Late last night, in the campaign I'm in, our group (which was dining at the Space Needle for a meet with a Johnson) got ambushed by a pair of roto-drones armed with heavy weapons. Naturally, we didn't have much in the way of material firepower -- I think one, maybe two people had a well-concealed pistol. It turned out that the multiple mages in the group quickly lightning-bolted both of them, but before that took place we saw a number of unusual methods proposed of dealing with 'em.

1) The troll physad started hucking dinner plates with his Missile Mastery power.

2) A cybered ex-cop in an armored jacket (kevlar w/ plates) stripped off the jacket and filled its pockets up with silverware, with the intention of tossing it past the table we were using as cover and onto the rotorblades of one of the drones, there to hopefully shatter/deform the blades. (She never got the opportunity, though.)

The first method isn't too far from the norm, but the second struck me as being quite inventive.

Anyone else seen any really strange methods proposed of dealing with vehicles or drones?

Have the drunk troll urinate into the more sensitive electronics.

Janitor's closet. Mops, buckets, all sorts of goodies.

Firehose.

~J

We were being followed by a LoneStar chopper, not agressively yet, but it would be soon as our vehicle discription got out. My character had the oddest assortment of skills and very strong mathmatics and science skills. He created a simulated SAM lockon signal and bounced it off a building so it didn't look like it came from us, and it got those LS boys nervous enough to forget about us long enough for us to dip into a parking garage and switch vehicles.

did i ever tell you guys about the time, and damn i forget the characters name, repells out a window from a toilet with a dead Kinjo the cyberninja, and an unconcious shapeshifter in animal form?

The easiest way to escape a rotodrone in the Space Needle:

Run away. Hopefully, the armored windows take the first few hits. Whoever sent the drone is likely to suffer an accident in a few days. This is a very visible, high-class landmark with strong Mafia connections. People don't make trouble there unless they can keep it really quiet. The Perp would have the Metroplex government, the FBI, Lone Star, the Mafia, the Corp Council, and who knows who else after them.

Easiest way to escape a rotodrone in other restaurant situations:

Foul the rotors and sensors, if you can. Tablecloths can work just fine. Any collision will force the drone to make a piloting test. If you've got good aim, toss a bottle of catsup (ketchup) at the cameras. Makes target designation harder. (Sure he can see you with active sensors. But can he tell who is who?)

HTH combat can work well, if you can get close enough. You don't have to destroy the thing, just put it in a position where it can't hurt you.

Introduce Mr. Lightweight Carbon-Fiber Rotor Blade to Mrs. Pine or Aluminum Chair.

That whole encounter rings very familiar. Is it from a published adventure?

Survival of the Fittest has something like that in it. I believe it's an auto-gyro, though.

Yup, I believe so. That's what the GM is running at the moment. However, he had both a helicopter far off in the distance (which lobbed a missile at us before fleeing, after the drones had gone down) as well as the two drones.

Paint grenade filled with some nice colour. Has the following effect.

A: Vision systems on a drone becomes blind unless Thermographic might be able to see through paint (anyone knows anything on this?)

B: Effect A works even better on security guards in heavy armour with faceplate.

Same as above but mixed with superglue, just for fun.

If you lack all of the above try to use a bottle of wine or perhaps the main dish, soup would work as well.
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If strong: Throw a table into the rotor blades.

If fast/strong muscle/adept: CAPTURE the rotorblade and see the drone spin,spin,spin...

Effect A barely works on drones, at least any with a decent Sensor rating. Their TN to detect an average human with active sensors only is 3 with LOS, 6 without (but if they don't have LOS, blinding visuals won't help).

~J

True enough. But the drone can no longer tell which human is the waiter, which is the corp executive, and which is the mage prepping a lightning bolt.

Now, true, if it was the sort of hit that requires combat drones, you just frag all three, but there are cases where you want a little more discrimination.

There's a difference between 'Target: Medium-sized human, signature within normal parameters. Recording signature for lock-on." and "The elderly man with a goatee, wearing a green jacket."

Fling a table cloth at the blades, any and all drag should count towards a crash test.

Reminds me of a scenario I wanted to try out, but the game was canceled before I had the opportunity. Compound had 4 automated gun turrets, guards all had IFF transponders. PC had rating 10 jammer (not a starting character). Flux 10 easily covers the compound

When I ran this same scenario from SoTF for my team, they dealt with it by making called-shots throwing the dinner knives and serving platters into the drone rotors. Base damage is (STR)L, called shot makes it (STR)M, adjust for a vehicle made it (STR/2)L, but that 3L was enough to pick away at the unarmored auto-gyros. It was actually a really great scene, because most of the cutlery missed, but eventually they made the rigger use up all his control pool dodging a virtual storm of fine dining accoutrements. Meanwhile, he's hosing the dining area with HMG fire, so I'm having fun describing the exploding thousand island dressings, fine wine, and Grey Poupon. The team is dodging constantly, both to avoid the fire and to keep migrating around to find more silverware to throw.

It lasted like 10 combat rounds, which is way longer than most fights in SR. I loved it. And the team got out uninjured (of course, with FA HMG fire, you're choices are uninjured or dead).

--K

This has me wondering, how much effect would a heavy bike chain have flung into a combat helicopter's rotors? I mean the krypto-whatever big ass ones that look like they should be able to stop a 18-wheeler, never mind prevent your bike from being stolen.


-karma

I love doing science-related Google research...

So it looks like typical military helicopter blades spin such that the max speed (in a hover) of the blade tips is about 200 knots below Mach 1. That way the craft can move through the air at a comfortable 150 knots or so and never push the blade tips on the advancing part of their rotation into the sound barrier (which would be very bad).

200 knots == 230 mph == 102.8 m/s
Mach 1 == 332 m/s or 1195 km/hr or 717 miles/hour

Therefore, the blade tips are moving approx 229 m/s, or in Shadowrun terms, 687 m/T. The collision rules for vehicles give such a speed a damage rating of 69D.

I was not able to find any hard statistics on what a helicopter can withstand hitting its blades, but it sure isn't much. Even something as innocuous as a grapefruit is going to make for flight instability -- a Control check in gaming terms. Something reasonably solid, like a bicycle chain, probably won't destroy the rotors per se, but will warp them and cause major flight instability, forcing an immediate landing and a Crash test to avoid a hard landing.

I found two stories of actual helicopter rotor impacts as an example -- one was where the helicopter blade hit a steel hand railing on a crane it was hovering near. The rotor was totally destroyed instantly, the helicopter dropped like a rock, killing everyone on board.

The other story, the helicopter was struck by lightining on the rotor, and had some serious flight control problems, but the skilled pilot managed to put it down in a soft crash that the crew survived.

There are anecdotal stories also that indicate that helicopters can be rendered unflyable by hail hitting the rotors.

Military helicopters I believe are designed to endure small-arms damage to the blades to some degree... but I don't know how far that helps with large-object strikes.

--K

When I was in the Navy ('87-'95) I worked on H-46 Helicopters. During flights we had these pre-packed lunches from hell from the galley. It was more fun to through the questionable apples up into the rotors from the side access hatch during flight than to actually eat them. No effect what so ever. During one emergency landing (lost an engine, but I wasn't on that flight) the only clearing close enough was not quite large enough. It was after the landing. Branches up to 4 inches in diameter were simply cut right through. The blades were in need of paint, but that was it. The blades are made of a composite honeycomb material, but the leading edge is really tough, but I don't know what kind of metal it is. It could be T6 aluminum or stainless steel, or something even harder.

But on anything military, a grapefruit won't do anything unless you get it in an open window and nail the pilot. Even the intakes on most helicopters are fairly well shielded from debris getting in, and during desert scenarios, they actually have sand filters that you attach.

Unfortunately this is a game where the rules create reality, not the other way around. To hit a drone's rotors is a called shot, and only has the called shot effects (+1 Damage Level), not anything else.

No, I'm serious! Throwing a heavy motorcycle into the rotors of a drone can be resisted if the rigger is in first-person mode and uses his control pool to resist.

Besides which, what do you do if the drone is a vectored-thrust gun platform like the Wandjina?

Just because you're throwing a motorcycle into the rotors of a drone doesn't mean you actually throw a motorcycle into the rotors of a drone. This isn't D&D. You attempt to throw a motorcycle into the rotors of a drone and then the rigger or the drone gets to dodge and otherwise maneuver his vehicle to avoid said motorcycle.

Besides, if you are trying to throw a motorcycle into the rotors of a drone chances are you're going to fail anyway since even a troll would have trouble lifting a motorcycle let alone throwing it more than a couple of meters.

Well, theoretically, if the impact with the motorcycle only did a base of, say, M damage, and the drone rolled well on its Damage Resistance Test, then throwing the motorcycle into the rotors may have no effect whatsoever.

Yes, there are going to be people who say, "But that makes no sense!" Welcome to Shadowrun. Here, the rules make reality.

You need those ginsu rotors that can cut through hammers and never need sharpening and all that.

That was my point

~J

Gotcha.

Also note that a shot removing the earlobe (or tip for keebs) is technically a head hit but could be a light wound. If a PC claims a shot to the eyeball (except in cases where said eyeball is rather large), hit his with the nearest object.

Oh, I suppose it is a matter of different building codes then. And I meant fire hosereels when I said fire extinguishers.

The truth be told the Ex-cop, seeing how everyone was distracted and hiding under cover, decided it was a prime opertunity to expand her home collection of silverware.