Hello everyone.

I'm new to Dumpshock, but have been lurking the boards and have played SR for awhile now.

I need more drones. Specifically I feel that the spectrum of anthroform drones are underdeveloped in the Rigger 3r book.

I have read some of the more creative threads here, and most of the time I can read three-four lines in, and then the poster spins off on some, definately not canon, houserule that would leave massive tracks of destruction through most gameworlds.

A few questions:

1. The rules specify that levels of robot piloting *must* be added during vehicle Design. This basically means that outside of houserules, there is no way a rigger can upgrade a robot once its purchased. - Or install robot level pilots in otherwise standard drones.

2. Secondly, there are no robots listed in Rigger 3, period. The only robots I've seen is from SRC, I think, the housebots.

3. I need robot levels. How would you suggest I implement them in a campaign where we are pretty street oriented, but with high resources and semi-munchkin powerlevels. (Within the canon limits. Just noones boohs you for having ~20 dice in an attackroll or armor 10-15.)

My character concept involves a junkyard with attached repair facility, city licensed to Ares. Ares have appointed a caretaker (me) to keep the lot clear of interlopers and squeese the trash for profit. The mafia has a certain interest in black spareparts and a quiet place to do business. Seattle needs to get rid of their trash, and are not in too much of a rush to pressure Ares for higher service, as this would promptly be answered with a demand for a higher service fee.

All in all it leaves my rigger balancing the mob vs. Ares vs. Seattle. As long as all needs are met, no one gets unhappy. It also provides plenty of space and junky spareparts for jury-rigging odd things and drones.

I am toying with the idea of an anthroform "decoy" drone. A drone that outwardly appears like an exact replica of my character. This means the body must be humanoid and it sets high standards for fluent movement. Only the face will need actual synth-skin, the drone will be clothed and wear gloves.

4. Rigger 3 gives no reference for cosmetic jobs. - Ideas?

5. I also need a primary utility drone. We do loads of running in tunnels and stealthing through corp compunds. A medium anthroform will be able to handle stairs, break maglocks and be used as tank. Its almost certain that it will not wear heavy vehicle armor.

6. The combat monster. An anthroform tank, perhaps body 4. Ideas for chassis rules?

2. i think the mk-guyver drone have robotic pilot.

6. grab a of the shelf steel lynx

I did this for a Rigger of mine awhile back. Basically a parapalegic ex-UCAS pilot that made himself a new body for mobility. I used the Anthroform rules, and put in a bucket seat to reflect the "passenger space". I talked with my GM and we used the synthskin rules in IIRC M&M. In the end, since my "bot" was troll sized, I ended up paying 30,000 Nuyen. Chop that back to to standard and its about 20,000 for a non-troll type meta. Looked great until I hit moderate dmg, when all the "chrome" started to show through.

1. You wont get much in the way of robotic pilots but you don’t really need them. Rating 3 pilot with auto soft interpretation is good for most jobs, if its not enough jump in and do it yourself. You could upgrade a robot with better armour or improved suspension but nothing much more involved than that

2. There are a few robots in R3 but not many, I don’t think any of the arthroforms are robots. This accurately represents how uncommon robots are.

3. a street level campaign will not have a true robotic pilot. Standard pilot systems will almost certainly be all you can get and should be more than adequate to the task.

Remember, robotic pilot modules are close to SOTA equipment, the advantage they provide is modest compared to the extreme high cost, also as you said before robotic pilots must be built into the vehicle from the initial design. You will not be cobbling together robots from a junkyard, drones yes bot robotic pilot modules are to delicate to be cobbled like that.

4, Your decoy drone could work; I would say it would need to be a custom job with handling improvement enough to get it to 1/1 by whatever means, then it would move smoothly enough, you will need a house rule for the skin the one SpeedFreak suggested works fine.

5,6 there is no need to make these different drones (unless you want the utility drone to look like something other than a tank.

Take a body 4 arthreform ad lots of vehicle armour and when you want it in tank mode have it carry an assault canon in its hands.

Edward