I've been looking at drones and from what I can tell they're pretty squishy in the new edition, with 6 + half body damage track and fairly average armour for the most part.
I'm fine with that. It makes riggers less powerful, but back in 4A we tended to find riggers to be capable of taking on the entire party on their own.

Thoughts?

I'm more concerned about the Autosoft nerf, tbh. Weapon specific targeting autosoft really hurts Riggers. Also, Drones with a full track can no longer be repaired, but are irrepairably destroyed instead. Their hardened armor is a lot weaker too, since they still use their old values mostly, with weapon DV getting a major buff.

Overall, Riggers out of chargen seem like the Adepts of 4e: the shafted archetype.

Drones should be useful backup, not an army of death machines.

That said, there aren't a lot of sturdy drones available in the corebook. This isn't as bad as it seems, though, because it makes sense considering the natures of the specific drones. Of the 11 models available, note that 2 are mircro size, 2 are mini size, 2 are small size, 3 are medium size, and 2 are large size. Since over half the models are small size or smaller, it makes sense for them to have low bodies and low armor.

As for the larger models, note their roles. The Duelist is a sort of poor man's dummy guard, infrequently fielded and typically used to bolster skeleton crews. At 4,500 nuyen each, they're actually quite reasonably powerful. Likewise with the Doberman - it fills the same sort of guard dog role as its namesake. The Roto-Drone and the Dalmation? Well, they're flying drones - they're gonna be somewhat fragile by nature.

Now, the Steel Lynx is actually a pretty respectable contender - with a Body of 6 and an Armor of 12, it's actually just as durable as a normal human in an armored vest, which is actually pretty dang good. Of course, it's the one drone actually billed as a Combat Drone, so there ya go.

I'm sure once the splat books hit and we get new drone models, and even more importantly the ability to modify and customize drones, we'll have lots more options. And don't forget, you can always turn a vehicle into a drone if you really want to.

~Umi

Drones have become squishier since 3E. No big surprise. Everybody is quite squishy in SR5, though. Either consciously so, or because CGL's writers don't understand that damage and armour do not scale equivalently.

Well, they did go into SR5 stating on the Dev Blog that they were making it more lethal...

I'd like to give them some credit, yeah?

~Umi

Its pretty bullshit nerf.
The roto drone now has to get 4 successes with 6 dice to not get totally destroyed by a single shot with 1 net hit from AK-97.

Moral of the story: Don't get hit.

Probably doing it again, but when playing my Cyberlogician, I often used upwards of a dozen drones (in at least a couple of instances, multiple dozens). Maybe twice in 3 Years (350 Karma or so) did I ever use a COMBAT package on any drone. They are so much more valuable as surveillance and communications assets than in combat operations. The times I employed Drones in Actual Combat, I did so from Very Long Ranges. That helps to keep them alive, as they tend to be outside the common retaliatory strike ranges of Shadowrunners.

Here's a modern day drone being downed by a single pistol round. Skip to about 00:30 for the action.

Now it is only a modern day drone, largely made of plastic and not terribly large or refined. So yeah, 2075 drones will be much better quality - but then again, so will 2075 guns.

That said, you can easily keep your Roto-Drone safe by keeping it 1) at long range, 2) in low lighting, 3) in poor visibility, and 4) in high winds. Anyone shooting at a Roto-Drone at Long Range in Light Fog and Wind at Night is going to suffer -8 dice.

~Umi

Every time your drone gets destroyed, just think of it as using your bank acount as your damage track.

TJ nails it.

You have a drone. It flies. It has all kinds of groovy optics. Stick a rifle on it and drop gangers from half a klick away. "Oh look, they have Ak-97's! Isn't the way they spray full auto around adorable?" *headshot*

Other than that, the drones you see are mostly intel style, good for scouting and learning. The only real combat drone is that Steel Lynx. The rest really want to *not* get shot.

Actually their not, all you have to do is take a look through Gun Haeven and you can see that 100+ year old guns do exact same damage as the guns from 2075.

Except that's Fourth Edition.

...unless you want to stick with that logic and say that between 2073 and 2075, guns got a lot stronger all of a sudden?

~Umi

So the old guns get the same kind of damage boost in SR5 as new ones do.

If my 4th Ed rigger was to have a peek at the future of drones, she would just curl up into a fetal position and cry.

She tended to field drones in the 50000 to 70000 nuyen range, with a couple soaring into the 150 to 200 k range.



-k

Presumably such drones were made possible by the 4E splat books, though. Wait till we get some of those for 5E, then you can compare.

~Umi

Gun technology has not signifigantly increased since WWII. The M240 is still one of the best MMGs in the world, and you better belive that the M1 Garand and Tommy guns pack more punch than a M16 or MP5. We have reduced the size, and weight of guns, and made them more optimal for CQC. We haven't found a way to fix physics yet so that a lighter bullet hits harder. (ok so we have the P-90. that gun is cheating anyways!)

Yeap, also im pretty sure even P90 doesn't actually hit harder then tommy gun, it's just penetrates armor a lot better.

Yeah, I'll wait until the modification rules and additional drones come in. Half the fun of playing a Rigger lies in customizing your gear.

Only half?

Depends on how many mod slots you want to dedicate to having fun playing a Rigger. Some folks go full hog, others like to keep their options option.

~Umi

I guess Mr Johnson is going to have to have to actually start paying for the "lease" of the drones and vehicles.
I always found it funny that a rigger is suppose to risk 100K of drones and vehicles for a 10K payout and no coverage for damages to said drones or for the munitions they used.


If the ops was done in house, the Corp would be having to pay for the replacement of any drones or vehicles lost in the op.

And you know that Johnson is subcontracting the op because runners are deniable assets that won't leave a trail back to Mr Johnson's corp.
And the runners are providing all this expensive gear and ware that is also untraceable back to Mr Johnson's corp.

Mr Johnson doesn't have to acquire the gear or dispose of it once the op is over. Or worry about keeping it up to date.
Much cheaper to rent than buy.

riggers can do this. your argument is invalid. Also, I think this is how Bull gets people off his lawn

While a rigger might risk 100k worth of drones, everyone else risks getting shot to death, so that sounds like a wash to me.

Also, unless you're going with a pack of four Steel Lynxes, you're gonna need more like 20 drones to spend 100k on them all with the new prices for the available models.

~Umi

It's not even like the P90 is magical, either. People have known bout the failings of slow 'n' heavy rounds since the first time people were stuck using the damn things in heavy brush. You could make a pretty strong argument that the biggest changes boil down to doctrine, not technological capability--the real debate about rounds wasn't really between light and fast vs slow and heavy but rather light and fast vs... heavy and fast. And really, it's tough to blame the old supporters of higher power weapons, either, since it's now pretty obvious that designated marksmen aren't going anywhere any time soon. Full-on rifles really do have their place in the world and feature patently obvious advantages on a shot per shot basis. It's just that all that extra effective range never really ends up being used by most soldiers, and meanwhile heavier rounds are harder to carry, take up more room in your magazine, kick harder and otherwise serve as an all around pain in the ass.

On the squishy drone topic. Our rigger died in our third mission. Being down 4 drones and now faced with burning an edge, they decided it was better to just make another character. So I guess dead drones affected her more than I thought.

Well, some DMs subconsciously direct lethal force towards drones/spirits first to avoid killing PCs while maintaining the semblance of threat. Of course, those characters get royally screwed over by such behaviour.