My Ohana didn't make it to Christmas before breaking down and exchanging gifts. Again (it's been a running joke with us, that we rarely make it all the way to the 25th, before we stop being able to resist the urge to give each other the gifts we picked out).

Among my many awesome and cool gifts this year, was a Parrot AR Drone 2.0, which will have it's maiden flight tomorrow (gonna charge up the batteries and my iPod tonight).

Also got some graphic novels, a bunch of minecraft stuff, and a blu-ray drive for my PC. And, well, a whole pile of things.



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Once the Big Day arrives for everyone else .... what cool stuff did you get?

Watch out with those things. Steep ledges confuse them and make them crash. Do not use them in inner-city areas or anywhere where there are buildings more than 2 stories high (it's sensors cannot handle steep cliffs, like edges of buildings). Signal range isn't very good either, and it's vulnerable to interferences ... other than that, it's a useful toy. It's cute, light, and very hard to hear over an average city's background hum. Just, assume it has a firewall of 1. Seriously, any six year old script kiddie can hack this thing away from you.

Oh, and a real rigger still needs VCR wires. If you don't have those you're just a poser.

In all seriousness, I think it would behoove SR to include "toys" like the Parrot.

SR stats I'd give it?

Pilot 0 (without your input, it goes nowhere)

Signal 1 or 2 ... have to check the tables to be certain (though it has a wifi b/g/n network card, it IS only battery operated, and you ARE supposed to stay in LOS of the drone, despite the camera)

Firewall 1 (pretty much "wide-open, unsecured" until the first Subscription is established .... to whatever device you'll be using as a controller)

Handling +2 or +3 (auto-stabilises, takeoff/landing is automated, if you stop telling it "go left" it stops on a dime)

Sensor 1 (it has 4 actual sensors - a forward camera, a dorsal camera, a pressure altimeter, and an ultrasound altimeter. The cameras are visual-spectra only, no magnification or other bells-and-whistles.)

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And even a shadowrunner could find a use for it, off-the-rack with zero upgrades. A couple of those, and a disposable commlink, and you've got a "quick reconnoiter" tool, which is also a completely legal-to-have-in-your-car toy should you find yourself needing to "explain" any gear to a friendly Lonestar or KE officer some dark night. Sure, sure, nowadays, with I think 15 or 20 minutes of life on the battery, it's very limited. But 2070s batteries, even for toys, should be good for an hour of flight-and-video time.

I haven't gotten to fly mine (the store accidentally gave my family one of their demo drones - damaged hull, missing battery, completely unflyable), so we had to exchange it tonight. The battery is charging and I'm going to download the control app to my iPod before going to bed, so I should be able to play with it tomorrow ... weather permitting. Then, I'll know how quiet it is or isn't. And maybe have a quick video to upload to YouTube, and link here.

... so, I tried an indoor test flight. Honestly all I wanted to do was launch, go to head-level, and turn to get myself on video. Then land.

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I crashed. And broke the upper hull. (Reparable with elmer's glue, thank god.) Apparently, my Pilot: Rotorcraft skill is 0, and I just glitched. Bugger.

Flying RC planes and stuff... I decided to get one from my first "It-engineer" paycheck. After 3 month , half kilo of epoxy i managed fly that plane something like 10 minutes and i controleld it most of time. After that i hit to tree and i had something like 20 pieces of plane.
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So i recommend to get a lot of epoxy

Luckily the Parrot's "indoor hull" is styrofoam; it'll take a lot of punishment. Also, aside from being a "bumper" of sorts, it's not a _functional_ element of the aircraft ... and is replaceable.

There is toy drones in Arsenal innit? The kind that anyone that grew up with Chucky wouldn't trust enough to let it come anywhere near the house, let alone the children.

There's also four designate toy drones (with rules) in the new German-only Travel Guide to the German Shadows. One's clearly inspired by things like the parot. The rules designate them as civilian vehicles and bar them from being rigged, but good for remote control.

And yes, there's the Bust-A-Move, which also works as an actual drone, and the pet drone series in Arsenal.


That's what the Travel Guide suggests (it has a larger section on 'how to use everyday items as a Shadowrunner', including a small color catalogue with annotations on how to abuse these items, like the (kid you not) WiFi-ignitable BBQ coal.

.... I may have to learn German.

... I should brush up on my German. Two years in school ten years ago.

Wee tiny video of my first, halting attempts to pilot the thing out-of-doors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Iyg5Zo8Q4

It's surprisingly quiet, at least for a daytime flight out-doors in a semirural area. Definite noise from the rotors during takeoff, landing, and any high-rate-of-acceleration/deceleration maneuvers. But pretty quiet otherwise.

Apropos of books in German. I heard Schattenkatalog limited again has additional pages? How true is that? Are the insane drone stats from That Old Drone fixed there?

It is true. It has an All-German vehicle catalogue. I'm not sure, but I think Errata for TOD were used. I'd have to cehck when I'm back at my place, as I don't have the PDF of Schattenkatalog.

Which ones are insane?

The ones for the Skate (and the rest of the table). Single-digit accel and that.

I think he's talking about the errors from before the corrected version of the PDF was issued (for free to those who bought it). The errors were mainly in the realm of ridiculously low Speed and Accel.

Ah, that may be why I was so in the dark.