Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: DamienHollow on <05-12-13/0108:28>
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Okay, I can't believe this hasn't come up before but the issue was recently raised. Having a drone/drone rack just sitting on your vehicle can look awfully suspicious. Is there any way to either hide the rack, or disassemble and store the drone inside through the use of mechanical arms?
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You could have the drone rack inside the vehicle instead of on the roof...
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Or have concealed compartments.
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Where does it say drone racks are mounted on the outside of the vehicle in some obvious way? They aren't the drone equivalent of a ski rack. The system needs power at the least and since it takes up mod slots it is integrated into the vehicle in some fashion. Look at the GMC Hermes van. It comes with drone racks but I don't imagine they are some sort of clunky obvious thing stapled to the outside of the vehicle. There are other vehicles that also feature drone racks built in. Any flying vehicle is going to have those racks mounted as aerodynamically as possible to cut down on drag and the same could be said for ground vehicles.
I picture these systems more as a door/hatch opens in the vehicle and the drone disembarks rather than it gets to fly or drive off some sort of rack on the roof or something.
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There are courier companies that use drones to deliver things (I read that somewhere, although I don't recall where exactly). Drive through a neighbourhood, drop the drones, they deliver packages and get new packages and than are picked up again. Much faster than stopping at every address. Make sure your van looks like one of those and nobody would look twice at you (make sure the drones aren't too obviously armed though).
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Where does it say drone racks are mounted on the outside of the vehicle in some obvious way? They aren't the drone equivalent of a ski rack. The system needs power at the least and since it takes up mod slots it is integrated into the vehicle in some fashion. Look at the GMC Hermes van. It comes with drone racks but I don't imagine they are some sort of clunky obvious thing stapled to the outside of the vehicle. There are other vehicles that also feature drone racks built in. Any flying vehicle is going to have those racks mounted as aerodynamically as possible to cut down on drag and the same could be said for ground vehicles.
I picture these systems more as a door/hatch opens in the vehicle and the drone disembarks rather than it gets to fly or drive off some sort of rack on the roof or something.
For Small racks I would agree, But what about large? Seeing as how they don;t have true size categories rather loos interpretations some of those flying drones could be huge.
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I made a character with a GMC Hermes van (the drone delivery truck) where I added another Large drone rack as well. The way I describe it is like a van with the automated doors and trunk. The two side doors open up and give access to the small drone racks (I imagine them as sliding forward into place to release/capture drones), and the trunk opens up for the large drone rack. From the outside, the truck looks pretty normal, but the doors and stuff open up to give access to the drone racks.
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For the flying drones, I just assume the wings fold up for storage. When you deploy from the drone rack the wings fold back out again. With mimetic metals and smart plastics that shouldn't be too hard a thing to do. If this wasn't the case you would still have a problem with the big flying drones on an external rack as they would be hitting stuff as the vehicle cruises along.
In 3rd ed they had this thing called CF for Cargo Factor that made this sort of thing easier to figure out but they have elected to go with simplicity in 4th for such things. So now we get Predator drones we can jam inside a step van. It's progress man. It's amazing. New from GMC. Buy one today!
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Ah, I figured that sort of thing would be filed under the assembly time improvement.
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It could be, if there was a single vehicle outside the Dawnglider, in the entire game that listed any sort of assembly time. Otherwise it ends up just being a mod you can add to break things down for smuggling or concealment purposes, similar to the easy breakdown mod for weapons.
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I agree. The drones should be able to be stored inside of the vehicle. Take a look at the picture of the BAE Centurion in Mil Spec Tech.
It clearly shows a row of three Small Drone Racks to store the drones internally behind flush panels. The picture also shows a Large Landing Drone Rack on the back of the tank.
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yes but the rear drone "rack" looks more like a flat landing pad. Considering that Global Hawk is considered large, we don;t really know how big drones are. I doubt you could fit one of those in a semi trailer.
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I could have sworn there was some rough description on the relative sizes of drones somewhere but I can't remember where now. From what I recall, the large drones aren't any bigger than a motorcycle and the others scale down from there. Of course that was a rule of thumb and things like a predator obviously exceed that. Take them on a case by case basis I suppose. Honestly, I think some of those drones should have a higher body than what is listed.
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Drone Sizes can be found on page 102 of Arsenal, but they are described as size ranges and ultimately left up to the gamemaster to decide. Large drones range in size from motorcycle to small car.
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There we go. Thanks. But even motorcycles and small cars have a higher body than the large drone does. Anyway, I guess I just figure these drones, since they don't actually need space for passengers or their safety systems, can compact themselves for storage. This is the only way even the concept of a drone rack makes sense for medium and large drones. Like many things in this game, the whole drone concept is simplified to make game play easier and you shouldn't think about the actual logistics of it all too much.
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The issue with body is that body doesn't rely purely on size but weight and durability.
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Oh, here's one you're going to love. Mill Spec Tech doesn't say how big the Hawker-Siddley Mixcoatl is.
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It is body 3 so somewhere in the range of medium drones. I don't see it as being too terribly big and the picture makes me think it may be along the lines of some of the current large RC helicopters you can get. Maybe like this thing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEJYAYX9PJk (go to about 1:30)
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The only component of the Hawker-Siddley Mixcoatl that should necessitate a bigger size is the Weapon Mount. I think it would be slightly larger than a LMG.
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Yeah, that one just came to my attention after I tried to use it on chummer and chummer said it had an Extra Large Vehicle sensor. I know he's not the writer of the rules but he's normally pretty good. Anyways I figured I would go and fix it manually like I did the price on one of the wines. When I looked at the book it said body 3 then listed a whole lot of mods which left me thinking small to large range and no good idea of which.
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The issue is the Global-Hawk is 47.7 feet long. While the Predator is 27 feet long with a 48.7 - 55.25 wingspan.
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Yeah, those ones are off. I'd say if drones weren't limited to a max body of 4, they should be much higher. Perhaps just reclassify them as unmanned aircraft? GM common sense should come into play at that point and just say no, you can't jam that thing into your drone rack. Consider it part of the issue of the thing being obsolete. It just won't fit into current racks, or really any rack. Beyond those things based on real world drones, there isn't much else presented that couldn't fit in a drone rack of the right size.
The other thing to ask yourself is whether it is worth while to micro-manage this particular issue in a game where the vehicle system in general is abstracted. Are there games where the players are frequently trying to jam a predator drone into their bulldog van? In my experience I can just show a player a picture of the thing and they go, oh OK, I see how that wouldn't fit. I'll think of something else. Get more reasonable players? ;)
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Ares Air-Supply is a bod 6.
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Actually, looking through This Old Drone, not very many of those drones have the body they should for the category of drone they are. Reaper with a body of 2? Predator with a body of 2? Hell, the Black Knight is body 14. I'd just say most of those drones would have to be taken on a case by case basis of whether they would fit a rack. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme nor reason to how they are statted out.
For the more contemporary drones found in Arsenal and the core book, I'd say they should be able to fit the various rack sizes easily. After all, these are the drones the racks were designed for. Perhaps drones should have had an assembly time stat in addition to everything else to address this issue. You could house rule such a thing using the guideline in the improved assembly time mod but then that means no one will be launching drones from the drone racks without stopping to put the thing together first. Kind of defeats the purpose of the rack.
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Well RL Carrier Based air craft fold their wings at the flip of the switch. F-18s wings fold to take up less floor space in the hanger deck.
How about applying their Body score as a number of turns required to prepare for launch. Once or twice back in the S3 days, I even applied the Concealed Turret modifier to the Drone rack to account for disguised racks.
So how about having the Drone Rack take up more slots if it is concealed/disguised. The +3 slot increase for a Concealed Visibility Turret seems appropriate.
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Anything that increases the launch time to more than a complex action makes the drone and rack useless. Fights in shadowrun just don't last long enough to have drones prepping to launch over multiple rounds. In some cases, even multiple passes would be too long to make them useful. Since the drone rack mod says they are designed for fast disembarkation and can launch a drone in 1 complex action, adding prep time or whatever really defeats the purpose.
I think the issue here is that some drones just wouldn't realistically fit in a drone rack (predator, reaper, black knight, etc). The concealability of the racks shouldn't be an issue. A turret or weapon mount is only really visible so the weapon can move and track targets. Drones just need some sort of door to open so they can be launched. They aren't tracking anything. The racks also aren't illegal or even restricted so there wouldn't be any legality problems with having them on a vehicle.
That said, if a GM really wants to add a concealability stat to drone racks, sure use the Concealed Visibility mod. This to me seems a bit harsh as drone racks already remove a potential weapon mount, have pretty high slot requirements and are kind of expensive already.
To give an example, a large drone rack is 4 mod slots and 4000¥, counts as a reinforced weapon mount for space and can only be installed on body 15 or higher vehicles. Adding Concealed Visibility mod adds an additional 4000¥, and takes up 3 more mod slots and makes the thing illegal.
Compare that to a heavy weapon mount. The mount is 2 slots, 4000¥, Concealed take 3 more slots and adds another 4000¥. The whole thing is illegal, but you can mount any damn weapon you please in there and install it on anything with a body of 6 or higher.
So the drone rack and weapon mount cost the same in nuyen but the drone rack takes 2 more mod slots (using the suggested rule) and goes from being legal to illegal. Plus you have to have a damn big vehicle to put it in. I think the drone racks are fine as is without modifying them. The real world size of some of the drones is the problem.