I’ve recently come up with a rather unique idea for drones without any sort of drive systems. They’re designed to be carried about by Air spirits…which can be controlled wirelessly via a satellite matrix uplink. Impossible according to rules, you say? You can’t control a spirit wirelessly like a drone? Ah, but you *can* - well, indirectly at least.

Some background on how this came about:

I’ve been increasingly less fond of the idea of actual shadowrunning as time passes, but I do very much like the Sixth World. Accordingly, we’ve shifted over to an alternative Sixth World campaign style where we *gasp!* actually have legal SINs and legal jobs. Sounds boring? Not really – we’re monster hunters. Who ya gonna call when the shedim are knocking on your door or you’ve sighted some ghouls in your neighborhood? Us! Based in the PCC, we’re Pueblo Paranormal Defense and we offer a full suite of services from baneful entity eradication to wards and security consulting, with worldwide service (travel expenses will be billed). Our 100% Awakened or Emerged staff are ready to serve your security needs 24/7.

The problem came about as I was looking to provide “overwatch” ability for the company’s AI (who handles all matrix work and acts a coordinator to all teams in the field as well as functioning as the office accountant). Ideally, I was looking for some drones with multi-sensor suites to be controlled via satellite uplink. The idea was for the team to go to the trouble site (if hunting actual monsters, as opposed to more mundane security consulting) and send up a small fleet of drones to spread up and out over the area, giving our AI a grand view of the entire theater of operations, and thus able to direct team members on the ground as needed as well as get as many sensor readings as were available to mundane sensors about the problem(s) in question.

Well, I poured over the vehicles & mods in Arsenal for a few weeks, on and off, tinkering with and eventually rejecting many ideas, before I finally hit on an unconventional solution – “drones” that were really just weather-proofed, aerodynamic sensor suites, designed to be carried aloft by Air spirits who would use Concealment, Guard, and Magical Guard on them. Good idea, but that would mean constant ground-based control by their summoners to move them about…hmmm…or would it?

The idea I came up with was for a saucer-shaped craft – nice clean design and good aerodynamics all around if you’re not worried about a drive system. In the center is a clear Plexiglas globe that sticks out of the top and bottom and contains a pointer needle capable of pointing in any direction. To one side of the globe is a recessed slider bar with a sliding tab and a red line marker to mark where it is on the slider – all the way to the left or right or anywhere in-between. Upon summoning/binding the spirit is given the following instructions: “Keep up your Concealment, Guard, and Magical Guard abilities on this item at all times; when your service is nearly up, set it gently on the ground in the nearest safe location you can find. When you see the arrow in the middle move, you should move the item in that direction. When you see the slider tab move, that tells you to either speed up as it moves to the right, or slow down as it moves to the left; complete left is full stop, complete right is top speed. Go.”

And there you have it – decker-controlled spirits.

We had our custom “Saucer Sensors” mass-produced and then issued a dozen to each team in the field. An invisible sensor fleet over any area a team is operating in.

How many services does this command take up exactly?
Also wouldn't the materialized spirit be a bit noticeable? Thats another service to conceal itself I guess.

Never really bothered to count as that's all we're asking them to do - "Look, just protect this thing as best you can and move it about as you're told." Legal at our table, at least.

Taking a quick look at the Core Rules, I'm coming up with 6 services:
1) Use Concealment on self.
2) Use Concealment on the item.
3) Use Guard on the item.
4) Use Magical Guard on the item.
5) Set the item down gently in safe area just before spirit's service is up.
6) Follow directions to move the item about.

As we have no magicians with less than Magic 6, Summoning 6 and Binding 6, that shouldn't be a real problem most of the time. As I said, in practice the "shortcut ruling" is that this can be done, assuming that's all you're asking the spirit to do.

What advantage does this offer over a normal, self-propelled drone? Electric motors don't cause drain, after all.

Neither are they invisible, silent, and magically-guarded.

Also, trying to modify existing drones in Arsenal was coming up with a huge cost per drone, especially if I wanted good performance from each one, whereas a "can of sensors" was comparatively cheap.

I like the idea. Six services sounds right. The only problem I see is operating costs... Bound spirits get expensive too and a mage can only have one unbound spirit at a time. Sure you could summon force one or two to bind for this use to cut costs, but at that force there are tech options for an actual drone that would be cheaper in the long run.

Just my 2¥
-D

Oh, yeah. Binding materials are, what, 100 nuyen per Force per spirit? So, assuming a nice Force 3 air spirit, you're dropping 300 nuyen anytime you deploy one of these near sunrise or sunset, and anytime you want the platform to be airborne past the next sunrise or sunset. That could add up.

Well, as I said above, my problem was that the drones were coming in as way too expensive once I'd kitted them out - like $50k to $100k *each*.

Now imagine intelligent critter opposition - like the Infected in some cases.

Now imagine them with a .50 caliber sniper rifle, blowing our drones out of the sky.

Now imagine me screaming as I look at our profit-and-loss sheet for that case - louder than if a toxic spirit was trying to eat my face off.

Quick question: have you factored in that a scan for hidden nodes can find you as easily as ever? Consider adding non-standard wireless links to your sensor cans to make it harder to detect you with a commlink and scan program.
For static long-term observation I'd still say that a blimp with chameleon coating is a better choice (Throw on an additional fuel tank and it can hover above the target for 120 hours, or 5 days, and that can be doubled with improved economy. hell, in most cities there are enough blimp drones floating around that you can just throw a sun-cell on it and have it float around near indefinitely and no-one's really going to pay much attention).

Also, have you considered that an inconvenient patch of high background count could potentially send your investment crashing to the ground? might be worth using watchers to scout out the local airspace for anything like that before sending in your flyer.

Here is a drone package that out team uses:

Cyberspace Designs Dragonfly Package Qty: 10 Cost: ¥70,500
Cyberspace Designs Dragonfly
Modifications: Chameleon Coating, Gecko Tips, Improved Sensor Array, Spatial Recognizer, Motion Sensor, Radio Signal Scanner, Laser Range Finder, Camera (Tridio, 6) with: Low Light, Thermographic, Vision Enhancement (3), Audio Enhancement (3), Select Sound Filter (3)

GTS Tower Package Qty:1 Cost: ¥59,350
GTS Tower (LTA Carrier Drone, Heavy, Ar121)
Modifications: Multilaunch Drone Rack, Weapon Mount (external, flexable, remote). Lighter than Air, Retrans Unit (signal 6), Chameleon Coating, Improved Sensor Array, Radio Signal Scanner (6), Laser Range Finder (front), Laser Range Finder (rear), Motion Sensor (front), Motion Sensor (rear), Radar, SunCell, Response Upgrade +2 (to rating 6), Pilot Upgrade (6), Camera (Tridio, 6) (front) with: Low Light, Thermographic, Vision Enhancement (3), Audio Enhancement (3), Select Sound Filter (3), Spatial Recognizer, Camera (Tridio, 6) (rear) with Low Light, Thermographic, Vision Enhancement (3), Audio Enhancement (3), Select Sound Filter (3), Spatial Recognizer

Spoof Chip Qty: 1 Cost: ¥500
Adaptability Autosoft (GTS Tower, Dragonfly) (3) Cost: ¥1,200
Chaser Autosoft (GTS Tower, Dragonfly) (4) Cost: ¥4,000
Covert Ops Autosoft (GTS Tower, Dragonfly) (4) Cost: ¥4,000
Clearsight Autosoft (GTS Tower, Dragonfly) (4) Cost: ¥4,000
Defense Autosoft (GTS Tower) (4) Cost: ¥2,000
Maneuver Autosoft (GTS Tower) (4) Cost: ¥2,000
ECCM (6) with Ergonomic Cost: ¥6,300

Ingram White Knight Package Qty: 1 Cost: ¥7,800
Ingram White Knight
Modifications: Barrel Extension, Chameleon Coating, Firing Selector Change (add SA), Smartgun, Thermal Suppressor, Sound Suppressor

Total cost/package: ¥161,650

Initial cost is a little high (but not for a small company). You should only need a few of these. They are not RADAR invisible, but they are very hard to see. RAW states that SunCell and Chameleon coating are incompatible, we have ruled that they can both be on the same device, they can not be both active at the same time however. If that is an acceptable ruling for your table, feel free to run with it.

With this set up you have each carrier launch 5 dragonflies at a time while 5 are charging in the drone racks. As their batteries are being used up they trade out. You can keep a lot of drones out and about by doing this.

Just a suggestion and my 2¥
-D

P.S.
Chameleon coating makes picking them off with a sniper rifle a bit harder and the machine gun means that it can defend itself.

*edited to correct spellings.

500 Nuyen per Rating Point of the Bound Spirit. So that Force 3 Spirit is 1500 Nuyen.

That'll teach me to post without looking things up. Also, OUCH.

Do air spirits even have Magical Guard?

Don't forget that in order for Any Spirit to interact with the sensor Discs it first needs to Manifest, which also costs a Service.

Also, their area of operations is limited. As per SR4a pg 187.

No spirits (including Air Spirits) in the basic book have Magical Guard. They should probably errata that...hah!


I'm pretty sure this isn't true. A spirit will Materialize (or Possess) to fulfill the requirements of it's services. Materializing (or Possessing) doesn't itself cost an extra service.

Please don't disagree, then I'll be forced to dig through the books and I'm feeling lazy

Isn't Materialize a Power, and thus using it is a use of a power, which uses a service.

I may very well be wrong, mildly sleep/caffeine deprived ATM.

Though it is A Power, it MUST be invoked to fulfill its services in the real world, and as such it will not cost a service, because it is used in the fulfillment of its other services.

yeah, spirits will use powers to fulfill other services at no added cost... using a power costs a service when you're specifically telling it to use a service.

so, for example, "manifest over there" would use a single service, but if you ordered a spirit to "attack that group", then the spirit might manifest and then use several other powers to attack the group, but it would still only count as one service.

Is it a optional power? If yes then we are talking about force 6 spirits instead of force 3.

Well, I know I'm on Dumpshock when there's this level of nit-picking.

Our very first house rule could be summed up as "If it's generally in line with the overall rules and world, and it makes sense for your character to be able to do it, then just do it, don't quibble over every little possible rule interpretation. We're here to play, not to argue about the rulebooks all night."

Just food for thought...

No. Magical Guard is a power that was added in Street Magic, so only spirits types added in that book have it. Only Plant, Guardian, and Guidance spirits have Magical Guard, and on top of that, if a spirit doesn't have Magical Guard, it doesn't have the Counterspelling skill (which is really all Magical Guard does, let them use that skill).




...Except that you are basically trying to circumvent one of the core concepts of the world: Magic + Tech don't mix well.

Please show me where it says spirits are unable to see objects in the physical world, unable to pick up objects in the physical world and also unable to follow basic instructions like “when you see this arrow change direction, pick up this item and move it in that direction.”

Unless you are contending that spirits are absolutely unable to do these things, then please demonstrate why my idea is absolutely impossible.

By your logic I would also be unable to issue a command to a summoned spirit to "knock the item out of that guy's hand" when he's holding a commlink - after all, the commlink is a technological item, so the spirit can't affect it, right?

spirits are using astral perception 24/7. precisely how much detail that lets them see, we don't know, but we do know that (for example) they cannot read as a result.

i would say it's entirely reasonable to extend that to "cannot read computer screens displaying an arrow" for example. normally if you have a physical object which moves to display what to do, that would work.

on the other hand, we also know that transparent objects in the astral are not transparent, so... yeah. some modifications will definitely be required.

and on the other other hand, what a complete and utter waste of bound spirit resources (on account of, as was pointed out, there's a pretty major range limit for summoning only, and that's 3 bound services if you want to specifically order it to maintain those 3 powers, plus another to follow conditional orders... a more generalized "protect this object" would cut it down to 1 though, i suppose, though the spirit could then make choices you might not like, such as the best way to protect the object being to hide it and go smash something that would threaten it).

seriously though, you're having *that* hard of a time finding a drone that the AI could use to provide overwatch for itself? just chuck some stormclouds in the sky. problem solved.

It's not a computer display - it's just a plexiglas globe with a physical movable arrow in the center. None of the things the spirits are expected to look at are electronic display screens. Just plain physical items - I explicitly took that into account when designing the items.

This is just inventing trouble where there is none - the spirits are told to not let items come to harm; if the spirit seemed (or proved) hostile, we'd modify the wording to include that possibility. Of course, we also have a GM that doesn't make a habit of maliciously screwing over her players for the hell of it, so we don't have to worry about nonsense like that.



As previously stated, my issue with the drones I saw as best for the job was the cost per drone - a customized "mini-blimp" good for extended use and armed with a small squadron of micro/mini-drones for defense was coming in at well over $100k each as I worked with the models and mods in Arsenal, and I wanted a good half dozen in service at once. If such slow, (relatively) big, tempting targets were shot down, that's a loss of probably pushing close to $1 million all together.

Also, the AI is not providing overwatch for itself - it's providing overwatch for a team in the field; it's safely somewhere else.

I tried to get a Braille display by my GM once for a Task spirit to operate a commlink, but it didn't fly.




-k

Actually, that's brilliant! I fail to see why that would not be valid. Unless your GM is going to rule that spirits have no sense of touch, how would that not work?

Wouldn't it be simpler to just get a very high flying drone for that? I mean, how many of your opponents have anti air missiles to shoot it down?

Do they need one? CD Dragonflies (from Arsenal, pp. 117-118) are fairly cheap - pack one with a bit of explosives for a kamikaze run...and no more mini-blimp. A $2,500 drone eliminates a $100k+ plus drone. A good transaction for the opposition - it's what I would do, and is mentioned as an explicit use for CD Dragonflies on p. 118.

I think your idea is a very interesting one, and I don't see why it wouldn't work. In the short term the spirits would be cheaper but I still think drones would be cheaper in the long run.

The idea of a dragonfly-bomb flying up to kill the blimp is possible, however if the blimp has 5 dragonflys of its own (charging) they could be dispatched to take out the inbound bomb. You would likely lose a dragonfly in that battle, but the dragonflys are cheaper to replace than the blimp. If the blimp takes enough damage that it will crash, any dragonflys still on it could launch so you don't lose them as well.

-D

that's nice. what are you gonna do about the fact that transparent objects are not transparent to astral perception?

and also, why in hang would you spend millions on a drone to carry sensors?

- buy a stormcloud (or some other common inexpensive drone)
- load it with sensors that cost a few thousand nuyen, assuming you don't just stick with the default ones.
- why the hell would you give it a 1 million nuyen fleet of war drones?

you're not taking part in open full-scale warfare. you're hunting down vampires and juggernauts and such. also, you really shouldn't worry about missiles... courtesy of bad rule-writing, missiles are a joke. worry about farmers with shotguns, because at least when they hit your eye in the sky, they actually hit it... a missile, on the other hand, well... when a missile "hits" you it actually just means it blew up somewhere in the vicinity. and the more anti-vehicular the missile gets, the more useless it is against vehicles.

and if blimps don't work for you, pick something faster and more manoeuvrable. and then don't spend a million nuyen on it for no good reason. problem solved.

if you're really worried about it, you can have a single spirit protect up to it's Force targets with a single power... have a spirit use concealment on the drones, *if* the situation even calls for it (which, unless you have a very different concept of what legal SINs and legitimate business means than i do, it won't 99.9% of the time). hell hounds don't carry sniper rifles with them typically, so you should be just fine.

If it's actually in the rules that materialized spirits can't see through transparent glass or Plexiglas, then that's overruled at our table on the grounds that it's really, really stupid. Page reference, please (just out of curiosity, it won’t negate a ruling for our table on the grounds that we haven’t abdicated all common sense). So that’s not an issue.

As for the rest, see DMiller’s mini-blimp and drones builds – he came astonishingly close to what I came up with when I was going for the purely technological approach.

For my part, I’m sticking with what I’ve come up with.

You still haven't addressed the (truly excellent) questions of why a fully legit paranormal extermination service has a fleet of war drones and is worried about them getting shot down.

A) They're not "war drones" - as I previously stated, they're "cans of sensors" and otherwise unarmed. They're not even armored. So I don't see why they're being classified as "war drones."
B) One of our primary services is Infected extermination. Now, while all of them are filthy abominations that desperately need to be burned alive as soon as possible, that doesn't make them necessarily stupid. A ghoul can shoot a rifle with a scope, and if going up against a vampire or wendigo, I expect spellcasting response from such targets; and if they can see it, they can hit it as magic is LOS.

That's why.

You say you developed these platforms as an alternative to carrier drones full of combat drones; why did you need the combat drones?

Also, magic only works if the caster can beat Object Resistance, which is 5+ for drones according to the table in SR4A, p. 183. How often is the average spellcaster, rolling Magic 3 + Spellcasting 3, going to get five or more hits?

To protect the fat mini-blimp full of sensors lumbering along in the sky - otherwise even a single CD Dragonfly could rip it up and crash it. In a world of small attack drones, if you don't have your own small attack drones to guard the larger drones, then they're just targets.

As for the spellcasters, why take chances? And our GM believes in "proportional opposition" - as long we're playing Magic 6, Spellcasting/Conjuring 6 mages, well then, our opposition will be at least that, or likely higher than that.

I had the impression that the PCC is one of the more liberal jurisdiction when it comes to Awakened rights; where does it say that even non-feral Infected are considered vermin?

Starting to get off track from the actual thread topic, but suffice it to say that all of the touchy-feely nonsense that has been so prevalent throughout 4th Edition about how the Infected are cute, cuddly bunnies and a poor, oppressed minority group has not filtered down to our campaign. The Infected are monsters that routinely snack on anyone they can get their claws on and are treated as such; there are still bounties on them throughout the NAN, UCAS, and CAS in our Sixth World.

*shrug* Your campaign, your world. Still doesn't explain why, if there are groups of Infected sophisticated enough to have access to drones and AA weapons, the PCC is sending out a crew of civilian contractors rather than, you know, the Army.

Well, if things were that well policed everywhere and law and order was always that efficient, there wouldn't be any shadowrunners roaming around the shadows either, would there?

It's still at least nominally the "dark cyberpunk future" - if it wasn't, there would be no traditional shadowrun campaigns, either. And I just expect the opposition to be armed, not necessarily with any really serious military hardware. But by definition a lot of the things we hunt live in the shadows - it's not a stretch to assume they can shop at the local black market, just like any shadowrunner, so I plan accordingly. Rifles with scopes? Small (relatively cheap) attack drones? Spellcasting? Sure, those I expect to encounter. Aircraft carriers, fighter squadrons, and tanks - not so much.

I do think you idea has merits, the sensor box + spirit on the surface looks like a good choice (for short term costs).

However...
You've commented on the ability of a sniper to take out the blimp, and the drone-bomb idea. I had a further thought on the drone-bomb idea. You could load 8 modified dragonflys for surveillance and 2 (mostly) unmodified dragonflys for close-air support. That would still allow for a lot of information gathering while protecting the carrier a little better (and cheaper).

As to the sniper, Looking at the perception thresholds and modifiers, the blimp might still be in some danger (if it pilots close enough to be hit). The Perception Threshold to see the GTS Tower is 1 (SR4 p117, Large/Obvious). The modifiers to the perception test should be: -4 (Chameleon Coating), +3 (Actively Looking), -3 (Far Away), +3 (Visual Enhancement) which leaves a standard Perception -1 test with a threshold of 1. Now if you consider the chameleon coating to obscure the target (above and beyond the base -4) that threshold jumps up to a 3. Either way the sniper will likely spot the blimp. As long as the blimp stays on the move, the sniper at least will not be able to line up a clean shot on it.

You could also combine the two options. Use the purly tech option for the most part and when you are going up against a well equipped infected group add the spirit's guard and concealment into the mix to really protect the devices. Movement power could also be very useful.

With GM approval you could use the "Similar Models" optional rule and have all the drones coming from the same manufacturer and ask about a bulk discount as well. (Sorry IRL reference) IRL most companies will provide a discount if you are ordering sets of items in bulk. I'd call 5 carriers and 50 mini-drones bulk.

Just my 2¥
-D

As an aside: If this is a legit business... Where's your insurance? As a business a hefty percentage of your company income should be being siphoned off into business expenses (advertising, building maintenance, insurance, etc.). With insurance you shouldn't be paying the full replacement value of lost or damaged equipment (and people).

Just a thought.

-D

DMiller:
Let me crunch some build #'s and get back to you. I don't delete things I've worked on, so I'll pull those builds out of archive.

As for the insurance, actually I hadn't considered that. That said, the insurance rates for a company of essentially legit mercenaries (when we're not doing other, more mundane magical security consulting jobs) probably isn't cheap.

"You want us to insure all your fancy gear...that you're taking into dangerous situations...on a regular basis. Ok, here's your monthly policy payment amount."

"...Ahhhhh!!!! I could buy a sports car with that amount!"

This is true, that's why I suggested a large portion of the company income going into expenses. As a GM (depending on the pay scale you are seeing) I'd probably go with 60% of your income goes into company maintenance. This would provide everyone with a low lifestyle (living in the company building), insurance (you'd still have to pay 25% of cost on hospital and equipment repairs/replacement), limited access to a garage (vehicle shop or maybe a facility), and limited access to an armory (weapon repair shop). It would also provide for advertising to get your name out, so you might see more business.

Again that would very much depend on how much you were being paid as a group for the jobs you do. The other 40% would then be split between members of the team for their own use.

-D

Well, actually, we prefer High lifestyles as a group.

That said, we market ourselves as a higher-end security/extermination firm. Don't plan on spending less than lower 5 figures if you call PPD. Quality costs, after all.

Five figures as a team sounds about right for the service you are providing. I think with that in mind, my numbers would stand. As a GM I would allow players to upgrade the provided low lifestyle if they chose to do so.

It's funny, our shadow team had 4 members, we were pulling down 5-figure+ jobs as a team and my character still lives in a middle lifestyle. Two of our team are living Luxury, and one low (almost to squatter).

-D

Of course, if you're all awakened and you're hunting dual-natured critters, shouldn't your first port of call for recon be watcher spirits? against non-spellcaster opposition a clause to avoid getting into arms reach should be all you need to keep them safe (watchers are far faster than any ghoul, after all, and gravity isn't an issue). They're free, easily replaced (Buy hits on the summoning check to minimize drain), and can spot a dual-natured predator even if they're hiding among a crowd of unawakened civilians. Have a well-worked-out set of standard instructions (which you keep amending and improving with every watcher that snuffs it), and have the watchers work in pairs so that one can report on how the other one snuffed it through sheer stupidity (so you can amend your instructions accordingly). Check with your GM about how long a set of instructions they can remember.

Not as good as drone senses, sure, but they're free and easily replaceable.

Actually, and I don't know why it took so long for this to occur to me, a ghoul cannot shoot a rifle, or any other firearm. By RAW, ghouls are blind and rely on scent and astral perception.

They can shoot guns. They just won't see what they are shooting at through a scope (glass is not transparent on the astral).
But shooting a gun "from the hip" towards an enemy you see on the astral will work. It won't be the most accurate fire though as the Ghoul can't really see the gun he is holding and aims more by feeling the gun in his hand + seeing the direction of his arm.