A rigger in the hot seat has the same dice pool as the street sam except:

* The rigger only needs to raise one skill (gunnery), no matter what kind of weapons she uses.

* The rigger gets +2 dice from a Control Rig.

Everything else is the same. Therefore, the rigger is a better shot in VR than the street sam is in the real world.

-Frank

I don't see anything that leads me to believe you can use a smartlink on a gun in a drone, so that should equal out.

What? Since a smart-link is by default a wirelessly accessible device, the burden of proof goes the other way. Why wouldn't you be able to use a smartlink when rigged into the gun?

You are still affected by everything else on that chart, you still get minuses for poor visibility, recoil, or long range. What possible reason would you have for claiming that the +2 bonus for using a smart link does not apply?

-Frank

Well, you have to utilize a smartlink system to get the bonus. As it is an eye system, that kind of makes it hard to use while in full VR.

Is that mentioned somewhere? As there is a whole section on sensor enhanced gunnery, one would think you use those rules instead.

Yes there is, see SENSORS on page 325 and read the Camera description as it can have vision enhancements from page 323.

Since the character is rigged into the vehicle and basically becomes the vehicle and uses it’s shell as a body it stands to reason that if the sensors have been improved with microphone, camera and other upgrades it is usable by the rigger.

A regular sensor without upgrades is probably just a radar so that you target a blip on a screen. With upgrades including cameras you get to use more of your senses, including “eyes” in cameras and smartlink upgrades.

While not all things continue over from SR3, you can install a smart link system in a drone using 3rd edition rules.

Targetting software is more like Skill+Attribute instead of Autosoft+Pilot, Smartlink would add modifiers to the pool and give more advanced targetting software then the basic "point-n-shoot" Autosoft.

Since most pilots don't have more than pilot rating of 3 it would be a maximum of 8D6.

Well, the sensors listing on p 325 aren't the same as the sensor package drones come with. I don't think you can make that connection within the SR4 rules. You can't even assume that sensor systems include a camera (unlike SR3).

As a GM with knowledge of SR3, I'd assume that there is a camera involved (thus the rules for normal perception tests using drones) and since in SR4 the smartlink is now entirely an image compositing device, it seems at least somewhat logical that a human gunner could benefit from it. However, the logic then follows that a drone not using sensor assited targeting should get the same benefit and that just feels wrong.

What seems most fair is to restrict drones to using their sensors to get bonus dice on ranged tests.

What bothers me is that shooting someone with a drone that you're jumped into is an Agility based test. I mean, on what level does that makes sense.

How do you come to that conclusion? Sensor packages on page 325 clearly states what kind of sensor packages drones have depending on size. That’s the standard sensors without any bells and whistles connected to their sensors, those options cost extra. I find it fairly logical that one can (and must pay for it) upgrade the sensors of a drone.

Oh yeah...

Just to start with:
Sensor suite can run 3k
Weapon mount 2.5 K
Pilot 4 = 10 k

At some point the base price is a tiny fraction of your sunk costs.

Note that drones can't take Stun damage. They can be briefly disabled via the "tazering" effect, but no actual Stun.

That's what I meant. "cease to function" is the exact text.

Frank,

I don't have my book, but IIRC, I believe that the +2 dice are only for driving related tests not any test performed on the machine.

But skills a broken into categories. Physical Skills, Combat Skills, Technical Skills, Magic Skills, etc. There are also "Vehicle Skills" which are pilot and gunnery.

-Frank

thanks for the clarification Frank, I get some more dice with my rigger

Actually, it doesn't... reread EA.

IIRC, the way it's written EA only provides bonuses to the skills in the Physical Skills category that are linked to physical attributes (ie, climbing, gymnastics, etc).