Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Controlling Drones without VCR
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
PiXeL01
On the last adventure I had some none-riggers who bought some drones. Now my main problem was I couldnt remember if there was any rules for piloting drones without a VCR. Are there?

So basicly I gave them a laptop with a joystick and said they had to program it with computers with they wanted it to do something other then just hang there doing nothing when they wouldnt be controlling it.
Could someone please specify what happens after you have given a drone an order and then it leaves the network. Does it a) drop dead or b) carry out the last command? Giving me pages to read in Rigger3 or BBB works fine for me smile.gif

Another thing happened. Their rigger's RCdeck got fried and they had a drone hanging in midair which the group wanted down again. Now if you have the frequences is it then easy to "hijack" it or do you still need all that extra electronic warfare gear to bring the drone down to earth?

Thank you in advance
Kagetenshi
There are ways. Look up Captain's Chair Mode. Short answer is that the drone rolls its Pilot Rating for most tasks instead of the user using the relevant skill. Captain's Chair is available to Riggers as well, of course.

An uncontrolled drone will continue following its last orders or find a safe place to deactivate, IIRC.

~J
Ancient History
QUOTE
On the last adventure I had some none-riggers who bought some drones. Now my main problem was I couldnt remember if there was any rules for piloting drones without a VCR. Are there?


Yeah. Deckers can do it with a Rig Emulator and Remote Control Emulation Utility.

DrJest
IIRC you can control a vehicle remotely with the Remote Control Deck (I had a merc mage who owned a helicopter with that option), but I wouldn't want to risk doing anything significant with it.
Edward
As to the fried deck and getting your drone back down I would say you would need to do much of the electronic warfare.

There are lots of frequencies and in order to be secure the access codes would need to be farley long so remembering them would be a bitch. However as the controlling deck is not active I would say you are rolling to take over a network that has a rating 0 deck with flux 0 and automatically gets 0 successes on all the opposed rolls. So unless I am mistaken you need to make 3 electronic warfare tests against target 0 (2) to get into the system and then a couple more to take control of the drones.

Unless there was some reason for hast (more successes reduces time) or you have negligible skill (2 or less or your defaulting) I would not bother to have you roll.

If you keep a second deck loaded with your codes for just such an eventuality then it would be automatic. But remember, what if an enemy gets access to that deck.

Edward
Kagetenshi
Then you're already dead, unless you're being careless.

~J
Cain
QUOTE
On the last adventure I had some none-riggers who bought some drones. Now my main problem was I couldnt remember if there was any rules for piloting drones without a VCR. Are there?

So long as the character has a datajack, Captain's chair mode is availiable. The joystick-and-laptop rig was removed in 3rd ed.
Thistledown
A major benifit from not rigging when using drones is dumpshock. Because you're not plugged into them, if one dies, you go "drek, that's another 5000 nuyen.gif from the chip.' When you're plugged into a drone and it dies, you go 'sizzle sizzle, oh, my head.'

This leads to a wonderful use to non-rigged drones. Demolitions. Strap some C4 to a drone, and drive it off under somebody's car, then boom. Or strap some neurostun X to it, and deploy as you drive it through the air shafts of a building.
PiXeL01
So basicly it comes down to you CANT control drones without owning a remote control deck and you do not receive a rating 1 which is hardcoded to the drone's frequencies, when you purchase the drone?

Well thank you all for your feedback smile.gif
Thistledown
Course, an RC car that you buy at radio shack has a rating 0.5 remote control deck that comes with it, which is tied to a preset frequency.
Edward
But the top of the line remote control plane you by at a dedicated hobby store often dose not come with a remote control at all. At least today.

Edward
GrinderTheTroll
I am considering a Samurai with a Combat Computer, CRD and a few remote camera/sensor drones to help make it more efficient. Wouldn't need to do too much more than just deploy and position.
DigitalMage
QUOTE (Cain)
The joystick-and-laptop rig was removed in 3rd ed.

By default it was removed, but I think Rigger 3 Revised allows you to add manual controls on afterward.
Cable
I figure as long as the drone has a microphone system you can. I does involve you yelling at it a lot and it uses its autopilot to do all tasks, so it sucks.
Ol' Scratch
By default all drones (and anything else with Sensors 1 or higher) has a "microphone system."
DarkShade
umm.. 2 sessions ago the rigger had to leave some drones fighting alone while he was doing something else..

we came to one conclusion..

drones, when fighting people, suck horribly. they cant hit the broad side of a barn, and any hits they may get will likely be dodged away.

they are good at suppressive fire and at tying up defenders as it is easy to give them enough armor to make them invulnerable to small arms fire.
this makes their use a bit limited if not under rigger control..
<that said, they are great at bringing tool x to team mate y in location z... >
Ds
BitBasher
So, Darkshade, were you correctly using the rules and giving the drones a TN of 2 or 3 pretty much always? because if the drone has direct LOS to the target it's either a -3 or -4 TN (I can't recall which) that really isn't modified by squat. A good drone can be a horrible efficient thing at killing. Especially being able to throw a LOT of lead without recoil penalties.
Kagetenshi
-3.

~J
DarkShade
base tn: 4, add urban environment, +2, Direct LOS mod the book specifically states they dont get , and is reserved for things like flying targets firing at vehicles with no cover nearby and such.

so tn for a drone shooting at you at nearly any situation is 6.

however even before it starts shooting at you it has to get a lock on you with a sensor test, which costs an action!! <sensor enhanced gunnery rules>

they have no pools, just their basic skill, which is, crap. <iirc = autopilot rating> & they end up with a single success if very lucky.. dodge away.

not sure why you cant mount one of the automated turrets mentioned in SR3 on a drone.. those are FAR better.. then again, perhaps too good for this smile.gif

now unbless I have seriously misunderstood something, drones are just not that great when uncontrolled.... & sensor enhanced gunnery isnt that great against people.

DS
Clyde
It was my
Clyde
/my
Edward
You can improve there skill a lot with a clear sight and gunnery auto soft. Especially good seeing you only need to pay for the software once (although each drone needs its own auto soft interpretation module).

Edward
BitBasher
Why do you think you have to pay for the software once? you need one copy for each drone you plan to put it in.
Ol' Scratch
No, you can upload a copy of an Autosoft to each drone individually. It's just like downloading a Skillsoft to headware memory.
iPad
It depend if its been coded to disrupt any copies (SR rule book). THe 'one copy' programs are cheaper if I remember right.
Edward
As I read the section on programmes (witch applied to all decker programs, skill soft and auto soft) most commercial programs are delivered on an OOC. You can copy from the OOC to whatever you want as often as you want but when you make a copy of a copy it is corrupt and useless. This gives security to the copyright owner but allows somebody to remove a program when they don’t need it to free up memory and still be able to reload it from the original chip.

If you want to be able to make a copy of a copy you ether pay a lot more, write it yourself or have a decker crack it.

Edward
Ol' Scratch
<sighs>

Skillsofts (of which an Autosoft is) are expressely allowed to be copied just fine, unless a specific entry states otherwise (or you take the One-Shot programming option for it in the Cannon Companion). Feel free to read up on the rules for them, and note in particular the part about "upload into headware memory."
Kagetenshi
Programs are assumed to come with the source, and get a discount for compiled-only distributions. Given that, I doubt copies are corrupted.

~J
DarkShade
1) could someone pls tell me where those software rules are? I must have missed them...


that will make drones a bit less useless when uncontrolled..
are there modifiers possible to their initiative? since it takes a complex to lock on to a target they really need a second action to shoot the same turn...but without a rigger jacked in...

DS
Edward
You still need somebody jacked in in captains chare mode to give them orders. This can of cause be achieved with a cheep cyber deck, rigger protocol emulation module (or cheep RCD), rigger interface program (can’t remember proper name) and a transmitter of some type.

It dose now occur to me that I have never seen anything on how to determine the initiative for a drone that no longer has a rigger controlling it but is still following last orders.

Eg rigger orders several drones to attack light tank. Rigger jumps into one drone to fight. Tank fires electric attack at riggers drone (one he is jumped in) killing it. Between the feedback from eth electric attack and the dump shock rigger is unconscious. But 5 drones are still active with orders to kill the light tank. If the rigger had given them no new orders they would have continued attacking I have always believed in this situation (rigger down) they continue on last orders but drones have no listed reaction or initiative dice.

The same question would come up when a drone entered an aria of active jamming while under active orders.

Edward
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (DarkShade)
1) could someone pls tell me where those software rules are? I must have missed them...

They're specified in Matrix, as having the source without programming rules would have been useless. No page number, sadly, as work calls.

~J
Ol' Scratch
People still use Advanced Drone Pilots? Pfft. Gimme a Robotic Pilot with Robotic Reflexes any day of the week. Sure, they're a little more expensive (Rating 3 is 1650 DP total vs. 250 DP for a Rating 3 Drone), but it's sooo much more worth it.
Kagetenshi
They are so much more worth it, but I can rarely spend ¥140,000 extra on a robotic pilot. The extra ¥35,000 for a .25 markup drone is also usually too much, what with the reduced capabilities of said drones.

~J
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (PiXeL01)
On the last adventure I had some none-riggers who bought some drones. Now my main problem was I couldnt remember if there was any rules for piloting drones without a VCR. Are there?

Yeah the rules are in SR3 and R3 about non-rigged control. Basically forces you to only use the Captain's Chair mode for operating them. This means all the tests the drones do will be with it's own Pilot rating. Think of this as RC airplanes with a mini-brain.

QUOTE
So basicly I gave them a laptop with a joystick and said they had to program it with computers with they wanted it to do something other then just hang there doing nothing when they wouldnt be controlling it.

Rulea are pretty well defined for this sort of thing, but you have the basics down.

QUOTE
Could someone please specify what happens after you have given a drone an order and then it leaves the network. Does it a) drop dead or b) carry out the last command? Giving me pages to read in Rigger3 or BBB works fine for me smile.gif

Check either book for specifics, the areas are fairly short reads that cover this exact question quite well.

QUOTE
Another thing happened. Their rigger's RCdeck got fried and they had a drone hanging in midair which the group wanted down again. Now if you have the frequences is it then easy to "hijack" it or do you still need all that extra electronic warfare gear to bring the drone down to earth?

Might use the rules for it leaving the network considering the deck is they key to controlling all your drones in this case. You could highjack your own drone (or some other nefarious rigger mind you) if you didn't have another remote programmed with the right security protocols and subscriber list.


All these questions are in SR3 and R3, sorry I don't have any specific page numbers.
Ol' Scratch
Most drones have a low Mark-Up to begin with. Crawlers, Fixed-Wing and Rotorcraft UAVs, and Walkers -- three of the four staples -- all have a base Mark-Up of 0.25. The other staple, Mini-Blimps, only has a base Mark-Up of 0.50.

It is only worth it on the drones you're investing in. An off-the-shelf Condor-21 Mini-Blimp or Prospero Rotordrone are practically disposable. But if I'm going to invest in a 100,000¥ drone, I'd rather invest an extra 35,000¥ to insure that drone is fully autonomous and more than capable of defending themselves rather than blowing it on a second drone that's just going to be cannon fodder (relatively speaking). Especially with it's independant Initiative of 5D6 and hefty Adaptation Pool.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
Most drones have a low Mark-Up to begin with.  Crawlers, Fixed-Wing and Rotorcraft UAVs, and Walkers -- three of the four staples -- all have a base Mark-Up of 0.25.  The other staple, Mini-Blimps, only has a base Mark-Up of 0.50.

It is only worth it on the drones you're investing in.  An off-the-shelf Condor-21 Mini-Blimp or Prospero Rotordrone are practically disposable.  But if I'm going to invest in a 100,000¥ drone, I'd rather invest an extra 35,000¥ to insure that drone is fully autonomous and more than capable of defending themselves rather than blowing it on a second drone that's just going to be cannon fodder (relatively speaking).  Especially with it's independant Initiative of 5D6 and hefty Adaptation Pool.

Excellent point Doc Func.

I was toying with how to make a Tactical computer more useful by adding a Cranial Remote Deck and some cheap drones. The one I worked out was just a micro-roto-drone with just Sensors 1. I figured I could use the audio/video feed to help with more bonuses, and that sort of drone (Electric fuel cell + Micro-Roto Chassis) is very, very exepensive compared to what's stock in the book. For a few more bucks I could make it more autonomous, but the cheap price makes them disposable.

Just to complete the thought, I am considering a cyberleg with a comparment so i can carry these little buggers with me (10-20cm). Even smaller if I give them setup/breakdown time.
Kagetenshi
That's true. I haven't gone for anything that expensive smaller than car-size yet, though; damn laws of physics.

~J
Fortune
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll)
... Cranial Remote Deck ...

You're much better off stuffing that Remote Deck in a Cyberleg.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll @ Nov 18 2004, 05:09 AM)
... Cranial Remote Deck ...

You're much better off stuffing that Remote Deck in a Cyberleg.

Yeah I am just looking to see if it's worth the effort, but that's an option considering the Essence cost of the CRD and the TacComputer. I've also considered adding a Signal Booster in the leg too (maybe the other) but I don't plan of having drones under my control doing much more than some close-combat spotting/recon.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012