To be fair, out of the box Guardian Angel bots can't do much more than bullet sponges or flying stun guns either, since the only "weapon" they have stock is eelware. As for the general question, there are a wide variety of bots (ie drones) already in the books, with stats and so on. Vehicles can usually be remoted operated too. Bots are mechanically like Synthmorphs, just they lack cyberbrains (so you can't completely sleeve into one). You can apply any mods to them which can be put on a synthmorph - though most come with what you'd expect (except, perhaps, like I said with the guardian angel which lacks real weapon systems). Vehicles work similarly.

MrWigggles wrote:

Like, there are rules totally there to be a drone operator, and the recent Dev's Con game involves the space whales being boss drone operators in distant stars. So how do you actually go about building a drone? It feels like I can almost see it mechanically but I dont seem to know where the foundation is, where to actually start.

In terms of "how do I create stats for a robot?" There's a few ways. First-off, literally any Synthmorph can be a drone, all it needs is to [i]not[/i] have a transhuman ego sleeved into it. Secondly, you can start with the base of any stock drone or vehicle, and then start slapping robotic augmentations on it. Thirdly, you can look up the Morph Creation Rules in Transhuman (beginning on Page 221,) make a Synthmorph, and remove the cyberbrain. (Or just not remove the cyberbrain.) Fourthly, you can just Asspull some stats.

UnitOmega wrote:

To be fair, out of the box Guardian Angel bots can't do much more than bullet sponges or flying stun guns either, since the only "weapon" they have stock is eelware. As for the general question, there are a wide variety of bots (ie drones) already in the books, with stats and so on. Vehicles can usually be remoted operated too. Bots are mechanically like Synthmorphs, just they lack cyberbrains (so you can't completely sleeve into one). You can apply any mods to them which can be put on a synthmorph - though most come with what you'd expect (except, perhaps, like I said with the guardian angel which lacks real weapon systems). Vehicles work similarly.

They're good observation platforms because they have hyperspectral sensors and camo coating, but they're probably fairly loud. A weapon mount makes them a very good attack platform, especially a sniper rifle or gyromount shredder. That speed two is so strong on a platform that cheap. As for building a drone operating character? Just get drones for gear, blueprints if they're cheap or will get used a lot, or are pretty expendable. Speck blueprints are nice for that. Cheap out on a morph, or use an eidolon, and use your morph budget for drones. Depending on if you focus on jamming or DRC you'll either end up a great freerunner/airunner, or have a lot of pilot and big weapon skills, which and add together nicely for when you aren't using drones.

I think I might see where the confusion lies. "Drones" aren't a discreet category in eclipse phase per se. So in a way you don't really design drones. You design robots, vehicles, and morphs. Those then become drones as soon as you seize control of them.

hardware: electronics hardware: mechanical interest: drones flight? profession: drone builder profession: drone pilot programming interfacing? gun skills?

I believe there's a security bot jammer in the NPC file, and probably a package for Drone Operator/Jammer in Transhuman if you're curious about the skill spread. EDIT: Also, In a sense I think ROSS is right - there's not a hard definition on a "drone", in terms of mechanics or even in the fiction as any meshed device which can be AI drive can be remote operated in some fashion - which is basically everything. You could jam or teleoperate anything from the robots and vehicles gear category, majority of which have their stats provided. Panopticon even adds for you to run habs in such a way.

MrWigggles wrote:

it just never actually points how to mechanically make them

Oh, hey, I've been wondering about the same thing. My solution was a combo of: 1. use already-statted drones 2. use the morph creation guide in the TH book 3. use GURPS Vehicle/GURPS Transhuman Space spacecraft design for guidance. Re: already-statted drones. Well, remember, as someone already mentioned, anything with a puppet sock and/or hosting an AI is *technically* a drone. But, as for archetypally *droney* drones: * the entire bot/vehicle section in core * defense platform (Rimward) * interceptor (Sunward: not available to player chars, but an idea of what a cutting-edge drone's capabilities are) * sentry bot (Gatecrashing) finally, in the "Firewall" sourcebook, in the example characters, it provides examples of modded guardian angels, armed with weapons. I assume the implication there is you can just stick on a *reasonable* weapon, and the angel's performance will be unaffected. SO. For even more hearty drones than the guardian angel mods, I've totally been meaning to come up with one myself, and try to stat it. Idea was a large-sized AKV (autonomous kill vehicle) drone, armed with, like, four to six disposable seekers (with HEAP, nanoswarm, or Overload warhead), and maybe a particle beam bolter. Remember a full-sized HEAP missile will do 56 DV, -8 AP, enough to hurt even a spacecraft. The bolter is to shoot down enemy missiles. The overload warheads I am imagining as, like, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_%28countermeasure%29]chaff[/url] (the type an aircraft uses to distract AA missiles). Finally, the entire drone itself can become a missile, naturally. (I'm saying it is capable of, like, 4G (or even way more) of thrust over the course of a few minutes). Deploy the AKV drone from the home base (say you've got a standard freighter), so the exhuman pirates have to defeat your AKV before they can come after you. I've "been meaning", as I said, because I haven't found time yet. :( When I do find time, [url=http://boomzilla.me/ep/blog/]I'll post it to my (mostly-empty right now) blog[/url]. /shamelessSelfPromotion :)

Quote:

Like, in shadowrun, there very explicit things about drones.

I gather the EP creators attempt to eschew crunch? But, then, you have weirdos like me who will spend hours in GURPS Vehicles coming up with things, haha.