[Dudesomebody]

 the rules for swarming drones really need an official errata all by itself, until then I will bug you guys  . I was curious if all the drones in a swarm need to armed when attacking or could one drone attack and the other drones act as targeting support? You would still need the appropriate autosofts for weapons of course, the rules are just weirdly worded me thinks.

[Myriad]

Technically, you only need one attacker afaik.  That said, most houserules will have the drones need some sort of ability to attack.

[Spooky]

Remember, when running a swarm, you issue one command to the entire swarm. So if only one drone has a weapon, giving the swarm the "attack this target" command means that the one drone with a weapon uses it, and the rest of the swarm try to crash into the target, because mass x speed is a weapon they can use.

[Dudesomebody]

  So many evil ideas for suicide drones    What if you gave a more specific command like, fire on this target? Important note, I have no dog in this fight, either or is fine by me. Swarm rules are iffy at best and I want to get em straight before my group starts using it.

[Reaver]

  So many evil ideas for suicide drones    What if you gave a more specific command like, fire on this target? Important note, I have no dog in this fight, either or is fine by me. Swarm rules are iffy at best and I want to get em straight before my group starts using it.

remember, you are talking about a "dog brain AI" for interpreting commands.... is fire/attack/crash into really any different to a dog brain? They are all "attack" options...

This is the danger of swarms, they follow the single command as best as their dog brains can interpret...

[Kiirnodel]

My vote is that "crash into" does not equal "attack" unless you've specifically taken the time to make that connection. By default, the dogbrain on a drone wouldn't just crash into things when given the command to attack.

[Dudesomebody]

My vote is that "crash into" does not equal "attack" unless you've specifically taken the time to make that connection. By default, the dogbrain on a drone wouldn't just crash into things when given the command to attack.

Agreed, you could give a specific enough command to avoid a mass collision but, could you use the extra drones like a targeting system and still get the bonus? The wording is kind of odd and it isn't clear if the bonus comes from lots of bullets being thrown out or from the drone brains working in tandem, like a targeting computer.  I'm guessing it isn't just throwing extra bullets because the bonus applies to non combat actions as well. Like I said, weird wording is all

[Spooky]

No, because you would have to give part of the swarm the "assist this other drone" command, and the other drone the "attack this target" command, which swarm rules explicitly say you cannot do, because that is issuing two commands to the swarm at once.

[Xenon]

With drones slaved to a RCC you basically have 3 options.


1. Issue a command to one, all or some of your slaved drones with the same Simple Action. You may issue two separate commands to two separate groups of drones as two separate Simple Actions. You don't need the Swarm cyberprogram to do this, just the RCC. You also don't need to be jumped into a drone to do this.

SR5 p. 267
Your RCC manages several parallel connections at once, so you can give a command to one, all, or some of your slaved drones with the same Simple Action.



2. Run the Swarm cyberprogram on your RCC to let you group two or more drones into one or more "swarm(s)". In combat, game mechanically, only the weapon of one of the drones in the swarm will attack but it will use the highest pilot rating in the swarm (or the device rating of the RCC if it is higher) and the other drones in the swarm will increase the limit and the dice pool of the attack by 1 (per drone). You don't have to be jumped into a drone to do this.

R5.0 p. 31 Swarms
...A drone (or vehicle) swarm is a network of linked drones all slaved (p. 233, SR5) to a single RCC running the Swarm program. You can include as many drones in a swarm as your RCC can slave (Device Rating x 3), or split them up among several swarms...
Each swarm ... Pilot rating is equal to the highest Pilot rating of its member drones, or the Device Rating of the RCC... When performing actions, the swarm gets a dice pool and limit bonus equal to one less than the number of drones in the swarm.
In combat, all drones attack with whatever weapons they have, but for game purposes only use a single weapon’s stats (the others are covered by the action bonuses the swarm receives)...


3. While jumped into a drone and within 10 meters of the target you can act as an assistant to all your drones by taking the Swarm Drone Vehicle Action. If successful then all your drones will gain +1 limit and a positive dice pool modifier equal to your net hits to all their attacks during the rest of the combat turn. You don't need to run the swarm cyberprogram to take this action.

R5.0 p. 179 Swarm
(CLOSE OR SHORT RANGE, ANY SPEED)
When rigged into one drone, the driver makes a Vehicle Skill + Reaction [Handling] (Terrain + number of drones) Test. If successful, net hits are added to the dice pool for any drone involved in the test for any subsequent attacks during the same Combat Turn per the rules for Teamwork Tests. If unsuccessful, ... each [drone] receives a penalty to its actions equal to the difference between the threshold and number of hits. This action must be performed with two or more drones.

[Xenon]

As for your question (which I am assuming is about option number 2 - using the Swarm cyberprogram on your RCC):

I was curious if all the drones in a swarm need to armed when attacking or could one drone attack and the other drones act as targeting support? ...

Each drone in the swarm (except the first one) increase the limit and dice pool by one for any actions the swarm takes.

Having said that, for combat specifically I would personally read it as drones in the swarm need to have at least some sort of weaponry in order to to contribute to the attack of the swarm (but I agree that the text is ambiguous as it doesn't explicitly state that all drones in the swarm need to be armed in order to contribute).

R5.0 p. 31 Swarms
In combat, all drones attack with whatever weapons they have, but for game purposes only use a single weapon’s stats (the others are covered by the action bonuses the swarm receives)

[Hobbes]

My vote is that "crash into" does not equal "attack" unless you've specifically taken the time to make that connection. By default, the dogbrain on a drone wouldn't just crash into things when given the command to attack.

Agreed, you could give a specific enough command to avoid a mass collision but, could you use the extra drones like a targeting system and still get the bonus? The wording is kind of odd and it isn't clear if the bonus comes from lots of bullets being thrown out or from the drone brains working in tandem, like a targeting computer.  I'm guessing it isn't just throwing extra bullets because the bonus applies to non combat actions as well. Like I said, weird wording is all

RAW only one drone needs to be armed to get the Swarm bonus.  Your GM's opinion will likely vary.

[Rooks]

*marks enemy targets with ARO* *sends command to drone army to attack marked aro targets* *sips tea and mops up mangled mess of bodies*