Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: kirk on <08-16-11/1310:09>
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Why don't non-riggers get drones?
I mean, an off-the-shelf FlySpy is only 2000. Slave it to your commlink so it can only be spoofed. It's a bit larger than a horsefly, so you can carry it anywhere pretty much unnoticed, and you can use it to do a quick recon of the next room Every Single Time. Zero need for any extra skills or tools, it'll take most "go there and look" without bobbling at all. Want to set a rear watch? No problem. If you don't like that the FlySpy is barely faster than your walking pace, get a slightly more noticeable OpticX or Aztech Crawler (1700 each). (Don't forget to gecko mod the crawler for another 300.) Both will outpace you even if you're a troll at a dead run.
Pick up a surprisingly inexpensive orderly for 2000, tell it to follow a room behind you and heal you if you order or if you fall. Excluding the armed team, it's almost as good as DocWagon's basic service for 40% of the cost, and you don't have to leave those pesky samples.
Heck, always have your personal escape vehicle on call. A Dalmation (large drone) costs 2200. Give it a rigger cocoon (another 1500) and have it sitting near but outside the worry zone and you have your own personal GTFO-mobile without having to trust anybody else. You're running up to the roof? Tell it to meet you there and wait. Don't forget to send your flyspy or other recon ahead to make sure the path is clear and you're not sending your rescue into the midst of the enemy.
Look, I can understand not wanting armed drones as a non-rigger. Spoof: "Shoot [target: me]." Yeah, not so good. But none of these are even restricted, just basically useful, street legal tools that cost less than a (cyber-) arm or leg.
So why don't people besides riggers buy them?
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Why don't non-riggers get drones?
I mean, an off-the-shelf FlySpy is only 2000. Slave it to your commlink so it can only be spoofed. It's a bit larger than a horsefly, so you can carry it anywhere pretty much unnoticed, and you can use it to do a quick recon of the next room Every Single Time. Zero need for any extra skills or tools, it'll take most "go there and look" without bobbling at all. Want to set a rear watch? No problem. If you don't like that the FlySpy is barely faster than your walking pace, get a slightly more noticeable OpticX or Aztech Crawler (1700 each). (Don't forget to gecko mod the crawler for another 300.) Both will outpace you even if you're a troll at a dead run.
Pick up a surprisingly inexpensive orderly for 2000, tell it to follow a room behind you and heal you if you order or if you fall. Excluding the armed team, it's almost as good as DocWagon's basic service for 40% of the cost, and you don't have to leave those pesky samples.
Heck, always have your personal escape vehicle on call. A Dalmation (large drone) costs 2200. Give it a rigger cocoon (another 1500) and have it sitting near but outside the worry zone and you have your own personal GTFO-mobile without having to trust anybody else. You're running up to the roof? Tell it to meet you there and wait. Don't forget to send your flyspy or other recon ahead to make sure the path is clear and you're not sending your rescue into the midst of the enemy.
Look, I can understand not wanting armed drones as a non-rigger. Spoof: "Shoot [target: me]." Yeah, not so good. But none of these are even restricted, just basically useful, street legal tools that cost less than a (cyber-) arm or leg.
So why don't people besides riggers buy them?
They totally can. However, you have to be a hacker to "jump into" a drone to do all the cool stuff. Otherwise, you're just giving it orders and letting it's dog-brain figure out how to do what you told it too. Since that dog-brain's not very bright, chances are the drone's going to get toasted when you're stuck in a firefight and don't have time to tell it to find cover. Then it because a very expensive pile of smashed electronics and melted plastics.
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Why don't non-riggers get drones?
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So why don't people besides riggers buy them?
Who says they don't?
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Why don't non-riggers get drones?
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So why don't people besides riggers buy them?
Who says they don't?
Build after build, and pbp after pbp, says so. ;)
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They totally can. However, you have to be a hacker to "jump into" a drone to do all the cool stuff. Otherwise, you're just giving it orders and letting it's dog-brain figure out how to do what you told it too. Since that dog-brain's not very bright, chances are the drone's going to get toasted when you're stuck in a firefight and don't have time to tell it to find cover. Then it because a very expensive pile of smashed electronics and melted plastics.
First, you're not buying them for "cool stuff", you're buying them to do their basic job. Second, you'd be surprised what they can do just with their dog-brains.
As for being shot up in the first firefight, that makes no sense. Oh, it does if you were bringing a shooty drone. But none of those drones are going to be in the line of fire. No, them getting shot up at the first firefight would seem to require you giving them stupid orders in the first place.
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Hm, probably a Rules thing and I'm horrified contradicting FastJack, but I'll write it anyways:
However, you have to be a hacker to "jump into" a drone to do all the cool stuff. Otherwise, you're just giving it orders and letting it's dog-brain figure out how to do what you told it too. Since that dog-brain's not very bright, chances are the drone's going to get toasted when you're stuck in a firefight and don't have time to tell it to find cover. Then it because a very expensive pile of smashed electronics and melted plastics.
SR4A p244: Rigger adaptation(*) allows anyone in VR to jump in to a rigger-adapted device and offers bonuses to any rigger with an implanted control rig(**).
Bold emphasis mine.
* The vehicle mod, which is automatically part of every drone.
** Which every rigger should have. It gives +2 dice to pretty much every jumped-in vehicle test.
In short, I don't see any reason a "normal person" with trodes or simrig couldn't jump in a drone.
The only real benefit a rigger's got is the +2 from Control Rig cyber-implant and the fact that his vehicle skills and protective software are probably better.
Why don't non-riggers get drones?
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So why don't people besides riggers buy them?
Who says they don't?
Build after build, and pbp after pbp, says so. ;)
My face is really trying to save for it. A flyspy or dragonfly drone, awesome. At the moment she's only got a microweave spider drone, which I'm considering modding heavily with espionage mods. Who'd suspect some girly-fashion-drone? She could carry it anywhere in her purse and security would just allow it because it makes sense she'd have one in case of terrible wardrobe accidents.
But main reason not all of my chars have drones: there's 750.590Y worth of equipment on the to-get-list before drones. (On top: a bunch of R6 fake SINs and that 100kY piece of clothing which gives glamour.)
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Okay, let's get into the meaty bits then.
You've got your little FlySpy to scout out the room you're about to go into. It's a minidrone, so it has a Concealability of -2 to Perception tests for anyone in the room. You decide to use remote control to scout out the room. Using the Command program on your commlink* and your Pilot Aircraft (Remote Operations) skill 2 (+2 specialization), you get 10 dice to pilot it around the room. So, you scan out the room with it's Sensors (2), and you're able to make Perception checks with 8 dice (6 Command + 2 Sensor rating on the FlySpy). So you're able to fly it around the room and see all the guards in there without them noticing (Typical Sec Guard [SR4A, p. 281] has no Perception skill, defaults to Intuition [3] - 1 - 2 Concealability = 0 Dice). You're able to count up five guards and fly the drone back, or command it to hover out of the way while you breach the room and take out the guards.
*you sprung for the Rating 6 program since this is pretty important and the System 6 and Response 6 ratings on your commlink to run it, right? Otherwise, you're Command is limited by your System rating, which is limited by your Response. So if you have an average 'link, your Piloting check goes down.
But, what if you don't want to Remote Control it, since that's a Complex Action that could be better used making sure guards aren't sneaking up on you, or reloading your Ares Predator IV or something else. Okay, you send it a short command to fly around the room and broadcast it's sensor feed back to you. Now it has to rely on it's Pilot [3] and Response [Average device 3] ratings to fly around the room. You had a map of the building before you came in, so you know to instruct it's flight path to follow the walls. But, you didn't account for that one Troll guard that's leaning against the back wall. The drone flies toward him, but it's brain is registering an obstacle, so it has to roll it's 6 dice to see if it has the sense to fly around the obstacle [Dog-Brain's Common Sense (6d6.hits(5)=3) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3152171/)]. It's a pretty savvy drone, so it knows not to fly into the guard and flys around it.
Now, sure the drone only costs you 2,000¥. But to run the drone with a Command R6 program, you're going to have to buy the program (300¥), a decent Commlink (Hermes Ikon - 3,000¥), upgrade it's Response to 6 (8,000¥), a decent 'link OS (Novatech Navi - 1,500¥) and upgrading it to System 6 (3,000¥). That's a 17,800¥ for you to scout out rooms ahead of you.
Looking at the Healer 'Bot, the best you can do is a Small drone (Since the Valkyrie Modification is a Standard Mod, meaning you can't put it into micro-/mini-drones). So, you stuff an Aztech Crawler with the Valkyrie Modification, filling the two slots it has left after it's standard Walker Mode modification. Now the little guy follows along behind you, healing you whenever your Bio-Monitor drops below X. It's got a rating 4 Medkit on board, so it's got 4 dice to stabilize and heal you. But it can only do so once for that set of wounds, can only heal a maximum of 4 boxes and the number of boxes healed is the net hits it gets over the 2 threshold. You could upgrade it to the max 6 Rating, giving your drone 6 dice to heal you up, but without help, the chances are it's going to stabilize you enough for you to try and escape.
And the cost of upgrading your Azzie Crawler to a Rating 6 Autodoc brings it to about 3,900¥ (1,700¥ for Crawler + 2,000¥ for Valkyrie mod + 200¥ to upgrade to rating 6 Medkit) plus the cost to hire the guy to build it for you since the mod isn't standard.
I'm not trying to say it isn't a good idea to have drones hanging around your character. Buy to do so, you're going to have to invest a bit more than just the cost of the drone. When you're first building your character, ever BP counts. Now, if you're a Prime Runner, I can definitely see this a being a part of their SOP and I'd love to see this in-game for those Prime Runners, just for the James Bond factor. Just be prepared for all the possibilities.
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Hm, probably a Rules thing and I'm horrified contradicting FastJack, but I'll write it anyways:
However, you have to be a hacker to "jump into" a drone to do all the cool stuff. Otherwise, you're just giving it orders and letting it's dog-brain figure out how to do what you told it too. Since that dog-brain's not very bright, chances are the drone's going to get toasted when you're stuck in a firefight and don't have time to tell it to find cover. Then it because a very expensive pile of smashed electronics and melted plastics.
SR4A p244: Rigger adaptation(*) allows anyone in VR to jump in to a rigger-adapted device and offers bonuses to any rigger with an implanted control rig(**).
Bold emphasis mine.
* The vehicle mod, which is automatically part of every drone.
** Which every rigger should have. It gives +2 dice to pretty much every jumped-in vehicle test.
In short, I don't see any reason a "normal person" with trodes or simrig couldn't jump in a drone.
The only real benefit a rigger's got is the +2 from Control Rig cyber-implant and the fact that his vehicle skills and protective software are probably better.
You're right, anyone can with trodes or a simrig. So we can add the cost of those into my break-down above as well so you can jump-in to the drone. Of course, when you're jumped-in, you're in VR and senseless to the world around your body. And I think it goes against what Kirk is trying to do with just having a drone as a personal back-up.
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Don't forget that a Command 6 program with a 300Y Optimization 3 option will run on a System of 3, cutting way, way down on your up front cost. You can even mix in Encrypt 6 with Optimization 3 to give yourself some pathetic semblance of security. There's no need to get a good commlink for remote controlling a drone that you're just using for cheap recon. For 500Y more, you can get the Response 3 commlink optimized for Command, giving you 7 dice plus skill. 900 nuyen in software, 2k in commlink and OS, and a 500Y commlink modification puts you in pretty good shape, and you only lose actions commanding it if you don't think you can make the crash test.
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Thanks, DWC!
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Okay, let's get into the meaty bits then.
You've got your little FlySpy to scout out the room you're about to go into. It's a minidrone, so it has a Concealability of -2 to Perception tests for anyone in the room. You decide to use remote control to scout out the room. Using the Command program on your commlink* and your Pilot Aircraft (Remote Operations) skill 2 (+2 specialization), you get 10 dice to pilot it around the room. So, you scan out the room with it's Sensors (2), and you're able to make Perception checks with 8 dice (6 Command + 2 Sensor rating on the FlySpy). So you're able to fly it around the room and see all the guards in there without them noticing (Typical Sec Guard [SR4A, p. 281] has no Perception skill, defaults to Intuition [3] - 1 - 2 Concealability = 0 Dice). You're able to count up five guards and fly the drone back, or command it to hover out of the way while you breach the room and take out the guards.
*you sprung for the Rating 6 program since this is pretty important and the System 6 and Response 6 ratings on your commlink to run it, right? Otherwise, you're Command is limited by your System rating, which is limited by your Response. So if you have an average 'link, your Piloting check goes down.
But, what if you don't want to Remote Control it, since that's a Complex Action that could be better used making sure guards aren't sneaking up on you, or reloading your Ares Predator IV or something else. Okay, you send it a short command to fly around the room and broadcast it's sensor feed back to you. Now it has to rely on it's Pilot [3] and Response [Average device 3] ratings to fly around the room. You had a map of the building before you came in, so you know to instruct it's flight path to follow the walls. But, you didn't account for that one Troll guard that's leaning against the back wall. The drone flies toward him, but it's brain is registering an obstacle, so it has to roll it's 6 dice to see if it has the sense to fly around the obstacle [Dog-Brain's Common Sense (6d6.hits(5)=3) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3152171/)]. It's a pretty savvy drone, so it knows not to fly into the guard and flys around it.
Now, sure the drone only costs you 2,000¥. But to run the drone with a Command R6 program, you're going to have to buy the program (300¥), a decent Commlink (Hermes Ikon - 3,000¥), upgrade it's Response to 6 (8,000¥), a decent 'link OS (Novatech Navi - 1,500¥) and upgrading it to System 6 (3,000¥). That's a 17,800¥ for you to scout out rooms ahead of you.
Looking at the Healer 'Bot, the best you can do is a Small drone (Since the Valkyrie Modification is a Standard Mod, meaning you can't put it into micro-/mini-drones). So, you stuff an Aztech Crawler with the Valkyrie Modification, filling the two slots it has left after it's standard Walker Mode modification. Now the little guy follows along behind you, healing you whenever your Bio-Monitor drops below X. It's got a rating 4 Medkit on board, so it's got 4 dice to stabilize and heal you. But it can only do so once for that set of wounds, can only heal a maximum of 4 boxes and the number of boxes healed is the net hits it gets over the 2 threshold. You could upgrade it to the max 6 Rating, giving your drone 6 dice to heal you up, but without help, the chances are it's going to stabilize you enough for you to try and escape.
And the cost of upgrading your Azzie Crawler to a Rating 6 Autodoc brings it to about 3,900¥ (1,700¥ for Crawler + 2,000¥ for Valkyrie mod + 200¥ to upgrade to rating 6 Medkit) plus the cost to hire the guy to build it for you since the mod isn't standard.
I'm not trying to say it isn't a good idea to have drones hanging around your character. Buy to do so, you're going to have to invest a bit more than just the cost of the drone. When you're first building your character, ever BP counts. Now, if you're a Prime Runner, I can definitely see this a being a part of their SOP and I'd love to see this in-game for those Prime Runners, just for the James Bond factor. Just be prepared for all the possibilities.
Why are you spending all that on your healbot? Look again at the bot I stated, the EVO Orderly - AR-120. 2 Mechanical Arms, Special Machinery (Medkit 6), Walker Mode, stretcher bed, medium drone, all for 2000¥. It is almost literally designed as a first-response medical drone.
As to your flyspy, why are you ignoring it entirely? It's recon, and it's not going to just tell you what it sees. Tell it to fly into the next room. You've got its camera as an open window in your commlink, and see that whoops there are guards in there. Time to get a little more micro in the management - tell it to land on that window ledge so you can have it slowly pan the room and see where they all are. Plan out who's taking on what in what order - and do you maybe need to pop a smoke grenade before you enter?
There's no need to Command it in this case. And the only tests will be a quick perception while it's flying to a landing site - even if it's the floor.
(one thing I wish the flyspy came with was gecko tips so it can land and hold on walls. But right now I'm staying with unmodified options.)
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Maybe it would help if I included the two drones I consider to be the MOST generally useful, and explain their use. Neither is as inexpensive as the first pass.
Drone one is the dragonfly. The hard part is the 12R for availability. When I can afford it I add an NLJD. Until then I use the ultrasound it already comes with, adding an audio enhancer(3) and a spatial recognizer to a rating 6 microphone (1 slot, +700¥) for an initial price of 3200¥. Its standard order if launched is to search any room I occupy for sensors and identify them for me. I will see, in part of my commlink's holographic display (common to all commlinks) a rolling list of these, each of which I can expand for more info. I can target any or all, prioritize, and order my dragonfly to kill them just as easily as I can scroll through a list of names and set up a mass text message on my smartphone -- easier, actually, because that's a default action for the dragonfly.
It is no major deal to send my dragonfly into the next room, examine the ultrasound/sound map to see if the room is occupied, and if it's not tell the dragonfly to clear the room of sensors.
Second drone, and in many ways the one that I would think would be the FIRST choice of most players, is the GM Mr. Fix-It (RC 152). My DOG, how did they let this little gem slip past for only 6000¥?
Only? Yes. Any Build/Repair Autosoft(3), toolkit, and mechanical arm. (With my GM hat on I say that means any ONE autosoft, but it's not phrased as well as it could be and if you can persuade your GM it means more, more power to you.) The fluff even mentions auto and "electrical" standard tool kits, and states "An entire line of specialty tool kits is available for home-hobbyists."
Remember your objections to finding someone to mod a drone or a weapon? There's my answer. You might have to buy or get access to a shop. There are still going to be some things you can't get. But a couple of examples: A rigger cocoon requires an auto mechanic, toolkit, and has a threshold of 6. Adding a smartgun (internal) system to all my firearms? Armorer autosoft, a shop, and a threshold of 8. Yes, it'll take a month at a time but I can literally put it in there and walk away till it's done. (A GM issue: if it's being done by a system like this, is it a test per day or a test per "working day"? Mr. Fix-it doesn't sleep, eat, or have to keep contacts current.)
Everybody has gear they want modified, that needs repaired. It's a heck of a lot less expensive. (GM note: might need a little hacker help if you want it to do something that's restricted or forbidden. Easiest is to hack in and ID you as authorized to request those mods, but your GM's mileage may vary.)
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the two slots it has left after it's standard Walker Mode modification.
Wait I thought standard mods don't take slots
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Issuing Commands
You give a short command to the drone or other device with the Issuing Command action (p. 245). The drone attempts to execute those orders autonomously on its own action phase. You need to be able to communicate with the drone, via the Matrix for example, but do not need to be subscribed to the drone.
As a general rule, the gamemaster can assume that the sophisticated robotic brain of a drone understands any commands that are issued to it, as long as these commands are within the device’s usual range of function. An MCT-Nissan Roto-drone, for example, will understand commands regarding flight paths, tracking targets, using sensors, and so forth. If ordered to bump a ganger off his motorbike or stop a rampaging spirit, however, the Pilot will likely fail to understand. Pilots are computer programs, and so take their commands literally—sometimes too literally. If the gamemaster feels that a command falls within a gray area or is simply too convoluted, he can roll a secret Pilot + Response Test for the Pilot to see how well it comprehends the order, basing the threshold on an appropriate difficulty level.
An autosoft can be used to expand the definition of a drone’s “function” in terms of what commands it can understand. For example, a welding drone would normally be confused by orders to use its torch to attack a target, but the same drone running a Targeting (Welding Torch) program would have no trouble comprehending the command.
Remote Control
You control a device by running the Command program. You may control only one drone at a time, and must have an active subscription to that drone. You use your Command rating in place of the attribute for the dice pool for any action you take (except for Perception Tests, which use the drone’s Sensor rating in place of your Perception). When using this method, you use a set of “controls” that exist in either AR or VR (as appropriate). This method of control is a Matrix action. Controlling a drone is a Complex Action, even if the drone would be performing a Simple Action such as firing a semi-automatic weapon or using the Take Aim action. Unless already executing an ongoing action on the rigger’s behalf, a remote controlled drone acts only when it receives commands (ie. on the rigger’s action).
The FlySpy, when not being directly controlled, goes on it's own initiative pass, separate from yours. If you give it a flight path and it's about to hit something, it's going to happen on it's turn, not yours. You can delay and wait and see what's going to happen, then take control, but if you're going to do that, there's no reason to let it go on it's own in the first place. When the drone is operating autonomously, it's Initiative is it's Pilot + Response (6 dice) and it goes on it's own turn:
Drone Initiative
Like any program, the drone’s Pilot acts at digital speeds. Drone Initiative equals Pilot rating + Response, and they receive two extra Initiative Passes (three total). When a rigger has jumped into the drone, it acts on the rigger’s Initiative instead. If a rigger jumps out of a drone, it acts with the same Initiative Score for the remainder of the Combat Turn.
I'll give you the EVO Orderly, it's a nice piece of machinery. It's also Medium-sized (little bigger than a large dog). I used the Azzie Crawler to show a small-sized drone that you could easier pick up and take with you if you have to high-tail it out of there.
The Dragonfly is good, but like the FlySpy, you either have to trust it on it's own initiative pass, or control it directly. They simply aren't that smart.
I do like the GM Mr. Fix-it. But again, it's dice pool is only 6 for any B/R test (Device Rating 3 + Autosoft Rating 3). So, it's going to work for a while on those repairs, and if you're not buying hits, you'd have to worry about glitches.
the two slots it has left after it's standard Walker Mode modification.
Wait I thought standard mods don't take slots
Sorry, you're right. I was responding from work and forgot about that.
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the two slots it has left after it's standard Walker Mode modification.
Wait I thought standard mods don't take slots
Sorry, you're right. I was responding from work and forgot about that.
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No problem, i just worried for a second
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The FlySpy, when not being directly controlled, goes on it's own initiative pass, separate from yours. If you give it a flight path and it's about to hit something, it's going to happen on it's turn, not yours. You can delay and wait and see what's going to happen, then take control, but if you're going to do that, there's no reason to let it go on it's own in the first place. When the drone is operating autonomously, it's Initiative is it's Pilot + Response (6 dice) and it goes on it's own turn:
Oddly, I agree with your facts and disagree with your conclusions. Perhaps it's that I spent waaaay too much time in earlier years doing recons and raids.
Issue command: enter the next room by 3 inches and hover, wait for further instructions.
(enters)
Issue command: slow pan, left to right, then back. Repeat till further instructions.
Watch screen. If empty, enter room where flyspy is. Not empty:
Issue command: Move to [that spot] staying within 6 inches of wall, pivot to watch room.
Get ready to enter, knowing how many targets there are, where they are, and what I plan first/second/third/...
Total delay: two combat turns, maybe. Six seconds to have full situational awareness of what's in the room before I enter. MAYBE, if the bad guys hit their percept roll, they know something's up because they see the drone -- and if they do, I know they do and can act accordingly.
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I'll give you the EVO Orderly, it's a nice piece of machinery. It's also Medium-sized (little bigger than a large dog). I used the Azzie Crawler to show a small-sized drone that you could easier pick up and take with you if you have to high-tail it out of there.
So I can pick up another heavy object, or I can order something that can outrun a troll (accel 5/20, top speed 40) to follow me. Oh, and I can order it to hold onto something for me while it and I are getting out as quickly as possible. And if I'm really thinking I can jump into the bed and tell it to evac immediately -- a command it understands as basic programming. (Get patient to emergency medevac point for ambulance docwagon pick-up.) I only have to intervene if I need to direct the route, and that's still issue command: Go thataway. Turn right at that (mark on ARO) intersection. etc.
My basic point stands: I don't get why most non-riggers don't pick up some inexpensive but very useful drones to help them do their jobs better.
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My basic point stands: I don't get why most non-riggers don't pick up some inexpensive but very useful drones to help them do their jobs better.
There's no reason they don't. I've seen several players do this.
There's also no reason to have a dedicated hacker, when one or two skills and a little nuyen gets you someone almost as good. Or hell, just get a decent Agent or three.
And that right there is a HUGE beef I have with SR4's Hacking and Rigging. There's almost no reason to play a dedicated character of either "class", because even if you do, if anyone else in the group decides to branch out, they're stepping right on your toes. Pisses this old Decker right off, because the Matrix used to be fun, if complicated (And I still say that most problems with SR1-3 Decking was simply lazy GMs and players, but that's a whole other discussion).
Now? Boring. Lame. ANd they get their dicks stepped on all the time by the face or the sammy or even the fraggin' mage.
Bull
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The FlySpy, when not being directly controlled, goes on it's own initiative pass, separate from yours. If you give it a flight path and it's about to hit something, it's going to happen on it's turn, not yours. You can delay and wait and see what's going to happen, then take control, but if you're going to do that, there's no reason to let it go on it's own in the first place. When the drone is operating autonomously, it's Initiative is it's Pilot + Response (6 dice) and it goes on it's own turn:
Oddly, I agree with your facts and disagree with your conclusions. Perhaps it's that I spent waaaay too much time in earlier years doing recons and raids.
Issue command: enter the next room by 3 inches and hover, wait for further instructions.
(enters)
Issue command: slow pan, left to right, then back. Repeat till further instructions.
Watch screen. If empty, enter room where flyspy is. Not empty:
Issue command: Move to [that spot] staying within 6 inches of wall, pivot to watch room.
Get ready to enter, knowing how many targets there are, where they are, and what I plan first/second/third/...
Total delay: two combat turns, maybe. Six seconds to have full situational awareness of what's in the room before I enter. MAYBE, if the bad guys hit their percept roll, they know something's up because they see the drone -- and if they do, I know they do and can act accordingly.
Or you can use a Complex Action and remote control the drone. 1 Combat turn. This is what I'm getting at. And to do that, you're going to want to make sure you can Command it without problems.
I'll give you the EVO Orderly, it's a nice piece of machinery. It's also Medium-sized (little bigger than a large dog). I used the Azzie Crawler to show a small-sized drone that you could easier pick up and take with you if you have to high-tail it out of there.
So I can pick up another heavy object, or I can order something that can outrun a troll (accel 5/20, top speed 40) to follow me. Oh, and I can order it to hold onto something for me while it and I are getting out as quickly as possible. And if I'm really thinking I can jump into the bed and tell it to evac immediately -- a command it understands as basic programming. (Get patient to emergency medevac point for ambulance docwagon pick-up.) I only have to intervene if I need to direct the route, and that's still issue command: Go thataway. Turn right at that (mark on ARO) intersection. etc.
My basic point stands: I don't get why most non-riggers don't pick up some inexpensive but very useful drones to help them do their jobs better.
The Evo is a Medium drone. It might say it has a bed, but it's not going to be able to carry you anywhere:
Medium Drones (Body 3): Medium drones range from large dog to human or motorcycle-sized. They are unable to carry an adult metahuman, though they could potentially carry a child or small dwarf.
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As I've complained quite often, I've never played Shadowrun.
But Droids were damned useful in my Star Wars games. And what are Drones but primitive and really stupid Droids?
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Listen, I'm not saying that having a drone or two for your average runner isn't a good thing. But you gotta make sure that the benefits to it outweigh the negatives. And those are going to be on a case-by-case scenario, with different players liking different things. As a player, I could see having a drone or two (might even add them to Mercedes (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=73.msg585#msg585)), but you gotta make sure that if you do have them, you get the best use out of them.
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The best use I get out of a BusyBudy is a nice, clean floor. After I load it with Cleaner-Cleaner-Cleaner!
Even if the place isn't mine. ;)
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but you gotta make sure that if you do have them, you get the best use out of them.
And that, I think, is the crux of our disagreement. You think if you can't get the max from it, don't bother. I think getting even 25% is great so long as it lets me do something useful that I can't do otherwise is worthwhile.
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but you gotta make sure that if you do have them, you get the best use out of them.
And that, I think, is the crux of our disagreement. You think if you can't get the max from it, don't bother. I think getting even 25% is great so long as it lets me do something useful that I can't do otherwise is worthwhile.
Glad to see we agree to disagree on this. :D
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But, you didn't account for that one Troll guard that's leaning against the back wall. The drone flies toward him, but it's brain is registering an obstacle, so it has to roll it's 6 dice to see if it has the sense to fly around the obstacle [Dog-Brain's Common Sense (6d6.hits(5)=3)]. It's a pretty savvy drone, so it knows not to fly into the guard and flys around it.
I really don't think that standard object detection and avoidance should be considered a truly unexpected or novel situation. Having done a lot of work on bots for various games, we have pathing technology now, that a standard 2072 rating one dog brain should put to shame, that can easily avoid obstacles that aren't on its path.
I always took unexpected to mean things more like completely wrong blue prints, being attacked (if its not a combat drone), or trying to ram a target (since its obstacle detection should be blatantly screaming "NO"). I know their dumb brains, but having them be that dumb when technology has advanced so far is unrealistic.
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Drones are as smart as you make them. If (as in my example) you tell it to follow the edge of the room based on the blueprints you have, and it runs into an obstacle like that, the "Common Sense" threshold would be a 1, so it should succeed on the test with 6 dice in its pool. If the blueprints are completely wrong, then the threshold to follow the wall would be upped to 2 or 3 as the Pilot tries to figure out if you intended it to follow the flight path you told it, or to alter the flight path to follow the wall.
I also don't think drones would be that much farther along. Remember, the drones in 2070 are now stuffed with sensors and rigger adaptations and such so they don't have to think more. Instead, in the future, they are trading off increasing the drone's intelligence for better direct control by the user. I'd probably say that in regards to today's dog-brains, they are more intelligent, but we could also list our present equipment as having Pilot 1 ratings.
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Drones are as smart as you make them. If (as in my example) you tell it to follow the edge of the room based on the blueprints you have, and it runs into an obstacle like that, the "Common Sense" threshold would be a 1, so it should succeed on the test with 6 dice in its pool. If the blueprints are completely wrong, then the threshold to follow the wall would be upped to 2 or 3 as the Pilot tries to figure out if you intended it to follow the flight path you told it, or to alter the flight path to follow the wall.
I also don't think drones would be that much farther along. Remember, the drones in 2070 are now stuffed with sensors and rigger adaptations and such so they don't have to think more. Instead, in the future, they are trading off increasing the drone's intelligence for better direct control by the user. I'd probably say that in regards to today's dog-brains, they are more intelligent, but we could also list our present equipment as having Pilot 1 ratings.
Wait. Avoiding objects is a standard task for vehicle maneuvering, something that should be built into a level 1 brain much less a level 3, and you want it to make a test?
How often do cabs and commuters have wrecks in your world, anyway? How often do aircraft tumble out of the sky due to bad piloting? They're driven by the same brains, after all.
Look, I'm going to insert real world here for a minute. I've been involved at a low level with computers since my first boards in 1978. In 1982 I was one of the people saying all business computers needed was 48K -- and we were right. That isn't to say I'm the biggest geek on the board, it's to give background for the key point.
I've watched the improvement of computers and seen what's happened in just the past 30 years. Using that as a guide, the drones in Shadowrun actually seem a little on the stupid side.
Every rule-of-thumb measure we use has been "this doubles in that amount of time." Exponential growth, not linear. Theoretical limits keep getting pushed back as they're reached in practice. An iPhone G3 has more processing power and more memory than a Cray I, an iPad outdoes the 1985 Cray 2, and both do what was theoretically impossible back in 1985. We do things in cheap games today that were, well, science fiction less than a generation ago.
Let me finish by coming back to the dog brains. Did you know that all modern jetliners have dog-brain that can land at a modern airport in bad weather? The tested but not yet trusted "autopilot" can taxi, take off, get to destination, land, and taxi to gate without incident. (Taxi tests not done where idiots on baggage carts can get in the way. Yet.) Google's gotten permission from a state or two to do LIVE tests with robot-driven cars on interstates.
The shadowrun drones are probably too stupid in relation to where reality will be. And then you insist on making them even stupider by saying a system - an advanced system (level 3 pilot), would have to make a test to see if it would avoid a stationary obstacle in the flight path.
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I'm just saying that the dog-brains we have now would be, at best, a Rating 1 Pilot. We've only just now gotten a car that can park itself. I figure in 15 years, we might have cars that drive themselves (and another five years until we trust them).
I think a Rating 3 Pilot would be pretty smart, to the point where it would recognize the troll and fly around him without being noticed. But you would still have to do a test since it falls outside the parameters of the instructions given to it. As is says in the book:
Pilots are computer programs, and so take their commands literally—sometimes too literally. If the gamemaster feels that a command falls within a gray area or is simply too convoluted, he can roll a secret Pilot + Response Test for the Pilot to see how well it comprehends the order, basing the threshold on an appropriate difficulty level.
So, either you give it some basic commands (fly around the perimeter of the room and report back) and allow it to make judgement calls on its own; or you give it more complicated commands (fly around the room, maintaining a distance of 2" from the wall, avoiding all obstacles so as not to be seen and counting all "live" targets in the room). Either way, you're going to have to do a Piloting test. In the former, only if something "out of the parameter" happens, or, in the latter case, to make sure the drone understands the commands correctly.
Now, yes, I'm saying you have to make the test, but remember also that the DM sets the threshold for the test. In most cases, you'll only need a single success to complete it and the 6 dice pool in a average drone's Piloting test should be more than enough and it will succeed. But I cannot say that it will automatically succeed, unless the DM allows you to buy hits.
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Except you're the one who wanted to give it that order to circle the room and count objects. I didn't.
All I wanted it to do was go into the room and pan so I could see what was there through its camera.
For what it's worth, of the instructions you just gave, the one that would have tripped a test from me as GM was "count the live targets". Let's see, there are two ficus, a couple of begonias, and is that mold on the wall one or millions?
As a very minor change of topic, I've been considering the drones and I have a new one to add to the list, but only for the combat guys who can afford a tacnet: the Lone Star iBall. While it's not really much of a deal off the shelf (at 1500¥), it has EIGHT capacity slots. You can pack it with enough sensors and channels to be valid for part of a TacNet 4 -- if you brought more of these things. They're about the size of golf balls - give them gecko tips and stick one to each shoulder for when you haven't got time to toss them in first.
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Good discussion, but I have a very short answer (for once ;) ):
Because that's the Rigger's job.
No reason my non-Rigger can't do it, but even at ¥2000, that's more than I want to spend on something that another teammate should be covering.
If my Merc wants to go into the next room, the Mage or the Rigger should be using their abilities to check it out (if available for the task) so I can be covering the door. If they're not...no big deal, plenty of low-tech visual clearing options...but if they're not actively doing something to help the team move forward, they should be.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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So JoeNapalm,
Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? ;D
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So JoeNapalm,
Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? ;D
No reason my non-Rigger Street Sam can't do it, but even at ¥2000 with my smaller dice pool, that's more than I want to spend risk on something that another teammate should be covering.
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So JoeNapalm,
Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? ;D
Reductio ad absurdum.
That said, our Mage, Rigger, and Hacker have not yet needed a firearm, though they own them for a rainy day. (Our Rigger has used the point-defense system mounted on our main vehicle on one occasion...it wasn't really necessary but he's a rogue Air-Defense AI and the bad guys had a sniper team leaping from one roof top to another while he had the point defense powered up and he felt like a little skeet shooting.)
As Bull said - other archetypes can use these things, but then why have a dedicated Hacker or Rigger? My Merc is there to handle the bang-bang - if the Rigger wants to play with his Drones so I don't have to, that leaves me free to do my own job...and if I'm doing my job right, the Rigger shouldn't have to worry about anything but doing his.
[EDIT - Chrona +1!]
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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[EDIT - Chrona +1!]
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
Thank you =P
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So JoeNapalm,
Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? ;D
Reductio ad absurdum.
That said, our Mage, Rigger, and Hacker have not yet needed a firearm, though they own them for a rainy day. (Our Rigger has used the point-defense system mounted on our main vehicle on one occasion...it wasn't really necessary but he's a rogue Air-Defense AI and the bad guys had a sniper team leaping from one roof top to another while he had the point defense powered up and he felt like a little skeet shooting.)
As Bull said - other archetypes can use these things, but then why have a dedicated Hacker or Rigger? My Merc is there to handle the bang-bang - if the Rigger wants to play with his Drones so I don't have to, that leaves me free to do my own job...and if I'm doing my job right, the Rigger shouldn't have to worry about anything but doing his.
first, another +1 Chrona - nicely phrased. And ironically though unintentionally supporting my point.
I've lost more things to single points of failure, especially SPoFs that were the responsibilities of others, than I care to think about. My nominally non-combat characters carry guns for those times. There are a small handful of drones that get me enhancements my rigger may think unimportant or further down the priority list. I don't want to be the rigger if I'm the mage or the street sam or the face or ... I DO want to use any tools that make me better (first) and that cover what I think are SPoFs (second). And there are drones that do exactly that.
Unlike Magic, I don't need the specialist to use them, or at least most of what they bring to the party. (Which makes my TM sad, by the way.)
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You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?
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You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?
Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.
Saying that Street Samurai don't need to used Drones, as Drones are the primary role of Riggers, is not the same thing as saying that only Street Samurai should have firearms. Riggers are still Shadowrunners, and Shadowrunners tend to be armed.
I never said that non-Street Samurai characters shouldn't carry weapons, and therefore I'm not even going to take that bait. No one is saying that but Kirk, who is trying to imply that I'm saying it so he can argue against that, rather than my actual comment.
Kirk, fix your quotes. You're making it look like I'm arguing with myself (which I do, but generally not out loud :P).
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?
Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.
Saying that Street Samurai don't need to used Drones, as Drones are the primary role of Riggers, is not the same thing as saying that only Street Samurai should have firearms. Riggers are still Shadowrunners, and Shadowrunners tend to be armed.
I never said that non-Street Samurai characters shouldn't carry weapons, and therefore I'm not even going to take that bait. No one is saying that but Kirk, who is trying to imply that I'm saying it so he can argue against that, rather than my actual comment.
Kirk, fix your quotes. You're making it look like I'm arguing with myself (which I do, but generally not out loud :P).
But it's so FUN to watch you argue with yourself. ;D (fixed - PIMF, TGFE)
And while you never said non-street samurai characters shouldn't carry weapons, you did use the argument that if you have someone to do a role there is no need to do anything or get any gear that is perceived as being part of the other guys' job.
Since my core argument is and was that some of that gear is individually useful, I'm claiming your argument is somewhat congruent with the absurd no guns unless a street sam position.
To rephrase, this is what it looks like to me.
Me: This gear will get you bonuses; this gear will help keep you alive when things go pearshaped; this gear lets you get things done even when you're not there.
[general response]: But it's Rigger gear.
Me: So?
[general response]: The rigger can get +4 or +5, but I can only get +1 or +2.
As Fastjack said, we've agreed to disagree: I think +1 or +2 can make a difference, he thinks that if you can't get the +5 don't bother. (Note, using those as sample numbers, not actual.) Everything else in this thread since that statement is a variation on those four statements.
If you don't want to use them, it's your character.
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Personally, the entire time I've played shadowrun, I've failed to accept the normal "team" feeling that many groups adhere too. My characters tend to be live fast and trust no one types as the genre and job requires in my opinion. As such, if I can use a bit of gear to better myself, I do. Ya, mr. rigger may do it better, but I'll be damned if i'm going to rely on him or trust him anymore than I have too.
Given, I also have tendency of making characters that can solo many encounters with little to no problem, but I always felt that shadowrunners would strive to be at the top of all their job's aspects (not just their role in a team oriented job).
Every rule-of-thumb measure we use has been "this doubles in that amount of time." Exponential growth, not linear. Theoretical limits keep getting pushed back as they're reached in practice. An iPhone G3 has more processing power and more memory than a Cray I, an iPad outdoes the 1985 Cray 2, and both do what was theoretically impossible back in 1985. We do things in cheap games today that were, well, science fiction less than a generation ago.
You have to be careful when refferring to computers because their are two major areas of interest: Hardware and Software. Hardware development tends to grow exponentially at a very fast rate (usually six months to a year), but Software tends to develop at a much slower rate (seven to fifteen years for true advancements).
A lot of what we have today with hardware was seen as impossible by people back in the sixties, but most people that were leading the industry expected hardware to develop as fast as it has been by the eighties. (Many modern wristwatches have more power in them than the first moon landing shuttle).
Software advances would have been impossible in the eighties, only because of the processing power they would have required. Much of the algorithms used in modern software was around in the eighties, just not useful because it was so expensive.
AI has developed even slower than most software fields. That said, simulating AI has boomed with the video game industry. I've coded bots for many hard collision games, and giving the character a "path" to run and telling it to avoid any obstacles that crop up is simple. Its not even hard to have the bots fix the "paths" for efficiency as they avoid obstacles.
Now, that said, by the 2040s (when I would assume drones would start cropping up in SR and be physically controlled) we should see to software cycles at least. I really don't think anything that advanced should have to roll at all to avoid an obstacle along a set path.
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Personally, the entire time I've played shadowrun, I've failed to accept the normal "team" feeling that many groups adhere too. My characters tend to be live fast and trust no one types as the genre and job requires in my opinion. As such, if I can use a bit of gear to better myself, I do. Ya, mr. rigger may do it better, but I'll be damned if i'm going to rely on him or trust him anymore than I have too.
Given, I also have tendency of making characters that can solo many encounters with little to no problem, but I always felt that shadowrunners would strive to be at the top of all their job's aspects (not just their role in a team oriented job).
Every rule-of-thumb measure we use has been "this doubles in that amount of time." Exponential growth, not linear. Theoretical limits keep getting pushed back as they're reached in practice. An iPhone G3 has more processing power and more memory than a Cray I, an iPad outdoes the 1985 Cray 2, and both do what was theoretically impossible back in 1985. We do things in cheap games today that were, well, science fiction less than a generation ago.
You have to be careful when refferring to computers because their are two major areas of interest: Hardware and Software. Hardware development tends to grow exponentially at a very fast rate (usually six months to a year), but Software tends to develop at a much slower rate (seven to fifteen years for true advancements).
A lot of what we have today with hardware was seen as impossible by people back in the sixties, but most people that were leading the industry expected hardware to develop as fast as it has been by the eighties. (Many modern wristwatches have more power in them than the first moon landing shuttle).
Software advances would have been impossible in the eighties, only because of the processing power they would have required. Much of the algorithms used in modern software was around in the eighties, just not useful because it was so expensive.
AI has developed even slower than most software fields. That said, simulating AI has boomed with the video game industry. I've coded bots for many hard collision games, and giving the character a "path" to run and telling it to avoid any obstacles that crop up is simple. Its not even hard to have the bots fix the "paths" for efficiency as they avoid obstacles.
Now, that said, by the 2040s (when I would assume drones would start cropping up in SR and be physically controlled) we should see to software cycles at least. I really don't think anything that advanced should have to roll at all to avoid an obstacle along a set path.
The disparity (and others such as bandwidth doubling rate and memory measures doubling and...) is why I didn't use actual numbers. However, I'm not sure I agree with the seven to fifteen year rates. I'd buy three to seven, however. I'm also going to beat you to the punch by noting "it depends on your definition of advance".
I'm going to repeat one specific drone-related item, though. Airliners have had autopilots that would land their aircraft without the pilot touching the stick for a few years now. I know there've been more than one test of gate to gate by autopilot. I know also that the truly frightening test is soon (or maybe already done): landing on an aircraft carrier.
Pathing is easy. It's the vague commands like "Count the number of live enemies in the room" that'll stump the box.
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You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?
Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.
First, if that were true, you should accuse him of presenting a false dichotomy - not a reduction ad absurdum.
Second, I don't think you meant to say it was a false dichotomy, either, because there really are only two options - either non-SS characters shouldn't carry weapons, or some of them should, and correspondingly either non-rigger characters shouldn't have drones, or some of them should. I think you mean to argue that it is a false analogy.
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However, I'm not sure I agree with the seven to fifteen year rates. I'd buy three to seven, however. I'm also going to beat you to the punch by noting "it depends on your definition of advance".
Anything more notable than minor graphical updates. Software seems to advance faster, but most of what makes it appear to be advancing faster is really just better hardware and minor updates to the systems to make use of the newer hardware. Yes, it can happen faster, but when it does get rushed faster there are usually consequences to pay (remember the Vista memory leaks).
You'll also see software advances spread out across several years as well (which likewise makes them seem to occur more often), but most often the spreading is to cut costs by waiting for better hardware to become common place in order to save the time it would take to make the software more diverse (able to run on much slower builds than it was meant. Again, look at Vista for an example that failed to do so). For instance, most of the advances in Windows 2.0, 3.0, and even 3.1 where already designed when Windows 1.0 was released. They were just waiting for the common user to have the hardware to run it before releasing it, after all the common consumer thinks if it doesn't work, its the publishers fault, not their subpar systems (again, I can reference Vista for an example).
I'm going to repeat one specific drone-related item, though. Airliners have had autopilots that would land their aircraft without the pilot touching the stick for a few years now. I know there've been more than one test of gate to gate by autopilot. I know also that the truly frightening test is soon (or maybe already done): landing on an aircraft carrier.
Pathing is easy. It's the vague commands like "Count the number of live enemies in the room" that'll stump the box.
The airliner would be covered by a Pilot 1 on that type of drone. Takeoff and landing are both simple parts of the drones maneuvering, unless its very bad weather, I wouldn't see their being an issue in any case. However, a Pilot 1 can also fly the plane very well in most circumstances (doesn't usually need to roll even) and has a chance in tricky circumstances. I wasn't arguing that we don't have this today, I just believe it wouldn't be an exponential increase in the software aspect so much as a slow linear one. It would be better, but not by a truly expansive margin.
Pathing is what I was arguing for. All drones should be able to easily do it, as we have the technology to do collision pathing expertly today and it has been advancing fast with its applications for the gaming industry.
As for the "count the number of live enemies", that would largely just determine on the drones list of terms. What are enemies? What is considered live? I think a combat drone would have these terms loaded in automatically, but a recon drone may not depending on whether its a civilian/news model or a military/law enforcement model. I don't have Unwired yet, but I know in the old Rigger 3 book they had a section devoted to writing macros and setting terms for your drones. With AR help and practically limitless memory, I think any "rigger" could easily sit down and program out definitions for terms that he'd be using on a regular basis.
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Now, that said, by the 2040s (when I would assume drones would start cropping up in SR and be physically controlled) we should see to software cycles at least. I really don't think anything that advanced should have to roll at all to avoid an obstacle along a set path.
2040?! There's autonomous pathfinding drones, now. The DARPA Grand Challenge, for example.
You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?
Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.
First, if that were true, you should accuse him of presenting a false dichotomy - not a reduction ad absurdum.
Second, I don't think you meant to say it was a false dichotomy, either, because there really are only two options - either non-SS characters shouldn't carry weapons, or some of them should, and correspondingly either non-rigger characters shouldn't have drones, or some of them should. I think you mean to argue that it is a false analogy.
If you seriously still want to discuss this, technically it's the Fallacy of Four Terms, which is a syllogistic fallacy.
Street Samurai do not need to use drones.
Street Samurai have guns.
Therefore, people who are not Street Samurai do not need to use guns.
It is also a false analogy, but false analogies are not a formal fallacy, and I was attempting to point out a flaw in the logic of the argument, not in the substance.
All of that aside, I would gladly throw myself at the mercy of the court and plead guilty to the maximum sentence for misuse of Reductio ad Absurdum on the basis that the argument was, in fact, a syllogistic fallacy rather than a false dichotomy, as well as personally nominating you for the Nobel Prize for Winning the Interwebs, if you will agree that A) the initial premise in question was based on faulty logic and therefore an invalid argument, and B) that we get back to talking about something related to Shadowrun and stop splitting hairs over my improper use of obscure Latin phrases (which is my right, under the 14th Amendment. :P ).
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
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OK, lets get back to arguing about pretend elf games.
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OK, lets get back to arguing about pretend elf games.
Agreed. We're treading dangerously close to going off-topic in a bad way.
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OK, pretend elf argument commencing.
I think a better lens to view things through is the idea of stackability. That is, if two people have the same ability (possibly at different levels), is that better than if just the better one had it (by an amount significant enough to matter)? If no, it's not a stackable ability. If yes, it is. I would argue that everyone should try to pick up stackable abilities IF they have low enough opportunity costs to be worth it, but nonstackable abilities should stick with the specialists. Drones can be either because they are a large category. Let me give some examples.
Hacking is nonstackable. Only the best hacker really matters, because teamworking hacking checks greatly increases your odds of getting caught since the target gets twice as many chances to see someone; even two equally-skilled hackers are best off having only one of them hack any given system. Now, a second hacker might be handy so you don't have a single person doing all the hacking (in case they go down when you desperately need some hacking), but it's certainly not worth having your entire team be good at hacking - you really get nothing out of it.
(You might also benefit from having two very different hackers, like a technomancer with a heavy focus on stealth and a hacker with a lot of the "utility" programs, so the techo takes care of hacking big scary nodes and the hacker handles all the stuff like editing footage or decrypting files that the technomancer couldn't afford to be good at, but this is more a case of subdividing a task than stacking it).
Shooting people is stackable. Anytime you need someone shot, having more people shooting at them helps. A samurai with 20 dice to shoot people does not do the job as well as a samurai with 20 dice to shoot people and 4 other runners with 10 dice to shoot people.
Drones, like I said, can be either. You don't need two people doing drone scouting - you want the best rigger doing it since they are less likely to be caught. You might, however, want an autonomous drone to back you up during a fight, whether or not you are a rigger - since if the rigger ALSO has one, it stacks. Similarly, it might be worth having your own transportation, because you don't always want your entire team going everywhere together.
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Hackers don't play well with others anyhow.
That's why Technomancers have to compile their own friends. :P
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2040?! There's autonomous pathfinding drones, now. The DARPA Grand Challenge, for example.
By drone I meant, able to jump into with VR/Control Rig since that was the argument against further development of pathing technology.
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Why don't non-riggers get drones?
snip
So why don't people besides riggers buy them?
Either everyone with drones is a Rigger, or you don't have a big enough sample size.
Flyspy, dragonfly, iball are always useful for anyone. Medium and large drones are great for fire support and other backup tasks.
Usually a team has drones, and a rigger to run them, so there's little point in someone else running them. If a team doesn't have drones, they'll tend to look for a Rigger, rather then have their own drones. In some ways it's nice built in dependency.
It's a pretty standard option for me in non Rigger character builds to use drones for Tacnet and sensor capabilities.
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Actually, I see a few items in "This Old Drone" that I think would be useful for any character to have at a good number of times. Especially after a "few" software upgrades.
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I'm actually considering having my mage mechanic (I recently had cause to wish for the Fix spell, two additional arms, and Magic Fingers the day I played a character with all of those) buy a handful of small drones, as they keep working after sunrise/sunset, compliment Watcher spirits (and vice versa) for observation, and will add to her role of non-combat support. Her biggest problem is only having a motorcycle for vehicular transportation--doesn't need to be modded for her being an out-there changeling.