By selective reading, of course! It's a two tube launcher though (SR4a 320), with internal loading mechanisms.
Rather than argue about the size of the missile launcher, since as far as I know "Larger than an LMG" is largely subjective, we can change it to:

LMG of your choosing
Automatic grenade launcher of your choice w/ MRSI and HE grenades.

My Version of a typical grunt:
1) One of the Cybersuites below
2) A stock of Activesofts w/ Pluscode option at max. rating, recorded from your conventionally trained elite soldiers
3) A personafix chip and combat drugs
4) Gear: cost up to 70.000nY per Soldier (if you use a MilSpec Comlink from War! or MilSpec Armor)
5) Salary: A "corporate owned" Low Lifestyle (w/ security high) costs 1.700nY / month, so 20.400nY / year

SpinX Instant Warrior™ (Regular Version)
SpinX VersatileWorker Skillwire System (Rtg. 3)
SpinX Performance Muscle Replacement (Rtg. 2)
SpinX Auvi-Q Auto-Injector (6 dose)
Biogene TacBone RP Plastic Bone Lacing
Shiawase Babylon Datajack
Sony Cybersystems T312 Cybereyes (Rtg. 2) w/ Flare Compensation, Low-Light Vision, Smartlink and Image Link/Recorder

Cost: 23.400 nY / 3,24 Essence

SpinX Instant Warrior™ (NCO Version)
SpinX VersatileWorker Pro Skillwire System (Rtg. 4)
SpinX FastBall Elite Wired Reflexes (Rtg. 1)
SpinX Auvi-Q Auto-Injector (6 dose)
Biogene TacBone RP Plastic Bone Lacing
Shiawase Babylon Datajack
Cyberdynamics Eternity Three Attention Coprocessor (Rtg. 2)
Sony Cybersystems T312 Cybereyes (Rtg. 2) w/ Flare Compensation, Low-Light Vision, Smartlink and Image Link/Recorder

Cost: 31.500 nY / 63.000 nY (alphaware)
Essence: 3,69 / 2,87 (alphaware)

For Optimal Performance, most customers also install the following Bioware:
Pensodyne Herculean Muscle Augmentation (Rtg. 2)
Pensodyne Catlike Muscle Toner (Rtg. 2)
Cost: 30.000 nY

For 46.300 nY, you get a Medium MilSpec Armor w/ Strength Upgrade 2, Mobility Upgrade 2, RIG, Chemical Seal, Environmental Adaptation and a DR5 MilSpec Helmet w/ RIG, Low Light & Vision Enhancement 3

As you said, the "average expense" include tanks, air support, and many more things. Your're somehow comparing the cost of only buying a drone to the funding a complete military with land, sea and air units (already including some drones), support, logistics, communication systems, bases and supplies.

If drones replace infantry, it won't cut into the cost for the rest. You'll still need bases to store the drones, vehicles to move them to the theater of operations, networks to communicate, and technical and administrative crew to keep everything running. You will only spend slightly less on ammunition (since drone don't have to go to the firing range).

If you take a look at modern military, actual personnel expenditures are about 20-25% of US military budget, and 35-40% of UK and French military budget (the difference can be explained by both US use of contractors, which reduce personnel expenses while augmenting operational ones, and a more advanced, and thus costly, technology, which requires to spend more on R&D, procurement and maintenance).

It's pretty unlikely a infantry soldier is going to get paid more than 25-30,000¥ a year. Low-level lifestyle is 24,000¥ a year, and I think it's unlikely a private is ever going to get paid enough to live much above that level.

You also need Riggers, which are soldiers. (Hell, they just got their first medal in the USA!).

Assuming that drones can handle basic scenarios ("patrol area X without shooting children running across the road") on their own, you would need far less riggers than "normal" soldiers, since the riggers could spend most of their time in command chair mode without having to control an individual drone.


This would be anything but a trivial assumption and also raise some questions about shadowrunner teams ("why hire runners instead of drones?"), but hey,rule of cool and FASAnomics

Drones aren't exactly "deniable" like a SINless person who only knows "Mr. Johnson" hired them.

"This Drone, belonging to you, was used to kill this Person"
*I am sorry, but i have here written Proof that the Drone was stolen 2 Days ago. Carry on please*

Or better yet:

"I am sorry, but here is the Bill of Sale, and proof of financial transactions, showing that <insert entity to be framed here> purchased that drone as surplus, over a week before the incident in question. I suggest you go talk to THEM."

That corporate-owned low lifestyle isn't going to cut it pst the "raw recruit" level. Soldiers expect pay raises periodically - the current U.S. military pay structure is based on Rank, and "time in grade".

And even at the lowest level, the soldier is going to expect to have some amount of discretionary funds. So ... call it 2,000¥/month base, plus 100¥/month times the number of years in service to date.



I seriously doubt the UCAS and CAS armies have a radically different rank structure than the U.S. and Canadian militaries they are descended from. And an E4 or E5, counts as an NCO.

Which means, you have four ranks on your "regular version", and then .... what, pull the suite out, and re-install another one? Unlikely, IMO. NCOs would generally have the same implants as the troops they lead. Maybe they'd get another implant or two, but those would be separate of the Suite itself.


Right. So you're spending 69,700¥ per soldier, and you haven't even issued them a weapon yet. Then you're going to spend 20,000¥+/year on salary/housing. Plus ... call it a Docwagon Basic for healthcare, or it's equivalent, so - 5,000¥/year for that.

This soldier's five-year cost is 194,700¥ plus the cost of a gun. Not all of those lovely augments you listed can be taken back OUT (and we'll ignore the cost of surgery and recovery, if you take ANY of it back).

...

Whereas, for the same money, you can own and operate TWO drones, for TWENTY years. Eight times the bang per nuyen.

Yeah. I think I can confidently say that know where the smart money is, this time around.

Major Downside: Drones don't vote, and aren't consumers. Soldiers do/are.

Corporate suggestions of having a Metahuman military to governments rather than a drone one would go a long way towards a nice investment.

Drones can be deniable like a mass-produced AK-74 knockoff that never had a serial number or transfer form. And if you want to be extra careful, you can always put the drone and a bag of thermite on a boat and steer it to the middle of the Puget, something human operatives are notoriously unwilling to do...

Yeah, because proofs written by the defendant and not backed by any other proofs, elements, or testimonies from an external source, totally work. Especially with a facility that never had any security problem for the past five years, and a drone model that nobody ever saw sold as surplus since it was produced (the one with that top secret in-house rating 6 pilot software "they do not want anyone else knowing exactly how it works" embedded ?).

Sure, "my gun was stolen/sold just days before it was used to commit a crime, but I forgot to tell anyone before I was charged, and it's an utter coincidence I also happen to have a motive for that crime" is well-known as being the most successful strategy ever in the history of criminal justice. Works better if you first tell the judge and jury there are total morons, instead of simply insinuating it. Especially Corporate Court justices. They love being among the most powerful people on Earth and be treated as complete idiots.

In the best case, you'll only be charged for either reckless endangerment or illegal arms export. And only have about 60% of voters/customers convinced that you ordered the hit anyway, and your target's employer totally sure of it.

If you plan on running a black ops, you do it like a real professional and buy gear that cannot be traced back to you. That's what slush funds are for. And you erase whatever links there may be before the equipment is fielded for the first time, you don't wait for it to have been compromised.

It really depends on how good and how skillful the defendent is.

"You just told me that you repossessed my gun just days before it was used to commit a crime on your company property. Now you are accusing me of using it to commit that crime after you repossessed it?"

That's why Hackers exist. Corroboration is sitting int eh banks, and even the systems of the person(s) being framed. Funny how that works.


Oh, please.

First of all, those drones aren't like the F-22, purpose designed for that one, specific military (and maybe their allies). So yeah, they get sold as surplus. ("That particular unit had seen hard use for several years, and had reached the end of it's operational lifetime within our service. It was still good enough for a PMC to use as perimeter-security, though, so we sold it to a reseller.")

Second off, even assuming the deadman-switched thermite "cleaner charge" intended to slag the entire electronics suite didn't do it's job, who says you didn't reformat the onboard computer, and install an OPEN SOURCE pilot program? I mean, you're about to send something off to be a deniable asset, and you don't wipe all your fingerprints off it first? What kind of idiot does that??


Except if you examine the records - not not just the accused's copies, but ALL of them - you'll see that the theft or sale WAS duly reported, through the correct channels, not just days but WEEKS before the "incident".

Because, what, you've never heard of a hacker back-dating planted records?

::sigh::

At which point the attorney shows up documents he received from an anonymous source that comes from your own system, that explain in details how you ordered the back-dating corroborating element to be created and planted.

Because, what, you've never heard of a hacker back-dating planted records paid by your competitor?

::sigh::

All you get are frameup and falsification charge added on top of first degree murder, with justice and public opinion aware that electronic documents cannot be trusted, while you're back to square one with the only material evidence, the drone, and the crime motivation pointing at you.

I'm not the one who came up with the idea that presenting false evidence of a theft or a sale is going to be a solution. If you reached the point this could come in hand, it obviously means the trail already led back to you, which it could not if you had used a generic drone, home-made software, erased your fingerprint and detonated a cleaner charge. You're the one who called "better" a solution that implies you failed at every previous steps you are now advising to take beforehand.

And the counter-hacked documetns are then shown tobe false, etc, etc. LEading to an absolutelack of proof on EITHER side of the matter.

And at that point? "Mission accomplished".

You wind up with the sort of slap-on-the-wrist "penalty" we've seen places like Goldman-Sachs get IRL the past couple years. Maybe some low-tier VP has to fall on his sword on one or both sides.

After which, it's back to business-as-usual. Except the high-value target you wanted taken out, WAS - and probably within the budget allocated, too (since the fine could be predicted with reasonable accuracy, too).

So, like I said ... "mission accomplished".

Position like low-tier VP tend to be occupied by people who don't like taking chances. Which among other things make them pre-emptively fire guys who come up with such a plan, and require their successor to take the aforementioned steps to ensure no trail is leading back to the company at all. And if possible, that a part of the allocated budget ends up in their pocket.

At which point your attorney shows up documents you received from an authority that comes from his own system that explain in that explain in details how they ordered the planting of back-dating corroborating element to be created and planted.

Because, what, you've never heard of a hacker screwing up records so badly it cannot be used as evidence in the first place?

All you get are frameup and falsification charges added on top of first degree murder all tossed out for tainted evidence.

It could also be that the trail would have led back to you anyway, even if you did use a generic drone, home-made software, erased your fingerprint and detonated a cleaner charge. Difficult, could even extremely difficult, but possible. I am not sure where you think I am the one who called "'better' a solution", but I am fairly certain I did not make that claim. The closest I can find is that it would depend on the skill of the person.

Oh, so you barged into a discussion about one thing, discussing something different? And of course you don't see the flaw in your actions?


Do you work for Fox News, or do you just not understand how examples work? Also, lay off the personal attacks.


Cannot open doors, even if the door has just a handle, without resorting to blowing them up. Hence, it is stopped dead by a locked door that is durable. Doesn't nearly have the performance in urban theaters a metahuman soldier will bring to bear. It needs an arm for that. And without the software updates, it has shitty pools to boot. Not to mention it will be confused by any but very detailed orders.


The same can be done to metahuman soldiers, with the added benefit that they heal much cheaper, and at least in case of light to moderate injuries almost by themselves.


IP rights, patents ... yes, that is perfectly possible. And mind your tone. Especially when you apparently have no idea what you are talking about.


Would, could, should. The drone could just as well be entirely made up of replacement parts by then. And why do you assume 5 years of duty? Do you have anything substantial to base that on? Besides, that is totally not what we were discussing. Can you stay on topic, please?


Drones are their own cathegory. There is no distinction between military and civilian drones there, just drones. And they have DR3. Anything else is houserules.


I detailed that. Read it.

First: fuck you, too.

Second: you throw a pretty serious personal attack, and then say lay off the personal attacks? Hipocrite, much?

Third: fuck you, again.

Fourth: welcome to the ignore list, asshole. Oh, and fuck you, a third time.

Well. That escalated quickly.

Time to take a break everybody.

The Mods are discussing some recent choices and trends. We'll return the thread shortly.