[Herr Brackhaus]

Or if you really want an RCC with a Sleaze attribute, use the modification rules from Data Trails. It won't be very high, though.

[Rooks]

except as you stated you can have smoke a mirrors and signal scrubber running plus you can use sharing rating for noise reduction

[Herr Brackhaus]

True, but only if you had a base Sleaze attribute to begin with. Smoke-and-Mirrors only enhances your Sleaze rating, it doesn't give you one. It would also affect any and all Matrix actions you would take with the RCC. If you're jumped in or remote controlling your drones that means pretty much everything, while drones running on autopilot would not take any dice pool modifiers from Smoke-and-Mirrors but would be operating on their own with their relatively low dice pools.

[Rooks]

Ya but add matrix attribute rating sleaze then increase matrix attribute then run smoke and mirror and signal scrub gives 4 rating sleaze

[Herr Brackhaus]

For two irreparable boxes of Matrix damage to your condition monitor; yes, this is possible. Is it worth it? Possibly.

It's not a given, however, that Noise Reduction from Signal Scrub would actually address the Noise penalty from Smoke-and-Mirrors. The latter only adds noise to "any test performed with the deck"; I'm not entirely convinced that running Signal Scrub would prevent you from taking those modifiers, because Smoke-and-Mirrors doesn't actually add noise to the environment, just to tests using the deck.

[Jack_Spade]

Then it would just have been a dice penalty. But they explicitly used the term noise which has clearly defined rules.
(That said: I would have preferred the dice penalty. Would have avoided a lot of headaches)

[Herr Brackhaus]

Fair point, I'll concede that argument. Wasn't that strong to begin with, but I figured I'd bring it up anyway.

[Dal Thrax]

In prior editions electronic warfare was a big thing for riggers.  This edition has shifted rigging to the Matrix.  What we are seeing is an open wound in the game as riggers really should be able to defend their gear.  On the other hand, the new Matrix is suppose to be well new.  That means characters in the game are still hacking around to deal with equipment issues.  Same thing here.  Lets go down the problems:

1) RCCs don't have Sleaze or Attack.  Riggers would like to be able to defend themselves.  Attack and Sleaze actions are illegal, if you take one you're going to start getting an OS score.  Do you really want to see what happens if GOD nukes a RCC connected to a PAN full of drones?  If you erase a mark (illegal attack action) then pretty soon GOD is going to be nuking you.

Possible Solution: Get some attack dongles, some comlinks and some program carrier modules with agent programs.  Put the comlinks into your PAN and order your agents to do your matrix attacks for you.  Yes, this does have some absolutely horrifying implications. 
 
2) Sleaze is needed to hide drones.  Of course if you hide the drone it's going to drop off the local air traffic control system.  On the other hand, spy drones really leave something to be desired if their icons show up on a matrix perception test.  Given the permanent Matrix damage, it might be better to modify the drone to add sleaze.  Hacking a civilian drone to add stealth does seem thematically fitting, but the current rules leave something to be desired when it comes to stealth drones.  It seems what most riggers have been doing is using the wrapper program to hide their drones.

Interesting note:  Since a program module allows you to run a matrix program, not an auto-soft, you can modify a drone to run its own wrapper program and still be, technically, running no autosofts for sharing purposes.

3) Riggers need to be able to compete in electronic warfare.  I'm not sure I having an EWAR specialist (a decker) in the vehicle with the rigger is really a bad thing.  Does cause some issues when the decker is also needed for infiltration. 

Rules Problem:  My rigger slaves his drones to his RCC, he then slaves the RCC to the deckers PAN for added protection.  Somebody tries to hack a drone, this is resisted by the riggers RCC which is then protected by the deckers decfk.  Is this legal?  If it is, what happens when a rigger sets up a fairlight with an agent program instructed to always use full matrix defense as a firewall and slaves his RCC to that.

[Xenon]

1)
In SR5 devices fight back just fine on their own.
All you need to defend yourself is a high firewall and decent intuition/logic/willpower.
Just remember to use matrix full defense and slave your stuff to your high rank commlink or RCC.

Electronic warfare is a great tool to reduce noise which let you remote control your devices over the matrix a lot more efficient.

You need an attack rating if you plan on using matrix combat.
You need a sleaze rating if you plan on hacking and to avoid detection while hacking.
Both are activities that hackers do, not so much riggers.


2)
Sleaze is not needed to hide drones.
They can run silent just fine without a sleaze rating.
(You just roll Logic as a dice pool of it's own)

If nobody is looking for your drone in the first place then you don't even need much logic to avoid detection.

Also, deckers are supposed to be the natural enemy of riggers....
And Drones are hard to spot for magicians using astral perception or projection.....


3)
No that is not legal.
You either slave the drone to your RCC or you buy a cyberdeck and slave your drone to your cyberdeck (or you make the decker the legit matix owner of your drone and have him slave the drone to his cyberdeck).

Only the owner can use Full Matrix Defense.
(and it doesn't matter which device he have his persona when he use full matrix defense or what devices that are slaved and which are not)

[Dal Thrax]

As I pointed out in another thread, it might be possible for a runner to have a comlink running an agent and have the agent program make the full matrix defense action (at least without the owner being in full VR the device icon becomes the agent icon.  The hacking attempt is directed against the icon.  I suppose you could abuse these rules by telling the agent to go to China to get the icon out of the local area.  Probably still shows up on a matrix perception role.)   

I can't help but think the PAN rules seem wonky.  The decker can protect the teams gear, but not its drone net?

[Rooks]

You think thats bad? Spider Riggers can slave their RCC to a buildings Host and they dont even have to physically be there and have direct access to every drone slaved to the Host

[Xenon]

When the devices you own are attacked while you have a persona in the matrix then you, the owner, can take the Full Matrix Defense Interrupt Matrix Action. This is not something that an agent or decker can do for you.

I can't help but think the PAN rules seem wonky.  The decker can protect the teams gear, but not its drone net?

You can make the decker the legal matrix owner of your gear and then have him slave his gear to his own master device. There is a limit on the number of devices one can slave and most teams don't have that level of trust for their decker; so in reality you slave your devices to your own master device  (often the high firewall commlink you also base your persona on).

When the book is taking about using the decker to protect your PAN from matrix attacks they are not talking about you slaving your entire PAN to the decker. They are talking about the decker using cybercombat against a hostile hacker that you can't fight with mundane weapons (similar to how you turn to your magician if you need to deal with a spirit that is immune to mundane weapons).

[Rooks]

Right so you can have a smartlink Device Rating 2 and a hacker hacks it you use full matrix defense which would be intuition + 2 and then your decker can try to counter hack or you can slave your smart link to the deckers cyber deck using him as the onwer

[Xenon]

You think thats bad? Spider Riggers can slave their RCC to a buildings Host and they dont even have to physically be there and have direct access to every drone slaved to the Host

Anyone that is inside the host will be considered directly connected to all devices slaved to the Host. Not just the security rigger. A decker that enter the host will ignore host ratings when marking and controlling devices slaved to the Host - just as of he had used a physical cable between the device and his deck. The hacker can be on the other side of the world while doing this...

The security rigger's persona will not be slaved to the host though. His persona will defend using his RCC ratings. Any damage taken by his persona will be soaked by hos RCC. Any Matrix damage taken to a drone while he is jumped in will be soaked by his RCC as well.