe attached at the other end in a straightjacket?

Yup, Xahn, carrying capacity is another tidbit we lost from SR3 (IIRC?). I guess the game uses something like Body=Strength for vehicles (at least, for vehicle robot arms), but that seems very rough (for the same reasons Sengir just mentioned).

I remember some rule somewhere saying that Body/2 was Passenger capacity? Or was it Body/3 or 4?

Sounds sort of familiar, but that's still just a rule of thumb (one which doesn't really work for most cars, either), and wouldn't apply at all to drones.

The Otomo has a bod of 6 and is a medium drone.

Large drones are bod 4 and are "the size of a motorcycle or small car" while motorcycles and even the smallest cars have far more body.


Bots are weird.



If anything is really problematic I'd say it's that there's no distinction between armor for groundcraft and aircraft.

It seems more appropriate to have 3x body for wheeled drones and 2x body for flying drones while passenger vehicles should be 2x body for ground craft and 1x body for aircraft.

I use Arsenal, p102 as a guideline, and thus would allow an "Ares Air-Supply" [or Aeroquip Redball Express, (Rigger 2, p101, and Rigger 3, p177, which lists the "Ares Air Supply" as a Similar Model)] to carry passengers. The Lockheed Sparrow [Arsenal, p112] has a Body of 4 and manages it okay.

'Potentially could' carry an adult (but not a troll).

Still, we'd all be happier with actual rules, instead of incredible vagueness.

I guess we should find Peter's info and try to get the info out of him before I pull out the duct tape...

*Sighs*

I would say it's probably not that big. If you're judging its size on the "minigun" mounted to the front of it, take ease: the original art in Rigger 2 is much bigger, and whatever that thing might be, it's certainly not a minigun. So now we're left only with Body to go on for size.


There's no hard limit, nor even a soft limit. The distinction between drone and vehicle has always been tenuous, but rest assured size plays no part in it. [Technically, in SR4, "The key difference that sets drones apart from ordinary vehicles is that they are intended to be independent units, either acting autonomously or controlled remotely by the rigger." But, as they say, "Nearly any kind of vehicle—matchbox-sized cars, miniature rotorcraft, ground patrol vehicles the size of a large dog, even modified sports cars—may serve as drones." SR4a, p244.] In truth, in SR4, any modern vehicle is [or can be] a "drone," inasmuch as it can be remote-controlled and act autonomously, so a drone with a Body of 6 is no big deal; a very light jet with a body of 18 can be a drone, too.


The Body rating of the Ares Air Supply [This Old Drone, p7] is a 6, yes, but that's the same Body rating as the Moonlight Aerospace Phoenix, a "powered glider," [Arsenal, p112], and the Indian Pathfinder [Arsenal, p107], a racing hog. So the Air Supply probably isn't intended to be very large; yes, I would say its hold could probably fit a metahuman, sure, but remember that a Very Light Jet like the Piper Brat [Arsenal, p113] has a Body of 18; an actual transport, like the Hawker Ridley Skytrain [Arsenal, p113], has a Body of 30!


The Kull [Arsenal, p120] is 10,000, and comparing the stats, and factoring in Obsolescent, 8,500 for the Air Supply is not completely absurd, but other valuations would also be reasonable.

I'm not sure if your looking at the artwork from "This Old Drone" or the artwork from "The Runners Black Book" but they're different, and in RBB, unless you can mount itty bitty tinny paintball guns onto a drones, your judgement of scale is a bit skewed to put it lightly.

As for comparing it to the Kull, if you don't think having the opportunity to mount 18 Vehicle Armor onto a Drone is absurd while costing only a fraction of the price most military grade Drones go for, then theirs probably not much rationalizing I can do for ya to help show ya that this seems broken.

Besides, the Kull is *also* too cheap. Many things are, in the books.

Ah, no. I'm looking in This Old Drone. My advice, with Shadowrun vehicles, is to go stats first, then description, then art. The art very often doesn't have anything at all to do with the vehicle the rules or text describe, I'm afraid. If it were my table, I'd base my assessment of its size roughly on its Body, and not on weapons size in artwork; if nothing else, the fact that two books have different artwork for the same vehicle should speak to the utility of that measure! [Or maybe it's a very small minigun.]


Well, let's assume I'm not beyond the reach of reason just yet. As I said, I think other valuations would be reasonable: what would you suggest? We have the Kull on one hand to compare it to - keeping in mind the differences in stats and Std Upgrades - but that's only one point. You seem keen on comparisons with military craft whose armor can't be as high: did you have any of those you feel are a particularly powerful comparison to the Air Supply, which we might use to calibrate the price to? Or were you thinking perhaps to ordinate the price from first principles based on its utility, irrespective of any pre-existing valuations? [Like, "SR4 pricing is whack, so let's not even start there?"]

I was thinking of just adding another "0" to the cost

Sounds good to me. Aircraft simply aren't cheap, not cheaper than cars.

Regarding price, as someone (3278) mentioned, in Rigger 3 (pg 177), there are stats for the "Redball Express" with a Similar Model listing for the Ares Air-Supply. Body was only 3, with 16cf and 155kg load, but the cost was 80,500 . Either the age gives you a 90% discount or the cost is indeed missing a 0.

Pretty small load, too. Meaning, reasonable. Good old Rigger 3.

Good reference! Thanks for the find

DO you really want to know why this drone is sized, built, & specc'd the way it is??? This drone is to make sure "you're never all out of..."

.... Huh?

Look at the name of the drone, name of the band, name of the song, conversation about how much the drone can carry...etc, etc.

Hehe. It's the first thing I thought of when I read the OP.

Thank you. It was also the 1st thing that popped into my head when I saw the OP topic. I guess my joke is a rather dated one.

I'm more for this kind of hauling.

That's like the devaluation of laser weapons, except without the logic that it's no longer cutting edge tech. In fact it's the opposite logic, specifically that it's obsolete (well, obsolescent) tech. Not the same kind of devaluation, but it's kinda similar.

If I had to think of a reason, I'd say the end of the Chicago quarantine. No more food drops means that Ares has a whole lot of these things sitting in storage.