[UmaroVI]

Even without Infinity Threading, you'll have way more dice as a Command rigger than a Jumped In rigger.

See, that's why I'm calling munchkin: You don't even bother to address my claim that both build can reach plenty enough dice, but merely insist that your pool is bigger.

Both jump-in and Command riggers can easily start with 20 dice right out of chargen and reach 30-something with a bit of Karma and Nuyen. Once you have reached that point, what do another five dice give you? In those few cases where they are needed I'll simply use Edge, that's what it's for.

Just for reference, the gunnery pool of a jumped-in rigger
Response 6
Gunnery 6
Specialization 2
Hot Sim 2
Smartlink 2
R5 Machine Sprite running Diagnostics ~3

That's already 21 dice with hardly anything the player needs to bend over backwards for. Not sensational, but neither something that's "bad and you don't want to"

Further improvements
Control Rig 2 (fill the remaining Essence with other useful stuff, Damage Compensators are nice for example)
Max out Sprite assistance, another 3
Immersion Echo 2
Active targeting (roll a Perception test vs. target's Agility, add hits to dice pool)

Response 6 is costly. You can't start with it without Restricted gear, and it adds 8000Y per Drone to your costs. Ouch!

Control Rig 2 eats essence and you're a Technomancer.
Active Targeting is silly. Spend a simple action to get net hits to your attack test? Just shoot them with a Wide Burst, and then they get a penalty to their next defense check for being wounded.

Now, let's compare a Command technomancer rigger. We're not using Infinity Threading but we are going to use Threading.

Command 6
Gunnery 6
Specialization 2
Hot Sim 2 (Control Device is a matrix action)
Smartlink 2
R5 Machine Sprite running Diagnostics ~3
Codeslinger: Command Device 2

OK, now lets get to boosting Command - without assuming Infinity Threading. Resonance 6 plus Software 4 plus Analytic Mind 2 is 12 dice on threading. Resonance 6 + Intuition 5 is 11 dice on fade resist. That's enough to quite reliably thread up 2 hits and soak 2P; you have a very low chance of getting insufficient hits for that, so no Infinity Threading doesn't stop this.

You can easily Register sprites in downtime, so long as you stick to ones that can't do P damage to you for trying. All you really need is a rating 4 sprite for this, but if you want you can probably get a higher rated one. It can Assist Operation you up another 4 when you need it; this does eat up services and is short-term, but it will last an entire fight. So let's look at your dice pool: 23 dice, 27 with the sprite's help - and we didn't spend 8000Y per drone upgrading everything with Response 6!

Further improvements
Max out Sprite assistance, another 3
You can buy your Resonance and your Command CF up higher

Of course, you could argue this is somewhat overkill; however, this is assuming you're doing something you are heavily specialized at. Even with NO rating in a skill - such as if you have to pilot a Watercraft or something - the command rigger can get Command 8 - Defaulting 1 + Hot Sim 2 + Diagnostics 3 + Codeslinger 2 for 14 dice, which is quite impressive - and unlike the jumped in rigger, who cannot get any better, in emergencies the command rigger can thread higher and risk a point or two of P damage, and can use registered sprite services to get up to 18 dice on tests for which he lacks the skill.

Finally, the command rigger is cheap. You don't need expensive command and sensor upgrades for you drones. You don't need to risk your life by being jumped in with hot sim. You can run an off-the-shelf, unmodified vehicle that you've never seen before and be extremely good with it. The Jumped-In Rigger needs to upgrade each and every vehicle and drone and has to jam Rigger Adaptation on everything - all this stuff adds up fast.

Incidentally, you might be wondering "so what IS this infinity threading abuse I hear so much about?" The answer is that it's only really good when you can jack your Fade Resist up really high and have a good doctor and a mage on-hand. You can then wait until you get something crazy like 6-7 hits, suck a huge amount of damage, and get medical attention. This is a good trick for getting a CF you don't have up to 12, or for getting a CF to 12 long-term without needing a sprite, but it's hardly the crutch on which command riggers lean.

Lastly, there ARE good reasons to jump in. The big one is spoof-proofing yourself; sometimes less dice and biofeedback is worth the immunity to spoofing. The second one is using specific non-FA weapons; one of the nice things about gunnery is that it's universal, so you can slap a sniper rifle on a drone and then jump in and snipe people with Gunnery, and 2 shots at a smaller dice pool is better than 1 shot at a bigger one. Also, Mind over Matter is fun for jumping into stuff like buildings that was never meant to be jumped into.

[kirk]

Sengir? Sprites and echoes are technomancer only.

Aaaand, I need to apologize - you are doing technomancer.

It's the smartlink that threw me - you're either losing dice from sustaining multiple CFs or you've lost essence (and dice) from sacrificing resonance (essence) for the links. Or so it looks to me -- I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time. (see apology)

[UmaroVI]

You can get Smartlink by putting the Smartgun system on the drone's weapons and then putting a camera with the Smartlink vision enhancement on the drone. You yourself having a smartlink doesn't help you in any way.

[squee_nabob]

My thoughts,

Get the electronics group, It's full of good stuff.

Piloting can be dumped and picked up later.

Two skills at 3 are not as good as one skill at 4 and one at 2

For drone suggestions: Lone Star Strato-9 (This Old Drone), Wuxing Hussar (WAR!), Lockheed Arachnid (WAR!), the Arachnid is a forbidden Doberman which is cheaper and cooler (because it's a giant spider with an LMG). Get at least one flying drone for aerial recon.

I’d cut logic to 3 to get some more points. Make sure resonance starts at 6, and buy CFs up to 6.

[baronspam]

I'm not sure "have command 6 and then use Threading and Assist Operation" really counts as "Munchkinism."

The "munchkinism" was aimed at the aim of boosting a more than sufficient dice pool rather than the methods. Although I certainly disapprove your interpretation of endless re-threading

No such thing as a "more than sufficient" dice pool.  If the dice can fit in a five gallon bucket you don't have too many.

[kirk]

No such thing as a "more than sufficient" dice pool.  If the dice can fit in a five gallon bucket you don't have too many.

A bucket? Does this mean we're supposed to put back the others?

[Cantor]

I've been following this thread, and trying to create my own robomancer (I prefer that to dronomancer) along the way. What's the difference in build between a rigger who uses "issue command" over "remote control". I understand that issue command is the only way to control more than one drone at a time, but which is more efficient with building a Technomancer?

[UmaroVI]

Issue Command is nonexclusive. This is a case of poor terminology because Issue Command has nothing to do with the Command CF/Program.

Issue Command tells your drones to do shit on their own. Remote control (which uses the "Control Device" action) means you are controlling it with a VR or AR control set, like a video game style controller.

The general idea is that no matter what type of rigger you are, you can use Issue Command to have drones do shit on their own. However, they are hella expensive to make good at doing stuff on their own. There are various options:

1) Settle for "passable at doing stuff on their own." For not totally crazy prices you can get a drone that rolls 8 dice to shoot people in the face on its own.
2) Have a few big, very nice things, like a pimped out Ares Roadmaster, Hussar, and Ford LEBD-1, and cough up the dough to make them good at stuff. If you're already paying a huge amount of nuyen for a rocking drone, another 30k to make it good at fighting without direction from you is worth it. One useful aspect of RC is that you can make a very cheap "gun platform" drone to control yourself, so the idea is you have a few cheap "gun platform" drones you RC, depending on the situation, and a few expensive utilitarian drones that mostly run themselves.
3) Use Machine Sprites to control drones. This is one big edge technos have over mundane riggers - you can get a machine sprite that can rock pretty hard in a drone, and it's free.

[Sengir]

Response 6 is costly. You can't start with it without Restricted gear, and it adds 8000Y per Drone to your costs. Ouch!

Control Rig 2 eats essence and you're a Technomancer.
Active Targeting is silly. Spend a simple action to get net hits to your attack test? Just shoot them with a Wide Burst, and then they get a penalty to their next defense check for being wounded.

- Take Response 5 if you don't want to invest into the R 6 chip, one less die doesn't really matter
- So? After the first submersion (so Resonance doesn't drop below 6) getting one Essence worth of upgrades is totally worth it.
- Active Targeting means you roll a sensor test with all your boni to drone actions and Perception (and -3 when targeting a person) and can use the net hits as bonus dice for every subsequent attack on the target. When jumped in long bursts are simple actions, so you can easily do both on the same pass

So let's look at your dice pool: 23 dice, 27 with the sprite's help - and we didn't spend 8000Y per drone upgrading everything with Response 6!

In other words, less than 30% dice more dice at most against a starting character who chose to forgo the Control Rig and Active Targeting. That hardly makes jumping in "bad and you don't want to"

Even with NO rating in a skill - such as if you have to pilot a Watercraft or something - the command rigger can get Command 8 - Defaulting 1 + Hot Sim 2 + Diagnostics 3 + Codeslinger 2 for 14 dice, which is quite impressive - and unlike the jumped in rigger, who cannot get any better, in emergencies the command rigger can thread higher and risk a point or two of P damage, and can use registered sprite services to get up to 18 dice on tests for which he lacks the skill.

I you can't do something yourself, let a Sprite do it

Finally, the command rigger is cheap. You don't need expensive command and sensor upgrades for you drones.

In my experience, TMs sooner or later run into the problem of having far too much cash and nothing to spend it on. So a couple a drone upgrades are no problem...also, Sensors are not really expensive (camera, microphone, RF scanner, some unrated stuff)  and are not even needed unless you scout or use Active Targeting

[squee_nabob]

I’m about 200,000 into a TM and am buying skillwires are 40,000 a pop for biowires.

For about 65,000 you can get 4 Wuxing Hussars on a tacnet with Flashflood Watercannons, rolling 10 dice at long wide bursts (-5 to dodge), that form an independent mook team with armor 18. You can always use more Hussars.

[UmaroVI]

Response 5 is still 4000Y - that's still expensive.

The upgrades are debatable - I'd rather spend the karma on having a higher Resonance and higher Command, Exploit, and Stealth complex forms. Control rig is hardly free.

Active Targeting is wasting your actions. You CAN active target and then long burst, but you're much better off doing a wide narrow burst and then a long burst. Or being a command rigger who rolls more dice and doing a narrow full burst.

A starting technomancer with Control Rig is shooting themselves in the foot because of the price of buying Complex Forms at 6 with BP versus Karma. Active Targeting is as above stupid. 30% more dice for less cost and less money per drone is indeed pretty good, yes.

My point is that it is sketchy to only compare Gunnery dice pools. What about when you need to Infiltrate in a drone? Or Pilot in a drone (there's no piloting skill group, so having all of the Pilot skills at 4 is expensive). Sprites are good but you can always have sprites do stuff.

You DO need Sensors to function: your attacks are Sensor+Gunnery. Looking back you seemed to have assumed it was Response. You need response too, for Manuever, Infiltration, and Initiative.

[Tsuzua]

- Take Response 5 if you don't want to invest into the R 6 chip, one less die doesn't really matter
- So? After the first submersion (so Resonance doesn't drop below 6) getting one Essence worth of upgrades is totally worth it.

You'll lose a point of Resonance submersion or not.  Submersion just increases the maximum by 1.  When you get ware, both your current and maximum Resonance drops by 1.  So it's 30 karma to buy it back up to 6.  To be fair, a logic techno might get alphaware cerebral boosters 3, control rig, and PuSHeD with that essence.  Or drop the control rig and get an alphaware Encephalon instead.

In other words, less than 30% dice more dice at most against a starting character who chose to forgo the Control Rig and Active Targeting. That hardly makes jumping in "bad and you don't want to"

If you forgo Control Rig, it's 21 versus 27 dice.  That's 6 dice or 2 hits.  In addition to pay for that -6 dice, you take damage whenever the drone takes damage.  There's some beanies to being jumped in, but you're really paying for it.  With a control rig, it's only 4 dice and I'll go with that.

As for Active Targetting, it's at best fair.  You get to make a sensor + perception test +1 (drones, metahumans, critters -3 + 2 hot sim + 2 control rig) so assuming a good dice pool of 15 (sensor 6 + perception 4 -3 critter mod + hot sim 2 + control rig 2 + attention coprocessor 3 + widget 1), that's 5 hits, likely much less if your target is evading detection (how easy is it to be evading detection is something that's left to GM call).

So let's see how they stack up between a command rigger and jumped in rigger piloting a response 6 sensor 6 drone with an LMG.  They have same Init and IPs so no advantage there.  I'm going to handle extra dice by having it add straight to damage (i.e. a +1 die advantage is .33 DV).

1st IP:
Command Rigger- Narrow Full Burst at 27 dice 14P damage (factoring in +8 narrow)
Jumped in Rigger- Active Target Simple (5 hits), Long Narrow Burst at 28 dice 11.33P

2nd IP and future IPs:
Command Rigger - Narrow Full Burst at 27 14P -1
Jumped in Rigger- Narrow Long Burst at 28 11.33P, Narrow Short Burst at 28 8.33P  or Narrow Full Burst for 14.33P

Basically unless the long/short burst works, it'll take the jumped in rigger a long time to make up for the lost time targetting.  Since Shadowrun is an offense heavy combat system, it'll only take 1-3 IPs before whatever target you have is down or took you down.  You don't have enough time to catch up. 

If the active targetting roll only gets 4 or less hits (such as having a more modest pool of 12 or so or bad luck), then you'll never catch up.  If you're ambushing, the command rigger can active target as well since you have lots of time.

I you can't do something yourself, let a Sprite do it

While true, you don't have to worry about taking an action to summon whatever sprite you need.  Also, both the jumped in rigger and command rigger can do this.  And the command rigger can do it better since he has a higher resonance rating.

You DO need Sensors to function: your attacks are Sensor+Gunnery. Looking back you seemed to have assumed it was Response. You need response too, for Manuever, Infiltration, and Initiative.

I assume he's using Passive Targetting which uses Sensor instead of Response for shooting. 

[Sengir]

You DO need Sensors to function: your attacks are Sensor+Gunnery.

If you use passive sensor targeting, which is really only worth it when facing something large. Otherwise, Gunnery is Linked to Agility, which is substituted by Response as normal. Yes, the table is a bit confusing in this regard.

Active Targeting is wasting your actions. You CAN active target and then long burst, but you're much better off doing a wide narrow burst and then a long burst. Or being a command rigger who rolls more dice and doing a narrow full burst.

Well, this was about getting large dice pools, so I naturally assumed that a wide short burst just doesn't cut it
If a smaller pool is enough hell yes, hit them with two simply actions rather than one complex.

@Tsuzua

You'll lose a point of Resonance submersion or not.  Submersion just increases the maximum by 1.  When you get ware, both your current and maximum Resonance drops by 1. 

What I meant was to get Resonance 7 and then drop it to 6 with augmentations, thereby avoiding a loss of CF ratings

Basically unless the long/short burst works, it'll take the jumped in rigger a long time to make up for the lost time targetting. 

Don't see why it shouldn't work for drones if it works for Sams..


Anyway, I think we've confused all the newbs looking for advice enough now and can agree to disagree. Any last words or sensational new insights no yet mentioned?

[Cantor]

So if I planned on using Issue Command often to control a swarm of drones I'd have to spend a lot of mulah on making those drones awesome when they're autonomous.

OR

I can control one at a time, but the resources are spent on making me a better rigger.

That about it?

[UmaroVI]

As a technomancer, it is actually not too bad to do drone-swarms; the trick would be getting Machine Sprites to pilot them. This lets you not worry about their crappy Pilot scores and lack of Autosofts (because Machine sprites get pilot=Force, and get 1 Autosoft at force per 3 force), and instead just deal with their crappy Response and Sensor. Sensor is not super expensive to upgrade - just toss all of the sensors they come with (except unrated ones) and slap on a rating 6 camera. Response costs more Y, and you can't upgrade it more than 2 from the base. You also of course need weapons.

The way I would go about it would be to start with a small number of drones and use your BP on making you yourself awesome. Then try to get 2 types of drones:

"one-trick dronies" that do one particular thing well, like Repeater drones, Flying Eye drones, and cheapo weapons platform drones (like the Lone Star Strato-9). These can have crap for response with no problem, because you rig them yourself with Command, which ignores Response.

Nice drones/vehicles that you trick out with upgrades, including making sure they have enough sensors to run a TacNet and have a good weapon. The Wuxing Hussar is pretty much the gold standard for land combat drones. There are various vehicles you can get; I like the Ares Roadmaster for a subtle vehicle (16 armor but not restricted, get a concealed turret), or pretty much any big vehicle with Armor 20 for a not subtle vehicle. The Ford LEBD-1 is probably your best bet for a flyer (the lone star strato-9 is better for a weapons platform but it has less Response because it's obselete, and is Forbidden). Cough up the cash for nice weapons like the FlashFlood Water Cannon or miniguns, and have your Sprites pilot these guys (although of course you can too). If you have enough of them, your drones can be a tacnet unto themselves which is nice.