[irthinker]

Hoi,

I am curious what the conventional understanding is on using a Drone without being a Rigger.

I get that anyone can give a drone a command and have it go execute within the limits of its Pilot Skill and autosofts.  But, given modern technology, it seems a scenario like the following should be very feasible.

A non-Rigger buys a wasp drone, flies it up to a place they want to survey and they are able to watch a feed from its sensors.

What rules mechanics would govern this?
What would be the complete set of gear a person without even a datajack would need?

Thank you for your kind consideration.

[adzling]

All they would need is a comlink.
DNI or goggles with AR capability would let them view the video feed in an AR window.

[revan.be]

Wouldnt control device be used?
At least deckers can control device pretty well,
though its debatable commlinks can , even though i think they should be able to.
P222 SR5 only gives suggestions as to actions whichj you might want to look at for commlinks.

[adzling]

There is Remote Control and Control Device IIRC.
Remote Control would be via voice, text or comlink commands.
IIRC ;-)

[Marcus Gideon]

You can let the drone fly itself too. Give it some Autosofts and order it to spy on whatever. It will act on its own, freeing you up to your own actions. Then you can receive the video and audio on your Commlink.

You only use Control Device if you want to micro manage every little movement and action. At which point you'll need Pilot Aircraft training to fly it yourself.

Control Device doesn't require Attack or Sleaze so it can be done by a Commlink no problem.

[Tycho]

Guess you can try, but the Drone will probably Crash and Burn, since Drones without a Rigger are nearly useless...

Let's say you buy a Minidrone with Pilot 3 (like most drones). This has only room for 2 Autosofts. So one should be Maneuvering, the other one Clearsight. So you have 6 Dice for Flying and Perception and 3 for everything else.

So if you fly thou a City, the Theshold for the Piloting Test is (under best circumstances) 2 (Easy Maneuver + Intra City-Air Traffic), worse at times. So 6dice to archive 2 Hits and when you glitch the Drone goes bye-bye.

[Tinkerbell]

Everybody can give a drone the command to do something. Some Spyflys are cheap and can really be really usefull. Especially for a decker in VR to see what is going on in the real world.
At our table there is no test needet to handle normal traffic - except you want to be fast or want to to some fancy stuff. For getting from from A to B a having flying/driving skill would be enough. When you think of it: commercial drones and cars can handle the normal traffic - otherwise there would be lots of accidents in the average shadowrun metroplex. :-) The average car has less than 3 pilot.
Maybe RAW are different - I don't even know if there are rules for passing normal traffic outside a chase situation. But maybe there are rules and maybe some tables like to roll a lot ;-)
In case your GM wants a piloting test: Use control device ü a commlink with hot sim for +2 bonus dice. Reaction of 5 +1 piloting + 2 is enough to buy 2 hits.

Having drones or rigged vehicles as an non rigger character is really worth it - even when you only use their sensor as additional eyes. I prefer clearsight and stealth on my spyflys, because I don't do crazy maneuvers with them.

[Marcus]

Useless is a little too strong. The book describes as about as smart as a dog, which isn't useless, it's just not brilliant.
I might not consider them ideal for my primary line of defense. But I sure you come up with plenty of useful things to do with an drone that being as smart as a dog won't be a very limiting factor.

[Haywire]

A DR 3 RCC can handle Manouver, Stealth and EW (or Clearsight), and eventually VM and Evasion it's all you need for a fly spy fleet, and does not cost too much.

[Raven2049]

A DR 3 RCC can handle Manouver, Stealth and EW (or Clearsight), and eventually VM and Evasion it's all you need for a fly spy fleet, and does not cost too much.

except i believe that Clearsight and Maneuver are both model specific and if you ever get anything else on your fleet (kanimushi or SB microskimmer or OptiX-2) you need more autosofts. fly spys are great for in-building or following a person. give me an Optix any day for tailing a car from a distance. and a microskimmer for patrolling a perimeter on the ground. altho if you want to attack that moving car or while patrolling that perimeter, a roto drone fits both bills exceedingly well