Shadowrun

Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: IntrepidVector on <01-12-17/0556:45>

Title: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-12-17/0556:45>
Building a Rigger with Resources A. What's the best buy per nuyen for drones to use in combat? Do I get a couple rotodrones or lynxes to modify heavily, jumping into one? Do I find something super cheap that can hold a gun and get a Swarm of a dozen of them, supporting it from the background with things like Target Device?
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-12-17/0604:57>
Drones are pretty fragile, but there are three viable options imho:

1) A rotodrone with a long range weapon like a sniper rifle: Usually far enough away to not be the subject of retaliation fire and good for fire support and surprise strikes
2) Anthroform drones in heavy meta human armor: Since they can wear clothing and don't take stun damage you can make drones pretty tough as long as the base damage doesn't exceed the armor value.
3) Cheap minidrones like Horizon Flying Eye combined with a pistol. For under 4000 Nuyen each they don't hurt to much to lose.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-12-17/0830:21>
Option 3 is what would work best as a Swarm, I imagine. It never occurred to me that something as small as a flying eye could mount a gun but of course they can.

Do you mount a weapon on the anthroforms or just have them hold them? In the latter case, do they still use [Weapon] Targeting autosofts?
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-12-17/0838:33>
Just holding them and yes, there is autosofts for everything  8)
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: &#24525; on <01-12-17/1500:57>
there is autosofts for everything  8)

Sig'd :p
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: adzling on <01-13-17/1123:08>
i've had some great fun building drones with an integral drone rack for launching drone swarms.

i have a setup that goes Dustoff(with rigger inside)->bumblebee->ammo drone (loaded with area jammers instead of ammo magazines)->noizquito

they all pack up inside each other like nesting russian dolls, which is pretty cool as the rigger can fly in to the area with the dustoff and start dispensing drones.
Once they are all out of their racks you can compile them into swarms as needed and jump in/ remote the ones that aren't.

highly flexible, very dangerous and airborne!
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-15-17/0407:07>
Regarding using an anthroform as your combat drone, which drone would you suggest using as the base for that? Which set of armor?
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-15-17/0448:06>
The S-K DIREKTIONSSEKRETAR is without doubt the best anthrodrone in regard to performance, stealth and autonomous operation.

If you are on a budget and don't mind being a creepy mf you can buy the Horizon Little Buddy in bulk, give every puppet armored clothing for kids and put a gun in their hands. Add swarm soft on a RCC and you can kill your enemies with an army of toddlers.

A good compromise on price and durability is the Sparring Drone from Hard targets. It's cheap, durable and can be easily upgraded.

If you want a melee drone take a look at the  KENCHIKU-KIKAI. 8 STR + a Combat Axe make them prime contenders to jump into.
It's also strong enough to carry a shield, so you can create moving cover.


For armor go as high as possible: Full Body Armor + Gel Packs are wonderful since your opponent needs to get to 21 dmg+AP to even have a chance to damage the drone (except for electro attacks, so don't skimp on the non-conductivity)
Otherwise the Big Game Hunter with Gel Packs and helmet will do nearly as well.

The nice thing is: If your drone is destroyed regardless, you can just salvage armor and weapon for the next one.




Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-15-17/0602:08>
Hm, a drone's Physical limit is calculated as simply their Handling (according to Data Trails, regarding AIs). With that in mind, is an anthroform comically easy to knock down, with or without the gel packs? Do anthroform drones use Knockdown?


A Swarm of Little Buddies sounds hilarious, doubly so since my Rigger is already thematically into swarms. Even funnier, you can give them all Personality upgrades. Something I'm unsure on: does a Swarm dodge using their combined stats or only the stats of the one being targeted?
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-15-17/0758:52>
Yeah, knockdown happens, but it's a lot less of a problem than having your drone destroyed ;)

Swarm works by combining the processing power of all involved parts, so yes, they would get the bonus on that test.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-15-17/0812:19>
I misremembered Knockdown and thought it was damage BEFORE the resistance test. Since it is AFTER, drones should fare much better than I thought with tons of armor.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-15-17/1555:05>
Drones are pretty fragile, but there are three viable options imho:

1) A rotodrone with a long range weapon like a sniper rifle: Usually far enough away to not be the subject of retaliation fire and good for fire support and surprise strikes
2) Anthroform drones in heavy meta human armor: Since they can wear clothing and don't take stun damage you can make drones pretty tough as long as the base damage doesn't exceed the armor value.
3) Cheap minidrones like Horizon Flying Eye combined with a pistol. For under 4000 Nuyen each they don't hurt to much to lose.
A note about #1: by the optional drone rules in Rigger 5.0, you can't install a weapon port capable of holding a sniper rifle during chargen (and given how fragile it is there aren't really any other weapons you want to put on it), so if you want this, you'll have to wait until after chargen or forgo using the drone rules. That said, a rotodrone is something every rigger that uses drones should have.

Also, a tip for anthroform drones: install a suspension mod in them, and now you can pilot them with Pilot: Groundcraft instead of Pilot Walker. This can save you some skill points, particularly if you're a "sit in the van while the drones accompany the team" sort of rigger, plus your drones look cooler for have tracked roller skates.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-16-17/0438:18>
Huh? I installed a sniper rifle on a rotodrone just fine. Rotodrones have 3 extra mod slots that can only be used for weapons, giving them plenty. I even had room to make it retractable.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-16-17/0458:09>
Ghost Rigger is referring to availability during char gen which is indeed beyond 12 for heavy mounts.
You can circumvent this problem entirely by installing two articulate arms into your drone. Those aren't illegal, you can exchange weapons easily and the utility of your drone goes through the roof.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-16-17/0606:07>
Whoops, I completely forgot to look at Availability.

The drawback to using drone arms is that you can't retract the weapon inside the drone to hide it :T I guess it's time to coat a gun in that chameleon polymer.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-16-17/0619:03>
Pff, just have the drone carry a package which contains the gun. Nothing suspicious about a delivery drone after all...
(The actual drawback with arms is the lost recoil compensation since you then have to use the same rules as meta humans)
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: IntrepidVector on <01-16-17/0639:46>
"Gun? What gun? This is… a, uh, beach umbrella I'm delivering."
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Duellist_D on <01-16-17/0848:06>
Pff, just have the drone carry a package which contains the gun. Nothing suspicious about a delivery drone after all...
(The actual drawback with arms is the lost recoil compensation since you then have to use the same rules as meta humans)
Thankfully Gasvent3+Shockpads are easy remedies for that, so getting to the braking point of 6 RC is not much of a problem, even with very weak drones.
Only problem would be if you really like Machineguns.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-16-17/1012:12>
Recoil shouldn't be a problem anyways if you're taking single shots with your sniper rifle, though when supporting your team using multiple attacks with a semi-automatic burst is a good option. That's part of the reason I'd recommend waiting until after chargen to install a sniper rifle onto a rotodrone; you'd also want to wait because a hidden sniper rifle mount is less suspicious than "delivering a beach umbrella". Since rotodrones with targeting autosoft and smartsoft, an Ares Desert Strike with an external smartgun system and tool kits for Hardware and Armory are all chargen-legal, I'd recommend picking them up with chargen money then installing them after your first session of play.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Neal Allen on <01-27-17/1534:28>
 Either y'all have found an exception for the following rule, or ya'lls idiots.

Page 461 quotes "Weapon Mounts: Vehicles may be equipped with a number of weapon mounts equal to their augmented Body ÷ 3 (round down)."

And drone the size of a Lockheed or smaller cannot equip a weapon mount as their body (less than 3) divided by 3 would be (rounded down) zero weapon mounts. 

A eye-ball sized drone can't hold and fire an assault rifle.  Guys. 
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Kincaid on <01-27-17/1607:05>
They're using the mod rules from Rigger 5.  They aren't putting the gun directly into the drone, they're putting an arm on the drone, essentially making it a quasi-anthrodrone.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Desiani on <01-30-17/1344:29>
Do what I did! Buy 5-10 Noizesquitos with Swarm and just make every fire fight a disco! :D NEGATIVES FOR EVERYONE!
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Rooks on <02-05-17/0233:28>
They're using the mod rules from Rigger 5.  They aren't putting the gun directly into the drone, they're putting an arm on the drone, essentially making it a quasi-anthrodrone.
Gun Arm that can open doors
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: maxcarrion on <02-16-17/1059:04>
My 0.02 NY

It's horses for courses and you need to consider where you want a drone to go and what you want it to do. 

An anthropomorph is fine for going in with the team and being an extra man but it can only go the places the sam can go and is no match for him in a fire fight. 

A Rotodrone isn't a great plan in tight corridors, touch a wall and your toast.  In open environments they're amazing though, especially with a rifle.

Horizon Eyes can fit a pistol and swarm, they can't conceal a pistol though, deadly but obvious

A Steel Lynx is a monster in a fight but you roll one down a street and everyone will wonder what the tank is doing.

Our current Rigger uses
1 Rotodrone with concealed rifle - this provides outdoor area control, sniper support , watches our exit etc. but blends in until the first shot is fired

5 Aztechnology Crawlers with a mix of Heavy Pistols and Tazers in concealed mounts (one has a cyber hand) w/ gecko grips on the feet - these act as scouts, go through air ducts, under floors, under vehicles, hanging onto moving vehicles, straight up the outer walls of buildings all those hard to reach places that runners can't go.  They flank, they surprise, they are eyes and ears and hands where it's hard to get them (and for finding invisible mages their ultrasound is very handy) - they are not great in a firefight and pretty fragile but they can shoot better than most drones with a pilot of 4 and lots of the same model means they can claim more space on the RCC for sharing programs (predator 6, tazer 6, crawler manuever 6, crawler evasion 6, crawler stealth 6
, smartgunsoft and clearsight 6.all spend a lot of time on the RCC and 5 drones each with a 12 dice attack pool can be quite nasty)

1 fly-spy for covert surveillance and reconnaissance

1 van - mostly legal mobile command centre

1 hyundai getaway car complete with internal flexible assault rifle, spike strips and lots of horsepower for when things get hairy.   

The rigger mostly commands the drones, letting their programs do the work and flicks between the various feeds but can jump in for especially difficult situations.

Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Rooks on <02-16-17/1538:20>
Always like the hollowed out Ares Paladin -2 body with Ares Crusader pop up mount, provides moveable cover for your team that also acts as a 2nd gun base cost of 5k bod 3 and 18 armor...
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Dasher on <02-20-17/1727:18>
I am a fan of repurposed toy and recreational drones myself.  Fragile but inexpensive and easy to replace.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: SMDVogrin on <03-31-17/1840:46>
This is from GM perspective, but....

My favorite combat drone was one I gave to our Rigger to "beta-test".  This was pre-Rigger 5, and he had the standard complaint about how fragile drones were.  So I developed the ARES 'Paladin', a prototype drone based off the Duelist chassis.  What it ACTUALLY was, was the result of their bug spirit experimentation  - a VisModded Duelist that was effectively a FleshForm Merge.  (Increased the drone's stats by the spirit's force, gave it hardened armor against non-magic attacks, etc).

Man, I wish that campaign hadn't died before I got to the payoff for that...
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Rooks on <04-01-17/0222:03>
Transys Maid with Armored Jacket 8k has pilot 4 already to have pilot 4 yo have to pay 8k alone...
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Rooks on <04-01-17/0352:11>
upon further review paladin -3 armor for the +1 mp and 1500 for drone arm seems idea
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Deadborder on <04-06-17/0522:07>
Four swarmed MCT Rotordrones with AK-98s. Suppressive fire all the things. Grenade whatever's left.

This combination has done the rigger in my game wonders. The four of them working together have an amazing ability to create walls of fire that will murder or at the very least, suppress all but the hardiest of souls. Plus he laos likes to engage in pop-up gas grenade ambushes on targets.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Hobbes on <04-10-17/1203:22>
I'm not quite seeing the benefit to Swarming and suppression fire.  You'd be able to cover a lot more area from more directions if the drones operated Independently.  Turn 1 Simple action order drone 1 to suppression fire from the left, Simple Action order drone 2 suppression fire from the right.  Next Pass, Simple Action order drone 3 to grenade the poor bastards, Simple Action Drone 4 - clean up. 

Now, add as many cheap flying machine pistols as you can and swarm those into 3 or 4 "Squads" of drones....
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: zenmuse on <04-13-17/0959:36>
Recently built a rigger with what I thought was a nice starting package of drones.

Primary Combat Drone was actually a pack of MCT Gun Turrets that my GM let me put in backpacks on the back of the other runners. Let's me literally watch my teammates backs, or cover exits. Just make sure your teammates are wearing sound dampeners.

We had a situation last run where we knew an ambush was set up at an elevator. So we put three turrets in the elevator,  popped smoke, and sent the elevator down. Worked out pretty well. And they're relatively cheap depending on what gun you put on them.

I'm considering picking up a Boeing Kull and keeping 2x Gun Turret with parachutes as an optional payload... drop them in behind bad guys or on rooftops in open combat situations.

Other drones in this characters stable include a GTS Tower with 4 fly-spy's in its drone racks, a Bumblebee for mobile suppression, a couple gold fish rigged with explosives (because blowing up plumbing makes a hell of a distraction) and a garage of Proletarians to support his day job (drone repairman).

Next buy is probably a couple cheap roto's with grenade launchers for chem, boom, or smoke.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: firebug on <04-13-17/1301:28>
Primary Combat Drone was actually a pack of MCT Gun Turrets that my GM let me put in backpacks on the back of the other runners. Let's me literally watch my teammates backs, or cover exits. Just make sure your teammates are wearing sound dampeners.

Why not just use Smart Firing Platforms at that point?  I don't even know that those can be attacked, and they take basically nothing to assemble, and are probably cheaper to replace.  And not as awkward as everyone on your team carrying clunky mounted guns on their back, seriously.

If your primary combat plan can basically be literally carrying around a bunch of turrets and setting them wherever you want, your GM will probably let you get away with basically anything.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: grffnhwk on <05-04-17/1231:22>
Semi-unrelated drone question.  Does anyone know if the Horizon CU^3 includes 3 drones for 3,000 or 1?  It seems other micros are about 1k, so getting 3 wouldn't be crazy.  So, is it:
A) 3 amateur film drones for 3k or 6k for professional
B) 3 amateur film drones for 9k or 18k for professional
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Wakshaani on <05-04-17/1321:21>
You get one. The extra cost is due to the built-in Activesofts that come with it.

You buy one to have a pet camera follow you around and record your life for your liveblog.

You buy three, and take the professional upgrade package, if you want to do some quality Trideo shooting, with over-to shots and the like, with one on you, one on the interviewed person, and a third set up to show the both of you and the set, pivoted around to show scenery (You set up a nice AR screen, right?) and so on.

The single CU^3, with the pro upgrade, is perfect for a spunky reporter to have with them after she hires your team to break into some corporate facility where she can film Shenanigans... the drone does most recording when she wants to be on screen, but her handicam is also used as a back-up.

Otherwise, you'll find several young people walking around the street with them, recording their ongoing monologue, making sure that we all see what they get for lunch or where they shop, and so on. And, you know ... annoying old people. Can't put a price on that!
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: grffnhwk on <05-04-17/1339:29>
Lol!

So...
<insert Horizon CU^3 sales pitch>
All prices are subject to change without notice at any time and are based in part on the applicability of Sales Agreement and stock.  Additional drones must be purchased separately.  Batteries not included.
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: grffnhwk on <05-04-17/1549:29>
Sorry, another drone question.

I have an realistic apprearance (2) Ares Cheetah.  Running skillsoft (cheetah jaw) and personality (cat).  Do I also need to get skillsoft (climbing) for it to go up fire escapes, etc?  What about jumping?

Further, if the cheetah runs and jumps on someone.  Is it resolved as a vehicle ram attack or a charge action?
Title: Re: Combat drones?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <05-04-17/1601:17>
For all your movement needs the Maneuvering autosoft will suffice