A player of mine wants to have a drone that sits on his backpack and makes funny remarks. He also wants the drone to be able to transform into his personal sidearm (quote) a la transformers targetmasters (end quote).

Never seen transformers targetmasters, and this drone idea may be far fetched, but it's certainly very flavourful (he's playing a very tech-savvy type), and I feel it's good to encourage my players to come up with flavour for their ideas so they won't be just another street samurai, or decker, or...

So can anybody provide rules? If this is covered in Rigger 3 (Can't find Rigger 3...>_<) and it's against forum policy, then it's alright.

flavor also gets added when you come up with your own rules. If you can't find any that you like, just wing it. And I agree, that DOES sound like a fun idea.

If you want to design drones (or any vehicles), you're pretty much forced to get Rigger 3. It has all the relevant rules.

In this case, some sort of Robot with "Lame Jokes" and "SitCom" autosofts, and the whole thing is built around a firearm. As far as transforming goes, all it could really do is go from a more drone-ish look to something more ergonomic to handle, but the basic firearm construction within can't be changed around. Basically, you're adding the drone on top of a bare-bones gun.

The biggest problem with this idea is that to include the joke-throwing aspect, you need an Autosoft Interpretation System. Autosoft Interpretation Systems require at least 1 CF of space. There are no Body 0 (pistol-sized) drones with a full 1.0 CF available.

The only possible option while remaining within established rules is to go with a Micro Crawler with an External Cargo Mount. This gives you a total of 1.2 CF, -1 for the Autosoft Interpretation System. Now you have 0.2 CF available, and I guess that could be enough for the "transformation hardware" (ie, Special Machinery) to transform it into a pistol. Throw in a pistol as a Firmpoint (I think Body 0 can support a firmpoint... not entirely sure), then just state that it can only be used when it "transforms" into one.

Then you just need to add Advanced Robotic Pilot Programming and Improved Neural Network Algorithms so that it can be at least somewhat intelligent with its wisecracking (else it would just throw them out randomly as a Drone).

But I dunno.

Hmm, if a pistol isn't big enough, what about SMG or AR size?

That's what it would have to be. The actual weapon might be a pistol, which the wielder would grab normally, and the rest of the drone would transform into a rifle-sized weapon stock.

I took some time to look at Rigger 3 about this. Micro scale walkers don't have the CF potential for a firmpoint, but this might work.

Herald, what does the whole rig way? It is probably not somethng you'd really be able to use.

I'd say it's on the low end of what is defined as body 1. If I can find the chart, I'll give you a number.

Ah, there it is. I'd argue that this falls into the 7.5 kg to 8.5kg range. 4.5 kg of assault rifle, 3-4kg of mobility and other hardware. ( within the 5-75 kg range for body 1)

5 to 75 kg, 20 being nominal. I guess they mean 20 being average. Still 5 kg onto of the other junk, that could almost be a 20 kg gun, that might give you more trouble then having it. Like making a wise crack just as you are about sneak up on a guard.

EDit: found while you typing.

Note that my design is just an assault rifle that can follow you around when you have your hands full. To add in the stuff neccessary to make it social and annoying would cost more and might add to weight. This would definately be smaller than an average body 1 drone, so I would still argue it on the low side unless you add a lot of heavy features.

[QUOTE]
a la transformers targetmasters
[QUOTE]

As long as no crazy cyber zombie goes down the way of having headmasters as well........