Concept - Lord of Flies

NPC who uses snake-eyes inconjuction with a mass of micro-drones to have 100% knowledge of the local area, like a portable, self-moving CCTV system. The micro-drones are very small indeed, insect sized! A combination of crawlers and burrowers, but mostly flyers. The individual drone resolution is poor (current digital CCTV quality around 48kb/sec), but overlapping video feeds produce the quality. Each drone communicates to each other, with LoF somewhere within the swarm.

One problem, how do I get SR drones that small?

Just for AE - The 2004 version

Check out rigger 3, they've got plent of tiny drones. they even have tiny crawler drones, for that creepy element you're looking for. drones that small have body 0 however, and are destroyed by any sucessful attack. Also, you've got a maximum number of drones on your remote deck, you might consider having at least a few larger drones.

When I read through R3 the crawler drones came across as quite a bit larger than I needed.

If the drone has a very basic autopilot that is - don't crash/maintain distance to drone x - then I should be able to pilot the swarm with only a few drones, yes?

No, no, they list very small crawlers. anything body 0 is as small as a paper back book or so. Body 1 means from the size of a toaster, to the size of a dwarf.

If I saw a fly the size of a paperback book I'd reach for a gun, not a rolled-up newspaper!

They say that some drones with Body 0 are smaller tha the palm of the hand.

Yea, He's looking for something the size of a cockroach or smaller.

In reality the problem with small rotodrones is that air starts to behave differently when the rotors are too small, which is why the smallest remote controlled rotorcraft today has rotors about 12cm across last I checked.

Doesn't happen in SR.

Yep. Imagine walking around with a bulky coat full of twenty body 0 drones.

Ever see one of those ionic breeze air fresheners? There's a pretty solid breeze that comes out of one of those things, and there are no moving parts. Just ionized air. Now I'm not sure how much power that thing sucks out of my wall, but add 60 years of technology on there and you could have a sweet little jet engine. Sort of like a low-power caterpilliar drive for the air.
Imagine a drone constructed of lighter-than-air (or nearly so) polymers. If you could get it light enough, and get enough thrust out of that little engine, you might be able to come up with a smaller flying drone. But it could only operate in low-wind conditions, like indoors. A properly wielded desk fan could probably keep it at bay, but it's still a neat idea.

That's probably analagous to what powers mini-blimbs and other tiny drones. Tiny drone thunderbirds.

Bitbasher, did you check the link at the start. I know I said it was for AE ('cos I make flip comments), but unless the hand-model has very big hands the rotors appear to less than 12cm.

As for the brain it's small

And if you want very small.

The camera?

The RF trans gear?

So that just leaves a battery, no?

Yes, SR canon doesn't appear to have small drones, that's why I would like some contructive input.

I was wondering about that "for AE" bit...

Personally, I've no problem with this. I might allow gear using less CF and Load with a system similar to cyberware grades, house rule some micro-equipment to mount on it, and determine the final size by the weight and CF used.

I'll give it shot when I get home and edit this tomorrow, see what you think.

Unless some nice person has time on their hands in the next couple of hours

Logically this is how I would approach the issue:

Nanites are microscopic drones or just really really tiny particle sized drones essentially. They have a specific function ect. so level of self movement within the body. For a machine that small to move you would need some really compact electronics something possibly like a DNA computer or just super sized small computers or something which is fundementally small. If a nanite can perform the complex and precise movements within the body using very very very small electronics making an insect sized drone should be feasable. With nanintes and nano tubes and other stong very small structures getting a insect sized drone or slightly smaller drone should work in theory. When you get that tiny the physics for movement may be different so your propulsion would be totally different. Talk to a Aerospace engineer or someone who's had an engineering class involving fluids for the proper shape. With nano fibers the size and weight issue shouldn't be a problem. You may though need a signficant amount of power to transmit a signal? I'm not sure how that would work maybe it's not an issue. In high school I say a guy do a performance showing planes he made powered by flys so possibly the drones might mimic insects in how they move. The only issue that might come up is power. If electronics do have room temp. super conductors that might not be an issue either. Maybe Setzo could pipe in he's an engineer I think, not sure which discipline though?

Theoretically it's possible. There may be legistlation is in check so that such drones are A. very very expensive and B. prohibitied by law because of the ease of intruding on citizens. Maybe that's why the other drones are so large. Micro or tiny drones may require some serious cred. The marines and army are doing research into micro-drones right now. I've seen a survelance drone the size of a small book that's used for infantry recon. So in 60 years and the technology listed in Sota 2063 it should be possible for a large research corp. Technically you could possibly do something like that from the SOTA 2064 but I don't even want to guess what the TN's would be. Technically what your trying to do isn't cannon. It sounds possible but it's not cannon. As long as it's a NPC I'd say go with it because it's a cool idea and adds a cool fear into the game. If it's a PC I'd be very weary. But for a NPC you pretty much have to start making up stuff because I don't thing Rigger 3 really works well for a microsized drone. I could be wrong but maybe it's a R&D thing for Ares or another mega-corp. If you had say the individual working with an insect shaman that could make a really nasty and creative threat. One interestnng idea would be if they're winds were photoreactive? Giving them solar powered movement. They might fit in a large suit case even if they were tiny enough. You may have some limits on flying time though? What I don't know specifically. Also how much noise do they make? I would be nice and say that characters have at least a TN of a 4 if not 3 to see them because of they're odd mechanical movement. I would just try to be fair since your partially in uncharted territory.

You're right about the flight problems and their solution, I didn't have the heart to bring it up before. Insect flight systems are pretty well worked out now. But as to spy-drones the size of bugs, do you realise that the American government has been funding a research group since 1999. The two models needed for insect flight were developed in 1997 (rotational stall) and 1999 (lead edge vortex compression).

Can anyone explain how multiple low-res capture devises can produce a single high-res image?

Anybody got suggestions on electronic costs for near the cyberware sized set these would need?

As to noise, ALL flies make a noise, but these are a bit wrong, scare the PCs.

Possibly using a computer interpolation system to take and combine the images. I've heard of a interesting Nasa uber telescope idea. You have camera's set at intervals on a rigging in space. Each camera has a specific focal length at specified distances. The images are then fed into a computer and the final image is magnified so that you don't actually need a big telescope just lots of little one's spread out in a line with different focal lenghts. So maybe it could work on that prinicple. Another is with multiple camera's maybe you could get a true 3d image? Maybe also the more images you have the computer can cut out the nasty bits and put together the picture using the good bits and ect. This is really cutting edge stuff so I'm just guess. I'm not an engineer by any means. It sounds at least possible. Also don't forget that shadowrun is Science Fiction so we may be making some guessing as to feasiblity. I've always wondered how feasible a data jack is in real life or even a cyber limb that doesn't need recharging every 5 hours of use. We're by no means cutting edge science fiction so a little fudging here and there is okay. If it adds a cool fear or aspect to the story go for it. I've always thought style over substance was an essential part of cyberpunk fiction.

That fly guy I mentioned had a bet. He bet a propulsion engineer that he could make a fly powered air plane. The engineer bet $30 bucks he couldn't. After ten years and $300 later the fly powered plane flew. Sometimes even engineers disagree. There some definite engineering hurdles that have to be met of course but this is fiction so go from there.

Yeah the new rules really sort of break down after a certain point. Not much you can do really. That would be a great area though. Maybe Jon Setzo has some ideas since he wrote most of Rigger 3's vehicle construction rules.

Interesting idea, Botch. Some ideas:

- You could treat the entire swarm as a single system with a sensor rateing and range (maybe "flux") based on the size of the swarm. Attacks which destroy multiple little drones (like fire, maybe) reduce the rateing of the whole system, where as a single gun shot would have very little effect. That way the rateings and abilities of individual flies become less important.

- The guy could also have an implant similar in cost, essence and function to a nanite hive. The flies could fly in and out to recharge whatever little battery powers thier flight.

- Alternately, thier movement could be based on some kind of electromagnetic force. The Lord could have some kind of powerful electromagnetic feild generator which powers the little buggers (pun intended) and he could control them with subtle (computer mediated) changes in the feild.

- It would also be creepy if the guy didn't ever talk, but the buzzing of the swarm was laced with strange wispers.... muahahaha...

That would be creepy if they did speak for him. Really creepy. What if they even had a swarm type of AI system.

One place they could be stowed would be if the guy was paralyzed they could be part of his prostetic adjustment. Maybe he's an ex-engineer who is stricken with Ceribal Palsey (msp?) or and had an accident. They could be stored in his wheel chair easily. Otherwise if he was a human they could be part of a cybernetic skin where they attach to his back or under a coat. I'm guessing a high essence cost though to be fair to the players. This has a good cyber-horror conotations. I really like it. Especially if they have the ability to break out of a subdermal layer.

Maybe the drones actually had insect digestive systems so they some how generate power through metabolic processes similar to how cyberarms are powered metabolically. Who knows?

If you want a bunch of really small and cool drones, Deus might let you have his design specs. Then again, they had a flight time of only five minutes due to fuel restriction. They are absolutely possible and exist in cannon so making a ground drone version is certainly feasible. The range however will be crap.

Assuming you can build the drones (witch seems plausible) I will coment on the control and interpretation systems.

Using slandered rigging equipment your number of drones is limited to deck rating. 12 would be exceptional and you want 50+.

A control system based on the construction nanite control systems would be needed. You can not jump into any of these drones. Given that you only have 50-100 instead of 100,000+ the control programme can probably run on a computer you can carry. Probably a rather expensive mod for your VCD.

Real-time processing of the data feeds into a clean crisp image would require more processing power than you can carry easily. (Your processing 1mp of raw data per camera per drone per minute, and the size of the programme to process it witch would be big) what you could do is rather than making a pretty image produce a map feed. You would looses colour and resolution but you would have a symbology for where everything is that could be interpreted by a battle tack system.

I like the idea of hiving them a single sensor rating based on number of active bugs. But you should use there individual speed, fuel, and flux ratings.

I can see them being powered by there command signals similarly to the way a crystal radio doesn’t need batteries. Of cause they would not be very fast and eth transmitter would need to be very high flux and close to them.

Edward

Um, MP transfer.

Yep, 3D modelling was an intention.

Someone needs to help refine this, but a standard SR video feed has a 10x digital zoom capabilty, no? The size of an image file is directly effected by the resolution, so by removing the digital zoom capability of the videostream the MP requiement is also reduced. Reducing the colour interpretation also significantly reduces the amount of data to transfer. Zoom can be achieved by interpelation, like the telescopes or by simply moving closer. Also the video processing could be done a distributed processing basis. Each fly contributing to a part of the whole, obviously theres a balance point between very expensive flies and a very expensive deck.

The swarm comprises of 2 main types of fly. The fly that can be steered and the flies that fly around the fly he's flying. Say 1 in 10-20, requiring a much cheaper deck for 50+ flies.

Yes, I agree that range is limited and wind a problem. They should be able spread out through a moderate building at maximum range and "hunker down" and walk when the air speed picks up.

The electromagnetic field charging at short range is tempting. Maximum coverage leads to shortest duration type thing. Although once the fly settles down the power usage should drop, with the camera only transmitting changes in the visible areas. The fly's having to return to base for a little bit to "eat" give the PCs another avenue for tracing the source of the amorphous mass of communication.

Once created, a standard Shadowrun rigger-generated image can be magnified up to 10x without significantly degrading it. Since it's so consistent, it makes more sense IMO for it to just be higher-quality than one would think they'd need. There are currently no rules for stripping that out, so you'd have to toss another houserule into the batch.

~J

The whole thing is one big house rule anyway.

If the image were bitmapped then removing the zoom capability would reduce the file size to 1%. Raster would be less efficient but I don’t think they ever got raster images to work well for pictures of actual environments. Of cause SR may use something better than ether with a loss less compression that makes image detail irrelevant and the zoom limit is a factor of the camera resolution and not the file format.

Personally I would have each bug strip its view down to contrast lines witch are easily combined to produce a tactical view for general use and when you need to actually watch something you activate 1 bug to give you a full detail video feed witch you can watch or record but is not used directly by the system. You could even have multiple bugs watching different points but combining the images to produce a full colour 3 dimensional representation of an aria is the work of a supercomputer or time scales of 10/1+

Edward

There was a Michael Cryton(sp?) [The guy from TimeLine and Jurassic Park) novel about a Nanite project that planned to build "Recon Nano Swarms". The novel itself is relatively "cheesy" and long winded but the inital 50 pages where they explain the Nano is interesting.

Okay, the rest of the novel is also pretty "10 little afro-americans" and "ooops, that went wrong" (To be human ist to be....obsolete)

Birdy

Michael Crichton, and the novel is called Prey.

Well first things first- we all agree that by 206X the technology to build this system is there, right?

We don't need to sit around debaiting how it might be done with today's technology- we could do the same for any number of cannon tech gadgets but nobody really cares how something works so long as cannon says it does.

So, given that assumption (i.e. the technology is there- it works - live with it) all we really need to do is figure out a balanced game mechanic that allows this guy to do what you're envisioning.

Personally I would go with something less cumbersome, like the multi-sensor array with one Rating. You could say that each rating point on the Lord's RCD supports one sensor point worth of the little buggers (how ever many that is- for fluff you could say 1000).

For power, I like Edward's crystal radio concept- the electromagnetic feild that controls the buggers also powers them somehow.

As far as range goes, you could say that more centrally-located flies double as a short range repeaters for the peripheral "sensing" flies, so again its not the effective range an individual bug, but the density of the swarm (and how far they can spread out) thats important. So FLUX = Rating/5 or something like that (you'd have to determine what equation makes sense).

One thing this lacks is some kind of mechanic for determining how many flies a given attack destroys (and thus the reduction in the systems rating). That could be pretty variable when you consider all the different types of damage the PCs might dish out...

More thoughts-

- Since the flies could essentially go anywhere (baring wind tunnels), the system would not be limited by obsticles, sensor blind spots, buildings, etc. The Lord would effectively sense everything within the swarm's range.

- The flies themselves don't need full motion digital video. They might have a simple sensor that "sees" only a limited feild in IR or Ultrasound. The tiny amount of data each fly collects could be transmitted back to a computer that builds a composit and translates it into simsense for the Lord's modified snakeyes. Instead of jumping into individual flies, the lord could "jump" into any location within the swarm's range an "see" everything thats happening as if he were there.

Thanks for the input so far guys.

Damage wise, I thinking that only broad area effects would work. Spraying acid, setting the room on fire very quickly, EMP, ECM, blast effects only in a confined area, etc. Individual shots would be near useless.

I realise that statement needs a bit of rules-fu, but I'm a bit unsure about combat magic. Would the LoF system as a whole be treated as 1 target or each sub-set of flies, or each fly?

For those who wish know how the idea came about.

About 6 months ago a small swarm of house-flies invaded by lounge/kitchen. Don't know where they came from, the first day I shoo'd hundreds out of the window. The next day there were hundreds more, maybe they snuck back? Day 3 an idea came to me, why not get the high-power Walther P99 BB gun out of the shed an get a little "live" practise in. After a while, I could definately say, "I can hit a fly at 20' with a 6mm BB.". Course, that's only true after practising on several hundred flies and covering my lounge with about 2,000 plastic BBs during the course of 2 1/2 days.