Of particular interest to me is mounting a thermographic or telescopic camera on the outside of a vehicle to act as FLIR or long range sensors.
I'd like to think it's one of the many reasons that those have since been removed from the game, or are still pending removal.
As Necro said, not sure vehicle owners with surveillance gear need any more advantages than they already have.
First! Thank you for everyone who took the time to formulate a response, I always look forward to reading the feedback my ideas receive!
Next, I understand that there -are- ways to accomplish effectively the same thing, however, I believe that there should be alternative methods to many things to allow characters with different stat builds and paths to accomplish parallel effects! Many people brought up the ability to just install chrome. This is perfectly valid, however some characters may not install chrome for RP or stat reasons, and having them be inherently unable to make use of these advanced sensors is a disservice in my opinion.
My next response is to those who bring up rigging. Again, there is 100% the ability to use rigging, however, a rigged vehicle does not allow your character to 'get out' of the drone to act. Please if you will, imagine a WJF scout AV with a thermal camera mounted on it. This AV is in pursuit of a suspect that is very good at stealth. The AV has the advantage of being able to offload a judge upon locating the suspect, wheras a drone does not.
Finally, as to the power of vehicles, I believe by adding to the utility of them, we will finally reach a point where vehicles themselves will have a balance and mechanics pass done to them, which will not only make them more interactable from a hostile point of view, but also perhaps finally see the implementation of heavy weapons.
Again, thank you everyone for your responses!
For those who either aren't interested in getting surveillance-chrome, or can't handle the load, I do wish there were more contacts to help! Most people with that kind of chrome and camera access are either employed (and not in a position to freelance), or they are at the point of solo-power where they're basically factions in and of themselves. I would like to see the concept of independent Mixside overwatch / rigging outfits encouraged, but I don't think cameras on cars will accomplish that broader goal.
There's no skill requirement at all for using items to scan your surroundings. There's various kinds of goggles and optics that literally anyone can use.
As it stands right now, there is almost no way to prevent people from spying from inside cars. That, in itself, is fairly overpowered.
Being able to strap cameras on a car and then do the same thing from anywhere in the dome? No, all of the no.
Oh, you bring up a good point. I honestly had not thought about goggles. This does effectively address my use case. Thank you!
Not a rigged vehicle, but a drone outside your vehicle.
there should be alternative methods to many things to allow characters with different stat builds and paths to accomplish parallel effects
Sometimes, not all the time. I don't think rigging should be diluted by giving non-riggers mobile surveillance tech - they can already drive, sneak, hide, use non-mobile security gear, and get intelligence lots of other ways.
Plus I second the notion someone else brought up above that team RP is the way to enable many-tactic, many-skill, many-powers operations.
