So according to the handy chart in 4A when a rigger is jumped into a drone he rolls the drones Sensors plus his Gunnery to shoot something.

So lets make sure I've got my numbers right on a stock Doberman from 4A for my Rigger Technomancer.
3 Sensors
3 Gunnery
2 Specialized Ballistics
2 Rigger Box
2 Hot Sim/Technomacer bonus
2 Smartgun modified Ingrim White Knight.

Giving me a dice pool of 14?

Why Sensors and not Response? Upgrade rules from 4A say the best you can do is upgrade +2, limiting even the most hot rodded of drones to a Sensor rank of 5 (unless you can come up with the 250k and 24R availability of a Akiyama assassin drone). Using Response you can upgrade most any combat model to a 6 (since it is stated that most combat model drones have a Response and System of 4). It is also cheaper to upgrade Sensors over Response according to the table on page 222 of 4A.

Isn't there a much more expensive option that allows one to upgrade further then +2? I think it's in Arsenal, but I'm not much on the knowledge for the tech side.

Between sr4a and arsenal the sensor rules are sufficiently wazzed that I would ask your gm what his houserules are.

Why Sensors and not Response? Because the drone's sensors are how it acquires targets, not its CPU.

If the Response is the CPU and not the frame servos then why is Melee Defense based off Response?

Rigger box? Does that go by some other name in the books, or is it 3rd edition?

Response is explicitly a device's CPU speed, actually the "processing power and speed of the device's hardware." See SR4A, p. 222. As to why Response is used for melee defense, what else would you use? Response is equivalent to a character's Reaction, which is the attribute used for defense in combat.

Rigger Adaptation from 4A or Arsenal. According to Arsenal all purpose build drones have a Rigger Adaption module built in already which according to 4A gives the rigger a +2 bonus to all skill tests involving the drone while in VR.

And thus Sensors must represent Agility. *shrug* Guess I'm just having trouble relating a digital object (sensors) to something that in a human body is hand eye agility.

Isn't it the control rig that gives the bonus? And aren't gunnery tests not actually vehicle skill tests?

Yes. It's Sensor + Gunnery for Jumped-In only, so you're getting the +2 'Jumped-In with Control Rig' bonus, and potentially the +2 Hot VR bonus (don't get shot!), but the Control Rig is for 'Vehicle skill tests'.

Gunnery is listed as a Vehicle Skill in SR4. I don't know if they moved it in SR4A however.

Ah, well there you go. I forgot about that, because it's so obviously a Combat; plus the bonus cheese of costing less for Adepts to boost. Ugh.

Well it gets even more fun, I saw in the FAQ today that Threading doesn't take an action. So if you were going to take a complex action to do a full burst anyway.. you may as well Thread Command up to 9 or 10 or 12 and just issue the Command to shoot the LMG at full burst. 10 command, 3 gunnery, 2 spec, 2 rig adaption, 2 vr bonus 2 smartgun is 21 dice. Fade test might hurt a touch though.. gotta watch that.

Rigger adaption just lets you rig the drone, control rig or one of the technomance echo (immersion? i'm away from my books) give you a bonus when your actually rigging the device.

In previous editions you had to have a control rig to rig the device, they changed that it's one change I do like personally.

Yup, Threading is ripe for abuse. However, Command Rigging is totally different from Jumped-In or 'Captain's Chair' rigging. You don't get the Control Rig bonus, for starters.

If you are using command you are not rigging.

Thats still 19 dice vs 14..

Whatever, Lurker. Rigging is anything controlling vehicles and drones, even if you're just directing the Pilots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Miri, you're clearly *way* to concerned about the number of dice. Riggers own, so just enjoy it. Try not to Fade yourself to death.

isn't improving the Sensor rating as easy as replacing the standard sensors with a 600 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) rating 6 camera? Just don't put in a Rating 4 UWB radar, as your sensor suddenly drops to 5 -.-

Sort of, though the GM would rightly rule that your camera (and thus, your entire Sensor rating) didn't apply in certain situations.

It's kinda funny, people me It's no good without the VR bonuses, but I've found that AR Rigging can stack just as many dice.

Current rigger: 20 Gunnery dice in VR, 25 dice in AR.

Yes, two dice of that is the Adept Improved Ability cheese, but even without it they're comparable.

Also, Command goes up to 10 now, whereas Sensors are still stuck at 6.

I give people funny looks when they ask why I don't take advantage of drone target locking. Why bother?



-k

Great dice pool, but AR won't let you shoot twice in one IP, or get 5 IPs.

Why shoot twice when you can have full bursts?

Multiple targets – Full bursts can only be aimed at targets within a metre of each other, but two bursts can be aimed completely independently.

Recoil – Though drones don't generally suffer recoil, I believe there's a mention in Arsenal about small drones with big guns being an exception (something like Body = RC?). If this applies then one full burst will carry a recoil penalty of 9 minus the RC, whilst a short burst followed by a long burst will carry penalties of 5 minus the RC and then 8 minus the RC*. Consider the following –

Narrow bursts with 3 RC
Full burst: -6 DP, +9 DV
Long burst (first action): -2 DP, +5 DV
Short burst (second action): -5 DP, +2DV

In this case if -5 or -6 is a big chunk of your DP then you might do a lot better by splitting the shots to get a good chance of a good hit with the long and then a difficult shot with the short, rather than an all-or-nothing full. In addition, you're doubling up the base DV in exchange for doubling the dodge and resistance rolls, but in many circumstances this will be a net gain (in probability-terms) for you since each DV needs (on average) three dice to be cancelled out. If your target is difficult to hit or difficult to damage then full burst is likely the better option.

Called shots – These can only be attempted with short bursts (or SA/SS).

* I have just noticed that by RAW a short burst followed by a long burst in the same action phase does not accumulate recoil in the way that two short bursts do. I.e. two short bursts give recoil penalties of -2 and -5, but a short then a long is technically -2 and -6 where it logically should be -2 and -8. I have no doubt at all, though, that this is a simple omission of the word 'additional' in the long bursts description and have no intention of ever playing it that way.