Riggers in SR4!, What all is needed? Options

[eightball1011]

Hey. I looked everywhere for a post similar to this but just couldn't find what I was looking for, so here it is.

I am very new to SR4, as in downloaded it yesterday. I am wanting to make a rigger, but never have before. I understand how the commlink and control rig work, but what about the autosofts? Do I have to have autosofts and firewall programs for the control rig, each vehicle, and each drone? Or do the softs and firewall for my control rig handle all of that? Is firewall and control all that I need?
Will I need basic computer hacking skills in order to use drones and vehicles? Sorry, but SR4 "wireless world" section just all seems like a jumbled mess for me.

I read through this section in the book, but found almost no mention of riggers, except the 2 page section under Hackers. Someone please let me know what all is needed for a rigger to function.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[hobgoblin]

each drone and comlink will need a firewall. but only the drones need autosoft (its the drones skills).

for skills, focus on electronic warfare (for messing with other peoples drones), maybe a bit of hacking if you feel like taking drones over rather then just messing with them, and vehicle skills if you plan to drive them. remember that any vehicle with a pilot rating is potentialy a drone.

[Voran]

If you can afford it, I'd say just go for skill groups that let you do both rigging and hacking. In a way, I find rigging and hacking to be a bit easier to get into that previous rigging/decking from SR3 and before. You no longer have to invest a large essence chunk to get rigger cybergear, nor spend as much to get a decent 'deck' in this case, comlink. Hell, you can cart around a handful or more of deck-like comlinks nowadays in SR4.

[hobgoblin]

another thing is that you can in theory do more split roles to. given that you can go hot sim with trode, a mage or adept can moonlight as a hacker without the cost in essence.

im trying to get my players to use the data search skill and similar now to show that people dont need to be a dedicated hacker to find info online any more. hell, maybe i should just sell them a agent with search and have them use that :smokin:

[Shrike30]

I've found that a couple of snide remarks from the Johnson along the lines of "Uh, you're the guys being hired here, look it up," has encouraged my players to explore the wonders of the Matrix a little more. Pretty helpful tool, actually.

[hobgoblin]

yep. and most likely they will hit the grid a bit more now that they have to get into a yaquza (or is it yacuza? nah, neither looks right) property ;)

and that reminds me to get hold of some maps. and maybe a bulding design program to trow together some quick floorplans for stuff like offices.

[James McMurray]

Yakuza

[ronin3338]

Yakuza.

;)

(Curse you James, and your superior type fu!)

[Aaron]

[hobgoblin]

figures. why is it that of all things that is a word that uses a sane spelling?

[Kanada Ten]

Because it's not an English word, just a phonetic representation of a Japanese one?

[hobgoblin]

heh, what is realy a english word? many of them are taken from french, germanic offshots, and most likely lot of other sources :P

[Kanada Ten]

Yeah, and they took the fragged spelling with each and every stolen word.

[CradleWorm]

Drones themselves do not need firewall or system programs. Drones are devices that are subscribed to a commlink and make decisions using a special program (Pilot).

Your commlink is limited to a number of subscribed devices, I'm not sure the exact number but I think it has to do with your commlinks system attribute.

Your character will need a control link to access vehicles cybernetically.

Finally, I would strongly suggest a good firewall program for your commlink, along with encrypt and eccm. Several others could come in handy and I would read the matrix rules to figure out exactly what else you may need.

[Aaron]

[Shrike30]

Firewalling your drones is a really good idea. Nothing sucks quite so much as having one of them come back at you, all of a sudden...

[Aaron]

[The Jopp]

The scary thing is that according to the RAW you can intercept the signal of the drone, put a wireless tap on it and EDIT the signal.

This means that you can circumvent the spoof command rules and have preprogrammed commands that you just insert into the datastream back to the drone.

The most efficient way to do this is to send a datapackage with a new subscription list.

[Serbitar]

You have to be in a node that is relaying the signal to edit it. The air the wireless signal is going through does NOT count as such a node.

[The Jopp]

[Serbitar]

You can only copy/record/forward with wirelss. For adding own or blocking or editing you need wired traffic through a node. Good rules in this case, I have to say.

edit: Should have red a little further. Your right. But do not ask me how you can alter radio waves going through the air . . . So I have to say: Bad rules . . . I dont like this one bit.

[The Jopp]

[Serbitar]

Yeah, just edited my post . ..

[The Jopp]

[Serbitar]

I would just disallow to edit wireless trafic. I see no physical way of doing this.
Editing traffic is done by deleting the old traffic and inserting your own, which can be done in a node. But there is no way to delete the radio waves that are already in the air.

Solution: The "edit traffic" rule works only for "content" traffic (like text, voice comunications, pictures). If you want to edit traffic involving IDs, commands and pretty much "system" data, you have to use the old spoofing/hacking rules.