For a starting character, what are the best choices for a drone killing weapon? Armor breaching for vehicles says if you dont do over the armor rating them the vehicle/drone is uninjured. This means -AP weapons and high DV weapons would be best, right?

I'm guessing a MA2100 would be a good one (-3AP, 7DV base) which could be silenced and could use EX Explosive ammo (making it -5AP, 9DV).

Another choice is the Elephant Gun, but unlike the MA2100 I can't see how such a double-barrel weapon could be silenced and its slower ROF (SS, even if both barrels shot at once) means a dodgy victim has it that much easier.

Grenade Launchers have SOME promise, I suppose, but the MA2100 seems to be the best starting can opener barring straight EW to crash the Pilot program or Spoof it into severing itself from its master's node by un-trusting the master's node and going into hidden mode.

Anything I'm missing?

I never did understand silencing a gun thats firing explosive ammo.

If there is enough distance between you and the target, i could see it helping in some situations.

If you're dealing with a powerful rifle firing pretty hefty bullets at velocities in excess of mach 3, explosive ammunition isn't the source of sound you should be worrying about.

As blakkie implied, the point here is to make it more difficult to figure out where the shot came from, and in some situations to make it less clear that that very loud noise you just heard was from a gunshot and not something else.

For a starting character? How bout the stoner on FA with explosive rounds That'll make just about anything dead, or at the very least not happy.

The title of this thread is a trick question, isn't it? Riggers don't exist in SR4.
[ Grin / Duck / Run ]

I'm fond of directional jammers myself.

As a starting character you can have a rating 6 Directional Jammer. That'll drop anything that is operated by someone with a commlink that has a signal of 6 or less. And that's everyone.

-Frank

Unless they run an ECCM Program.

In most cases, the Signal and the ECCM Program of the Drone are more important, too: They are lower.

How about Stick-n'-Shock ammo from a full auto weapon? With any luck, you'll short-out the vehicle/drone, without having to trash it at the same time.

I have a feeling you have the right of it Frank.
remember, simplified mechanics. think of the rating of the jammer at it's "DV", your roll your att+skill and compare successes (I think it's an opposed test) and add the net to the DV of the jammer.

Don't forget that a jammer's effectivness is reduced the further from the target your jamming.

Player: "I walk up to the Steel Lynx with my jammer . . ."

The Sniper Rifle may be the best choice on a shot for shot basis. Autofire lets you do a wide burst that'll make the other guy's defense roll pretty weak - especially if you can get enough recoil comp like a gyromount. Long machine gun bursts of EX ammo sounds best to me.

Mount an Axe to your own Lynx and let it deal with the other! Oh wait, that was Robot Wars...


Seriously, Electricity is the way to deal with it I guess.

As drone armor (a drone itself) will be conductive, the armor offers no protection.
And the secondary effect my knock it out cold, too.

So I guess long or wide burst with Stick and Shock will be the best way to deal with it.

Bursting Stick N Shock actually doesn't do much more than just a plain old aimed shot to a Drone. What you want is Net Hits, and lots of them, and while a wide burst may prevent dodging, it will also probably give you recoil penalties. The test for a drone to "resist" getting shorted out is Body + Armor (if it equals or exceeds your hits, nothing happens). Since Stick N Shock does Stun damage, obviously that's not going to do any damage to a drone either.

Drones are fairly easy to kill in SR4, unless they are "jumped in" and the rigger is actively dodging. The most armor that is available is 9 (on a Steel Lynx), which can be beaten by a Heavy Pistol using either EX Explosive or APDS. I've blown one away using a Ruger Superwarhawk one-shot (granted, I got lucky rolls that time, and I was using Edge).

If fact, Stick'n'Shock isn't that useful for multiple reasons:

First, ceramic armor or the like does not conduct very well.
Second, a faraday cage is quite what a drone is.
And third, the rules.

You're missing the point that the Stick N Shock bullet isn't just a Stun attack like a Gel round..it's an Electrical Stun attack. As stated before, the bullet is effective, but only the Electrical component, in a Body + Armor (Hits) test.

This all said... How do you handle Burst fire hitting a Drone? Are Narrow Bursts completely useless against a Drone (supposedly represented by achieving better contact on your fire) compared to a Wide Burst (spreading your fire to make it more likely to strike your target?)

[Edit] Fortune beat me to the first part...it's too early.[/Edit]

True, but those effects are only temporary... good to buy time, but not good enough to 'kill'.

Hmmm ...

Looks like a good candidate for the Errata thread.

If you manage to knock out a drone with a Stick-n'-Shock, it'll be out of commission for a minimum of 3 combat turns. In chase-mode vehicular combat, three turns is just long enough to lose'em and break out of combat.