Digging up the rigger rules Options

[Dread Polack]

I played a Rigger for the first time recently, and I found it difficult to gather all the necessary rules from their respective chapter spread throughout the book. Here's what I found out.

Exactly what cyberwear you need: None, it would seem. You can use an external commlink, and sim module with trodes if you wanted to. It also doesn't say you need a control rig to "jump in" to a drone, only that it gives you +2. I would, however, recommend getting all of these implanted, along with a datajack.

Drones: Obviously, they have device ratings, as you will soon need to know in order to run them. However, none of the vehicles seem to list their device ratings. If you read the entire "The Wireless World" chapter, it has, toward the beginning, a table listing sample device ratings, and it lists all drones and normal vehicles as having 3s, and security vehicles as 4. I take it to be that all standard vehicles in the gear list begin with device ratings of 3, which can be upgraded. This info would be nice to have in either the rigging section of the matrix or vehicles & drones section of the gear chapter.

Also, what sort of sensors do drones have? The sample rigger hasn't purchased sensors for his drones, and the rigging section and the drone section in the gear chapter don't say anything about sensors coming with your drones, or rules for adding sensors to your drones. However, if you read the "sensors" section in the gear chapter, it lists various sensor packages and options. It lists capacities for drones and vehicles. It would seem, from this, that drones start off "blind and deaf" and all sensors must be added. It would also be nice if this was mentioned somewhere relevent. Also, microdrones seem to have a capacity of 1- enough for either a camera or a mic, but not both. Assuming they need to see to drive, you're not left with much to chose from. Also also, they don't list capacities for all sizes of drones, so the table either needs to be expanded, or you have to take the next size down.

Controlling drones: Issuing commands seems clear enough. You spend an action issuing a command, and the drone does what it can. The dice pools are fairly well explained, so I have no problem here. The confusion is in what happens when you jump in. It says that when you jump in, you use your own attributes and skills. However, there seem to be some exceptions. I don't have the book in front of me, so correct me where I'm wrong. Observing through a drone's sensors replaces your own intuition with the drone's "Sensor" rating. Also, your initiative is your matrix initiative, which is your "meat" init. if your in AR, your matrix init if you're "jumped in." That includes the 2 passes in cold sim, and 3 in hot sim. Am I correct. The rules aren't explicit.

Am I missing anything?

Dread Polack

[DireRadiant]

[DireRadiant]

Try these.

About Drones

About Drones

About Drones

About Drones

About Drones

About Drones

[Dread Polack]

My Search Fu is weak. Thats why I leave it to you guys. Thanks for the help!

Dread Polack

[hobgoblin]

heh, talking the masters into doing the tasks of an apprentice are we?

[Caine Hazen]

And hopefully when the Hacking chapter FAQ is out it'll all be easier to handle... though I'm loving my rigger as its going so far ;)

[Eryk the Red]

One note about vehicle sensors: It's definitely not clear in the book, but the way I read it is not that vehicles are blind and deaf by default. They have a very basic sensor spread by default, which detects the "signature" of objects and people. (It's likely based on energy emissions.) When using sensors as such, the roll is modified by the signature modifiers in the vehicle section of the combat chapter. You can also add other types of sensors. Using them would be subject to appropriate modifiers. (Light and darkness modifiers for cameras, penalties for ambient noise for microphones, etc.)

That's just one reading of it, though. A lot of folks go with the idea that the Sensors rating is sort of like Intuition for vehicles, and that it doesn't include any specific kind of sensors in it. I choose to assume it includes rudimentary sensors to keep things simple, so that the player who doesn't really want to worry about micromanaging his vehicle's equipment still has something usable.