[Carpool]

I'm trying to build a Widl Weasel drone, designed to locate, identiy track and eliminate enemy deckers/riggers by trackign and tracing their electromagnetic emissions, like a modern day SEAD aircraft does. any thoughts or builds for this mission specific type of gear?

[Namikaze]

I think this would be a good idea, but without knowing more about how the new Matrix works, it is flawed from the start.  Basically, we don't know for certain how deckers and riggers are communicating.  We know it's part of the Matrix, but it would appear that it may or may not be on standard radio frequencies and protocols.  I'd consider instead a drone that has a Pilot that looks for icons that are running silently in the vicinity.  That's probably a better way to do it, without getting into the science of the Matrix (which isn't really science, but rather pure magical fantasy).

[Carpool]

Yeah, i can see how that would work, but if you find the Icon, could the drone map the icon to the real world location, so it can fire  amissile or whatnot at the location to offline the hacker? the Idea is a Rigger can't fight a decker in the Matrix and win, so you find the decker and blow his or her ass into hamburger with a missile or other suitably destructive piece of ordnance.

[Namikaze]

Yeah, if you find the icon you can place an ARO on it and share the ARO with other members of your team.  Perfect for indirect fire, if you ask me.

[MachineGunBallet]

I'm of the opinion that communication is essentially we currently call cellular networking, and that it works the same.  There is one hitch... in the future there is no voice, its all data. (Its already pretty impressive how little communications is based on voice.)

From the rule book, Page 243, Complex Action: Trace Icon.. I dunno, its wireless, I'd make it vaguish, a sphere, 100 meters X noise?  Jacking in physically, should be 100% accurate to the location of the jack, but cables come in all lengths.

Now the fun begins, seeing who's there.  Remember Folks wanting to be hidden can probably do it.   You'd need a decker\rigger capable of locating icons, and sending a fast drone to go hunt.  Perhaps its a regular vehicle containing a variety of drones like MCT Flys, and perhaps a few aggressive drones.  Now this is a physical perception issue.   Unless he Decker\Rigger is there it would be impossible to distinguish if someone else was using that icon in the area.  (Maybe the decker\rigger is in one such vehicle, like a one man copter, so he can go and see the icons there.)

By the rules, I don't think there is a way to safely do this with automated drones.  Specifically the drone would need to have Decker skills like Matrix perception, and that's not possible.  A truly obnoxious opponent would possibly put a wrapper on his icon, or even the truly devilish would do that to all the icons near by.  Even more devilish do it at place full of people jacked in.


True Story: 15 years ago, Ricochet Communications was used for one such network hack.  The FBI was trying to catch someone making illegal stock trades.  They located the gear approximately on the network, then got out and looked.  (In this case they used the company's wireless engineer and an RF sniffer.)  They quickly converged on a shipping container with a power feed from a nearby pole.  The container contained... a short cable to a another wireless device.

[Namikaze]

No offense, MachineGunBallet, but what you're talking about isn't accurate to the current Matrix rules.

From the rule book, Page 243, Complex Action: Trace Icon.. I dunno, its wireless, I'd make it vaguish, a sphere, 100 meters X noise?  Jacking in physically, should be 100% accurate to the location of the jack, but cables come in all lengths.

Trace Icon allows you to trace the physical location of an icon that you have 2 MARKs on.  That means that the drone would have to hack the icon in order to do the Trace Icon action.  Pointless endeavor for the purposes that we're talking about.

Now the fun begins, seeing who's there.  Remember Folks wanting to be hidden can probably do it.   You'd need a decker\rigger capable of locating icons, and sending a fast drone to go hunt.

If you look at the thread, you'll see the discussion is about finding a way to get a drone to perform the Matrix Perception of icons.

Now this is a physical perception issue.

Only if you're doing the Trace Icon action, which is not what we're talking about here.  We're talking about setting up a drone to find icons that are running silently to assist a decker in taking out a rigger, specifically.  This drone could be used for a myriad number of purposes, but that one purpose is the primary one.

Unless he Decker\Rigger is there it would be impossible to distinguish if someone else was using that icon in the area.

Not true.  When you find the location of the device or persona, you find the location.  Simple as that.  Barring special situations, you always find the correct location.  Those special exceptions are generally the realm of satellite links and technomancers.

By the rules, I don't think there is a way to safely do this with automated drones.  Specifically the drone would need to have Decker skills like Matrix perception, and that's not possible.

Not completely true.  A drone can run autosofts, and a pilot program.  Both are a LOT like Agents.  There shouldn't be a problem with a drone running an agent as an autosoft, though there's nothing explicitly stating such in the book (nothing saying you can't either).  Agents come with Computer, Hacking, and Cybercombat skills.  So there ya go - now you can do Matrix Search.

  A truly obnoxious opponent would possibly put a wrapper on his icon, or even the truly devilish would do that to all the icons near by.  Even more devilish do it at place full of people jacked in.

Which would do nothing but create a lot of Overwatch Score for the opponent.  From the section on Wrapper: Another persona can see what the disguised icon really is with a Matrix Perception Test.  And in order to use Wrapper on all those other personas, you'd have to hack every one of them and change their iconography, which creates a TON of Overwatch Score.

True Story: 15 years ago, Ricochet Communications was used for one such network hack.  The FBI was trying to catch someone making illegal stock trades.  They located the gear approximately on the network, then got out and looked.  (In this case they used the company's wireless engineer and an RF sniffer.)  They quickly converged on a shipping container with a power feed from a nearby pole.  The container contained... a short cable to a another wireless device.

Which is not how the Matrix works in 5th edition.  There are only a few exceptions to the Trace Icon location find.  One is a satellite link.  The other is when a technomancer's sprites are involved.

[Carpool]

So, if theres no effective way for a Rigger to locate, identify and trace a decker, then how are Riggers supposed to defend themselves? As it stands a Rigger can't fight a Decker effectivly in the Matrix, So his survival depends on finding and fragging an enemy decker pronto.

[Namikaze]

So, if theres no effective way for a Rigger to locate, identify and trace a decker, then how are Riggers supposed to defend themselves? As it stands a Rigger can't fight a Decker effectivly in the Matrix, So his survival depends on finding and fragging an enemy decker pronto.

I don't understand.  If a rigger is jumped in, the decker can't do anything about it.  The device (vehicle, drone) is subsumed by the rigger's persona.  If you're talking about a remote drone, then the rigger has the same options as a decker, plus one important one: jumping in.  The best defenses a rigger has against a decker are jumping in and rebooting their device.  If a drone is rebooted, it takes it out of combat for one turn - which sucks, but it's better than being shot at by your own drone.

There's nothing stopping a rigger from using Matrix Perception to find, locate, and track a decker.  They're just not going to do it using the same methods.  A rigger can find a decker using Matrix Perception.  Then it's just a matter of putting an ARO on the poor sod and sending a drone after him.  No decker in their right mind is going to deal with the huge amount of Noise that comes from attacking an icon from more than 100 meters out.  So it's not that hard to have a drone using a camera feed to try to find the decker's physical location, especially when you have an ARO on their persona.

[Csjarrat]

So, if theres no effective way for a Rigger to locate, identify and trace a decker, then how are Riggers supposed to defend themselves? As it stands a Rigger can't fight a Decker effectivly in the Matrix, So his survival depends on finding and fragging an enemy decker pronto.

I don't understand.  If a rigger is jumped in, the decker can't do anything about it.  The device (vehicle, drone) is subsumed by the rigger's persona.  If you're talking about a remote drone, then the rigger has the same options as a decker, plus one important one: jumping in.  The best defenses a rigger has against a decker are jumping in and rebooting their device.  If a drone is rebooted, it takes it out of combat for one turn - which sucks, but it's better than being shot at by your own drone.

There's nothing stopping a rigger from using Matrix Perception to find, locate, and track a decker.  They're just not going to do it using the same methods.  A rigger can find a decker using Matrix Perception.  Then it's just a matter of putting an ARO on the poor sod and sending a drone after him.  No decker in their right mind is going to deal with the huge amount of Noise that comes from attacking an icon from more than 100 meters out.  So it's not that hard to have a drone using a camera feed to try to find the decker's physical location, especially when you have an ARO on their persona.

Nothing stopping the decker from cybercombatting the rigger. jumped in or not, its still an option as you attack the persona.
that said, nothing stopping the rigger from participating in cybercombat himself (though i believe his damage would be limited to 1 if he used decryption program on his RCC, this would require EDG use to be an actual threat to a decker)

[LionofPerth]

In theory, I think you could, if you were able to set up a drone to specifically attack a marked target. I'd say that it would have to be quite likely placed there by a decker.

The rigger could then get a drone to react to that signal. I might go so far as to say that you could order a drone to attack anything that is transmitting on a particular wave length band. That's pretty wide and can be just as easily used against you. So I'd have to think on it some more.

In theory, it's not that bad an idea, it's the specifics of here that make things interesting. There's also a distance vector I think is here, you don't need to be on site to operate security systems.

[JimmyCrisis]

This is how I would do it:

Start with a rotodrone or dalmatian VTOL drone and arm it with a sufficiently cover-defeating weapon, like a laser, grenade launcher, or sniper rifle.

This combination of sensors would be useful:

Thermographic, Ultrasound & Olfactory sensors to track metahumans at greater than 20 meters
Radio Signal Scanner to pinpoint radio emissions targets to within 20 meters - This will pick up all wireless signals, regardless of running silent or not (see the bug scanner description - wireless signals are radio signals)
Cyberware scanner to find electronic masses and cyberware that could be Cyberdecks within 15 meters.
If I could find a non-linear junction detector in the rules, I would include that too.  It's mentioned in Stolen Souls once.  It can detect any electrical circuit, even unpowered ones.

You'll want the Electronic Warfare and a custom "Cyberdecks knowledge" autosofts.  It's not in the rules, but there's no reason you couldn't make one or otherwise get your hands on it.

The bad news is that you won't be able to differentiate technomancers from normal people with this setup, but it will make hunting down regular deckers easier.

[Aranador]

hmm - Ah HAH - the solution to the technomancer problem is . . . Shoot everyone !  And if people think you are being a bit extreme, just say "but they could have been a technomancer" and chances are they'll thank you for it.  After which, you should shoot them too, just to be sure - they'll thank you for your diligence !

[JimmyCrisis]

Here's another idea.  Have a mage cast "detect enemies".  The decker or technomancer who is actively attacking your stuff is totally your enemy.  If he's alone in the assault, you know exactly which one and where he is.

You can also get your own deck and staple it to your RCC.  Good luck with the nuyen.  We found a Shiawase Cyber 5, and while the decker really wanted it, he wasn't willing to pawn his helicopter to pay the rest of the party for their shares.

There's gotta be a way to add some decking functionality to an RCC.  It's already got most of the components, and it's apparent (at least in the fiction) that you can cobble your 'deck' together from disparate parts.  That would be an interesting challenge for a build/repair test.

[Aranador]

bloody mages and their uber powers spoiling all my carefully laid plans *grumble grumble*

[Csjarrat]

Here's another idea.  Have a mage cast "detect enemies".  The decker or technomancer who is actively attacking your stuff is totally your enemy.  If he's alone in the assault, you know exactly which one and where he is.

You can also get your own deck and staple it to your RCC.  Good luck with the nuyen.  We found a Shiawase Cyber 5, and while the decker really wanted it, he wasn't willing to pawn his helicopter to pay the rest of the party for their shares.

There's gotta be a way to add some decking functionality to an RCC.  It's already got most of the components, and it's apparent (at least in the fiction) that you can cobble your 'deck' together from disparate parts.  That would be an interesting challenge for a build/repair test.

An RCC can run cyberprograms already. you could run Decryption to get an attack rating, Hammer to give +2DV and then use EDG to push the limit for cybercombat.
Likewise you can get a sleaze rating using a similar method