 Drone Rigger Questions, how to build a DR character? |
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 Jan 26 2006, 04:46 PM
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#1
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558  |
I am building a Drone Rigger for the first time and I have several questions about the how’s and what’s of creating one.
What computer programs and skills does a DR 'need'? Looking over the drone stats in the back of the book they have Pilot and Sensor ratings. Can these be improved? Some drones start with Autosoft programs already built in like Maneuverability, Clearsight, and Targeting. Does a Drone require an Autosoft program to do be able to an action? IE: can a drone fire a weapon without the Targeting Autosoft, fly from point A to B without the Maneuverability soft. Do Drones have or need any matrix attributes such as System, Response, Signal, and Firewall? Are there limits on how high of a program rating a drone can have? |
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Jan 26 2006, 05:43 PM
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#2
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
1) A DR needs Scan, Encrypt, Decrypt, Sniffer, ECCM, and possibly Spoof and ECM if you want to frag with other Riggers. Basically, any program related to the Electronic Warfare skill. A Rigger needs a good Electronic Warfare skill, and a Piloting skill for every kind of drone he will have (Ground Craft for wheeled drones, Rotor Craft for Rotor drones etc.)
2) No, a drone doesn't *need* an autosoft, but the Autosoft adds to the Pilot rating of the drone when performing those actions. Considering how low many Pilot ratings are, Autosofts are a must if you want your drones to be useful, especially the Targeting ones. 3) Drones already have "assumed" Matrix attribs equal to their Pilot rating. However, most of the time this means a half-decent Hacker or guy with a Directional Jammer can totally screw up your drones. A Drone's Matrix attribs can be improved just like a Commlink's (and probably should). 4) A Drone cannot run a program above its Pilot rating, or System rating if that was improved. |
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Jan 26 2006, 05:53 PM
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#3
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
Thank you.
That was very helpful and cleared up several things for me. |
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Jan 26 2006, 06:38 PM
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#4
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,486 Joined: 17-March 05 From: Michigan Member No.: 7,180 |
Is there an ECM program in SR4? |
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Jan 26 2006, 08:03 PM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
No, not a "program". I guess I should have said "ECM device"
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Jan 26 2006, 08:12 PM
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#6
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
Another Question
The Drone Rigger in the book has the Autosofts; Targeting (Heavy Weapons) 4 and Targeting (Automatics) 4. I guess for the weapons on his Drones (a LMG and a Automatic). But Drones are considered vehicles and would require the Gunnery Skill to fire the weapons mounted on them. The character even has Gunnery 4 as a skill. So am I correct in believing that the Autosoft; Targeting (Gunnery) would work for all the weapons mounted on his drones? |
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Jan 26 2006, 08:14 PM
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#7
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
I read that to mean Targeting(Weapon Type) is the replacement for the Gunnery Skill.
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Jan 26 2006, 08:18 PM
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#8
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
Ok got it.
So the Drone Rigger can load his drones with Autosofts from his Commlink as needed. |
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Jan 26 2006, 11:49 PM
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#9
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Target Group: Members Posts: 70 Joined: 20-January 06 Member No.: 8,185 |
Why Decrypt?
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Jan 26 2006, 11:52 PM
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#10
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Bingo. |
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Jan 27 2006, 01:17 AM
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#11
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
remeber that with digital wireless signals, ECM is as much about putting out oddball datapackages as it is about noice. and a general radio transmitter can turn into a ecm unit if you just feed it the right waveforms and similar, if it can put out the frequency range needed.
ECM is a very broad term... and with a D/A converter hooked to the right kind of radio, a program can do a whole host of funny things... |
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Jan 27 2006, 03:20 AM
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#12
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
The drone actually uses its automatics skill to fire its weaponry, not gunnery. The rigger uses gunnery to fire the drone's weaponry if that's what he is doing. So a gunnery autosoft is almost completely useless. But the Rigger will want a very high gunnery skill. I'm just pointing that out because Gunnery wasn't actually on the list of skills for a Drone Rigger to have, and of course it should be. Gunnery, Electronic Warfare, Pilot: justabouteverything, Hardware. You can get by without any other skills, but of course life is kind of crappy as a Shadowrunner if you don't have at least a little bit of the Influence and Stealth groups.
Decrypt should be on the list with Spoof as one of those programs used to screw with other riggers. If you just intend to pilot wanjinas around, you don't need it. But if you want to take control of other riggers' shiznit, you do. -Frank |
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Jan 27 2006, 03:45 PM
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#13
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
Ok,
Lets take a look at the drones themselves. For example. GM-Nissan Doberman The discription says that it is a medium sized crawler drone that is equally effective during daytime or nighttime. It comes equiped with one weapon (LMG or smaller) and Clearsight 3 and Targeting 3 Autosoft programs. Handling:0 Accel: 10/25 Speed: 75 Pilot: 3 Body: 3 Armor: 6 Sensor: 3 Avail: 6 Cost: 3,000 Let's say it comes with a Ingram White Knight Light Machine Gun which normally costs 2,000 and the two Autosoft programs cost 600 each. Thats 2600 for the gun and the programs. I guess the drone itself is costs only 400??? So I would think that drone CAN be equiped with a LMG or small but that is already stated in the Weapon Mounts section on page 341. Now the next thing. How is it that the drone is "equally effective during daytime or nighttime". Does it's sensors have low-light vision, etc? It doesn't say. But wait there is a section on Sensors on page 325! Lets look at that. Sensor Packages. I guess the Doberman would be considered a small drone as there is no catigory for medium drones. Mounted/Small Drone Capacity: 5 Signal: 4 Page 212 says that a Signal Rating of 4 has a 1 km Signal Range. Boy lots of flipping around for stuff in this book. Let's say that I want to increase the Sensor Rating of the Drone. Humm I don't know if you can do that because I cannot find it. Sensor Functions take up Capacity in the Sensor Package. Ok. I want this guy to be good at night so there should be a night vision or thermographic function that I can add right?? Nope none here! One page 324 there are vision enhancements but can you add them to a Sensor Package? One more thing. I want to improve the Pilot rating on my drone. Page 321 gives me the costs. The drone already has a rating of 3 and to increase it to 4 costs 2500. This is getting pretty expensive! ;) The Drone Rigger on page 92 has a GM-Nissan Doberman drone (well two) under his Vehicles & Drones section. Pilot 4, check. Signal 4, check. Firewall 4 and Response 4? Wait do I have to buy Firewall and Response for my drone as well or is it what ever the Pilot rating is? Can I increase the Firewall and not the Pilot rating if I want? So many Questions. I think I need to write a Drone Buying Cheat Sheet to help myself out. |
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Jan 27 2006, 04:18 PM
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#14
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Target Group: Members Posts: 35 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,658 |
This made no sense to me. We ruled that it came with a weapon *mount* (a value of 2,500Y), not an actual weapon. The drone is ~1,000Y more expensive that the rest, IMHO because of its 6 points of armor. An LMG would increase its availability and decrease it legality considerably. milspec |
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Jan 27 2006, 04:29 PM
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#15
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Target Group: Members Posts: 35 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,658 |
I would think you need to pay for the total cost of Agent 4 in order to get the functionality of Rating 4 Pilot. That means 10,000Y, not 2,500Y. You would also need a System and Response increase to handle that rating 4 program: 2,000Y for System 4, and Response 4 for 2,000Y. The reason you want an increased Firewall is because your stock Reponse 3 / Signal 3 / Firewall 3 / System 3 drone is pretty easy for a good hacker to break into: Hacking Skill 5 + Exploit Program 5 + HotVR 2 = 12 dice (4 hits on average) Firewall 3 + Admin Account 6 = extended test of 9. That means in 3 combat *passes* the Hacker has compromised your drone. And he gets 3 passes per turn in Hot VR. In summary: the drone is basically a commlink that walk/flies and shoots. You need to upgrade all of the commlink-related attributes in order to upgrade its Pilot, and you should probably have a Rating 5 Firewall on anything you really care about. (And Rating 5 Analyse to help detect break-ins, with requires a Rating 5 System and Response to run it on.) Drones are expensive. They can also shoot LMGs at max range from the sky. milspec |
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Jan 27 2006, 05:10 PM
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#16
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The Dragon Never Sleeps Group: Admin Posts: 6,924 Joined: 1-September 05 Member No.: 7,667 |
For a Drone, I think Pilot = System. You don't buy system seperately. The Pilot is the dedicated System, a Drone Pilot can't leave the drone to act as an Agent in another node. Out of Chargen: Pilot 4 = 10,000 (Availability 12...) Firewall 4 = 2,000 Response 4 = 2,000 Signal 5 = 1,000 ECCM 4 = 4,000 (To prevent Jamming) Decrypt 4 = 4,000 (Useful for capturing the surrounding signal traffic) Stealth 4 = 4,000 (To help against finding and tracking your drone) Autosoft Maneuver 4 = 2,000 Autosoft Targeting 4 = 2,000 Autosoft Clearsight 4 = 2,000 Autosoft Defense 4 = 2,000 Autosoft Electronic Warfare 4 = 2,000 So a nice rating 4 drone, not including standard program costs, can run you 37,000 + the base cost of the drone. Add a nice sensor package for another 4,000 and you are getting to 45,000 for a very nice drone you are still going to want to upgrade as soon as you can to get a better pilot on it. |
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Jan 27 2006, 05:17 PM
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#17
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Target Group: Members Posts: 35 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,658 |
Nice catch - thanks. milspec |
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Jan 27 2006, 05:21 PM
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#18
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 16-August 05 Member No.: 7,558 |
For programs like ECCM, Decrypt, Stealth, etc. Can the Rigger just download the programs from his Commlink into his drones as needed? Or do you have to purchase each program for each Drone?
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Jan 27 2006, 05:25 PM
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#19
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,486 Joined: 17-March 05 From: Michigan Member No.: 7,180 |
You have to crack them first. But the rules make this retardedly easy. Buy them once, share them with everything. |
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Jan 27 2006, 05:29 PM
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#20
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
To removed the retardation of ease I recommend that you read the rules, which are vague, as requiring you to crack for each working copy you make. So cracking isn't so much removing the protection as it is adapting the copy to the target by making a single copy of the license protection count. Non-retarded GMing begets non-retarded RAW. :) |
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Jan 27 2006, 05:31 PM
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#21
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,486 Joined: 17-March 05 From: Michigan Member No.: 7,180 |
Still doesn't take very long. Spending a few hours cracking software for a drone rather than spending thousands of nuyen re-buying it all is a no brainer.
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Jan 27 2006, 05:34 PM
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#22
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
With the open ended wording of the rules for cracking, software worth using should take close to an 8 hour day or more to copy for midling skill crackers. It doesn't make a huge difference with one or two drones with one or two programs. But outfitting an army of 8 or 10 drones with 4 or 5 programs will take a couple of months of dedicated work instead of less than a week. |
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Jan 27 2006, 05:51 PM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
This is something that, again, isn't really clear. I would say "yes" but if you download a program to your drone it cannot be running on your Commlink. If you want it to be able to run on both locations then you must make a copy of the program according to the rules given for pirating software. |
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Jan 27 2006, 06:03 PM
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#24
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 24-March 05 From: On a ledge between Heaven and Hell Member No.: 7,226 |
for those insane hackers I add an ICE program.
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Jan 28 2006, 02:20 PM
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#25
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,076 Joined: 31-August 05 From: Rock Hill, SC Member No.: 7,655 |
I think a Databomb program is a cheap but nice investment. Set it up on your drones and have it go off on intruders AND alert you to the attempt. Inconvenient for hackers, painful for Technomancers.
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