Rigger/Decker, How would you do it? Options

[Connor]

Yes, the Matrix book does sort of. It has requirements for the amount of bandwidth and speed of the connection and how it relates to tasks in the Matrix. Slower speeds impose penaties and faster speeds don't. The wireless links they list and give stats for are High-Speed Cellular Link, Laser Link, Microwave Link, Radio Link, and Satellite Uplink. All of them have their pros and cons as to when to use them and such.

[Lilt]

Ah. thanks. I'm considering putting this project on hold until I get my grubby little mits on a copy of the matrix book, and I'm holding-off buying it for a coupple of weeks as I have a lot of work to do at uni. Pray-tell: What are the penalties for using a cellular link?

[Kagetenshi]

Max I/O speed of 100 MPPS, IIRC. My books are about a thousand miles away right now.

~J

[Connor]

Yes, max I/O is 100, also base bandwidth is 5 (opposed to 50 with sat link) and there's a +3 Access modifier and -3 Trace modifier.

[Lilt]

Well: As I don't have the book; I have no idea what those terms mean :D

I'll be fine. I'll just resurrect this thread in 2 weeks time once I have the Matrix book.

[Lilt]

BAH! My local store dosen't have it anyway. Anyone know who'd have it in the UK? amazon.co.uk have one copy- for >£75! Compare that to $30 from amazon.com including shipping. Anyone know who in the UK might stock it?

[Raiko]

Leisure Games appear to have it in stock for £12.99.

[Lilt]

Yeah. I found it there and phoned up to check before ordering both it and T:M. That'll finally be all of the core rules expansions in my posession... Perhaps I should start using the SR geek code I've seen people around using.

[Lilt]

OK: Before those books arrive: What skill selection do you think I should go for?
Right now I'm looking at:
Small Unit Tactics 6
Computer 6
Computer B/R 6
Electronics B/R 4
Car 4
Walker 4
Mechanical Arm Operations 4
Ettiquette(Matrix) 3(5)

From 38Pts (Build points system, I could give him some flaws to get a few more)

I'm missing vehicle B/R skills which could (sort-of) be done by MR Fix its. I'm also missing Gunnery, Launch Weapons, and any other form of offensive skill. I think I may be best getting a rating 3 skillwires system and ratink 3 CED for skills like Walker B/R and Car B/R. That makes the character instantly cost 50K more, and gives him very little extra ability during a run as you can't use skillwires while decking or drone-rigging.

[edit]Admitantly I probably should drop my attributes a bit, It's kinda hard to justify 643476 when your character dosen't get out much. Is Willpower important for rigger/Deckers much?[/edit]

[Kurukami]

Personally, I've grown greatly dubious of the benefits of Small Unit Tactics. You have to roll far too many successes for far too little benefit, in my opinion. Two successes on a fairly high TN to get +1 initiative or +1 to combat/hacking pool? Sorry, but I can think of more useful things to spend 6 skill points on -- like Gunnery: 6.

In my opinion, you can probably get away with a lower Computer (B/R). If you've got a cerebral booster, an encephalon, or enhanced articulation, you're already getting a bonus to the skill either directly or through a task pool. Additionally, most (B/R) skills (with the possible exception of Electronics (B/R), which can come in handy in cracking maglocks and security systems during a run) are skills you'll have plenty of downtime to work with. Generally, I don't think you need to have that one at 6.

[Lilt]

I'm fairly firmly decided on the Small Unit Tactics thing... It's a feature of the character pretty-much. In-fact I'm even considering making my guy more of a tactician and taking Aptitude(Small Unit Tactics) If my GM lets me. On A TN of 3-4, rolling possibly 13 dice (6 Skill + 4 Tactical Computer + 2 Encaphelon + 1 Cerebral Booster), I'm looking at 3-4 extra combat pool for each of my teammates.

The character has gone through some fairly big changes since I initially envisioned him. He is now primarily a decker who owns maybe three or four drones (A Mr Fix It, A micro-walker JackDrone, a Steel Lynx, and a mini-blimp). He primarily runs Overwatch and gives tactical advice to the team, possibly doing datasteals from systems not connected to the matrix or behind nasty bottlenecks.

[Lilt]

Heh. Just trying to make this character up in NSRCG... Looks like I'm going to be dropping a fair bit of the rigger stuff... IE: almost all of it. I'll Keep an RC deck (and the jackdrone/mr fix it) but no VCR and, to start-off with, no protocol emulation module. I'm going to wait and see if I want the battletac master unit from CC or the battletac program from the Matrix book.

Also: I'm sure I saw it somewhere but I can't find it right now: there wee some rules for hooking drone sensors up-to a battletac system, something like they could count as the sensor rating in senses. Can anyone find a page ref for this?

[Kagetenshi]

If you've got a team of three runners, SUT is nigh-useless.
If, on the other hand, you've got six to eight runners, it's one of the most beautiful skills you can have.

~J

edit: The reference you want is about the BattleTac computer in Man and Machine, exact page unknown. I'll look it up in the morning if you want.

[Fortune]

[Siege]

I dunno -- a point or two allows me to justify buying tac gear, wearing appropriately colored clothing and behaving like an almost professional instead of the goofy go-ganger with a big gun. :grinbig:

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

A good point. SUT can be fun for any group, but it only truly shines once you get large groups together. That +2 or +3 to initiative or combat pool is a lot nicer when it's a total of +16 to +24, spread across the group.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

What are you talking about, Kagetenshi? To use my best Inigo Montoya voice, "I don't think the Small Unit Tactic skill does what you think it does."

[Kagetenshi]

You make one SUT roll. Then, everyone you are in communication with that you're using the skill on gets half of your successes against their unique TN. Assuming 8 people and 2 successes on each (a bit optimistic, but not massively so if properly prepared), that results in a net +8 across the group. Each person only gets +1, but it's still more significant than three people getting +1s. Get properly outfitted, and that could be 4 successes without too much trouble.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

Uhm, the successes don't get spread out amongst the group. Everyone gets their own successes based upon their own TN, as determined by the "leaders" orders (Small Unit Tactics roll). So whether you have one person or one hundred people, they're all benefiting from it in exactly the same manner.

But if I'm reading you right (and I'm not sure that I am), according to your logic no skill, ability, or bonus is worthwhile unless you have a large group. Afterall, six dice for Stealth with one person is nothing compared to sixty dice of Stealth with ten people, eh? Because, like, 60 is bigger than 6 and stuff.

[Kagetenshi]

Er... no. Because if you roll a 100 for Stealth and the guy next to you rule-of-1s, it doesn't matter what you rolled; your roll affects you and you alone. My point with SUT is because the results of it positively affect all of your teammates, the more teammates you have the greater the sum total of the effect, and thus the better it is.
And I said that everyone gets their own number of successes based on their individual TN. However, it's not unreasonable to assume that most of those TNs are going to be similar. Varying TNs doesn't change anything, it just makes giving examples harder.

~J

[Fortune]

But you stated that with fewer people the SUT skill is 'nigh-useless'. This is clearly not the case at all.

[Ol' Scratch]

Okay, bad example. How about this one?

Are you saying that Stunball (or any other area-effect spell for that matter) is pretty useless if only used against, say, three guards. It should only be bothered to be learned and used if you expect to regularly encounter a cluster of 1,000 guards all packed in really close? Because 18D damage is worthless compared to 6,000D damage? So don't bother ever getting area-effect spells for that reason?

How about using plastic explosives? So what if 1 kilo is enough to get you past that obstacle there? If you're not bothering to throw down 10,000 metric tons of it, it's not worth doing?

Or how about armor? Sure, that Armor 6 spell might seem nice on the surface, it pales in comparison to Armor 500... so don't bother with Armor 6 because Armor 500 helps out better in case of a tactical nuclear strike?

I just don't get this logic. Yes, large groups get a large benefit from Small Unit Tactics if you add them all together (for whatever bizarre reason you want to do that). But so what? You're a Shadowrun team. Unless you're going up against an army, the benefit you get from Small Unit Tactics is still just as groovy for you and your team when you're encountering a couple of guards as it is when you're in an army about to invade another country. You and your group are still getting +X Combat Pool dice or +X to your Initiative either way.

[Kagetenshi]

I corrected myself about its nigh-uselessness. It's effective at all levels, what I meant to say is that it's more effective with more people than with less. Your examples all have downsides to the increased quantities; with SUT, the more the merrier, up until the maximum amount of people who can reasonably be on a given run effectively.
I'm stating that more is better for SUT, not for everything.

~J

[Lilt]

Bear in mind that a character can only effectively command a number of small units equal to his/her skill. thus starting characters can only give bonuses to 8 or so people simultaniously. SUT is also immensely valuable when dealing with IVIS systems.