[Bishophawk]

Under the Matrix Actions section the second paragraph reads.
 Where two different dice pools are listed, such as "Intuition +Firewall or Sleaze+Firewall" personas with mental attributes will use the pool that includes those attributes.  Drones will use their pilot rating where listed.  Page 179.

 So I'm having a hard time wrapping that up in my head what exactly do they mean? 

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

See page 6 of the errata. this very entry was reworded. 

Examples of what they mean:

Scenario 1: You're hacking a drone which, for whatever reason, isn't part of a PAN.

Drone rolls Pilot in place of any attribute, and rolls matrix attributes as relevant.  Note, a drone's ASDF attributes are normally going to be 0s.


Scenario 2: You're hacking a drone which is sensibly part of a PAN for protection.

The PAN's owner (or Host's Spider, if the drone is slaved to a Host) can sub in their mental attributes as necessary, if they're better than the Pilot rating.  And of course the ASDF values of the PAN master device(s) are invoked rather than the drone's own nonexistant values.

[Xenon]

From errata:
Where two different dice pools are listed, such as “Intuition + Firewall or Sleaze + Firewall,” personas with Mental attributes use the pool with those attributes. Drones use their Pilot Rating in place of the Mental Attribute. A persona actively defending for a device or host can use the other pool with the device or host attributes.

Some examples:

If a hacker is taking the Edit File action on a file on a commlink then the owner would defend against that action with his or her Intuition + the Firewall of his or her commlink. If the hacker is taking the Edit File action on a file in a Host then the Host would normally defend the file using its own Sleaze + Firewall ratings, but if the spider inside the Host is actively defending for the Host (and his Intuition is higher than the Sleaze rating of the host) then the Edit File action could also be opposed with the Intuition of the spider + the firewall of the Host.

If a hacker were to Spoof a Command directly to a drone the Drone would defend against the command using its own Pilot rating (+ the Firewall rating of the network if it is part of a Host or a PAN otherwise the Firewall rating would normally be zero).

If a hacker were to use Brute Force to quickly get User Access on a PAN (perhaps in order to control a drone located on the network) then the owner of the PAN would defend against that with his or her Willpower + the Firewall of his or her commlink, cyberjack or RCC. If the hacker use Brute Force to quickly get User Access on a Drone that is not part of a PAN then the drone itself would oppose the test with its own Pilot rating (+ its own Firewall if it have one, but this would normally be zero).

If a hacker were to use Brute Force to quickly get User Access on a network defended by a Host (perhaps in order to control a maglock) then the host would oppose against the test with the Willpower of the spider attending the host + its own Firewall rating. If no spider is attending the Host then the Host would only oppose the test using its own Firewall rating. If the maglock is not part of any network then the test would normally be converted to a simple unopposed test (since a maglock on its own normally does not have either a willpower rating nor a firewall rating).