Greetings, Chummers
Seeing how one can only control so many drones with so much complexity of commands, what an autopilot is SPECIFICALLY capable of doing has never been stated and I would LOVE to see a cannon list.
I know when it becomes too confusing there may have to be pilots rolling, but with the now (fairly cheap) pilot upgrade from Rigger 5.0, the following options I propose shouldn't present too much of an issue.
Autopilot Commands
Movement
Follow (self or other)
Follow (vehicle)
Patrol between X points
Protect (self or other)
Circle (area)
Actions
Fire on Designated Targets
Fire on Non-Friendlies
Fire on Hostiles (may require basic profile input (for example, corp outfit))
Fire on Anyone Entering and/or Leaving (portal)
Destroy (designated object)
Note: Movement commands can be combined with actions.
Obviously final say is up to GM, but seeing tech in 2017, I would be surprised if many of the following commands justified a pilot roll at all. That being said, balance is something different all together and I think that final call depends a lot on how much the specific player plans on breaking it. It wouldn't be unreasonable if this is the character's entire purpose, but if somebody had an entirely separate character from drones and just piled them on top, that seems quite unfun for every other player.
Thoughts? Additions?