[Ener]

As I understand it when Issuing commands or Jumping into a drone (or a rigger adapted device) you are working with the drones response attribute for initiative and a variety of other things.

Based on

A Pilot program is basically a system Program with extra Features and is so used whenever  the drones system rating would be

A drones "System Attribute" = it's pilot, also a drones Signal rating is based on it's sensor package as per p. 334.

I may have overlooked something glaringly obvious here, but I can't seem to find a listing of a drones firewall and or response attributes anywhere.
Firewalls a like bought as they would be for a commlinks, but since hardware (such as response and signal) are upgraded I'll need a starting point for those right ?

[WellsIDidIt]

Pg. 222 covers device rating (which applies to drones). The sample table on page 222 lists drones as a DR 3, security vehicles as a DR 4, and Military vehicles as a DR 5. War! has a list of Military Vehicles/Drones, but it's up to the GM to determine what is classified as a Security vehicle for DR purposes.

What this means is that the drone is treated as having it's DR in all it's matrix attributes (unless you upgrade them per the normal rules provided). Response and Signal can both be upgraded up to twice I believe.

Pg. 334 refers to the range of Sensors, a drone's Signal attribute isn't increased by replacing sensors, replacing the sensors just determines how far the sensors can detect things and reach. To use the drone, you still have to be within the drone's signal range. It's complicated, but just few every single sensor, drone, and commlink as a separate Signal and it'll start to make sense.

It took me forever to find it to, so don't feel bad.

[Laurentius]

Something I've been toying with due to the limited attributes of drones is the concept of slaving.

Slaving
One node, the slave, may be linked to another node, the master. In this setup, the master is given full admin access to the slave. When slaving a node to a master, the slaved node does not accept any Matrix connections from any other node but the master and instantly forwards any connection attempts to the master. Hackers have three options when faced with a slaved node. First, they can hack in directly to the slave with an additional threshold modifier of +2, though this requires a physical (wired) connection to the device. Second, they can hack the master node (thus gaining access to the slaved node—and any other slaves—as well), though this node is usually more secure. Third, they can spoof the access ID of the master node and then spoof commands to the slave.

This, though, would require most riggers to be rather close to some of the smaller drones (100 meters for micro-drones). So to extend the range, I was considering attaching a commlink into one of the sturdier drones, slaving the drones to that commlink, and then defending the master node from afar. While there are flaws to this, what are everyone's thoughts?

Some notes: the master commlink cannot be slaved to the off-site commlink as any slaved commlink forwards all connection attempts to the master, meaning the drones wouldn't be able to connect to the 'synapse' master commlink.

[Ener]

It took me forever to find it to, so don't feel bad.

Thats nice to know 
Just to make sure I understand though, I have included a little example :

Base Vehicle
Daihatsu-Caterpillar Horseman w/ Advanced Cargo Module  17000¥

Handling	Accel	Speed	Pilot	Body	Armour	Sensor
+1	8/16	60	4	6	12	6

Modifications	Slots	Price
Mechanical Grapple Arms	Standard	Standard
Armour Rating 12	1	2400¥
Rigger Adaption	1	2500¥
Personal Armour Rating 10	2	5000¥
Remote Controlled, External, Flexible Weapon Mount	2	3000¥
Smart GE Vindicator Minigun	*	11000¥

Vehicle Sensor Package	Capacity (12)	Price
Ultrawideband Radar Rating 4	[2]	4000¥
Trideo Camera Rating 6, front mounted	[1]	1475¥
~Flare Compensation, Image Link,Smartlink,Vision Enhancement(3)
Trideo Camera Rating 6, rear mounted	[1]	975¥
~Flare Compensation, Image Link,Vision Enhancement(3)
Microphone Rating 6,	[1]	700¥
~Audio Enhancement (3), Spatial Recognizer
Radio Signal Scanner Rating 6	[1]	300¥
Motion Sensor, Front Mounted	[1]	50¥
Motion Sensor, Rear Mounted	[1]	50¥
Laser Range Finder, Front Mounted	[1]	100¥
Laser Range Finder,Rear Mounted	[1]	100¥
Olfactory Sensor rating 6	[1]	3000¥
Geiger Counter	[1]	50¥

Additional	Price
Response hardware Upgrade (from 3 to 5)	6000¥
Pilot software rating 4	5500¥
Firewall software rating 6	2100¥
Analyze software rating 4	250¥

For a whoppin 65550 ¥
[/spoiler]

Is this about right ? or is there something I have missunderstood.

As a follow up question : Simsense Accelerators are "CommLink Modifications" but is it possible to add them to a drone / vehicle to get their benefit when jumped in ? or is it sufficient to add one in your commlink since that acts as a middleman between you and the drone/vehicle ?

[Tsuzua]

This, though, would require most riggers to be rather close to some of the smaller drones (100 meters for micro-drones). So to extend the range, I was considering attaching a commlink into one of the sturdier drones, slaving the drones to that commlink, and then defending the master node from afar. While there are flaws to this, what are everyone's thoughts?

Some notes: the master commlink cannot be slaved to the off-site commlink as any slaved commlink forwards all connection attempts to the master, meaning the drones wouldn't be able to connect to the 'synapse' master commlink.

Remember that the matrix passively auto-forwards everything so you don't have to be in mutual signal range of your slave.  Your small drone just needs to be nearby something else that forwards and receives.  You could also shell out 1000Y and just upgrade the drone's Signal to 5.  If you really need the range, there's the Satellite Uplink mod on your drone.   

If you need more subscription slots for your master node, you could also go with a nexus.  They tend to have a lot of subscription slots especially if you load up on personas*.  Subscriptions are limited by persona (SR4A 225 & UW 55) so a System 3 nexus running 9 personas can have 54 subscription slots "free."  This is also assumes that subscriptions to a node uses one of that node's persona subscription slots**.

*- Remember that persona != node.  I suspect at least one matrix writer didn't know this.

**- This ties into the fact that personas have limited subscription slots, not nodes.  However the section on Centralized TacNets suggests that nodes must use their persona's subscription slots (UW 125).