[CigarSmoker]

So i was thinking about the Rigger as "class" in Shadowrun. And how a Rigger can come without a Hacker that supports him.



The Archetype Rigger has Willpower 2. I would rather pick at least 5 Willpower for a Rigger ... you will see later why.

Rigger purposes:

1. Drive the Group around. He can do that while offline, so there a big "check, can do".

2. Do reconaissance with Microdrones. Without a Hacker the Archetype Runner is "Running Silent" with a Dicepool of 2 Willpower+0 Sleaze. A more "normal" Rigger would probably have a Dicepool of 5 to 7. But since its a Microdrone as long as Stealth works thats a "check, can do" too.

3. Fight together with the Group. The Archetype Rigger has lots of Drones for that Purpose. The Problem is now if he is "Running Silent" and the Opponents have a Hacker, they will know that there are Drones and they will start scanning for them using Minor Actions to Roll Electronics + Intuition vs Willpower+Sleaze.

So the Archetype Rigger has again a Pool of 2 a "normal" Rigger would have something between 5 and 7.

The Professional Rating 2 Decker Mook from page 205 has Electronics 3 and Intuition 5. So thats either 8 dice vs 2 or vs 5-7.
The Mook has 1 Major 2 Minor Actions, so he can search 3 times per Combat Round. (again his men are seeing the Drones...)

-> now i add a question here. Do you notice when you are spotted in the Matrix ? i would say yes for easier playability, so the Rigger could maybe restart his Device?

When the Mook-Hacker has succesfully percepted the Riggers PAN he can start Data Spiking(Outsider access) his "Attack" Value is 4 so the DV is 2. He is rolling Cracking + Logic vs Data Processing + Firewall
[The Archetype called Rigger (p.86) has a Proteus Poseidon RCC which has Firewall Attribute of 6+Data Processing 5  thats 11. The best RCC in the book has Firewall 7 and Data Processing 8 . With RCC Programs thats 17 max. The Mook-Hacker has Cracking 3 Logic 4]

So 11 Defense Dice vs 7 Dice +2 DV, Net hits become Matrix damage too. (doesnt matter which Device the Mook-Hacker is attacking, since they share their defense pool)

With a very good RC that would be 17 vs 7 +2 DV so you could at least outlast that PR2 Mook a long time ...

The problem is the Rigger can not spot where the Mook Hacker is since cant get "Admin" access on the Hackers Deck to use Trace Icon and he can neither just Data Spike the Mook-Hacker, since he has no Deck and no Cracking. The Mook Hacker could be somewhere 2 miles away in Hot Sim with even more Actions.

When you give the Hacker some programs and slightly better gear it gets nasty.


Anything not correct in my analysis? and note this is not a posting "the Rigger Archetype is shit" as i always looked at more resonable stats as well. If someone picks that Archetype and then gets confronted with the PR 2 Hackers that will be a bad surprise ...

so my Hypothesis is: you cant play a Rigger without a Hacker in the Group. Or you are a Hacker / Rigger Hybrid switching between a cheap deck and a good RCC or vice versa ..

[Michael Chandra]

If you're not being attacked, you wouldn't notice someone spotted you, I'd say. Would you realise a camera pierced your invisibility? But you're right, if an enemy decker is present EVERYONE is at risk, including the Rigger. On the other hand, either they're nearby or a Spider, and your legwork should have told you what you're facing. So if you know you're facing a spider, that would be a good moment to only run 1 dedicated drone, which you jumped into.

[CigarSmoker]

If you're not being attacked, you wouldn't notice someone spotted you, I'd say. Would you realise a camera pierced your invisibility? But you're right, if an enemy decker is present EVERYONE is at risk, including the Rigger. On the other hand, either they're nearby or a Spider, and your legwork should have told you what you're facing. So if you know you're facing a spider, that would be a good moment to only run 1 dedicated drone, which you jumped into.

Jumping in does no longer protect you from Matrix attacks, as the description of p.182 says "[...]until they [...]are dumped from the interface via Matrix combat".

[ZeroSum]

This reminds me, how does noise work in SR6? Is it calculated at both the source and the destination?

In other words, if a drone is slaved to an RCC, at what point will it lose it's Matrix connectivity?

Let's take a Steel Lynx (Sensor and Device Rating 4) slaved to a Horizon Overseer (Device Rating 4, 4 Noise Reduction). If this drone is more than 10,001 meters away from the rigger the noise will exceed it's device rating (5 vs 4), and it would theoretically lose matrix connectivity. If the RCC noise reduction applies, it would not lose matrix connectivity until it hit noise 9.

If RCCs do provide noise reduction you could always try to drown the hacker in noise, because they will have less NR than you do.

You could also turn off the drones' wireless connection after giving them orders to execute their last command and return to the vehicle?

Yeah, any team that runs into a decker and doesn't have a hacker of their own could be in trouble. The only defense at that point is to go dark.

[CigarSmoker]

[...]
If RCCs do provide noise reduction you could always try to drown the hacker in noise, because they will have less NR than you do.
[...]

Jammer can be used to produce "smart"-Noise that only affects the opponents. But that would only protect you from such a bad Hacker as the PR2 one

[...]
You could also turn off the drones' wireless connection after giving them orders to execute their last command and return to the vehicle?
[...]

Thats absolute possible yes.

[...]
Yeah, any team that runs into a decker and doesn't have a hacker of their own could be in trouble. The only defense at that point is to go dark.

-I have to say no ... StreetSam or Physical Adept does not need any wireless devices, yes they make him better but no need.
-Neither does a mage, a spellcaster can even produce a "Mindlink" spell to connect 2 minds. So in a group of 3, thats inefficient but completely wireless ^^
[edit: bigger groups a spellcaster could connect them all using the Drug "Psyche" not good but Hacker cannot interfere)

So generally speaking, yes the Hacker can make their life harder, but thats very situational.

[ZeroSum]

Fair points.

The same could be said for going up against a magician without magical support of your own. You might be in for a hard time...

Or when an infiltration focused team stumbles upon corp HTR; that's potentially a bad day right there.

I feel like riggers and deckers are intrinsically linked, but you can't easily do both.

[CigarSmoker]

The same could be said for going up against a magician without magical support of your own. You might be in for a hard time...

true but if you look on the example chars the first magician mook that makes trouble is the PR5 SWAT Mage. Getting kicked your ass by a SWAT isnt that hard to swallow id say
The PR0 shaman can summon Force 2 Fire Spirits at best if he wants to matter a little bit and you can just shoot those down.
(i would pick fire at that force)

And the Spirits the PR5 mage can call are not unbeatable by physical means either ... at that force i would use Air spirit and pick Energy Aura and use Engulf for maximum pain.

---
Regarding the Corp HTR Team that would be the perfect time for the groups face to use the Big Speak Edge Action speech of his life

[Hobbes]

Running Silent is usually step one.  Smart Jammer by your RCC is another good step.  Getting the appropriate stats and Matrix Attributes up as high as possible is also recommended.  Keeping an eye on who has Access to your PAN of RCC and Drones is also a thing. 

And if you can't keep the hackers out after all that, give an order to the drone that ends with "... and then return to pick up point."  and then turn off the wireless. 

Realize a drone Rigger is going to be vulnerable to Matrix shenanigans.  It's baked into the mechanics.  High noise, or no Matrix connection at all is also going to shut you down hard.  Have other skills, use DNI to give orders to Wireless off Drones, or even get a long cord for your Steel Lynx.

[ZeroSum]

...get a long cord for your Steel Lynx.

Hahahaha, I like that idea.

"Hey, why do you have a kilometer of fiberoptic wire in the back of your truck?"
"NEVER YOU MIND!"

[CigarSmoker]

Jamming only works when the Hacker has a rather low pool of electronics + intution, the "rule of Thumb" seems to be each PR gives one more dice.
The PR2 Mook-Hacker has 7 dicepool for Matrix Perception while the PR6 Mook has 11.

This means a Technomancer-Mook can just compile a Machine Sprite then use the Sprites "Stability" Power for one "Combat" to turn all his Critical Glitches into Glitches. By doing that he can circumvent the dangerous critical glitches on Matrix Perception  caused by the jam.

[CigarSmoker]

It looks like to be possible to do the following as Rigger:

- attach a Jammer to your Combat Drones, turn it on when engaging for the 6 "smart-"Noise. Thats like a must have.

- assign Drones on "Jam Duty" by using the Electronic Warfare Autosoft, since the RCC has Device Rating as built in Noise Reduction you can get up to 8 Noise Reduction together with Signal Scrubber program. The Drone can reach about a Dicepool of 10 depending on its size and Autosoft rating. That means 3 extra Noise on average per Drone. Since you can eat 8 free Noise, and are maybe at 4-5 default Noise usually you should be able to jam with one Drone Minimum without jamming yourself out.

That should work pretty well against Hackers, but occasionally it will disconnect the own teams wireless devices as well.

Edit: i am pretty sure regular Jammers dont stack, but thats not mentioned. How it works when you combine it with Electronic Warfare jam i cant say neither ^^

Edit2: and you might run into opposition using Jammers as well. They are not very expensive.

Edit3: and since there is no Device Rating mentioned for the Jammer thats another Problem. If its Device Rating = Jammer Rating the Jammer will stop working as "smart" when the Drone gets more than 6 hits, since 7 Noise disable it. But since there is nothing mentioned it could as well be Device Rating 1 for Jammers, almost and any noise turns them off instantly.

[ZeroSum]

Again, this comes down to where noise is calculated, which the book doesn't really answer.

If my DR4 drone is exposed to a R5 noise level, it technically loses it's matrix connectivity.

That is, unless being slaved to my DR5 RCC gives it 5 Noise Reduction. In either case, if it stays online in the matrix, then it is a target for enemy deckers because the local noise may or may not affect them. Remember that Jammers only affect the local area (Rating X noise starting at location of the jammer, X-1 per 10 meters for directional jammers).

In other words, if the decker is 70 meters away an omnidirectinoal jammer either has no effect on them, or it also knocks out the DR4 drone.

EDIT:
A Rating 6 jammer is a Rating 6 device, surely?

[CigarSmoker]

I think noise should be looked at twice. Where you are and where your target is. When the target is in a 100m radius noise cloud being being 1000 m away shouldnt help you but just add 1 more noise for distance. But as you said how its calculated is not clear.

[Michael Chandra]

Highest of the two should apply when it comes to the connection and penalties, though it's not said properly in 6e it seems.

[ZeroSum]

The only rules about noise is:

Noise represents any interference between a user and their target. Noise can be created by sheer distance or other factors, such as jamming or obstructions. Each point of noise incurs a –1 penalty to any test taken in the Matrix. If noise is greater than the device rating, the device cannot access the Matrix or provide wireless bonuses.

So technically, Noise represents the noise "between" to points, not "at" those two points. That's not really clear. Maybe you just take the higher of the noise ratings?

So let's say Becca the Decca is in Downtown Seattle, a Rating 4 Spam Zone.

She is using a DR 4 cyberdeck, and the noise is very nearly enough to knock her cyberdeck offline but she manages to slice through the bloatware.

Her target is the commlink of a VIP inside a corporate office, who is currently in his office on the 44th floor of the corporate headquarters. This puts him roughly 130 meters up, enough to introduce 1 level of noise due to distance.

This doesn't mean that Becca's deck will be knocked offline, only that she will face a -5 dice pool if she tries to hack from her current location. She could run Signal Scrubber to drop that down to -3, or try to get into the building to both reduce the Spam Zone rating and maybe even get up a few floors to eliminate the noise level due to distance.

Now, let's say the VIP wants to hold a confidential meeting. He fires up his Rating 6 jammer, which is not set to exclude anyone. In other words, any device of level 5 and below in a 10 meter radius will be knocked offline. If there is background noise on the 44th floor, it could even knock out devices with higher ratings because jammers could potentially contribute to local noise like spam and static zones; this is not clear.

If his commlink is knocked offline, it is now completely impossible for Becca to hack her target.

If, on the other hand, he chooses to exclude his own commlink so that he can keep sending lewd messages to his assistant while everyone else in the meeting has their devices knocked offline, his commlink would still be a valid target. What's more, the noise introduced by the jammer is not strong enough to penetrate down to the ground floor (130 meters away) where Becca is still loitering. So the jammer has affected the local area, just like a Spam Zone, but not Becca's attempt to breach the commlink.

For the most part, this makes sense, but it does make it a little tricky to wrap one's head around where noise is calculated and how. Or is that just me?