Q-BRANCH (of the GURPS forum)

[DataPacRat]

I've jotted down this as a possible option in a near-future TL9 setting, though I'm still figuring out a few details, and could use an assist on the final stats:

* Belt-Mounted Drone Pack
(Roughly the size of a large hip flask)

- 50 Flier Robobugs (pUT111, $5,000, 0.5 lbs, LC4)
- C cell (pUT18, $10, 0.5 lbs, 90 kJ)
- tiny computer (pUT22, $50, 0.05 lbs, .25B/25 hr, LC4; .25 B cell $0.75, 0.0125 lb, 2.25 kJ)
- tiny radio communicator (pUT44, 1-mile range, $50, 0.05 lbs, .5B/25 hr, LC4; .5 B cell $1.50, 0.025 lb, 4.5 kJ)
- (Total $5112.25, 1.1375 lbs or 516 grams; 96.75 kJ, about 1 minute to recharge from a standard 15 amp, 120 volt household outlet.)

- In case no other terminals are available, a wristwatch-style datapad (pUT23, $10, 0.05 lb, 2A/20 hr, LC4).

The C cell recharges 50 bot-hours of flight time in addition to the bugs' own batteries, which can be divvied up between the bugs. (Eg, running all 50 for 1 hour, or running 2 at a time for 25 hours.)

The lower-LC version mounts a 0.01 lb weapon on each of the robobugs' weapon-mounts, adding 0.5 lbs total weight. Some possibilities include:
- Morphazine injectors ($500 for 50, LC3)
- Soothe injectors ($750, LC4)
- Single round each of 7.5mmCLP ammunition ($6, LC3, 2d pi, drone must land on target and will be destroyed when it "fires")
- Single round each of 3mmN ammunition ($5, LC4, 1d-2 pi-)
- From 3e Vehicles: Gun with 1mm barrel, extremely short, breechloader, and 13 rounds of ammo held in the drone's non-weapon-mount arms. 3e stats 1/2D range 37y, Max Range 770y, Acc 6, EWt 0.009 lbs, SS 11, RoF 1/3, WPS 0.000075 lbs, CPS $0.00015, $250, Damage 1d-3 Cr. Total for all 50 robobugs: $12,500.
- (The same, with needleshot instead. Damage 1d-4 Imp, 1/2D 24y, Max range 510y.)
- Roughly 3 grams of shaped-charge explosive. (stats: ?)


At TL9, Signature Gear provides $15k per 1 CP, so this swarm would cost a player under 1 CP, or 2 if they went for the variant with the 1mm gun. Alternatively, as an Ally Group, using the fractional-CP variant rule from Social Engineering and Supers and DF9, the stats for Flier Nanobugs with Non-Volitional AIs from Ultra-Tech give them a negative point cost each, so an Ally Group with under 5% starting CP each (0.2 CP), appearing Constantly (x4), Group Size 50 (x10), Minions (Slave Mentality, +0%) could cost a character 8 CP. (I recommend houseruling an extension of the fractional-CP Ally tables, so that Allies with negative CP only cost a base 0.1 CP.)