Trucks, Drones, Guns and other essentials

So I've mentioned that I am a Rigger. It's a very tech-intensive role, which suits me just fine. I enjoy working with machinery, and have done ever since I was big enough to wave a wrench at something. So there's a lot of tools that I use in my job as a Runner.

I appreciate quality in my equipment. There's no sense in buying something because it's cheap if you know it's going to break down when you need it most. Sure, some piece of Azzie crap drone might be half the price, but you're gonna hate yourself for forking out when it chucks a digital sicko the middle of a fight or begins chundering up parts when you need it most. So I'm willing to pay a little more for something that's reliable and not going to explode just because it bumped a Wombat or something. (Actually that’s a lie. You hit a Wombat and you will notice it, no matter what)

The other thing is that as I said, I like getting my hands dirty. I'm at my happiest when I'm elbow-deep in some project or another, covered in grease and other crap and ripping up robo-mechanical guts. Every bit of kit that I use has been modified or tweaked or whatever else in some way by me so it'll work just that little bit better or do things that it's designer never intended it to do or whatever else. It's expensive and time consuming, but it’s worth it.

Besides which, it feels great at the end of the day to sit back and look at your latest masterpiece. Bask in the glory of what you've done and whatnot.

First up we'll quickly talk guns. I don't carry much myself for two reasons. The first is that I'm not usually excepting to face the enemy face-to-face, and so if I'm in a standup gunfight then odds are something's gone really wrong and I should be buggering off. The second, and this will come as a shock to all you North American Runner types, is that gun control laws in Australia are pretty bloody tight. It's pretty much illegal to own anything automatic, which sends prices through the roof and really limits what you can get away with carrying without every cop and his dog looking at you.

This is an Ares Predator V, in case the picture wasn't obvious

So my sidearm choices are more functional then anything extravagant. A Taser as something i can walk around with and not get too much attention (and good for disabling without killing when needed) and an Ares Predator V for when things get loud. Well, loud and in a situation where I can't bring the Drones. More on those in a moment.

Now since one of my jobs driving, obviously I need a set of wheels to get me around and let me do my job. Sydney's roads being what they are (and that's before we go beyond Sydney and it gets really bad) plus practicalities of the job dictates speed, mobility, ruggedness and the ability to go anywhere and actually survive it. Thus my choice of ride is a Tata Hotpsur racing truck. It fulfills all of these requirements and that was before I modded the crap out of it. Oh, and it looks cool as well, which puts it a notch or two above the traditional GMC Bulldog van.

Tata Hotspur Racing Truck

But like all my other stuff, I've done a few things to trick it out. It's got some camouflage options, for starters; Morphable license plates, dummy RFID chips and even a chameleon coating to change its colours as needed. This means it can be as innocuous or loud as I want, from suburban SUV to a full-blown Octan-branded racer. Disguise isn't all it does, though. I've equipped it with a set of Drone Racks to support my private remote controlled army, and allow me to quickly release them as a giant swarm in the field. It's also got a satellite uplink to allow me to connect to the Matrix from most everywhere, which is really handy when you’re out the back of Burke and can't find anything local beyond the last dunny's WiFi.

Finally it's got a Multi-Fuel engine powered by a Plasma Torch that reduces anything I throw in it to a semblance of fuel. Combine it with the monofilament chainsaw that I keep in my toolkit and I can pretty run it off whatever I find. Be it a dead dingo, a bottle of Clive Palmer's Numbat Squeezings or whatever else. And it's also handy for disposing of evidence.

Rotordrones are a great way of getting rid of people
without ever getting anywhere near them

So that’s the first half of the Rigger equation. The second half is the drones, and I have a few of those as well. First and foremost is Louie, my Fly-Spy. Small, fast, mobile and easy to overlook, Louie is an invaluable recon and spying tool, and great for gathering info. He's also very squishy so best not to expose him. The best part is because I have the appropriate licenses for him, he's technically legal for me to have. Of course, what I do with him is another matter.

The main guns of my little armory are a quartet of Rotordrones; Sid, Ollie, Dickhead and Fatso. I tooled with them quite a bit, replacing their usual armour (Petro-soaked toilet paper) with some better composites that massively improved their durability without sacrificing speed at all. So now they won't explode if you sneeze at them. Of course, they're only useful if you arm them, which is what I've done. Each one carries an AK-98 complete with grenade launcher, which gives them a lot of versatility for a relatively low price. On the other hand, I can't use them that openly because they're face-kickingly illegal and all.

A Steel Lynx Drone. Flavio is much fancier then this. (You'd
think I just did a Matrix search and plopped down the first
pic of a Steel Lynx I could find...)

Finally I have my big stick for sticky situations or the like in the form of Flavio, a Steel Lynx drone. Obviously big, noticeable and above all else, loud, Flavio's for those occasions when subtlety is out the window. To this effect, I have armed him with A Stoner-Ares M203 Medium Machine Gun which is enough to turn most things into chunks of dogmeat. (I was hoping to get my hands on an Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle, but the black market supply of those bastards dried up fast). And to ensure that he can get where he needs to be, he has Gecko Grip equipped wheels. When I told one my dealers that I was planning to do, he said that I was a horrible human being. Beaut. Plus as a bonus, he has a parasol attached to his turret for if I should ever need to go out on a stroll into the desert.

Rigger Control Console

All of this is run through my Vulcan Liegelord Rigger Command Console. It's a pretty good system, given that those better then it are MilSpec, out of my budget or, more likely, both. It's probably my single most valuable piece of equipment given all that I can do with it. I'm relatively light on the Cyberware side of it. A Vehicle Control Rig and a near-ubiquitous datajack is about it. But then, as said, my goal is not to be in a position where I have to fight. In an ideal world, I'd never be anywhere near the actual violence, but then, this is anything but an ideal world.