Syndicate Remote Scouting Drone

[Patchouli]

Plain and simple idea - a new Nuke Ops item that allows you to spawn a remote scouting drone for exploring the station, monitoring vital targets, checking location on the nuke disk, watching the captain's movements, timing the attack, etc.

How it would work:
- buy the drone beacon with TC (should be cheap, ~3-5 at best);
- activating it spawns an inactive scout drone shell at your feet, and a remote control device (maybe a military-looking laptop);
- activating the laptop switches your control to the drone, and makes your vision track the drone's movement;
- while you are 'piloting' the drone, you can still hear what is happening around you but can't move until you activate the laptop again, which pulls the vision back to you.

What the drone has:
- the drone has no hands - this means it can't just pick up the nuke disk and bring it to you;
- the drone has Assistant-tier access, which means maint only, like the basic agent card - no using scout drone as a ghetto all access pass;
- the drone has ONE storage slot for small items, and items into it can be inserted/removed by the nuke op - stuff your pinpointer in it and track the disk as you go, or add a C4 w/signaller to suicide drone-bomb someone.

This would be practically useless for the bumrush-murderkill op style teams, but would encourage teams with a tactical, stealthy, and careful approach to the mission, as well as promote planning and good timing for the operation. Plus, drone scouting has been a thing for ages IRL now, so why not in 26th century?

Opinions?

[Alex Crimson]

People would meta "why is there a drone here so early in the round" and just kill it.

[Incomptinence]

Built in chameleon projector, pinpointer and tracking block would be needed for this to work well. Maybe make it optionally ghost controlled and able to use the syndi channel (and turn radio off internally for stealth) with a scouting lawset, needs no hands though yeah. There a way to make only nuke ops able to understand it?

[Arete]

It's an interesting niche to fill, in any case, even if not with this exact idea.

[Reimoo]

Or make it ghost controllable only. That would be much more interesting than having to leave a guy behind because he has to be the one controlling the drone.

[Patchouli]

Having built-in resistance to AI tracking or a pinpointer is a nice idea actually, this won't require one syndie to shove their pinpointer into it.

Also, making it require a ghost is kind of risky because there won't always be a ghost that could fill this role - if you go in early, the item may not work at all because it would rely on observers, and if you go in late, the ghosts may not even notice you if you are stealthy enough... unless it gives some kind of notification like Xenobiology golem runes do on creation.

I am not sure how Syndiborgs are picked from the playerbase, but it may do something similar with ghosts - it could pick a ghost that has 'be nuke op' on above other ghosts or somesuch.

Though what I have in mind is for it to be non-ghost - the drone may provide significant tactical advantage to the team, and even a team of 4 can ambush the tracked-down captain. I would hope that something like this would make ops rely more on intelligence (lel) than strength in numbers.

[cedarbridge]

Also, making it require a ghost is kind of risky because there won't always be a ghost that could fill this role - if you go in early, the item may not work at all because it would rely on observers

We have ghost powered borgs. Your drone can handle being ghost powered too. Its not special enough to be comparable.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

People would meta "why is there a drone here so early in the round" and just kill it.

And drones in general.

So there is nothing in the OP about what it's supposed to accomplish.

It will be basically: "Oh, this drone is up to no good? Means nuke ops, call the shuttle!"

[Incomptinence]

Hence why I think it should have built in chameleon projection so it actually not get meta'd.

[Alex Crimson]

Yeah because a moving cigarette butt is so much more subtle.

[Patchouli]

So Syndiborgs are picked from ghosts then?

Also, you wouldn't believe how subtle a moving cigarette butt is. Cham projector is seriously underestimated - I once strolled through the Port Primary Hallway next to HoP's desk like this, with several officers, HoS, and the detective running around and raiding Cargonia, no one even gave a stuff. Just make sure you make the movements when no one can see the actual movements, and you'll be fine.

I'm a bit wary of having the drone come pre-installed with a cham projector because of this, as it would push the TC cost up potentially for what is meant to be a cheap and expendable item. But you do make good points on this.

[bandit]

People would meta "why is there a drone here so early in the round" and just kill it.

Then place one -- only one -- regular drone shell somewhere on the station, maybe randomly in maint.