Rigging without a control rig? One idea. Options

[IndustrialQubed]

The was an idea I had, and my game master seemed to think it had merit... But the idea is carved pretty deeply from the shadowrun setting's bleeding flesh, so we both thought we should get some second opinions: I need to know if what I describe makes sense... And if it does, then if this tweak risks damaging the 'essence' of the game... Enjoy!

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Would it be possible for a decker to write code that could let him 'jump into' a drone the same way a rigger does, only without having to use a control rig implant?

To go strictly by the rulebook? No. Jumping into a rigger enabled drone is something allowed by the modification on the drone, and the control rig and the interface between them... However, when you look into the details 'why', the possibility for one potential workaround becomes remotely possible

The drone modification that allows it to be rigged, links into ALL of a drones sensors and then adds several of it's own. In addition to the drone's cameras, damage sensors and fuel tanks it adds accelerometers, gyroscopes and probably compasses and several others that provide a wealth of additional info that the drone  constantly relays while 'jumped into'. This information is raw, complex and virtually meaningless to a human brain, keeping track of it all is difficult bordering on impossible, tracking more than one thing at a time prevents precision tracking since by the time you double check the speed or the orientation or the position one has changed slightly. A control rig on the other hand, works to make this data intuitive... It's highly-invasive nature is what allows it to work, it is literally threaded through the motor cortex and several other parts of the brain, meaning after a second's orientation you literally ARE the drone.

To put the above in perspective, all of a sudden your eyes are in a different position, and a different size, and can either rotate more, or possibly less than your human eyes can. Your limbs now work COMPLETELY differently... some senses your brain relied upon it's entire life are completely gone, but then you have new senses you've never had before in your life and several senses you have are either far crisper than your brain can normally interpret or very dull or practically numb. But the control rig allows you to adapt instantly... Forcing your brain to adapt like that, well... if you were running a matrix simulation of what this would be like, just the sensation, it would probably be like learning to walk all over again, taking days of training and adaptation just to reliably move, let alone be manueverable, so weeks or months total. That is for EACH MODEL by the way, and everytime you switch you would need to relearn... it's ridiculous, which is why they came up with the control rig in the first place, it takes a huge mass of data that your senses can't understand, translates it and feeds it instantly to the part of your brain that needs to know... then you grasp it, not just quickly, but INSTANTLY. infact you grasp it so intuitively you feel the delicate balance and shift of a drone even better than your own body, getting the control rig's rating as a bonus on manuevering. (of course, just because you *understand* how a tank corners better than knowing how your body own body corners does doesn't make the tank better at cornering than your own flesh, but it does means you can corner better than most people on the toggles and levers)

Now, if the question you asked yourself is 'but what if the senses and balance were the same as on a normal body?' then help yourself to a cookie. In theory, if a drone had the exact same senses as a human, the same shape, the same balance, the same dimensions and the same weight, then there would need to be no need to translate the information, and no learning curve, because it would feel exactly the same as your body. In theory.

In practice? Well it could be done... but for every SINGLE sense your body has (including some you probably don't realise you have) you either need to obtain (or custom design) a sensor and then over months write code to calibrate the sensations until they perfectly match your own... OR blow a large chunk of Nuyen to buy actual cyberware, the kind that would normally go INSIDE an actual living metahuman, wasting it on a drone and then still spending weeks to write code to fine-tune the transmitted signal because it isn't plugged directly into your nervous system. That's for each sense. The big 5: Sight, sound, touch, taste and hearing... Remembering that touch would mean  touch for EVERY PART of the drone's body. Then there's the senses you probably don't even realise you have... Lean back, feel yourself get uncomfortable as your center of balance shifts to the edge of your body? Then relax and you'll find you are standing straight... even if you are on sloped ground... Inside your ear you have a spiral organ half filled with fluid to sense balance. Now close your eyes and touch your nose. Simple, am i right? but there are senses in your muscles that let you tell not only how extended they are, but how much force you are applying, not to mention the jarring sensation you feel if your muscles are taut when you hit the ground (think what happens when you step off the second last step thinking it was the last). Several of these would be impossible to move around without, and some would be surprisingly difficult to do without... and even if you had them all, even just a fine mistuning on one of them could wreak havoc, leaving you feeling like you are falling every time you take a long step, breaking things in your hands, constantly shooting off to the left etc... 

But is there even an equivilant for a decker to use, to allow something similar to jumping in? Well, yes! The matrix is already VR with simsense, any sense your body has the matrix can emulate (and even a few you don't, but suddenly gaining emulated thermovision or magnetic field sensing can be very disconcerting), and if you know about the basics of matric protocols, it's possible for you to come up with the idea that the drone just functions as a tiny host that can only allow one user at a time. It just so happens the data for the VR simulation comes from Actual Real Life (at least as interpreted by the drone's sensors) and the user's actions happen to be replicated back in meatspace.

The most important question though... Especially if you are a games-master is, should it be allowed? Well lets weigh the considerations...

Pro: I could 'jump in' without a control rig! Yes... This could arguably be a balance issue... Except. It may save you a point of essence (the lowest control rig takes a full point) and a whole bundle of Nuyen... But how much of those 'savings' will need to be invested in the massive ammount of cyberware that will need to be installed in this drone? And remember, if this drone gets bricked or left behind, that's all lost, unlike a control rig, which is safely tucked behind your eyes.

Pro: I could Deck while Rigging! No... you really couldn't. Jumping in means your consciousness is meshed with the drone, to deck you need to have atleast one foot in the matrix... maybe if the drone has a deck plugged into it... Maybe, you can set up the host to allow outside windows, but in that case you are almost exactly in AR... What you are seeing is Meatspace with a Matrix overlay, exactly as if you were there in person, in AR... with all the same penalties for distraction.

Con: I don't have a control rig? What do i loose? It should go without saying, but it isn't obvious, without a control rig you obviously can't get the maneuverability bonuses from using a Control rig. So sad, chummer.

Con: I don't have a control rig, What about other drones? This should have been made obvious above, but it's actually a double barreled disadvantage... Not only can you not 'jump into' models other than walkers, you can't even jump into other drones of the same model without your extensive modifications.

Con: I don't have a control rig, What about the NOISE? Control rigs come with native noise reduction, the main use of jumping into a drone is that you don't need to physically be there... and even if you are physically nearby, deckers, or even some drone-head shadowrunner can decide to try and throw a spanner in the works by jamming the airwaves. The Control rig is designed to compensate for this partially, and an RCC can compensate even further... of course if you are using an RCC then you can't Deck, can you?.

Con: I spent months custom building this drone!... then it got shot. The features allowing you to faux 'jump in' are IN the drone. Get caught without your drone nearby? No dice. Plus you can't forget as mentioned above, if this drone gets bricked or left behind, that's all lost, unlike a control rig, which is safely tucked behind your eyes.

Con: I spent months custom bui... Frag, I've wasted months, haven't i? Last of all, don't forget... this technology is not mainstream... it may be technically feasible, but either doesn't exist, or isn't being shared. And that means either wasting lots of precious time you could be 'running for nuyen... Or, the exact same situation from the other end... Risking your life shadowrunning, only to have all that wonderful cred go straight to some engineer who is safe and comfy behind a desk, fine-tuning what it feels like for your drone to... touch itself.

In conclusion... on the balance this seems allowable, but whether it is... and ultimately, what it would take to be able to do it is in the hands of your games master. So remember that for your next gaming session, and oh? This bottle of Mountain dew you brought? You wanted to give it to him to remind him how nice it is that he moderates the game you love to play? How thoughtful of you! Bribing him to allow custom rules into the game? Perish the thought!

[Kliko]

In sr3 you could simply control the drone using a datajack. Not as effective, but good enough for (area) surveillance.

[Medicineman]

in SR3 there was also a Kind of ...AR Rigger Control, called Rig-It (cheaper, less Essence Cost) which gave You a Bonus to control the Vehicle you're plugged in, but you remained physically active (In SR5 this means you 'll get a Bonus in AR). Perfect for driving Bikes .
Maybe you could do something like that ?

HougH!
Medicineman

[IndustrialQubed]

In sr3 you could simply control the drone using a datajack. Not as effective, but good enough for (area) surveillance.

In SR5 (current) with any vehicle I own I can open a visual connection to show what it's sensors see, and remote control it from any commlink or deck. Maybe that's good enough for a car, or a bike but that's not what I'm trying for here... Not even (if you'll forgive the pun) remotely (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

in SR3 there was also a Kind of ...AR Rigger Control, called Rig-It (cheaper, less Essence Cost) Maybe you could do something like that ?

Not at all what I'm trying to do, sorry. Build advice is not what I am looking for, and even 0.001 essence cost is as the same as a full 1 essence cost to an adept without chrome.


Kliko, Medicineman, it would be nice ultimately to remotely pilot a customised walker drone that might actually pass for a person... But even a 0.1 essence cyborg jar head will move more human than a drone-brain being remote controlled, and being *informed* of what happens by remote link is very different to being 'jumped into' a drone. If that kind of connection requires a control rig, then it requires one, I just felt like I made a compelling argument for how it could be done without one... What I would really like, is to see if you can pick any holes in my logic, or see if there are any reasons why my approach would be unbalanced or provide unfair advantage

[Sendaz]

... Not even (if you'll forgive the pun) remotely (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Yessssss.. he will fit in nicely here

[Meatbag]

I'd allow it, but it sounds like it'd create more problems than it solves.

1: You have to make a custom drone. to the exact specifications of a metahuman body - preferably YOUR metahuman body, unless you'd like to learn how to balance yourself with 200 extra pounds and two extra feet of height. That severely limits the kinds of drones you can build - humanoid, about your height, about your weight. Tiny drones are out, fliers are out, crawlers and skimmers and everything else? Out.

2: You have to write custom software that interfaces with your custom hardware to simulate all the senses a metahuman has, including the underappreciated ones you barely know you have. This probably requires Medicine, or at least appropriate Knowledges, in addition to Mechanic.

By now, you've probably spent more than most Control Rigs, not counting time and labor, and the fruits of your labor only work on that drone - though you do save Essence, and you can be a Street Sam and an Adept at the same time, which is kind've a neat trick.

Just keep in mind that when somebody hits the Rigger's drone with an AV round, the Rigger grumbles and buys a new drone. When somebody blows up this rig, you weep like a baby for days afterward.

[Curator]

combat bikers were able to jack in and use their arms and head while still able to play. but they also had mad cash. not sure how it worked on the amateur leagues.

[Elfenlied]

In SR4, no special implants were required afaik. Just a hotsim enabled comlink.

SR5's matrix rules are a load of bull...

[Abdul Alhazred]

How DO combat bikers work in SR5 ?

[Medicineman]

I think CGL isn't yet ready for that kind of Question.
I think You have to wait for the Rigger Book

With a dance on a speeding Bike
Medicineman

[SpellBinder]

in SR3 there was also a Kind of ...AR Rigger Control, called Rig-It (cheaper, less Essence Cost) which gave You a Bonus to control the Vehicle you're plugged in, but you remained physically active (In SR5 this means you 'll get a Bonus in AR). Perfect for driving Bikes .
Maybe you could do something like that ?

HougH!
Medicineman

My first thought when I read that was "Not gonna happen in SR5. Gotta be wireless, or else the combat hackers won't have anything to do in a fight." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

And I think there might still be people out there waiting on a Rigger 4 book that isn't an April Fools joke.

[Medicineman]

And I think there might still be people out there waiting on a Rigger 4 book that isn't an April Fools joke.

Wait a second !
The Last one brought us at least the Hoverboard !!

With a Dance back to the Future
Medicineman

[SpellBinder]

Wait a second !
The Last one brought us at least the Hoverboard !!

With a Dance back to the Future
Medicineman

Yeah, but it was almost sixty years late! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Medicineman]

Yeah, but it was almost sixty years late! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

But thats a Time Travel Problem.
It's not CGL's fault that the Flux Compensator needs 1.21 Gigawatts Power (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) to work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cYgRnfFDA

With a Gigawatt-Dance
Medicineman