Hey all,

We have a sniper who wants drone support. He's an adept and wants nothing to do with essence-loss. How does he command drones? (Poorly, yuk yuk. We know. Seriously though.)

What equipment does he need and how does he use it?

Thanks,

Thorguild

haha, um.

How much does he know about the matrix in general? Hackers? Riggers? how programs work at all?

Not a lot.

Commlink with a Command program, and a good Signal rating.

For a sniper especially, I would recommend an LTA drone like the Renraku Stormcloud, to loiter overhead and give a birds-eye view of the "battlefield". Kit it out with Chameleon coating, Additional Fuel Tank, Improved Economy, and spoof chips - it should be able to stay airborn for 24 hours or more, and go relatively unnoticed. That costs 8,350

Meanwhile, he can run just a R1 Tactical Network (he and his overhead drone being the only members of the net); that costs only 3000 (6,000 brings him up to R2, and he can invite more people to join, giving everyone a small bonus).

And finally, he can run Tactical Satellite Mapping, which costs 4,000 - which automatically creates and updates a map of the tactical situation in real-time, interfacing with the tactical network.

I've actually also been building a sniper type (just for the giggles of it). And what he also has (in addition to the advice above), is a few LoneStar iBalls (with gecko tips, chameleon skin, fuzzy logic, and extra fuel tank). They can roll along unobtrusively to scout ahead (and I mean, roll along on the ceiling - and most people don't look UP all that often). They can also be parked somewhere to watch a door, window, hallway, etc - IOW, to watch his back while he does the hyper-focussed "sniper thing".

If the player wasn't planning on buying a super-duper commlink, they could consider one of the guns with a built-in. My for-fun build went with a Shiawase Arms Tactical Model 69 (requiring the "Restricted Gear" quality), with an integral silencer, pesonalised grip, metahuman customisation (dwarf), and chameleon coating ... plus the standard electronic firing, integral smartlink, bipod, and reduced weight). Loaded with subsonic ammunition, the whole ensemble imposes a -9 to Perception checks to detect it's even been fired, and more importantly, to localise where the gun was fired FROM.

Plus it comes with an integral commlink, the Shiawase Electronics Fatal Light (stats: 5-5-5-5).

The only drawback? Base price of 23,500 (plus 1,600 for the mods I listed, and then more money for the ammunition too ...)

...

Random realization: is this character for your son, and the online game with Speed?

I'm a fan of the Offensive iBall myself, but there's a potential rules snag with moving them: Arsenal adds the limited maneuverability mod. You can remove standard mods, but don't get any slots back with it - fortunately, its easy to remove that mod and put the wheels back on, so to speak.

I'm currently a fan of Dragonfly drones, using an Underbarrel Weapon mod to put a small gun(it needs to be roughly the same size as the existing weapon, so roughly hand grenade sized), and running an Improved Sensor array. If you upgrade the camera to 6 and move the Ultrasound sensor it comes with (that's why it's so expensive, the devs included it in the cost, but didn't bother to stat out its sensors) to the new camera, its actually really really really nice out of the box with only minor tweaks.

.... hmmm, I missed that, and HeroLab isn't ncluding the Limited Maneuverability mod at all. Well, consider it removed, and not so much "add wheels", but give it the ability to roll along under it's own power. It is a ball after all. Ah well, I'd remove it regardless - and happily refund the 4 extra slots, as I wasn't using them anyway..

Right on, Chummer

I'm going to pass this along to him, whole cloth, and see what he says.

Thorguild

Well, then, let me throw a PDF of the sniper I was playing with up on the Drive, and share it with you. Then you and he can poke through it for inspiration and ideas if you like.

EDIT: there, uploaded right into your own folder: "Thorin.pdf". Enjoy.

Most important thing to remember is that Riggers like all Matrix specialists don't really need high Attributes, as most of their actions will be Skill + Program.

There are only two significant Essence-cost implants that are Rigger specific, the Vehicle Control Rig and the Simsense Booster. Neither of which are essential to the role. The latter can be replicated by other means, and the former is a Dice Pool boost that is nice but you can live without it.

Get a Commlink with Optimization (Command) and eventually Simsense Booster. You're going to want to Remote Control the vehicles, rather than Jumping In, as most Adept boosts don't work in VR. Get the highest ratings for everything that you can afford. Nonstandard wireless links and laser or microwave communications can make it harder for enemy hackers to hijack your vehicles remotely.

A TacNet can be good as well, especially when he's sniping and his drones are on their own in autonomous mode. The drones will need good Clearsight, Maneuver, and Targeting autosofts.

As an Adept, consider Improved Ability (Gunnery). Unless your GM houserules it to be a Combat Skill, it qualifies for the cheaper non-combat point cost. Improved Ability (Pilot) is nice too.

The Codeslinger (Control Device) quality is also nifty to have. Mystic adepts have even more options via sustained spells, like Improved Reflexes and Analyse Device.



-k

Darn it. You guys are making me think that MY character should have drones too.

Thanks for all this info, folks. I'm understanding it a lot better.

Thorguild

I use a couple of fly spys and a ferret for my "sniper". The Fly Spys are for recon. I chose them over the Stormcloud because I do up close recon as well and the smaller Fly Spy is more suited to those tasks. Through modification, I have a "stealthy" Thundercloud Morgan with a couple of launch pads for those Fly Spys. The Ferret is explicitly to function as "watchdog" for when I'm separated from the rest of the team. I wanted to use the realistic bird drone for that purpose in order use audible bird calls for warning but I couldn't justify wasting 50,000 on the chassis. Sometimes style has to take a backseat to function.

My "sniper" is also a perception monster (17 perception check in meatspace with 20 hearing and 22 visual [Yes, that means in full darkness as a human I still get 16 dice when rolling a visual perception check.]) so the drones are definitely more suited as multiple perspective generators rather than making up for a deficiency in perception.

We're also playing a much more high powered game (~1000 karma) than what would be considered standard as well as certain houserules regarding gear, gear constraints for starting characters so I also had a bit more nuyen and karma to play around with than 250,000 (I'm using 468,000) though I think what I've chosen to do can be done much more efficiently and cheaper by mixing in more cyberware. We're also, IMO, somewhat abusing the pirated programs rule by having the costs of one legit copy spread among each character. My sniper, also has a lot more invested into software and programs and commlinks (35,300) than the person that fills the hacking role (31,700) mostly thanks to my mook and autosofts.

In return for your Peter Gabriel reference, some advice.

As Karma said, you really don't need attributes to command-rig, just gear and skills. Your buddy may not have/want (not sure if he is in-play or still in creation) all the skills; the major ones are Perception, Infiltration, Gunnery, and Pilot Aircraft (you can default on Pilot Groundcraft). He probably has the first two but might not have the latter two and would need to buy them to use drone-mounted weapons and anything that flies, respectively.

The other option would be to just use autonomous drones.

Since he's an adept of the ~~MY HOLISTIC WELL-BEING~~ persuasion, he won't really have much to do with money past a few guns which aren't nearly as expensive as 'ware. So a secondary role as a rigger isn't a bad one.

The big purchases would be a commlink with a good Response, Optimization:Command, a Command program (at least 6, using Optimization if needed, and upgrading to 10 if that's allowed in this campaign asap), and security. Since he's not a hacker, security will mean Firewall 6, Analyze 6, and at least one agent with the setting of "spam analyze on everything and QQ to me/our group's hacker if it isn't supposed to be there."

Here's some good example support drones; you can easily swap the weaponry around as needed.

Note there's a bit of a clusterfuffle about how drone sensors and tacnets work. You may need to remove some senses from the drone itself and bolt them onto the drone's exterior as microsensors or whatever. If anyone wants to discuss this, please start a new thread and don't turn this into tacnets and drones argument #673.

Command-riggable:

This one is a handy drone because it flies, is stealthy, is only R not F, and has hands. The Sandler TMP is used because it is super cheap, but if you want longer range you can use a battle rifle instead. You really do want a HV-capable weapon, though, for the full bursts.

Flying Gun-drone 15260
Ford LEBD-1 (4500)
For the purposes of Tacnets, the Ford LEBD-1 has 8 senses: Vision [Camera], Low-Light Vision [Camera], Thermographic Vision [Camera], Smartlink [Camera and Gun], Hearing [Microphone], Spatial Recognizer [Microphone], Laser Rangefinder, Motion Sensor
Armor 9 (1800) (5/shop+5/shop, 6R)
Sandler TMP (350) with HV mod (700) (30/Facility, 8R), Drum mod (1000) (16/Facility, 6R), Smartgun mod (350) (8/shop, 6R)
120 Stick-n-Shock (960) (5R)
Chameleon Coating (3000) (10/Facility, 12R)
Camera 4 (400)
Vision Enhancement 3 (300)
Low-light Vision (100)
Smartlink (500)
Camera 6 (600)
Thermographic (100)
Vision Magnification (100)
Microphone 6 (300)
Spatial Recognizer (100)
Audio Enhancement 3 (300)
Laser Rangefinder (100)
Motion Sensor (50)

Autonomous:
Autonomous Flying Gun-drone 22260
Ford LEBD-1 (4500)
For the purposes of Tacnets, the Ford LEBD-1 has 8 senses: Vision [Camera], Low-Light Vision [Camera], Thermographic Vision [Camera], Smartlink [Camera and Gun], Hearing [Microphone], Spatial Recognizer [Microphone], Laser Rangefinder, Motion Sensor
Armor 9 (1800) (5/shop+5/shop, 6R)
Sandler TMP (350) with HV mod (700) (30/Facility, 8R), Drum mod (1000) (16/Facility, 6R), Smartgun mod (350) (8/shop, 6R)
120 Stick-n-Shock (960) (5R)
Camera 4 (400)
Vision Enhancement 3 (300)
Low-light Vision (100)
Smartlink (500)
Camera 6 (600)
Thermographic (100)
Vision Magnification (100)
Microphone 6 (300)
Spatial Recognizer (100)
Audio Enhancement 3 (300)
Laser Rangefinder (100)
Motion Sensor (50)
Autosofts: Targeting 4, Clearsight 3, Defense 3, Manuever 3, Adaptability 3

Lockheed Arachnes are actually pretty good right off the rack. This is because they are ridiculously cost-efficient and come with a weapon mount, great handling, and autosofts. At most, you need to upgrade their sensors for a tacnet and then slap on a weapon. You can't start with one and they are high availability, but with the low cost you can even afford to overpay your contacts to find them and still come out ahead if it comes to that.

If there's a use to which you can put one, then it's never wrong to have a drone or two (and a Command program to control it with).

For example: my hacker-adept for that game, Grave, has one of those iBalls (not the offensive model, IIRC) - with a retransmitter unit, instead of the improved economy. It can roll merrily along (I'm considering the "limited mobility" to be REMOVED, so the ball can roll under it's own power), concealed, along walls, floors, ceilings, whatever's there .... both to scout ahead, and to bridge "mutual signal range" gaps between Grave and ahacking target. Especially for the latter reason, in fact.






The one I played with is more a shooter-monster than a perception monster. 21 dice with that rifle, shooting from the hip with no Take Aim counted in. His perception is "only" 9 dice, so he does in fact rely more on his drones for watching his backside. OTOH, 14 dice for infiltration, and the inevitable chameleon suit, so he's pretty good about sneaking in and out of shooting positions. (Every one of his drones is also chameleon-coated, as are both his guns - the Shiawase 69 for long range quiet work, and an Enfield AS7 shotgun for loud up close work).


Yeah, my "just for fun" builds are all 1K Karma, too.


Hahaha ...!! Your hacker only spent 32K on his 'link and software?!? Good grief; my hacker-adept spent 92,300 on his 'link and programs, without any houserules increasing the limit of what could or couldn't be spent. O_O He's got a Battle Buddy Basic 5-5-5-5 'link with Armor 5, Hardening 5, Hot sim module, a biometric lock (print scanner, electro-shocker, and anti-tamper circuits 4), skinlink, and a standard passkey system (yes, I went that far!). And absolute TONS of programs at R5, too. Four of them Ergonomic (Analyze, Stealth, Encrypt, and Armor), too.

1000 karma is ludicrous.

My dice pool with a battle rifle is 21 assuming I have the benefit of a R1 Tacnet and the bonus from Synch. I do prefer the battle rifle over sniper rifle. It lacks the sensitivity of the sniper rifle and you gain burst fire if you choose one of the 7P/-1AP models rather than a 7P/-2AP model. Depending on the sniper rifle you compare it against, you may not be losing that much. Plus the range of the sniper rifle isn't so hot. However, Hawkeye levels them out quite a bit. When dealing with Hawkeyed Battle rifle @ 200(0)/500(-1)/750(-3) vs 250(0)/500(-1)/750(-3)/1500(-6) sniper rifle it's a wash. You're basically losing out on the sniper rifles extreme range which is at a -6 anyway and can have problems finding that range to engage at. Infiltration is at 15 with a bunch of ruthenium coating on various things. I run with 6 Intuition which makes up a little bit for my lesser reaction compared to the other two characters (5 vs 10). So 6 Intuition, 4 Perception, +3 from Reception Enhancers, +1 from Synch, +1 from Qualia, and +2 from the Perceptive PQ. That brings me up to the 17 dice base. Add +3 from Vision Enhancement, +3 from Hearing Enhancement, and +2 from a Visual specializations and you get 22 Visual, 20 Auditory, 17 Tactile, Olfactory, and Taste. I also have the Hawkeye PQ which gives a +1 to visual perception tests but only for things at a distance. Our ruling is that it just reduces the distance penalty by 1 so things not near by are at -1 instead of -2 and things far away are at -2 instead of -3.



He's a "hacker" not a hacker. It's a side line and it's not offensive hacking. Cybercombat is basically non-existent so it's mostly a data gathering tool or bypass for systems for him.

Well, I wouldn't say "ludicrous", I would say "only suitable for higher-powered games". As long as everyone starts in the same place, and the GM knows how good that place is or isn't ... it's all good, IMO. There is no One True Way, after all.


For just the rifle bit? I could almost certainly pull that off even in BP-gen. Exceptional Attribute (Agility) - or Changeling and Metagenics - for 7 racial maximum, hard-cap and add Muscle Toner 3 to reach the augmented maximum 10. Hard-cap LongArms (or Automatics, if you go with a Battle Rifle), add a Reflex Recorder for skill 7; specialise to taste for +2 dice, add a smartlink for +2 more, and poof ... 21 dice. before the TacNet, if any.


The Shiawase 69 is 9P/-3AP with Regular ammunition - and comes with that lovely 5-5-5-5 commlink already in it. Subsonic rounds give 8P/-1AP; AP-FL would be 11P/-3AP, and APDS would be 9P/-7AP. All of them scary-effective when you think about it.

9 - Agility
5 - Skill
2 - Specialization
2 - Smartgun
1 - Reflex Recorder
1 - R1 Tacnet
1 - Synch

9->12 agility (exceptional attribute + genetic optimization) is +3 but requires raising base agility to 7.
5->7 longarms (aptitude) is +2 but again requires a lot of karma.

So it's +5 dice that I'm not taking advantage of which would raise it to 25 dice prior to tacnet and 24 dice without synch.



Of course, but I'm looking for all around effectiveness, not hyperspecialization. That's why I chose the battle rifle over the sniper rifle. Those edge cases don't necessarily provide enough oompf over certain usability aspects that the battle rifle provides. The lack of hyperspecialization in favor of overall effectiveness is what makes my sniper scary. Thing like the fact that his flesh and blood vision in darkness with no aids (13 dice) is still better than a lot people who have aided vision (full darkness is a -3 penalty at least so they would need 16 dice with aids to be on par on my sniper without aids). He's scary because of how ludicrously difficult it is to turn him from the hunter into the hunted. And it's all the more obscene to point out this character uses 1 piece of cyberware (a datajack). Since a lot of his bonus comes from bioware and is essentially natural, it's extremely difficult to repress his abilities short keeping him in a drug induced coma.

10 Agility
6 Skill
2 Specialised
2 Smartgun
1 Reflex Recorder

He does have R2 TacNet software available, but as that's semi-situational, I didn't include any of it (even though he'll run it for +0 dice, just to get the Tactical Satellite Mapping going).



Any time he's not going to be going for longer-range shots, and/or doesn't need the extreme silence of the Shiawase? He's got a burst-fire-capable Shotgun for. ;D


Thorin has ... let's see ... an Orientation system (one more sensor channel for the TacNet: "GPS", ha!), ceramic bone lacing, wired reflexes 1 (nuyen was runnign short), a datajack, and cybereyes (thermo, enhance 3, magnification, flare comp, etc) on the Cyber side. Bioware, he's got a reflex recorder for longarms, muscle toner 3, and clean metabolism (arguably, that should penalise scent-tracking used against him).

I'm usually right on board with you, but you've really got to be bribing a GM to convince him that Gunnery isn't a combat skill. What non-combat applications does it have?

Strictly by the RAW, it's not a "Combat" skill - meaning, not a skill in the Combat Skills category. It's a Vehicle skill.

I personally would charge the full Combat-skill rating for it, but, I'd be up front about it being a houserule to do so.

THANK YOU! I thought that had been in vain...

Thorguild

^ This

Declaring Gunnery to be a Combat skill is a common and reasonable house rule, but it is a house rule.



-k

Stolen from another thread recently: Codeslinger: Control Device is well worth the 10 points if you're using this setup. Effective attribute-swap of 9? Yes please!

It is, definitely, but it's a much bigger investment and someone who is only rigging secondarily may not have the 10 quality points to spare.

I browsed briefly, so excuse me if this seems jolted. That being said, have you looked at my Vehicles, Drones, and Agents thread? It isn't exactly what you need but it does have a lot of overlap.

Curse you all! I now feel compelled to create a sniper with drones!! *sigh*

As for the battle rifle idea, I whole-heartedly support it. I can even site a RL example. The KAC SR-25 (aka 'Stoner-25') is based off of the M16/AR15 (60% parts compatibility) and fires 7.62 NATO. It's currently in use by the Navy SEAL's and the Marine Corps. Some snipers favour it as a primary weapon, but I've more often heard of it being used by the sniper's spotter. As a Shadowrun bonus, I'd also like to point out that the manufacturer's acronym stands for Knight's Armament Company.

Just use assault cannons as sniper rifles

Yeah... No!

What? The Ares Thunderstruck is for when you need to snipe things that are bigger than metahumans. Like Trolls.

Has anyone tried putting a good command program on a high end agent and having the agent rig for you?

Command isn't used to rig, just to issue orders.

Agents only effectively have Computer, Cybercombat, Data Search, and Hacking for skills. I believe for an Agent to rig a drone or other vehicle, it would need to run the Maneuver Autosoft for the vehicle in order to move it. It would also need the Targeting Autosoft to fire any weapons on it. That means that the Agent would be limited to a skill of 4 for those particular tasks.

So you use Command + Maneuver + Targeting on your Agent, possibly with Clearsight or Covert Ops to add a bit of flexibility. A touch expensive, certainly, but a better investment than a high rating pilot because it can jump to whichever drone is in the best position to take advantage of its skills.

It's not expensive really. It's a 0 nuyen addition assuming the pilot for the drone is already running those autosofts since you can just rip a copy to the Agent. The potential problem comes in with Loading/Unloading programs for it to run.

Never needed it, even for Trolls.

Remote-Controlled Rigging, page 105 Unwired or page 247 SR4A. Take your pick.

I prefer Ogre Hammer SWS(10P AP -4 or -10 with anti tank rounds) for my similar sniper/hacker build as it has the awesome 6-6-6-6 commlink and IMO heavy weapons is a better skill then long-arms.

A fair point - but the Ogre costs about 15K more than the Shiawase 69. Also, Heavy Weapons isn't as versatile as Longarms - your "smallest" option with Heavy Weapons is going to be a grenade launcher or full-on Assault Cannon. Whereas with Longarms, you can just go with a shotgun. Even, if you desire a modicum of concealability, a short-barrel T-250.

OTOH, someone might want to go with a Battle Rifle, and use Automatics - which gives a LOT of options for other weapons.

So, there's a lot of different ways to go with that.

ArmTech MGL-6 isn't really that much bigger then the short-barrel T-250, while being a whole lot more powerfull and versatile(even more so if i'm allowed to use shotshell grenades from my personal extra gear compilation ).
But i would most likely also take a pistols skill to complement the heavy-weapons skill.

You can put a suppressor on a Shotgun, and be reasonably subtle / discreet even when pulling th etrigger.

Grenade launchers ... not so much (the target tends to go KABOOOOOOM, after all) ...!

Drone dropped grenades could be fairly effective, with the possibility of the drone flying behind a building or cover before the munitions detonate.

That's reasonable.

Not when your shooting gas grenades they don't