Laziness Warning: This post contains multiple unsourced quotes. Scrolling up for half a second, you'll be able to tell who said what, tho.
compared with the rest of humanity every rigger's rigging skills are above average! This is just a dumb statement. Everyone is more than average in his
field compared to all of humanity... 
Before errata, Rigger X on his bike with no matrix help has a dice pool of ~14, 15 if he happens to be on beta meth which is really not bad. His infiltration, social, and combat skills likewise were pretty respectable, and even if each individual drone was a bit shitty, he did have the ability to field quite a surveillance network, even if he'd have to rely on other methods than TacNet to convey the SIGINT received this way to his team.
I definitely agree that I messed up some of the stats specifically the drone upgrades--I was making the fallacious assumption that dice pools for jumped-in drones are based on the COMMLINK'S response--but even pre-"errata" (how I wish the errata could actually go in the book as it gets printed) Rigger X was a pretty exceptional guy. Even the original version I think came out a bit better than any of the sample characters, which is kind of more a fair comparison for him than, say, the 50+ dice Pornomancer. : )
Even so, Rigger X actually in the book version is maneuvering his drones in remote control on a dice pool of 13, which is, in the games I've played in competitive, particularly if you consider that he has the breadth to pilot practically every type of vehicle in existence. At the tables I play at, a dice pool of 12 is considered 'very good' and anything much higher than that (say 18+) is the realm of twinkage. But I respect that everyone's table is different and some people are more into the MOAR DICE side of things, which is fine, I can dig it.
(5 (Command) + 2 (Hot Sim) + 4 (Pilot Aircraft) + 2 (Remote Operation Specialization) is how I arrived at the above number of 13, btw. 13 might not be rocking any one's socks off, but it's not exactly shitty either! I do admit I made mistakes, as I addressed in the errata. Errata'd version is way better, once again I wish it'd be in the final book. But if wishes were Nuyen....
(By the way, although I join Sengir and Tycho in caring a LOT about the numbers side, I hope people do enjoy the textual portion of the Rigger X chapter when it comes out. )
@Neurosis: I really respect that you consider making mistakes and trying to fix them instead of giving excuses why the stats are fine. My critic is not against you personally. I know building a rigger is not an easy task and I guess it was a poor choice for the preview (but I don't expect the other stats to be much better). They are the only stats we have and so you are now taking the heat.
Thank you. It's fair that I'm taking the heat, although keep in mind I can't be held responsible for 'all that is wrong with shadowrun'.
The other stats in the book are much much better than Rigger X. Particularly the ones that I wrote, I can speak to. Lugh Surehand (who I also statted) is much better at 'ruining your shit forever with magic' than pre-'errata' Rigger X is at rigging drones, relative to their respective point totals. More imporantly, though, please don't judge
everyone else's work on
my isolated screw up. ('But that's what previews are for...' Yeah, I know, but I do think this preview is probably decidedly more imperfect than the book itself. No offense at all meant to Crimson. The purpose of previews I really don't understand anyway. I wish we did not release the public preview at a point in the development cycle when making changes to the content was impossible, but it probably can't be avoided, doing things that way.)
Errata Version:
This is better, I still would add Simsense booster or accelerator and More then Metahuman and some stuff like TacNet for the drones.
Your pools are right, you could get 2 more dice out of the remote control if you are in hot sim VR. Before your errata most of these pools would be 4-6 dice short and then you are more or less in "I am the Hacker, but I have some drones"-territory.
I don't think every Rigger needs to be built the same way. I don't think SR4A suffers from 'you must be this feat to ride this class' as much as D&D 3.5E. So I kind of stand by my decision not to add for instance simsense booster or more than metahuman. There is more than one way to build a cat/skin a rigger. Erm reverse that.
I admit that failure to load up most drones with Sensor 6 and Response 6 was a blunder, but don't be so insistent that every rigger must have More Than Metahuman or whatever. Building every character in the same mechanically optimal way gets really boring really fast. It's the characters who use revolvers or melee combat who are often as not more memorable than the characters who go for the most mechanically optimized options, and often, at least in SR, they don't have to be that much mechanically worse to be more interesting in terms of flavor.
See, that's the problem I have with this kind of book: You don't want the legend to be an almighty god with his flaming sword, because that would just make him a more elaborate way of saying "rocks fall, you die". But if you give the legend sensible stats, the players will consider him just another runner (if allied), or just another goon leader (if opponent).
I think the characters in Street Legends can sort of run the gamut here. Rigger X really is just another runner. A very good runner, but he's not meant to be unkillable. In fact, one of the hooks in the text portion of the chapter is how many enemies he has who might want him dead or captured, to give a GM a quick way to have the PCs match wits with a jackpointer.
However, characters like Lofwyr and Hestaby really didn't need stats. But for the people who like that kind of thing, now they have them. For people who like that kind of thing, and who want to know how many rocks fall, and just how thoroughly everyone dies. : ) And there are people who want to know.
Ignoring game stats, IMO the most important thing would simply be something "special". Uncommon skills (I'm thinking of that mage from Prime Runners who bargains with spirits), prized knowledge, mighty people at his beck and call...
For example, a view at the Shadowtalker list yields for Mr. X: "Rigger, Space Scavenger Asian. Ex-MCT company rigger. Skilled in electronic spycraft. Permits no opposition to survive." Space and spycraft, eh? How about the ability to get some satellite surveillance? A long history of providing inside scoops on new drone developments and the tendency to field-test his newly "acquired" prototypes on his poor opponents? Contacts to spy agencies?
That said, the updated crunch is certainly better, especially since he finally got upgrades on his drones
I'm glad the crunch is an improvement. (Not to tell tales out of school, but our internal wiki actually makes no mention of the 'Space Scavenger' part for X. The spycraft and 'permits no opposition to survive' however you'll get a healthy dose of in the text portion of the chapter.
If you can see your way to buying the book, of course. : )
Stat lines for all types of NPC's are awesome for me, I am a junky for this sort of thing ever sense I got hall of hero’s back in mid-1990's (it was out before that but I had just really picked up gaming in high school"). For my own life this is probably the best type of product for me...and have set aside money for it sense I learned of its release. I know SR is waiting for the book to come out near the end of the month...but I still check (sometimes hourly) when it is up on their site. But I am a number's crunching person so what's not to love about these products.
Your support means the world to me, although I do hope that 'number crunching people' can love these products too.
Trying to please the Gaming Den(s) of the world will probably be the death of me, though.
