From:	Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject:	Drone control
Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 1999 16:39:46 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Scott Wheelock wrote:

> For th team in question, that's impossible (no rigger). What
> about a really high rating jammer? Would that block the signals
> to the drone and leave it standing there picking its tailpipe?
> Or would it continue with its last orders indefinitely?

That depends on what was going on when the jamming was activated.
If the rigger controlling the drone was piloting that drone directly, then
he could very well have been dumped when the jamming took effect. If he
was dumped quickly enough, it's possible that the rigger didn't have time
to issue any commands to the drone before his command channel succumbed to
the jamming. If that were the case, then yes, the drone would just sit
there picking its tailpipe. The drone may have rudimentary "self-defense"
programming built into its dog brain, but without an order, it's not going
to do much else.
Now if the drone was being commanded in "captain's chair" mode
(i.e. the rigger was just issuing commands to the drone) or was given an
order and let go autonomously, then the drone would probably try to
execute its last command until it either succeeded, was destroyed, or ran
out of juice.

Marc