| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
So I agree that by rules a mechanic can use master control to control a drone that is out of his sight and hearing up to 2500 feet away. However if said mechanic does not have the camera mod, how much control can he exercise. 3 doors open up in front of the drone--how does the mechanic know that? Does he get the benefit of a camera even if he did not get that mod? Does he get to see the whole board the drone sees--even if he is not there? Could he direct a melee armed combat drone to go stand between the enemy and an open door (to block its retreat) and than attack? How would he have known it to go stand in front of a door that he could not see without a camera?
The drone still communicates with the mechanic. So the camera is faster and more accurate (you can just see what the drone sees and use your own knowledge), but the drone can tell you what it observes without that camera.
To me, the camera mod will make it faster and easier to control a drone remotely, and it will make it much less likely that the drone will take actions that you would regret, and also make it possible to take actions quicker. It seems to be more important in combat and other time-dependent scenarios to have a camera.
For an example, without a camera, a drone may have to tell you, "Three people are standing in this room. One is a vesk holding a rifle. One is a halfling tied to a chair. One is a human aiming a pistol at me. What do I do?"
Whereas with the camera, you simply see a tied hostage, a distracted Vesk with a longarm, and an alert human guard, who you immediately shoot at.
Having to relay everything to you delays your drone's actions, and may require you to ask more questions. If the drone is carefully snipping wires to disable a trap, that might not be a problem at all. You can calmly ask it questions and make decisions. But when time is of the essence, I think the camera-less drone will have more problems.
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Camera mod text:
Your drone has a camera that you can see through using your custom rig as long as your drone is within range. The camera has ordinary sight, and is capable of seeing whatever an ordinary human could see. The camera can also record up to 1 hour of footage, which can be downloaded and viewed using your custom rig.
So ... it's rather silly that the camera even is a mod. The drone obviously already has a camera, since it can see normally with or without the mod. And it can wirelessly transmit arbitrary data to the mechanic's custom rig, so it can transmit the same visual data it's processing for itself. Making the camera a mod is like requiring a modern UAV to have a second camera on it because it somehow can't transmit data from its first camera.
most of the mods are silly for the drone. a cargo pod. a saddle? yet the book says I can make it into whatever form I want. So I could have already made it with those two mods. hard to figure out what to let players "HAVE" for free without using mods and when to say "no-if you want that you have to take the mod"
The book says Form, not features. I imagine having a hover drone that is dirigible, hawk or dual rotor helicopter are all fine. But if you want to carry anything you need to Mod in the cargo pod.
You only get functional features for free that are included in the base chassis. Typically, a skill mod, form or two of locomotion and a weapon mount or two.
most of the mods are silly for the drone. a cargo pod. a saddle? yet the book says I can make it into whatever form I want. So I could have already made it with those two mods. hard to figure out what to let players "HAVE" for free without using mods and when to say "no-if you want that you have to take the mod"