Chatterbox Drone Relay

[Warclaw]

Chatterbox Class Communications Relay Drone

Small Support Vehicle (Airship)     1500 KG Total Mass
Structural Tech Rating: E (Star League)
Chassis Mod: “Ultra Light”
Crew: 0                 0 Kg
Total Chassis Weight:                         128 Kg
Structural Integrity Rating: 2
Engine Tech Rating: E (Star League) 
    Engine Mass:                                  192 Kg
    Movement Factor: 8
    Type: Solar
    Fuel Mass:  N/A
    Range: Potentially Unlimited
    Safe Thrust Rating: 2
    Max Thrust Rating: 3
Heat Sinks:  None                                    0 Kg
Armor Rating:  0                                      0 Kg

Equipment:
     Drone Mods                                     150 Kg
     Communications + Sensor Suite:   1000 Kg

Cost:  21,495 C-Bills

     Nothing more or less than a small RPV airship who's sole function is to serve as a communications relay.

     Small, slow, and completely unarmored (At that size and mass, what would be the point?)  But unless broadcasting, VERY hard to spot.  And even if broadcasting, they are small targets, whose operators take pride in their ability to avoid being found.  And at the price, most users can afford to use a good number of them.

     Most commonly used as a remote broadcast site, either of a recorded, or tight-beamed message, so as to avoid detection of the originating source.  Also used to circumvent areas of jamming, or communications “Dead Zones”

[vidar]

Cool little ship.  I would like to see them used as objectives, hid and seek >:D

[NullVoid]

I love these kinds of vehicles.  They pad out the universe a little more.

[RunandFindOut]

I like it, funny thing is that in my experience if your running campaigns that are lower intensity nearly every merc unit will be picking up stuff like this sooner or later.  Then again I tend to use Hammer's Slammers very heavily as a source in merc campaigns and play up the internecine small-scale conflict in the pre-Clan era.  So you can end up with far less glorious battles against <Enemy HERE> mechwarriors invading and far more infuriating insurgencies or light skirmishes, with plenty of coups and small conflicts in the model of the Pig Wars, etc.

[Warclaw]

Thank you.  I've always thought drones are an under-used resource in the Canon B-Tech universe. 

Granted, they have a few weaknesses, which this drone, and a few posted in the Combat vehicles section are meant to address.

This one is to address two of the primary problems with drones on the modern b-tech battlefield.

1: ECM interference.  By allowing the drone control signal to be redirected around any ecm bubbles, it becomes much harder for enemy EW to prevent effective use of the combat drones.

2: Signal tracing.  By re-transmitting, and indirectly sending the control/communications signals, it makes it significantly harder for any hunter units to back-trace and find the drone control unit...or field HQ's for that matter.

[wesharrisb]

How would ECM interference effect this? Could the drone itself be enlarged? To say 5 tons or so, and incorporate a GECM or AECM unit?

[Warclaw]

ECM interferes in that any ecm bubble between the signal source and the target drone breaks the link, just like the original C3 networks.  This drone is intended to allow the signal to be "Bounced" around any such ecm bubble.

The drone could be enlarged, but anything over 5 tons would require a different construction method, as the sub-5 ton design allows for by kg calculations, where anything 5 tons or larger goes to the .5 ton rounded minimum on each item.  Also, the idea was to make this as small, hard to spot, and CHEAP as possible.  After all, these are usually used in good numbers, and you can expect to lose a few each time you deploy them.  (The enemy WILL try to take these down if they can.)