You can issue five commands, but the Drone Pilot only has 3 IP on which to act on your commands, afaik. (at least, that's my interpretation)

Or should the drone's Pilot get 3 turns with the drone, and I get to issue 5 commands? The hardware is fast enough, the IP limit is supposed to be "user-based." Ahh! This must be made clear somewhere, but I've been doing a lot of rigger reading, and I've missed it.

Issuing commands on all 5 of your IP is cool, but hte Drone just might get a bit confused, and there will definitely be a command lag as the Drone only has 3/5ths of your IP...

Autonomous Drones get 3 IP and follow their program...
If you are issuing Commands via Remote Control, the Drone receives 3 IP's and will follow your commands on its initiative, you may be in AR or VR for Remote Control (You are not Jumped in)...
If you are Jumped In, You use your IP's based upon the level of control you are using, but you must be in VR... Cold Interface is Cold VR IP, and Hot VR is Hot IP's... pretty simple actually... there are benefits to all versions of controlling a Drone...

This may not have helped, but there you go...

Keep the Faith

As I understood it, the 5th IP is only possible through using Edge, otherwise it is capped at 5...

You cannot even get a 5th IP using edge, the normal cap is 4...

Keep the Faith

A better way to look at it is not that the drone can only physically do 3 IP's, but that the pilot program can only do 3 IP's. The tricked out rigger is faster, and can do the calculations better than the semi-ai in the drone. The whole point of the command program is to allow a human operator to use their superior skills and knowledge via the drone.

Besides, the book does not say anywhere that 3 IP's is the max that drones get. It just says drones get 3 IP's. It also says characters in VR get 3 IP's; but we know that there are ways around that limitation via RAW.

command is used for directly controlling drones. if you are using the command program, the drone is never controlling itself, you are controlling it directly via remote control.

issuing commands to drones can be done, and on it's own initiative using it's own dicepools the drone will attempt to follow those commands. no program is required for this.

Sorry, that's specifically ruled out: "Unless already executing an action based on a Rigger's behalf, a remote controlled drone acts only when it receives commands. (ie, on the Rigger's action). p. 245 sr4a.



Correct. Remote Control via the command program is different than issuing commands. The way I read it, once you decide to remote control a drone (requiring a subscription, unlike vanilla commands) it no longer acts unless specifically under your orders. What I don't understand is how this works on certain "automatic" tests, such as the ranged weapon test. Do we use the drone's Pilot rating? We certainly can't use the Rigger's, unless he spends a complex action to give a "dodge" command.

Most definitely, and that is what I pointed out a post or two ago, but it does bare repeating anyways...

No, they do not say that drones can only have 3 IP's... and maybe you could apply the simsense Accelertator to the Drone to up it a bit, lord knows they use it for the Full Borg Conversion... there are Hardware upgrades (Simsense Accelerator) and there are Wetware upgrades (Simsense Booster)... no wetware in the Drone, as it requires a metahuman brain, but no one said that you could not trick out the communications channels of a Drone with an Accelerator... they are pretty expensive, which is why I would steer away from that, buy others may disagree (who is going to add a 15,000 nuyen piece of hardware to a 2000 nuyen Drone after all)

I prefer to augment the controller and then go to town myself... then any off the shelf drone will become just that little bit hotter with the augmented operator...

Keep the Faith

But, you stated earlier that using the Remote Control option would still carry the 3 IP limit, which is not true. Issuing Commands does restrict it to the 3 IP's, but Remote Control (using the Command program, confusing, I know) overrides the Pilot program allowing the Rigger to use all 5 of his IP's to issue a command.

Here's another Q: Since the pilot program operates in VR, should it get the -1 threshold to matrix tests as well?

If you look at the rules, it states that when you Issue COmmands, the Drone Pilot actually acts on them ON ITS OWN INITIATIVE... therefore you are not allowed to use your character's IP's for that... That is what Jumping into the Drone Is for actually...

As for the Pilot Program receiving -1 because it is in VR, that would be an interpretation... I would probably not subscribe to that, but I could see how it would be allowed...

Keep the Faith...

Excellent: that forbids the drone taking 3 actions, and then me taking 5 with it via Remote Control.


This is something Jaid pointed out, too, and I think not everyone is on the same page about it.

There are three ways of controlling drones:

1. Issuing Commands. You use the Issuing Command action to tell the drone to do something. It uses its Pilot as the main attribute for tests.
2. Remote Control. A Matrix action in which you use the Command program to control the drone through AR or VR. You use the Command program's rating as the main attribute for tests. All tests are Complex Actions, even if the drone's action is a Simple Action.
3. Jumping In. A Matrix action in which you become the drone via VR. You use your Response as the main attribute for tests.

Therein lies my confusion. My reading is the same as yours, and I've just been assuming that while the rigger isn't using his Command program to issue a command to the subscribed drone, that the drone would just hang out - "acts only when it receives commands" - and revert to its Pilot, meaning it won't act autonomously - unless you gave it standing orders: "Unless already executing an action based on a Rigger's behalf" - but it'll Dodge if something shoots at it and it notices. That makes sense to me, but there are certain concerns I have about this in execution.

You're mixing things up. Let's have a chart:

Issuing Commands
v.
Remote Control
v.
Jumped-In.


We are talking about Remote Control (using the Command program), not Issuing Commands (by taking a Simple Action). Remote Control requires A: A subscription to a Drone, and B: A Complex Action. The book explicitly states that the drone acts on the Rigger's action:

Sr4a. 245

And then, there is the very handy table on p. 247 which lists under the column for "initative" under Remote-Controlled: "as rigger".

SR4a lists the dicepool for ranged defense (not dodging) as the rigger's Command program. But does the Rigger have to spend a complex action to do so, or is it automatic? Doing it automatically gives too much benefit to the remote-control rigger, IMO, while the drone not dodging at all kind of gimps him. I'm inclined to say that unless specifically commanded, a drone will defend itself using its Response attribute when it is under Remote-Control.

Gotcha, My Mistake, I was under the impression we were talking about Issuing Commands, not remotely controlling the device... which I thought was obvious from my remarks about Issuing Commands...

Keep the Faith

Now, see, I'd have said that the rigger would need to blow his next action and use his Command to dodge - the rigger action table is really clear, right? - but that implies that when you subscribe a drone to Remote Control it, it just sits and does absolutely nothing until you tell it to, which makes me think I'd need to use an action each turn to actually fly/drive each vehicle, lest it crash. And that's no good, either.

Sometimes I feel like the Remote Control rules weren't really tortured as hard as they needed to have been. I don't see why anyone would ever jump into a drone, for instance.

Jumping into a Drone is an order of magnitude more awesome than Remote Controlling it is (though there are risks of course)... you actually "Become" the drone when you are jumped into it, it becomes an extension of your will, and acts like your body would, instinctively, with no need to "tell" it anything... You ARE the Drone for all intents and purposes...

That is way cool...

Keep the Faith

Yeah, let me include the desperate caveat that if they were handing out vehicle control rigs, I'd be the guy running over the other people waiting in line. I'm a serious gearhead, and the idea of being my Jeep or my BMW is intoxicating beyond compare. While I can't imagine why anyone would, from a mechanical standpoint, choose to Jump In, I similarly cannot imagine why anyone wouldn't, from a realistic perspective, do anything but!

I can't say that, either. I'm playing a spider now, a drone rigger who uses his network as an extension of his senses and who operates the network via remote control VR, and it's amazing to imagine what that kind of sensorium would be like.

Anyway, my over-hasty response left out the important caveat, "from a mechanical standpoint," and it most certainly should not have. Good looking out!

yes, but mechanically, the only thing it really has going for it over the command program remote controlling (especially if you do something horribly evil and make a technomancer with a threaded/sustain operation command CF up in the high teens, with a diagnostics power running to boost it further, and of course specialising vehicle skills in remote operation and picking 'control device' as a matrix action for codeslinger, but we've already been there) is the fact that doesn't always burn a complex action. usually, this is only significant if for some reason you want to use the sensor targeting maneuver twice in one turn for no apparent reason.

personally, i would probably require the complex action be spent to go on full defense (though on the plus side, it will be on full defense) just to make rigging more appealing.

the 5th IP is possible in the matrix, using hot sim, with two IP boosting pieces of equipment that explicitly stack with each other *and* with hot sim.

the 'most' is not 'all'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The fact that you just can't take over a drone that has a rigger jumped in makes no never mind I guess... you cannot spoof it, so you would have to actually enter the drone's node and kick him out before you could do anything to the drone...

Jamming would work, assuming you could get enough juice to do so, but that is rare in actual practice as it is very easy to avoid the jamming limitations unless you are bending to GM Fiat... Also, the Jamming range is pathetically short... I mean really, Rating 6 Directional has an effective range of 120 Meters... Really?... And that only at the first 20 Meters (rating 6 that is)...Pretty useless in actual practice if you ask me... Every one of my drones that I use can operate in a zone of up to 13 points of Jamming... Find me a jammer that can do that and maybe we can then talk...

Keep the Faith

spoofing will not work on a remote controlled drone either; the pilot is not active to be spoofed, and the controller presumably is impervious to spoof (unless it's an agent or sprite, i suppose)

Actually, it would work. While the drone does not take any actions on its own when Remote-Controlled, it still takes commands - it's kind of the point of Remote-Control. I don't see why an enemy rigger can't spoof his own commands with his own Command + Skill roll.

Edit: Well, it's kind of confusing in the book. Spoof allows you to issue commands as per the Issue Command action; while remote control requires a subscription and apparently completely overrides the pilot. So I'm going to go with Jaid being right via RAW, but I like my conception better. Jumped in riggers need the love...

This doesn't feel right to me; Since you don't need a pilot on a device to spoof commands to it. (you can spoof commands to dumb peripherals for instance, which is consistent with how it works in 'the real world' of today.*) nominally this is a different roll (System+Firewall instead of Pilot+Firewall) but the drone version of pilot is described as an enhanced System program, so in the case of drones it would be the same roll.

The only ways to get around spoofing vulnerabilities appear to be either a) occupation by a live persona or b) going dark. obviously remote control pretty much negates option b unless your 'remote' control is riding the vehicle and is physically wired in.

However, you're in house rule territory here no matter what with SR4A/Unwired, as despite being described as matrix nodes drones notably lack any of the following stats explicitly: Response, Signal, Firewall, Device Rating.

per RAW autosofts don't actually affect Response rating (notably because there is no listed response rating, despite tests calling for it..) so at our table we generally just rule Response to be 3 for all listed drones, upgradeable as per commlink rules. signal is set to Sensor and Firewall = Pilot by default but obeys usual rules concerning 'improved' software; if you have a better firewall feel free to load it etc.





*if you know the protocol and the way the master auth's (AccessID in SR) then you can create a signal indistinguishable from a legitimate one, etc.

Ok, after looking at it a little more I think you can spoof a Remote Controlled drone. In the Hacking and Spoofing paragraph of the drone section, it details alternative ways to takes drones out of fights as opposed to just breaking them; while discussing Spoofing it states:

sr4a, p.246.

Since it makes a specific mention of Jumped-In; but not a specific mention of one of the other two methods of controlling a drone, I would have to say that Spoofed commands will work. Remote-Control doesn't turn the Pilot off, it just tells it to stop working while the Rigger uses his virtual joystick. So what happens when the Rigger gets tired of playing with his joystick?* He tells the Pilot program to resume working - therefore, the Pilot program is not "asleep", it's just on standby until further notice.

Regarding drone ratings, they are considered average Devices per the table on p. 222 and thus get a 3 in everything not listed.

*Yes, I went there.