[Crunch]

And what about the other component responsiveness? Rotor vees are notoriously difficult to fly, thus the low handling.

[Shade]

pg 199

Handling represents the vehicle’s agility and responsiveness.
This value is the base limit for Vehicle
Tests made where maneuverability is the most important
feature.

Right there, the word "agility", even listed first between the two things handling measures.  I think I understand exactly what handling was meant to be and I think roto-drones, and things like a dragonfly drone or maybe even a drone based off of a hummingbird's flight mechanics would be pretty much the most AGILE thing out there.

You seem to be using agility as your only measuring stick. The fact is, that is far more complicated to keep a drone afloat and to move it precisely where you want it than it is a tracked or wheeled vehicle. It's more AGILE but much less responsive. Or rather, it's much less responsive if I want it to remain in controlled flight instead of slamming into the ground or nearest wall.

[Michael Chandra]

Even if the controls are better, the fact is it also takes more effort to keep in control. With a car, you just steer, it's kinda hard to cause one of those to topple over and crash into the ground. With a rotodrone, you have to keep the wind in mind, don't go too sharp, and so on.

Take jetpacks. Those let someone freely move around in the air. Also, a single mistake causes you to crash and die.

[DigitalZombie]

Question; if your troll friend needed some brain surgery, would you rather have it performed by a flying rotodrone or a tracked drone?

That flying drone would likely cut into some sensitive parts, because it cant keep as still as the tracked one.



Answer: its a trick question.. he is a troll, just whack him with a mallet and he is fine again.

But seriously now: remember the roto drone might have a lower handling, some things are easier for it to make than other vehicles, like the example on page 199. It says the treshhold for a vehicle driving through a space just large enough for it, then jumping and rotating in the air, knocking the attached bomb uderneath it off a crane and then continuing rotating and landing on its wheels are a treshold of 4+
But not for the roto drone, as it doesnt have the same difficulties in "jumping and rotating" as a wheeled vehicle, its treshold might only be 2 or 3

[lightknight]

Even if the controls are better, the fact is it also takes more effort to keep in control. With a car, you just steer, it's kinda hard to cause one of those to topple over and crash into the ground. With a rotodrone, you have to keep the wind in mind, don't go too sharp, and so on.

Take jetpacks. Those let someone freely move around in the air. Also, a single mistake causes you to crash and die.

I can agree, the complexity of handling a flying drone is more difficult than handling a ground vehicle.  But my counter-argument to that point is, as a Rigger, I'm not actually flying the drone with remote controls(most of the time).  Either the pilot brain of the drone is handling the control of the drone(which is capable of how many thousands of tiny adjustments per second).  Or if I am rigged in, the control rig is interpreting what I want to do and still doing those thousands of adjustments per second to make what I want to happen occur.  So I submit, that in the world of Shadowrun, thanks to control rigs/sim modules, a rigger is as adept moving a drone when he is jumped into as easily as he moves his body in the meat world.  That is the intent of control rigs is it not?

I get the point everyone is making, but I think you are treating handling as "ease of control" only and missing the AGILE part of the book defined version of handling.  It is pretty clearly defined as agility as well(listed first even), and assuming you take the order of the wording to be inconsequential, its still 50% of the equation.  And roto drones are very, very agile in 2013, much less 2075. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

I think I hijacked the thread unintentionally with a tangent argument and have taken it from a rules based question to academic argument territory, so apologies to OP.

[Crunch]

I think all of us understand that handling is both agility and ease of control. I simply think that you're overvaluing the agility part of the equation in terms of Handling as a limit stat.

[Unahim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

Notice how wobbly they are, especially during the "formation" flying. They're not as stable or precise as ground drones, and Handling is partially that.