[Onion Man]

Okay, so my rigger in a local game turned out to be comically incompetent (he's fallen out of a van twice, hurt himself doing it once), so he's either grave-bound or retiring in Lagos at the end of this run and I've got a role to fill with his replacement.  After seeing Byte-size and Lifeseeker in action at Origins, I'm way sold on Technomancers being wicked-awesome once they get rolling, but I haven't a clue how to get one built with the regular 400 BP and not have it be a total drain on the party until I can karma-up some.

Help please!  All I have for sure about them is that they'll have a near-east name like Subudai or some variant of that, run under the handle "Sue" and not have the cultural savvy to understand the inevitable "Boy named Sue" jokes that will be slung his way on a regular basis.  Outside of that I'm still in recovery mode from today being moving day and yesterday being ten hours in a car to get home from Origins.

Thanks in advance.

[Onion Man]

Started to work on it tonight, crazy tired here though so I'll finish it up tomorrow.  Not a ton of points left for gear and he needs to pick knowledge and language skills.  Not sure I'll stick with Automatics as the weapon skill, might switch it to heavy and use the MGL-6 instead, but no matter what it won't be reduced to pistol.  Pistols just scream get me first unless you show yourself as a gun bunny in the first pass.

Early Karma would go into Tasking, then submergence, then cracking, then split up the groups and specialize around, then submerge more... or at least that's what I'm thinking now while way tired.

Name:
Tag: "Su"
Metatype: Dwarf                        25
Attributes: Physical/Mental:185, Special: 85, Total: 270               295
   BOD 4                           20
   AGI 2                           10
   REA 1                           0
   STR 3                           0
   CHA 4                           30
   INT 6                           65
   LOG 4                           20
   WIL 6                           40
   EDGE 3                           20
   RES 6                           65
Qualities: 35 positive, 35 negative                     295
   Technomancer                        5
   Photographic Memory                     10
   Chatty                           5
   Paragon: Flow                        5
   Synthetic Sympathy                     10
   Media Junkie (Moderate)                  -10
   Reality Impaired                     -5
   Sensitive System                     -15
   Lost Loved One (Daughter)                  -5
Active Skills:                               359
   Athletics Group    1                     10
   Tasking Group 1                     10
   Cracking Group 1                     10
   Electronics Group 3                     30
   Automatics 1                        4
Knowledge skills and languages: 30 free

Connections: 9 pts                           368
   Fixer (Peaceful) (C1 L1)                     2
   Matrix Fixer (Squidz) (C4 L3)                  7
Complex Forms: 14 pts                           382
   Analyze 1                        1
   Scan 1                           1
   Command 1                        1
   Edit 1                           1
   Encrypt 1                        1
   Scan 1                           1
   ECCM 4                           4
   Stealth 4                        4
Gear:
   

[DireRadiant]

The advantage of a TM is where you specialize you will be the best, and if you need to you can always do anything else you need to that uses the Matrix.

The basic choices for specialization are Hacking/Rigging and Sprite/CF. Within Rigging you can also specialize in the control mode, check how the various pools are built for the common tasks in the chart in the rigging section.

You have a lot of choice in how you speciliaze from the Swarm Dronomancer to the Cybercombat specialist, and even when you hyper specialize you are more then capable in the basics in other areas.

[squee_nabob]

I see you are trying to build a technomancer… would you like help with that?

http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=3839.msg50965#msg50965

You have mentioned Byte-size and Lifeseeker, is this also for Missions?

What do you want to be good at, and how much do you care about being optimal at it?

Edit to include another post:
http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=3982.msg53690#msg53690

[Onion Man]

I see you are trying to build a technomancer… would you like help with that?

http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=3839.msg50965#msg50965

You have mentioned Byte-size and Lifeseeker, is this also for Missions?

What do you want to be good at, and how much do you care about being optimal at it?

This would be a replacement for a comically incompetent rigger in a local game.  I most likely won't have the time to get back to Missions for at least a couple months and am hoping to continue to use Jolly without being "that guy".  My last look at Technomancers was when the local GM had said the game would be SR4A only... then he caved and most of the books were allowed, so I'm digging into Unwired but there's a lot of info to get through.  I'll check out that thread right away.

[squee_nabob]

Oh hey Jolly. I played Cypher in “Threads of the Past” with you. The best way to rig is: Technomancer, Command 6 (or 5), Thread to 10 (or 12). Then use remote control which makes all tests Command + Skill. This gives you 9 – 11 dice to default on all actions. Throw in tacnet, smartlinks, and the like and you can roll around at 15 dice before buying skills.

The disad is that you only get a complex action (you cannot do 2 simples), so go with a full auto weapon and use full bursts. I prefer a Lonestar Flash Flood Water Cannon, but that’s mostly for lols.

[Onion Man]

Hey Cypher.

There's only two reasons I'm a bit shy about going rigger again.  For one, we're in Lagos at the moment and tech has been a major hassle to come by, even for repairs... For two, we have a melee battle gnome who has proven to be most expensive and destructive to my drones in the past... it seems every time he draws a firearm it's one of my drones that ends up toast (KE had a little something to do with the first few) and now my comically incompetent rigger is down to an automated bipod and a fistful of espionage microdrones.

Our group doesn't really have a matrix user other than the rigger who is likely to drown in shallow water (or be found in a bathtub full of dirty icewater with most of his insides removed if the Black Lotus catches up with him... the rest of the group doesn't know about that part though) and our face is what I'd call a counter-optimizer and our magician, so all of the hacking and matrix legwork is going to fall on me and we end up in a situation where I can't stay in the van more often than not.

Overnight I've gone from having no real concept of where I'd be heading with Su, to being somewhat in love with the mental image of a living ECM (after a few other echoes to have the ECM rating not be totally useless).  I assume that if I go Info Savant and pick up Skinlink and Biowire with the first two submersions I'll still be able to rig reasonable effectively between touched vehicles and machine spirits.  Being optimized isn't all that important in the local game, but having more than one counter-optimized runner might become a problem, so that's my biggest concern.

Looks like I'm going to have to make some room in the build for different complex forms.  It was late and I had already taken my ambien for the night and now I can't remember why I wanted so many of the common use ones at rank 1.  Fortunately with draft 0.1 having a maxed mental and a maxed special stat, it should be easy to find the BP to make some tweaks.

Thanks for the advice, I'll probably have a v0.2 on here sometime late tonight or tomorrow.

[Onion Man]

Okay, made some major revisions, this time before taking sleeping pills instead of after...

Name: Sully Whaler
Tag: "Su"
Metatype: Dwarf                        25
Attributes: Physical/Mental:185, Special: 60, Total: 245               245
   BOD 4                           20
   AGI 2                           10
   REA 1                           0
   STR 3                           0
   CHA 4                           30
   INT 6                           65
   LOG 4                           20
   WIL 6                           40
   EDGE 3                           20
   RES 5                           40
Qualities: 35 positive, 35 negative                     245
   Technomancer                        5
   Photographic Memory                     10
   Chatty                           5
   Paragon: Flow                        5
   Synthetic Sympathy                     10
   Media Junkie (Moderate)                  -10
   Reality Impaired                     -5
   Sensitive System                     -15
   Lost Loved One (Daughter)                  -5
Active Skills: 90                               335
   Athletics Group    1                     10
   Tasking Group 1                     10
   Cracking Group 1                     10
   Electronics Group 4                     40
   Automatics 1                        4
   Clubs 1                           4
   Artisan 2                        8
   Pilot: Groundcraft 1                     4
Knowledge skills and languages: 30 free                     335
   English                           N
   Sperethiel 2                        4
   Or'zet 2                           4
   Chinese 3                        6
   Spanish 2                        4
   Pacific Rim Data Havens 4                  8
   Matrix Security Design 2                  4
Connections: 13 pts                           348
   Fixer (Peaceful) (C1 L1)                     2
   Matrix Fixer (Squidz) (C4 L3)                  7
   Anti-corporate Blogger (CCC {Three-C}) (C2 L2)            4
Complex Forms: 40 pts                           388
   Analyze 5                        5
   Spoof 5                           5
   Command 5                        5
   Shield 5                           5
   Exploit 5                        5
   Disarm 5                        5
   ECCM 5                           5
   Stealth 5                        5
Gear:  59,500 (12 pts)                           400
   Bike Racing Armor [4/7, cap 6]                  500
      Softweave [4/4]               50
         Commlink (specs later) [2]
         Nonconductivity 3 [2]            600
         Chemical Protection 6 [2]         1500
      Helmet [+1/+2, Cap 6]                  200
         Wireless, Image Link, Flare Compensation
         Smartlink [2] 4R               500
         Olfactory Sensor 4 [1]            2000
         Low Light [1]               100
         Camera 1 [1]               100
         Directional Microphone [1]         50
      PPP System: Forearm, Helmet, Leg and Arm, Shin,   1000
         & Vitals [+2/+5]
   FFBA, Full Suit [6/2, 3/1 enc.]                  900
      Softweave [3/2, 1/1 enc.]            90
      Fire Resistance 3               300
   Colt Cobra TZ-110 | 5R                     550
      Folding Stock, Gas Vent System 2
      Top mounted smartgun system 4R         400
      Melee Hardening               300
      3 Spare Clips                  30
      40 Regular rounds               80
      120 Gel rounds                  360
   Horizon Doble Revolution                  8000
      Motorcycle Gyro Stabilization
      Smart Tires
      Sidecar                     1500
      Rigger Adaptation               2500
                                 (21710)
   Commlink
      Transys Avalon (Response 4, Signal 4)            5000
      Iris Orb OS (Firewall 3, System 3)            1000
      Singularity Seeker software package            8200
         Browse (Crashfuard) 5
         Browse Agent (Browse 3 Pilot 3)
      FTL Matrixware Power Suite               1240
         Analyze 3
         Command 2
         Edit 4
         Purge 4
         Scan 2
      2 VR Games (SimCiv, Horizon Flight Simulator 2072)      100
   Satellite Link                        500
   High Lifestyle (1 month)                     10000
   Fake ID (Simon Whaler) 4                  4000
   Fake ID (Sully Wheeler) 4                  4000
   2 sets of Fake Licenses (Weapon, Armor)            1600
   Gecko Tape Gloves                     250
   Respirator 6                        150
   Gas Mask                        200
   Survival Kit                        100
   Biomonitor                        300
   Medkit 6                        600
   2 extra Medical Supplies                  100
   5 Antidote Patch 6                     1500
   10 Stimpatch 6                        1500
   10 Tranq Patch 6                     1200
   2 Trauma Patch                        1000
   Spare Clothes                        250
                                 (59500)

Starting Nuyen (4d6+5)x500

[squee_nabob]

I won’t waste time with telling you what you did right. Just assume the stuff I don’t mention is fine. Getting right to the issues…

Agility 2 is a waste of points, photographic memory is a waste of points (just get a finger nail data storage and a simrig), Chatty was errata’d to 10 points (making it terrible).

Cracking group 1 is bad, just get EW and Hacking, skip cybercombat (if you are cyber combating, you deserve to die). Buy Clubs, Automatics, and Pilot: Groundcraft 1 with karma (or wait and get biowires).

5 ECCM is useless, the highest jammer in the game is rating 10, so a rating 8 sat uplink and threading 3 ECCM wins every time.

There are better SMGs than the Colt Cobra, I direct you towards the Praetor, Supermach-100 and Executive Protector.

If you are a TM, don’t waste money on a good comlink, just get a bad one to slave to a tacnet, and a fake one to use your SIN on.

Also, for a rigger, I’m not seeing any drones.

[Onion Man]

Alrighty then, made some "tweaks" after getting nojose on the phone and verifying that I wasn't going to be facing another situation where I'd have to abandon any large gear on the way out of Lagos like we did on the way out of Calfree... Little things, like getting a truck with some drone racks and a pile of drones for fire support, espionage, and counter-drone apps.

Commlink is tuned down a bit, but if our group ever does get around to running TacSofts, it's probably going to fall on me so 3's around the board is about as low as I'm really comfortable going (plus it will make me look more like a crappy hacker if I face any real scrutiny around someone interested in dissecting TMs).

Going Info Savant, so I'd plan on compiling and registering a Machine Sprite and Paladin Sprite ASAP, with early karma (we're pretty fast earners) going to submersion twice to pick up biowire and skinlink echoes, then tuning up compiling, registering, software, and hacking based on how Su plays in nojose's campaign before turning my attention to resonance.

Thanks again for all the advice.  I feel much better about v1.1 than I did about v1.0, and lets all just pretend that I didn't even try to patch a TM together while on Ambien (v0.1).


Name: Sully Whaler
Tag: "Su"
Metatype: Dwarf                        25
Attributes: Physical/Mental:175, Special: 60, Total: 235               235
   BOD 4                           20
   AGI 1                           0
   REA 1                           0
   STR 3                           0
   CHA 4                           30
   INT 6                           65
   LOG 4                           20
   WIL 6                           40
   EDGE 3                           20
   RES 5                           40
Qualities: 35 positive, 35 negative                     235
   Technomancer                        5
   Linguist                        5
   Restricted Gear x2                     10
   Paragon: Flow                        5
   Synthetic Sympathy                     10
   Media Junkie (Moderate)                  -10
   Reality Impaired                     -5
   Sensitive System                     -15
   Lost Loved One (Daughter)                  -5
Active Skills: 76                            311
   Athletics Group 1                     10
   Tasking Group 1                     10
   Electronic Warfare 1                     4
   Hacking 1                        4
   Electronics Group 4                     40
   Artisan 2                        8
   
Knowledge skills and languages: 30 free                  311
   English                           N
   Sperethiel 2                        4
   Or'zet 2                           4
   Chinese 3                        6
   Spanish 2                        4
   Pacific Rim Data Havens 4                  8
   Matrix Security Design 2                  4
Connections: 13 pts                           324
   Fixer (Peaceful) (C1 L1)                     2
   Matrix Fixer (Squidz) (C4 L3)                  7
   Anti-corporate Blogger (CCC {Three-C}) (C2 L2)            4
Complex Forms: 36 pts                           360
   Analyze 5                        5
   Spoof 5                           5
   Command 5                        5
   Shield 5                        5
   Exploit 5                        5
   Disarm 5                        5
   Smartlink                        1
   Stealth 5                        5
Gear:  198800 (40 pts)                           400
   Bike Racing Armor [4/7, cap 6]                  500
      Softweave [4/4]               50
         Commlink (specs later) [2]
         Nonconductivity 3 [2]            600
         Chemical Protection 6 [2]         1500
      Helmet [+1/+2, Cap 6]                  200
         Wireless, Image Link, Flare Compensation
         Laser Range Finder [1]            100
         Cyberware Scanner 4 [1]         300
         Olfactory Sensor 4 [1]            2000
         Low Light [1]               100
         Camera 1 [1]               100
         Directional Microphone [1]         50
      PPP System: Forearm, Helmet, Leg and Arm, Shin,   1000
         & Vitals [+2/+5]
   FFBA, Full Suit [6/2, 3/1 enc.]                  900
      Softweave [3/2, 1/1 enc.]            90
      Fire Resistance 3               300
   Ingram Supermach 100                     975
      Gas Vent 3 Modification [2]            400
      Gecko Grip Modification [1]            100
      Smartgun System [1]               975
      Melee Hardening [1]               300
      3 Extended Clips               75
      60 Normal Rounds               120
      120 Gel Rounds                  360
   Horizon Doble Revolution                  8000
      Motorcycle Gyro Stabilization
      Smart Tires
      Sidecar                     1500
         Weapon Mount
            Normal Size         1500
            Concealed Visibility      4000
            Turret Flexibility      5000
            Remote Control      500
         SA Nemesis LMG            3500
            High Velocity Mod      7000
            Smartgun System      3500
            Gyro Stabilization      3000
      Rigger Adaptation               2500
   Commlink (Installed in armor)
      Novatech Airwave (Response 3, Signal 3)         5000
      Iris Orb OS (Firewall 3, System 3)            1000
      FTL Matrixware Power Suite               1240
         Analyze 3
         Browse 4
         Command 2
         Edit 4
         Purge 4
         Scan 2
      2 VR Games (SimCiv, Horizon Flight Simulator 2072)      100
      Mapsoft 5 (Lagos)                  50
   Satellite Link                        500
   Disposable Commlink                     300
   High Lifestyle (1 month)                  10000
   Fake ID (Simon Whaler) 4                  4000
   Fake ID (Sully Wheeler) 4                  4000
   2 sets of Fake Licenses (Weapon, Armor, Drones, Truck)      3200
   Gecko Tape Gloves                     250
   Respirator 6                        150
   Gas Mask                        200
   Survival Kit                        100
   Biomonitor                        300
   Medkit 6                        600
   2 extra Medical Supplies                  100
   5 Antidote Patch 6                     1500
   10 Stimpatch 6                        1500
   10 Tranq Patch 6                     1200
   2 Trauma Patch                        1000
   Spare Clothes                        250
   300 Gel Rounds for LMGs                  9000
   100 Explosive Rounds for LMGs                  500
   Extra "Layabout"/Work Clothes                  15
   Hardware Kit                        500
   Automotive Mechanic Kit                  500
   Aeronautic Mechanic Kit                  500
   Fancy Clothes                        1000
   2 Flash Paks                        400
   Simrig                           1000
   Tag Eraser                        150
   White Noise Generator 6                  300
                              Gear(101500)
   GAZ P-179 (14 Body)                     12000
      Rigger Adaptation               2500
      Multi-fuel Engine
      Multilaunch Drone Rack [5]            10000
      2 Small Drone Racks [4]               2000
      Metahuman Adjustment (2 Dwarf sized seats)      1000
      Off Road Suspension [1]            3000
      Winch [1]                  600
      Satellite Communication [1]            500
      Searchlight [1]                  1200
   2 Cyberspace Designs Dragonflies, Standard Model         5000
   2 Cyberspace Designs Dragonflies, Anti-vehicle Model         5000
   4 Cyberspace Designs Dragonflies, c-12 Model            10000
   2 MCT Fly-Spies                     2000
   Ford LEBD-1 Aerial Law Enforcement Backup Drone (3 Body)      4500
      Mechanical Arm
      Weapon Mount (external, fixed, remote control)
         SA Nemesis LMG            3500
            High Velocity Mod      7000
            Smartgun System      3500
            Gyro Stabilization      3000
      Improved Takeoff/Landing 2
      Special Machinery (2 Handcuffs)
   MCT-Nissan Roto-drone (3 Body)               2000
      Improved Takeoff/Landing 2
      Weapon Mount (external, fixed, remote control)   2000
         SA Nemesis LMG            3500
            High Velocity Mod      7000
            Smartgun System      3500
            Gyro Stabilization      3000
                        Vehicles/Drones(97300)
   1200 Unspent for bonus to random wealth

Edit: Saw a wrong number.

[baronspam]

Question:  I have looked at couple of these threads about technomancers and it seems no one takes attack as a CF and that in general people seem to claim that cybercombat is a waste of points.  Is the general idea that its stealth or nothing?  You sneak in and get an admin account and do what you need and if you trigger an alert and get hit with IC the only thing to do at that point is run?  I don't have much experience with matrix based  characters first hand, and have never played a technomancer, but it seems kind of counter intuitive.  Can you thread a decent attack or is the idea that if you need to you are already busted?

[fikealox]

I'm very inexperienced with matrix characters (and actually find the matrix in general hugely confusing), but I seem to recall that the reason that Technomancers are advised to avoid cybercombat is that their meat bodies can, and quite easily do, die during it. I could be wrong, though

[Onion Man]

That's my reason for generally avoiding cybercombat with this character... it just looked like it would, in general, be a much better idea to compile a beefy Tank or Paladin Sprite and run like water down a slide.

[Ethan]

Pretty much the point of a TM is to sneak by and not get in trouble. Considering that you can Thread your Stealth CF to 8-12 depending on your Resonance, it's not an unfair stance, and since TMs suffer real damage from cybercombat attacks.

Even if sometimes cybercombat is unavoidable, it's best to let your Sprites do it for you. The Paladin and Tank Sprites, if they're part of your TM's Stream, are rather good at it. The Paladin can even protect you, directly. (I think the two Sprites should have their names swapped...)

If you really needed to, and you didn't have one of those Sprites (or they're busy) then you could Thread an Attack CF with a few options yourself.

Sometimes, running away isn't an option and you have to take down the IC.

[squee_nabob]

Again, skills at 1 are best learned with Karma (4 BP > 4 Karma), so dump the Athletics, Tasking, EW and Hacking. Tasking is bad as decompiling is bad. Just get registering and compiling.

Smartlink complex form is unneeded, just get some contacts with smartlink in them.

Drone racks have little support as it is unclear how fast drones can leave a vehicle. The rack takes a complex action to unload, but you could just order the drone to leave (and it can move for a free action) and also leave an open van. So I’d dump the drone racks.

RE: Cybercombat

A corp can load infinite ice, and near infinite riggers to fight you if you start something. When your cover is blown, you need to get out of there as you cannot match a corp for security resources. It’s not about death, it’s about the fact that you cannot realistically win, as any IC can respawn as a complex action taken by the node. It takes you a complex action to kill something if you 1 shot it, so you can never make headway.

I do want to play an AR hacker without stealth, who logs onto a node with a public account and just challenges their security to a duel, or he’ll nuke their node. I think that would be funny because he has literally 0 risk besides a team of red samurai showing up and killing him (and we all have that).