Is there an ECM program in SR4?

Bingo.

Decrypt should be on the list with Spoof as one of those programs used to screw with other riggers. If you just intend to pilot wanjinas around, you don't need it. But if you want to take control of other riggers' shiznit, you do.

-Frank

This made no sense to me. We ruled that it came with a weapon *mount* (a value of 2,500Y), not an actual weapon. The drone is ~1,000Y more expensive that the rest, IMHO because of its 6 points of armor.

An LMG would increase its availability and decrease it legality considerably.

milspec

I would think you need to pay for the total cost of Agent 4 in order to get the functionality of Rating 4 Pilot. That means 10,000Y, not 2,500Y.

You would also need a System and Response increase to handle that rating 4 program: 2,000Y for System 4, and Response 4 for 2,000Y.

The reason you want an increased Firewall is because your stock Reponse 3 / Signal 3 / Firewall 3 / System 3 drone is pretty easy for a good hacker to break into:

Hacking Skill 5 + Exploit Program 5 + HotVR 2 = 12 dice (4 hits on average)
Firewall 3 + Admin Account 6 = extended test of 9.

That means in 3 combat *passes* the Hacker has compromised your drone. And he gets 3 passes per turn in Hot VR.

In summary: the drone is basically a commlink that walk/flies and shoots. You need to upgrade all of the commlink-related attributes in order to upgrade its Pilot, and you should probably have a Rating 5 Firewall on anything you really care about. (And Rating 5 Analyse to help detect break-ins, with requires a Rating 5 System and Response to run it on.)

Drones are expensive. They can also shoot LMGs at max range from the sky.

milspec

For a Drone, I think Pilot = System. You don't buy system seperately. The Pilot is the dedicated System, a Drone Pilot can't leave the drone to act as an Agent in another node.

Out of Chargen:
Pilot 4 = 10,000 (Availability 12...)
Firewall 4 = 2,000
Response 4 = 2,000
Signal 5 = 1,000
ECCM 4 = 4,000 (To prevent Jamming)
Decrypt 4 = 4,000 (Useful for capturing the surrounding signal traffic)
Stealth 4 = 4,000 (To help against finding and tracking your drone)
Autosoft Maneuver 4 = 2,000
Autosoft Targeting 4 = 2,000
Autosoft Clearsight 4 = 2,000
Autosoft Defense 4 = 2,000
Autosoft Electronic Warfare 4 = 2,000

So a nice rating 4 drone, not including standard program costs, can run you 37,000 + the base cost of the drone. Add a nice sensor package for another 4,000 and you are getting to 45,000 for a very nice drone you are still going to want to upgrade as soon as you can to get a better pilot on it.

Nice catch - thanks.

milspec

You have to crack them first. But the rules make this retardedly easy.

Buy them once, share them with everything.

To removed the retardation of ease I recommend that you read the rules, which are vague, as requiring you to crack for each working copy you make. So cracking isn't so much removing the protection as it is adapting the copy to the target by making a single copy of the license protection count.

Non-retarded GMing begets non-retarded RAW.

With the open ended wording of the rules for cracking, software worth using should take close to an 8 hour day or more to copy for midling skill crackers. It doesn't make a huge difference with one or two drones with one or two programs. But outfitting an army of 8 or 10 drones with 4 or 5 programs will take a couple of months of dedicated work instead of less than a week.

This is something that, again, isn't really clear. I would say "yes" but if you download a program to your drone it cannot be running on your Commlink. If you want it to be able to run on both locations then you must make a copy of the program according to the rules given for pirating software.

Keep in mind that in Shadowrun 4, Riggers control drones via the matrix. You are talking about radio jamming the matrix - a good way to piss EVERYBODY off

Use a spot jammer unless you want the sons of the FCC showing up on the scene.

My understanding is that it is not that easy to compromise a drone. Usually you want to do something after you access the drone, like give it commands.

The rigger can instruct the drone to only accept commands from his commlink, in which case the hacker has to spoof the drone by impersonating the rigger's commlink.

First, the hacker has to find the rigger and the drone in the matrix. The hacker has to complete a successful Matrix Perception Test to gain the rigger's access ID.

If the rigger and drone are operating in hidden mode (why wouldn't they?), then the hacker will need an Electronic Warfare + Scan extended test to find the rigger and the drone. Of course, the hacker has to be on the lookout for hidden devices in the first place. I'm assuming the the hacker already knows to look because the drone was spotted in the real world. The threshold is 15+

Oops, that's 2 tests; one to detect the rigger's commlink, and another to detect the drone.

If the Rigger deploys a bunch of cheap decoy drones to crowd the environment, then the hacker needs two Electronic Warfare + Scan extended tests to figure out which device is the rigger and which device is the target drone. The threshold is 15+

Then the hacker makes an opposed Matrix Perception test against the rigger's commlink: Computer + Analyse vs. Firewall + Stealth. The hacker needs to succeed before the Rigger detects him.

If the Rigger uses a passkey, then the hacker has to compromise the passkey before the drone will accept communications from the hacker. Now the hacker uses his Hacking + Exploit (Firewall+6, 1 Initiative Pass) Extended Test in order to gain the administrator level access required to obtain the passkey. The hacker needs to succeed before the commlink detects the attempt and alerts the Rigger. The commlink gets a free Analyze + Firewall(Stealth) Extended test time the rigger makes the Hacking + Exploit test.

The passkey will be encrypted, of course. The hacker needs to make a Decrypt + Response (Encryption rating * 2, 1 Combat Turn) Extended Test to break the encryption. Then the hacker needs to make a Hardware + Logic Extended Test (10, 1 day) in order to counterfeit the key.

I wonder if the Rigger will use a data bomb or IC to protect his commlink's passkey. The hacker better use a Matrix Perception Test to detect a data bomb just in case. This is another Computer + Analyze vs Firewall + Stealth. The hacker has to keep trying until he either detects the data bomb or decides that there is none. I guess a smart hacker will have figured out the rating of the commlink by this time, and can guesstimate the firewall and stealth program ratings.

If he finds a data bomb then he needs to make a Hacking + Defuse vs Data Bomb rating * 2. The hacker only gets one attempt. If he fails, the bomb explodes.

Now the hacker can go back and decrypt and counterfeit the passkey.

Finally, to spoof commands, the hacker uses Hacking + Spoof vs Pilot + Firewall.

Of course, if the Rigger and drone use encrypted commands, then the hacker needs encryption and decryption.

The Rigger should invest in commlink as that is his first line of defense. Get a stealth program, and operate in hidden mode. Get a hardware passkey.

--------------------------

Of course, if the hacker doesn't want to give commands to the drone then it is a different story.

In that case the drone is just another hidden node on the net. The hacker just needs to detect the drone as above, and use a Hacking + Exploit (Firewall, 1 Initiative Pass) Extended Test to break in.

Then he can use his Cybercombat + Attack vs Response + Firewall to try and crash the Pilot. The hacker needs to score 8 + (Pilot Rating/2) hits, 10 hits for an unmodified drone, to crash the pilot.

In this case, the hardest part is detecting the drone.

are you sure? i'm not familiar with the rules for this situation, but logically, commlink ID is just a form of encryption. you should be able to decrypt it on the target drone as easily as you can decrypt anything else, no need to access the drone owner's commlink at all.

The hacker only needs the accessID to spoof. I amended my previous post.

In any case the hacker needs to locate the drone on the net. If the drone is operating in hidden mode, this means the electronic warfare + scan test to locate a hidden node (the drone).

The rigger can buy microdrones at 1,000 yen a pop; equip them with pirated copies of his stealth 3 program, and turn them loose in hidden mode. The rigger can give them the exact same persona that he gave to his Steel Lynx. For the price of a rating 4 pilot upgrade, the rigger can buy 10 rating 3 decoys.

Logically, the hacker has a one in twelve chance of locating the Steel Lynx first. (Eleven drones and a rigger commlink). Otherwise, he can waste time crashing the Kanmushi's.

Of course, if the rigger is on a spy mission, then maybe the Kanmushi's aren't decoys at all. The hacker has to crash eleven Kanmushi's before one reahes the objective. Again, the rigger can buy 10 additional Kanmushi's for the same price it would cost to upgrade the pilot on the first one.

Then the hacker makes an opposed matrix perception test against the node, and a hacking + exploit extended test to break in.

After breaking in, the hacker can use his attack program to crash the pilot.

Of course, if the drone has an auto reboot.... I wonder how long it takes to start Windows CE 2070.

the problem i see with that tactic is that the rigger would have no way of commanding his lynx without also commanding the decoys, which would be slamming into walls, bonking random pedestrians in the eye, etcetera. he could turn off the drones' ability to recieve instruction, but then he'd have to go around and collect them all manually after the run; plus, it'd be cake for an opposing hacker to find the lynx--just look for the one that's processing instructions recieved via radio. it'd take a while, i guess, and that might be worth it in and of itself, depending on the situation.

1. The drones all have a Pilot program, they can operate autonomously.

2. Networked computers know how to receive and ignore messages not addressed to them. It is the nature of wireless that a receiver receives everything transmitted on the frequency it is listening on. All that is required is an address in the packet header.

3. Hacking a commlink is just like hacking one specific cellphone: difficult if you know the location and telephone number of the cellphone in question, and a lot more difficult if you don't.

4. Hacking a commlink is like hacking one specific computer over the internet: difficult if you know the IP address and the MAC address, and a lot more difficult if you don't.

If all else fails, the rigger can buy a second commlink.