Vehicles come with a Sensor Value, be it drones or just other veicles it comes with a number either equal to two to three from what I have seen. I am wondering if there is a way to upgrade this since I am playing a Rigger and I want to make it higher if possible to raise my gunnery skill. Mostly because my GM is not letting Control Rig and Hot Sim use stack...making the control rig useless. And since my gunnery skill is near maxed out already, the only way I can really compete is to either get more drones, or upgrade my supply and really sensors is the only thing holding me back when I am jumped in.

You buy the sensor components at a higher rating. So if your drone has a camera, a microphone and a laser rangefinder for example, those parts are all rated at the base sensor rating for that drone. Say a 3 for example. You want to upgrade it, you buy a rating 6 camera and microphone. The new sensor rating is equal to the average value of the sensors in it, rounded up. So the new sensor in this example would be 6. The rules for this are on pg 105 of Arsenal.
Why won't your GM stack Control Rig and Hot Sim?

Thanks, that helps.


No idea other than he says the bonus do not stack, even though the control rig is really only useful for jumping into a drone, it does nothing if it does not provide the bonus. I have been trying to find a way to convince him.

you may also consider using a Tacnet with multiple drones if the GM is making it harder on you, several drones with increased Sensors will allow you to have a higher Tacnet which will benefit you.

I will also have to look into the Tacnet. We have been discussing setting one up for the group.

the larger the group & the better the tacnet, the harder it is to allow Drone's to help since the number of sensors they can have seems to be a bit more limited than people.

From what I can tell, the control rig boosters nanites in Augmentation are the only rigger boost that is based on your skill, so it's the only thing that doesn't stack past skill x 1.5. If they don't stack, I'm not sure why a cyberware exists that makes a +2 bonus work as up to a +4. Also, they are the only rigger bonus that I can think of that specifically has a limit. Also, stacking bonuses will be the only way to have any sort of chance at making the high thresholds on some of the cool driving tricks you're supposed to be able to do. The -1 threshold for driving in VR (according to the core book) makes them a bit more reasonable to do, but you'll still need a pile of dice if weather or terrain starts affecting things.

About sensors: I am away from my books, so I don't know what it is called, but there is a modification in Arsenal that allows you to have higher capacity for sensors. Chummer also has it give you +1 signal rating, which may or may not be what the book says. But filling up the drone/vehicle with high-rating or unrated sensors will get you a high sensor rating.

Improved Sensor Array.
Modification found in Arsenal...

TacNet is limited to rating 3 if you get a bunch of drones involved, though since the max rating for TacNet is 4, losing out on 1 dice is no big deal. The ability to have that net no matter how many friends you have around is nice (replacing allies with drones). This info is on pg 125 of Unwired.
I think the Chummer Signal ratings for sensors is based off the table on pg 222 of SR4A. Otherwise you should be able to boost signal by buying a better signal for your drone.

What.

Drones are the EASIEST thing to get on a rating 4 tacnet.

Unless you follow the rules that Drones can only ever have 6 sensor channels.

Which are in there, much as I think they're written in a confusing way.




-k

No. Its written that drones get free sensor channels equal to sensor rating. Its NOT written that their limit is 6. I think that is a rule you are misremembering. To be fair, it IS confusing.

Nothing stops drones from taking extra channels via the same exact methods that player characters do: via vision accessories and addons.
if an Ultrasound accessory works for a character in goggles, it works for a drone in a camera.

Taken from Unwired, page 125, Sensor Systems: "Drones sensor systems also count; each drone can supply a number of sensor channels equal to its Sensor rating."

Sounds like a limit to me. Non-military grade hardware is often limited to a rating of 6, and even military vehicles have a default device rating of 5.

Personally I prefer to count drone/vehicle sensors like cybernetic sensors.

Note that says Also Count. Also. In addition to. That means sensor plus other categories.

For example, the preceeding categories that came before your quoted text: Natural Senses, Cybernetic Senses. (there are three total, drone sensors fall under one of them, and the other two don't dissappear)
Also, cherrypicking quotes is bad.

Note that any extra vision enhancements aren't actually accounted for in the Sensor rating. A camera 6(vision enhancement 3) isn't six dice, as a sensor of 6 would lead you to believe. It's actually more. In the same way, a camera with a Smartlink isn't a sensor 6 either. It has capabilities that can't be factored in as a sensor rating. In fact, using the same rules you've been provided and quoted, you can see that a a smartlink is explicitly made out to be a sensor channel itself.


If you can't count a smartlink on a drone, you can't count a smartlink on a metahuman either.

"Drone sensor systems also count" to me says that you can use drones as well as whatever metahumans have in/on them and/or are carrying, rather than not being an available option at all to a tacnet. If the line I quoted had written it as "each drone can supply a number of additional sensor channels equal to its Sensor rating.", then I'd have no problem.

But the way you're putting it to me makes it sound like a drone with a single camera with lowlight & thermographic and a Sensor rating of 2 will provide 5 channels of data to a tacnet, and not 3. And the way it's written in the book it sounds like it doesn't matter what kind of sensor enhancements are crammed in a drone, that a drone provides a flat number of sensor channels to a tacnet based on its Sensor rating no matter what (and I think that's how others here are taking it as well).

Well, as neither the Sensor Upgrade Rules and the "what counts as sensor channel for tacnets" rule makes any sense, talk about it with your GM and reach an understandig before you invest in a tacnet.

Also, you don't need to upgrade sensor to increase your gunnery pool - sensor + gunnery is only used in (passive) sensor targeting. You can manually target with "control" + gunnery (control rigger) or "response" + gunnery (jump-in rigger)


Because Gunnery is linked to Agility, you substitute it with Response (and dont suffer the stupid signature modifiers)

Exactly, the range of a sensor is expressed as a Signal rating

I did specifically write "unless you follow the rules that say...".

Meaning, if your GM interprets the Sensor Rating as a hard limit, then yes, you'd be limited to a TacNet 3.

As folks have demonstrated here, though, not everyone interprets it that way.



-k

No Udoshi, it says in plain black and white.

A drone may never contribute MORE channels than it's sensor rating to the tacnet. It gives no ways in or out for any of the power gaming munchkins to get around that.

A VEHICLE may... but drones are a specific subset of vehicles. I can contribute more sensor channels from say my main battle tank or thunderbird waiting for pickup outside. But a drone may only ever contribute up to it's sensor rating in channels either for others or for itself. (the rules make no differentiation on that score).


Tacnets are just a huge clusterfuck in the rules anyhow. They leave way too much open to interpretation. I for one would not allow them to add to attacks and defense rolls. But perception and initiative I think they're perfect for. Even the list of benefitis gives things the GM may or might give bonuses to.

You're also forgetting that by modifying the sensors manually you alter the drone's sensor rating, as per SR4A. A R4 Camera is R4, but a R4 Camera with Thermographic, Low-Light, Flare Compensation, and Smartlink is higher than that (to GM's discretion).

Nope, it is still Rating 4, it just has extra options. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Those things you listed do not increase a Sensor Rating. They DO increase Sensor Channels for Metahumans. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

in any case, this is the lynchpin of the arguement here: Why does a smartlink count for a human and not a drone?
Serious question to the naysayers. Why are you treating the same piece of equipment unfairly? How does that make sense at all?

Because its in the rules! (and because of this, i just houserule it ^^)

Yes and no. Yes, I had the rules for sensors wrong (been a while since I've read them - extras on sensors can be used on Tests for those sensors, like Vision Enhancement on a camera can help your drone's visual Clearsoft Test, but do not increase Sensor Rating).

However, the Natural Senses, Cybernetic Senses, and Sensor Systems are not mutually exclusive. "Drone sensor systems also count; each drone can supply a number of sensor channels equal to its Sensor rating," does not supersede or annul "Sensory enhancements such as low-light, thermographic, smartlink, ultrasound radar, spatial recognizers, and so on each count as a separate sensor channel." I've underlined the key text here. Yes, a drone with R4 sensors will contribute 4 sensor channels, but if it has thermographic and smartlink, it also contributes both of those since they each count as separate sensor channels. The overall rating of a sensors from a drone is a flat number they can contribute, whereas the additional senses they can have loaded (Spatial Recognizer, Visual Magnification, ect) are counted separately.

No it never says this Neraph... the text puts a hard limit on the number of senses a drone can ever contribute. It says 'can supply' not 'supplies' meaning you need to pick out 4 sensor channels from among the others to contribute (which could include your visibility improvements). Can is synonmous with is capable of.

It doesn't matter how many extra you add. A drone can only ever contribute a limited number of relevant ones.

The underlined text has nothing whatsoever to do with the special rules included for drones and tacnet contributions.