[SR3] Rigger- Health & Safety in the workplace Options

[Mach_Ten]

Thanks for Activating my Spambot ability RedJack, I promise my Viagra sales @ at least 70.5% Discount (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Now for something completely different.

We will once again be venturing into the shadows this weekend, and I cannot wait.

Mach Ten, my Dwarven, Drone + Vehicular Rigger has been sat with his chrome rusting for far too long.

But there are words of advice I would hear from this wise council, before I contact the J. or take any jobs.

A) Last time I nearly bought the farm thanks to a drecky dodge roll and a Zapper Missile !
all of my equipment (RCD, Drones and all my electronics... and ME) were in the Bulldog when it hit and Fried the lot
Obviously, I'm a bit nervous now and want to take some measures to avoid a re-occurance.
So, are there any electrical vehicle additions and protections I can take to prevent at least systems damage ? ( I can repair the vehicle, hopefully)

B) My combat drones (3 x Dobermanns, 3 Roto-Drones) are pretty well setup, but my Recon (SB Skimmer2, Arachnids) lack the CF to add sensors or do anything to complement their size
Is there anything I could look to do tactically to use them better ?

C) We currently outsource our DECKING requirements to contacts, for 2 reasons I'm sure you understand, Matrix is boring for 3 hours for everyone else not involved. and Deckers crave the outdoors as much as a ventilated cranium !
So, I'm buying gear and learning the skills to effectively "hack" into any CCSS or Rigged security system
I've read and re-read the rules and kinda get it .. but is there something to make it "simpler" . and also, what ECCM should I buy to make sure any counter counter counter attacks are not an issues for me ?


Thanks for listening,

[Mach_Ten]

okay I guess the mini wall of text (and the SR3 bit) scared a few folks off commenting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif)

I'll paraphrase a bit.

1) any ideas for stuff to protect 750,000 Nuyen worth of vehicle from electronic attack (Zapper missile / Zapper strip)

2) Ideas to improve the usability of small drones for espionage, minor tweaks or tactics seeing as they have low CF

3) bits of gear or ideas for being the ANTI-Sec Rigger, I see it as opening the doors and keeping overwatch while the team do the insertion.

Thanks once more

[nezumi]

I never really played a rigger, but remembering the guy who did;

1) Park far away and use retransmitters. Also make sure you have mechanical brake and weapon systems. Also set up your own faraday cage, using a metal box grounded to the vehicle (or better, to the road). Inside of that, you maintain backup communications systems, so you can boot up your remote air drone and bring it over as supporting fire until you can get yourself out.

2) You can get equipment from the SR3 gear section (laser mics, scopes, etc.) and put those on without much issue. Ideally, the data is transmitted back to your base for analysis.

[Kliko]

1) Use another vehicle to launch your drones from. You can also use it in a tank-role.

[Mach_Ten]

Thanks Nezumi, Kliko.

I'll see if my DM will let me B/R vehicle up a Faraday cage and some insulation to at least protect all my Rigger vehicle mounted gear from attack

and throw the Arachnids some love with I presume you mean Cyberware ? like finger tools and stuff that would theoretically fit onto something of small size

(Laser Torch I'm thinking) micro pew pew (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

...

I am now considering "Rigging" a VW Camper Van and throwing some bright dayglo colours on it,
covering it in "peace" signs and watching the Crew's faces drop in Horror as their "ride" arrives to collect them for a recon job !

Shock and awe = priceless, for everything else there's Depleted Uranium!

[nezumi]

and throw the Arachnids some love with I presume you mean Cyberware ? like finger tools and stuff that would theoretically fit onto something of small size

I just used the surveillance gear listed. My GM never had an issue for mini-drones. Something like a microphone should be tiny.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I just used the surveillance gear listed. My GM never had an issue for mini-drones. Something like a microphone should be tiny.

Hey, A Sensor RFID can mount a Single Micorphone (rating 1), and then use the Drones Signal to transmit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Kagetenshi]

Hey, A Sensor RFID can mount a Single Micorphone (rating 1), and then use the Drones Signal to transmit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No such thing. SR3, remember.

1) any ideas for stuff to protect 750,000 Nuyen worth of vehicle from electronic attack (Zapper missile / Zapper strip)

Well, there are a few issues here.

First off, it's not clear under what grounds the GM ruled that the Zapper "fried the lot"—neither the rocket nor the strip describe any special effect on vehicle contents. The rules on SR3 p147 are vague (shock) on whether passengers can take damage any time the vehicle does or just when it takes damage from a collision; in principle the GM could be interpreting that broadly (and additionally interpreting the drones to be passengers—I don't see any grounds under which the RCD could be considered a passenger and thus subject to damage), but even then the damage passengers face isn't antivehicular, so there should be a -1DL (and if the drones could have expected to have been restrained, that's another -1DL. The GM may require Drone Racks or some other explicit accommodation to apply the restraints modification).

So you're really looking for a way to protect your brain-meats and your vehicle itself, or I guess your drones on a single-target basis (since they can be hit by such things individually themselves if they leave the vehicle). For brain-meats, aside from buying more Willpower you could turn your van into a drone and run it via remote-control (depending on interpretation that may lose you the Vehicle Empathy bonus, if you have it) or buy and install Remote-Control Biofeedback Filters to drop the Power of such damage by up to 3. For the vehicle itself, you're basically looking at variations on a theme of armor. Other approaches, if you haven't already used up everything, is reducing Handling to dodge Zapper rockets or possibly improving Sensor to spot and evade Zapper strips before you hit them.

2) Ideas to improve the usability of small drones for espionage, minor tweaks or tactics seeing as they have low CF

Vector Kimji

Chassis: Micro UAV (Markup .25)

Power Plant: Electric Fuel Cell

DPV: 313

Final Cost: ¥7,825

Hand. 4, Speed 50, Accel 4, Body 0, Armor 0, Sig 12, Auto 0, Pilot 1, Sensor 1, Cargo 0, Load 0, Fuel EC (9 PF), Econ .25 Km/PF

Spotlight, Infrared Spotlight

Aside from that (and, for other drones, noting that spotlights and infrared spotlights don't cost CF or have weight), see p135 SR3; Rating 1 Sensors have a lot of what you want, and you can upgrade magnification or vision modes for no CF or weight (p32, R3).

Also set up your own faraday cage, using a metal box grounded to the vehicle (or better, to the road).

Aside from the rules not clearly supporting the need for this, a faraday cage gets way off into GM-created-rules territory.

what ECCM should I buy to make sure any counter counter counter attacks are not an issues for me ?

The asymmetry between Broadcast Encryption and Broadcast Decryption means that if you invest in level 3-5 Encryption (expensive, but not necessarily budget-busting) the MIJI rules unfortunately collapse into the J rules—breaking into encrypted broadcast networks is really hard, and also much more expensive on offense than on defense, so to some extent you can just get away with signal amplifiers to burn through jamming attempts.

~J

[Manunancy]

First off, it's not clear under what grounds the GM ruled that the Zapper "fried the lot"—neither the rocket nor the strip describe any special effect on vehicle contents. The rules on SR3 p147 are vague (shock) on whether passengers can take damage any time the vehicle does or just when it takes damage from a collision; in principle the GM could be interpreting that broadly (and additionally interpreting the drones to be passengers—I don't see any grounds under which the RCD could be considered a passenger and thus subject to damage), but even then the damage passengers face isn't antivehicular, so there should be a -1DL (and if the drones could have expected to have been restrained, that's another -1DL. The GM may require Drone Racks or some other explicit accommodation to apply the restraints modification).

In my opinion if the drones were either connected wit ha wire interface or plugged into a power outlet to keep them charged and ready, they definitevly qualify for a jolt (maybe not up to fried') - the charge blleds throug ht carrier's electrical system.

A drone that's shut off will probably reduce the damage as the charge wold have to hump though and open interuptor and one that's powered down and not connected should be fairly immune.

[Kagetenshi]

In my opinion if the drones were either connected wit ha wire interface or plugged into a power outlet to keep them charged and ready, they definitevly qualify for a jolt (maybe not up to fried') - the charge blleds throug ht carrier's electrical system.

But your opinion isn't supported by canon—none of the weapons descriptions for Zapper-type weapons mention any such effect. A GM may well decide to add in such an effect by fiat, but one of the big problems of doing this is because the effect didn't come from the rules, you're not going to find any protections or countermeasures in the rules either.

~J

[Mach_Ten]

cheers guys,

just so you know the event happened in an old session and has been put to bed between me and GM happily.
(he let me boost a Ferrari Appaloosa and get it fitted as a replacement)

the drones in the drone rack were not damaged, only my vehicle and the RCD, VCR and other associated ancilliaries and all the vehicle mods
(sensors, electronics and such) I was Jacked in, I used all my Karma pool to reroll failures on a botched resist roll and still came out with half a brain hemorhage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(rigger 3 lists the cost to repair a damaged vehicle at 5% of MODIFIED vehicle costs per damage box)

so on current vehicle after taking hits from AV rounds or shocker rockets

thats easily 1 million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) x 15% + facilities plus my time or a mechanics

So, I was looking to protect against that eventuality.

I've since decided that selling the vehicle entirely and buying a few less well kitted out vehicles for runs is the better option

Not something I understood at creation and have since learned during play,

it's painful on the credd stick, but that's the price of being an "in the Van" Rigger I guess

[Kagetenshi]

Again, it's not clear on what grounds the GM is ruling the RCD to have been damaged—the design philosophy seems to have been to protect the gear by passing all surges right to the user's brain.

The VCR issue looks like GM error. Electrical attacks do cause bonus cyberware damage (p127, M&M), but your character didn't take an electrical attack—you got hit by ASIST backlash from the vehicle taking an electrical attack. I guess you could in principle have rolled a Wound Effect that applied to Cyberware just based on your raw damage, but you might want to double-check this with the GM.

That said, yeah, vehicles suffer from a major feast-or-famine problem as regards damage—because AV damage effectively quarters armor compared to non-AV (the base Power isn't halved, and your base armor is), almost any damage that can possibly affect the vehicle is probably going to be quite hard to soak. The best solution is to keep Handling solidly negative so that even with adverse modifiers you're still dodging on 2s.

(For what it's worth, the best ways to really reduce Handling tend to be expensive—IMO, the big-ticket Riggervan is still the best option, though you need to play it conservatively and not go running around thinking you have a tank)

~J

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

No such thing. SR3, remember.

Ooops... Sorry, Forgot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Mach_Ten]

(For what it's worth, the best ways to really reduce Handling tend to be expensive—IMO, the big-ticket Riggervan is still the best option, though you need to play it conservatively and not go running around thinking you have a tank)

~J

Yeah, I need to stop using the Van as insertion / extraction etc. and setup a cheap vehicle to do that role

the flip side of that is participation, I don't want to just sideline myself completely as the Taxi (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) with Zero risk to myself and thus hardly any Karma gain for being on runs..

Don't get me wrong, I love the character, and have bought a shit tonne of dataline taps, ECM and REPM and etc. etc. in an attempt to become more of the
MIJI rigger to help the team be covert by taking over rigged systems and hopefully soon, Drones.

But that just keep putting pressure on the GM to add those factors into the missions to give me summat to do... to the point it feels contrived.

maybe time to give up and roll a street Sam / with rigger implants and skills to do that, so at least I'm there in person

[Kagetenshi]

Yeah, I need to stop using the Van as insertion / extraction etc. and setup a cheap vehicle to do that role

Well, no, you should feel free to do that—the thing is that you want to not loiter in the van between insertion and extraction. For higher-risk runs, you may want to set up a cheap[er] vehicle and use the Van for one of insertion or extraction, with the Van taking the other to minimize exposure.

the flip side of that is participation, I don't want to just sideline myself completely as the Taxi (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) with Zero risk to myself and thus hardly any Karma gain for being on runs..

That's what drones are for (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) it's not too hard to get a 30-kilometer transmission radius.

maybe time to give up and roll a street Sam / with rigger implants and skills to do that, so at least I'm there in person

To some degree it may depend on how the GM plays the operating environment, but my experience has been that the main thing keeping the Rigger from threatening to make the Streetsam obsolete is the difficulty Drones have with doors and tight indoor environments.

~J

[Mach_Ten]

/snip ---- is the difficulty Drones have with doors and tight indoor environments.

~J

DAMN YOU DOORS !!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif) My Ancient enemy,, even Daleks can do freaking stairs these days (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tiralee]

Something that you might not have thought of - the highest possible Vehicle Mask spell you can finangle on your active drone/command van.

No, not to make it look like a delivery truck - "The spell can be used to raise or lower a vehicle's signature by 1 for every 2 successes during the casting, up to a maximum of the spell's Force." MItS p144.

With Vehicle Mask, your armed-for-psima stealth drone just got an extra easy +3-5 sig versus detection, and that's cheap and easy, compared to the usual costs of stealthing a rig.

Admittedly, your ECM/ECCM counterbattery stuff had better be up to stratch or a smart missile will just ride the signal back to the transmitter (Cheap redirection, set up dupicate rigs so you can drop the signal output from one drone net, and reroute your commands thoughout another [B] network - those missiles are not cheap and it's unlikey that they're going to fire off 3 at once, or staggered, unless they're really sure that it's gonna hit - or if they really, really need you dead now.

Frankly, a mage with LOS is a lot more of a danger to you and yours, so you make nice with your magical backup and if possible a few anti-accident bound spirits keeping your rig happy.

But again, this is all up to groups and players (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-Tir