[EscherEnigma]

Howdy.  New to Shadowrun, currently stuck in the GM chair.   Ran my first session a few days ago and it mostly went well, but looking forward I wanted to figure out riggers and, well, they're confusing me.

So here's a couple of rigger-related questions.

First up: what's up with the meat-body mattering when your rigger is "jumped into" a drone?  If I'm reading this right they use their agility + gunnery to fire a weapon while in a drone, but if they're just in AR/VR and commanding using the Control Device matrix action it would be logic + gunnery.  Or if they just command the drone to fire without taking direct control it would be the drone's pilot + targeting autosoft.

I guess I just don't get why agility matters.  That reaction still matters for vehicle tests I can accept, but agility... that one's bugging me.

Second up: how many copies of an autosoft do you need to buy?  Say you have two MCT-Nissan Roto-Drones.  Do you need to buy the evasion autosoft for each one, or can you buy one copy then just, well, copy it for the other one?  The other option is of course to buy one copy and share it using your RCC, but that doesn't really answer the copy-right protection question.

Third up: if I understand it correctly, once you get a rigger interface in a vehicle it's basically a drone you can ride at that point.  Which immediately makes its device rating important, but I don't see that listed anywhere intuitive.  Same question for the drones, actually... what are the device ratings for all these pieces of hardware that depend on their device rating for how many autosofts they run?

On a related matter, is there any way to boost a vehicle's pilot rating, or should a rigger just avoid the vehicles with a pilot rating of 1?

And a fourth question that isn't directly related to riggers...
Are skillwires requried for all activesofts, or just ones keyed to physical abilities?  For example, could you have a skillsoft for Computer or Medicine?  At that point requiring the skillwires seems a bit odd.  Especially once you get into skills that can be performed in the matrix. 

Thanks for any answers/insights.  Trying to figure this stuff out before it matters in the game.

Final unrelated thought: why are all missiles using contact fuzes?  We've had proximity fuzes for decades now.

[Spooky]

first point: when jumped in, a rigger is "wearing" the drone/vehicle, similar to wearing a suit of armor. Thus, agility to fire weapons. Using remote control (AR/VR) is a mental process, thus logic.

Second point: there's a huge debate on this, search the forum for autosoft and you should find it.

Third point: drones don't have device ratings, they have pilot ratings, as do vehicles. Pilot rating is the measure of how "smart" the drone's  "brain" is, thus can serve as the device rating you're looking for.

Fourth point: active skills need skill wires. Computer and medicine need the wires to do things like type commands and put in cyberware.

Hope this helps.

[Darzil]

First up: what's up with the meat-body mattering when your rigger is "jumped into" a drone?  If I'm reading this right they use their agility + gunnery to fire a weapon while in a drone, but if they're just in AR/VR and commanding using the Control Device matrix action it would be logic + gunnery.  Or if they just command the drone to fire without taking direct control it would be the drone's pilot + targeting autosoft.

Unfortunately the rules are somewhat contradictory.

pg 183 says "Vehicle-mounted weapons are fired using Weapon Skill + Agility [Accuracy] for manual operation, like door guns on mounts, or Gunnery + Logic [Accuracy] for remote operated systems."
but pg 238 says "The dice pool of any test you make using this action uses the rating of the appropriate skill and attribute you would use if you were performing the action normally. For example, firing a drone-mounted weapon at a target requires a Gunnery + Agility test"

[Herr Brackhaus]

Darzil
The errata'd core rulebook has modified that line:
"Vehicle-mounted weapons are fired using Gunnery + Agility [Accuracy] for manual operation, like door guns on mounts, or Gunnery + Logic [Accuracy] for remote operated systems."

It's anyone's guess whether or not being jumped-in counts as being a "remote operated system", but my money would be on yes.

EscherEnigma, Darzil
You only ever use Control Device if you're using the Remote Control action through the Matrix.

Page 238, Control Device:
"You perform an action through a device you control (or at least control suffiiently), using your commlink or deck like a remote control or video-game controller."

If you're a rigger jumped-into a drone or vehicle, you fire a vehicle mounted weapon as per the vehicle combat rules. Pages 269 and 270 have some jumped-in specific examples for drones.

As for using physical attributes; the explanation from Aaron, one of the developers, was that you still use the same motor cortex to operate a drone or vehicle while jumped in. This doesn't entirely mesh with the idea that Sneaking while jumped in is an Intuition test according to the rulebook, so as I see it you have three alternatives:

1. Play riggers like written; somewhat inconsistent but doable
2. Play riggers with emphasis on "being the machine"; use attributes as normal
3. Play riggers as "mind over the machine"; use the Astral Attributes table on page 314 to substitute a mental attribute for when a physical attribute is normally used

The latter presents a better option for technomancer drones, but can leave VR based mechanical riggers somewhat powerful as they can essentially dumpstat every physical attribute and max out their mental attributes. I think this is somewhat limited by the fact that Intuition cannot be boosted as high as Agility, but Logic certainly can so Gunnery actions can reach very high dice pools this way.

In short, riggers need some love from a willing GM to function well under the current rules.

[Darzil]

Darzil
The errata'd core rulebook has modified that line:
"Vehicle-mounted weapons are fired using Gunnery + Agility [Accuracy] for manual operation, like door guns on mounts, or Gunnery + Logic [Accuracy] for remote operated systems."

Oops, must have had the wrong rulebook open. I'll delete the non-updated one.

[Raven2049]

also an addition to spooky's comment about item #3

the limit to the number of autosofts that can run concurrently on a drone is equal to pilot rating divided by 2 round up. which means (if i remember correctly) all current legal drones can only support a maximum of 2 autosofts that run in the drone.

when using a command console its equal to your sharing rating, and those autosofts are considered running on ALL drones currently linked to the console.


an additional question, is there any reason why you could not for example, have 2 steel lynx drones using the command console autosofts, AND have an additional 2 Rotodrones running their own autosofts? all linked together in your WAN?

i can see reasons both ways, but what are your guys thoughts? would doing this require a second command console? or would they have to be not linked to the WAN and therefore not protected by your console?

[Darzil]

pg 270 "If a drone is slaved to a rigger command console and isn’t running any of its own programs, it uses the programs running on the RCC. This can exceed its normal program limit."

So, if you have any programs running on the Rotodrones, they don't use the RCC programs, but are still slaved to the PAN gaining that advantage. It is a pain if you'd like to use stuff like Clearsight 6 on the RCC to affect all drones, as they can't then have their own autosofts. I might be tempted to just house rule that the drone just uses the best available to it.

[Raven2049]

i had forgotten about the

and isn’t running any of its own programs,

part. Answers that question

[EscherEnigma]

Thanks for the responses!

So sounds like gunnery is unnecessarily complicated at the moment and is inconsistent flavor-wise.  Sounds like something that'll have to be conferenced at the table then to decide how to run it.  Ah well, benefit of a table-top game rather then a computer game.

Re: autosoft
I thought that, like programs on a deck, that drones could have more autosofts loaded onto them then could be run concurrently and the rigger could swap 'em in and out.  So the drone could have it's own model/weapon specific autosofts but while that's not needed they're turned off, letting the drone benefit from shared autosofts.  Admittedly, it's probably an action of some sort to swap between 'em, but it seems a way to manage it.

Still no clue on device rating for cars though?

[Darzil]

Still no clue on device rating for cars though?

pg 269 : "Pilots have a Rating indicated by the Device Rating of the vehicle, drone, or other piece of gear they’re in."

Ok, in practice it's the other way around, and the tables show Pilot Rating rather than Device Rating, but at least until a future rigger book allows pilot upgrades, Device Rating and Pilot Rating are the same.

[jim1701]

Re: autosoft
I thought that, like programs on a deck, that drones could have more autosofts loaded onto them then could be run concurrently and the rigger could swap 'em in and out.  So the drone could have it's own model/weapon specific autosofts but while that's not needed they're turned off, letting the drone benefit from shared autosofts.  Admittedly, it's probably an action of some sort to swap between 'em, but it seems a way to manage it.

The rules don't really address it so it's really up to your GM.  I think you would need to use the same rules deckers use to swap programs though.

[EscherEnigma]

Still no clue on device rating for cars though?

pg 269 : "Pilots have a Rating indicated by the Device Rating of the vehicle, drone, or other piece of gear they’re in."

Ok, in practice it's the other way around, and the tables show Pilot Rating rather than Device Rating, but at least until a future rigger book allows pilot upgrades, Device Rating and Pilot Rating are the same.

... is anyone else annoyed at how important they made device ratings and how few items have an actual device rating listed, 'causing you to either derive it from inferred rules or bicker over which line in the "general case" table an item falls under?

The rules don't really address it so it's really up to your GM.  I think you would need to use the same rules deckers use to swap programs though.

That was the idea, yeah.