Rigging and Hacking Questions, What do you use for what? Options

[DireRadiant]

You may wish to read p. 220 Controlling Devices which contains the following statements.

"Remotely
controlling a drone would take a Command + vehicle skill Test,
and so on.
Note that remotely controlling a drone in this matter
is different from rigging a drone (requiring you to “jump
into� the drone with full VR and “become� the drone) or
issuing commands to a drone (in which case it acts on its
own accord)."

[Jaid]

essentially, you have the dicepools for controlling drones directly via the command program correct. however, control device (the action in question) is a matrix action: you can use it in AR, but you can also use it in VR. thus, the drawbacks are actually:

1) you can't use the control rig (however, you can take codeslinger in control device, which is basically just more expensive)

2) it is mostly limited to one vehicle at a time. you could theoretically drive 4 at once, by making a single driving action in each one (having your icon in 4 different places) if you had 4 matrix IPs, but at that point they really aren't doing anything worthwhile, just driving around.

3) it is always a complex action. a drone can take a simple action to do a sensor test. so can a rigger. control device is always a complex action, however.

4) the reduced threshold for vehicle tests is not applied to the remote control rigger, whereas a jumped-in rigger does get it.

so yes, a rigger who only intends to ever operate drones 1 at a time, and intends to directly operate them all the time, does not need to invest in good response, pilot, or autosofts for their drones. that being said, having half a dozen drones that are stronger than normal *plus* the rigger's drone means that the rigger can have a much more effective force... it is basically only a replacement for jumped-in rigging, it is not a replacement for drone armies at all.

so basically, you seem to have it figured out now, from what i can tell. yes, it is a very good method of control... but note that (for example) a response 6 vehicle can run a reality filter (boosting it's response to 7) giving you effectively 7 for the attribute. a control rig adds another +2... that's 9 dice for just about any action before throwing in any skills, at a cost of about 20k :nuyen: or 4 BP whereas in order to get 8 dice before skills in any action the remote controller is spending 10 BPs for the codeslinger quality alone.

[Kyoto Kid]

...so for a Matrix Specialist who is not a Rigger, drones are pretty much useless as she cannot make use use the sensors for surveillance unless she has the rigging implant and has "jumped in" or is directly controlling the drone using the appropriate vehicle skill?

[DireRadiant]

I believe drone perception tests are Drone Sensor + Character Perception, either jumped in, VR or AR. The Drone on it's own just uses Sensor + Clearsight.

[Jaid]

actually, it's plenty useful.

first off, you can order the drone to make a sensor check itself. that's likely to have at least a reasonably decent dicepool, if you make the investment (sensor 3 + clearsight 3 is easily achieved, and adding in a camera to the drone's sensors with vision augmentation on it adds up to another 3 dice fairly easily).

secondly, it doesn't explicitly say, but you should realistically be able to take control of just the drone's camera, for example.

(for the record, LTA vehicles are a subset of pilot aircraft, and iballs are a subset of groundcraft, being a ground vehicle that does not use legs to travel, so the skills required are not that obscure... i tend to bring up that kind of thing whenever someone suggests a vehicle skill group for riggers, because quite frankly each vehicle skill is a skill group discounted to the cost of just one skill =P)

[Kyoto Kid]

...so since her Stormcloud did have a camera + vision enhancement III and vision mag I was rolling the correct DP then..

[Alphastream]

[Jaid]

it's fairly clear if you look at the examples. the command program itself is not linked to any skill. the examples given are vehicle skill + command to pilot a vehicle, mechanic + command to remote control repair stuff, etc. the matrix mechanics are also quite clear: program + skill. in the case of command, the skill is not a hacking skill (necessarily), it's the skill that you would use to accomplish the desired task.

it's a matrix action, the rules for which are fairly clear [edit] they're fairly clear on how you roll them at least, if not always about when you roll them ;) [/edit].

This post has been edited by Jaid: Nov 20 2007, 02:26 AM

[DireRadiant]

[Kyoto Kid]

...OK, so this is how I see it.

Vi wants ti use the cameras in her LTA drone to scope out the roof and area surrounding a building in detail. For this she uses her Control programme (she is only using the camera while the drone hovers above) the drone's sensor rating and the Visual Enhancement 3 That comes to 11 dice (5 for programme, 3 for the drone's sensors and 3 for the vision enhancement).

Next she wants the drone to warn the team while they are inside if anyone apporaches and enters the building. This would mean she has to release the drone to it's pilot and clearsight + Vision Enhancement. So, if someone does come up to the outer door, does the drone need to roll again to send her the alert?

Now she wants the drone to follow someone. She uses her Control DP to have it snap a still image (using it's vision mag) and keep that in memory. Next she has to issue a set of orders to the drone. It is to follow the mark until he reaches his destination, note the location and return to a predetermined set of coordinates to report She releases it to its pilot and Maneuver autosoft. Does she need piloting skill to issue the command set, or does she use her Control utility since the drone will be functioning on internal systems until it returns?

[DireRadiant]

I suggest the following

[Jaid]

i agree with direradiant on all but one minor point... you don't need command to issue commands to your drone. it just doesn't even need to be there. it's used for remote controlling stuff, and that's pretty much it.

[DireRadiant]

[Kyoto Kid]

...thanks for the help. Still kind of feeling out some of the 4e rules. Yeah I could have made her a Rigger/Matrix Specialist but it didn't really fit her backstory and her Infiltration/B & E skills have been so bloody helpful to the team.