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IvanTank
Anyone know why none of the non-drone aircraft listed in the book have a sensor rating? I refuse to believe that aircraft do not have sensors in shadowrun, since they are the most dependent on them for basic operations.
Jaid
sensor rating does not mean something does or does not have sensors.

it defines how well the vehicle interprets sensory data provided from sensors.

if you want to know what kind of sensory gear a vehicle has, look up sensor packages. all vehicles must presumably come with some kind of ability to perceive, anything beyond that basic ability costs money (though on most of the large aircraft, the sensor cost is negligible next to the aircraft itself).
IvanTank
QUOTE (Jaid)
sensor rating does not mean something does or does not have sensors.

it defines how well the vehicle interprets sensory data provided from sensors.

if you want to know what kind of sensory gear a vehicle has, look up sensor packages. all vehicles must presumably come with some kind of ability to perceive, anything beyond that basic ability costs money (though on most of the large aircraft, the sensor cost is negligible next to the aircraft itself).

A few problems with that. A, sensor packages do not have a sensor rating, as in what you use to add to you dicepool for gunnery or perception tests. The rating listed in that table determines the effective range of the sensor, not its ability to detect something within that range. For example, by that table, all non-drone vehicles should have a sensor rating of 5, but they don't. Second, the sensor packages list has no cost, so what if I wanted to get a really big and nice camera, as in big enough for a vehicle, to get that extra detection range. Would it only cost me 100, the same as a regular seized camera?
Jaid
QUOTE (IvanTank)
QUOTE (Jaid @ Mar 6 2007, 10:44 PM)
sensor rating does not mean something does or does not have sensors.

it defines how well the vehicle interprets sensory data provided from sensors.

if you want to know what kind of sensory gear a vehicle has, look up sensor packages. all vehicles must presumably come with some kind of ability to perceive, anything beyond that basic ability costs money (though on most of the large aircraft, the sensor cost is negligible next to the aircraft itself).

A few problems with that. A, sensor packages do not have a sensor rating, as in what you use to add to you dicepool for gunnery or perception tests. The rating listed in that table determines the effective range of the sensor, not its ability to detect something within that range. For example, by that table, all non-drone vehicles should have a sensor rating of 5, but they don't. Second, the sensor packages list has no cost, so what if I wanted to get a really big and nice camera, as in big enough for a vehicle, to get that extra detection range. Would it only cost me 100, the same as a regular seized camera?

no, sensor packages don't have ratings. that's because the vehicle has one itself. given the vehicles you are looking at are sensor 0, i would propose that you add 0 to your dice pool, and simply roll unmodified tests. the packages only determine how many sensors you can fit into the vehicle, and what range those sensors will have.

you are also correct in your guess that sensors have the same cost whether buying a camera for a kanmushi bug or a camera for an Ares dragon. welcome to the world of abstraction.
IvanTank
Does anyone else get the feeling that the rigger/drone/vehicle rules were written in about 5 minutes?
Jaid
why? so far you haven't brought up anything that hasn't been in the main book yet.

sure, it's abstract. so what. would you rather the rules be easy to use, or would you prefer to spend 20 minutes in combat resolving a single attack? (hyperbole, in most cases...)

yes, there are some things lacking. these things are not generally speaking so critical that they couldn't wait until the expansion book for drones. furthermore, those things are generally not very hard to fill in with homebrew stuff.
IvanTank
I find that under the current rules it takes 20 minutes to resolve a single attack, since the rules for vehicle based combat are scattered between the gear, combat, and matrix sections of the book. That, and I spend tons of time trying to find necessary information that just plain doesn't exist, such as the above. Under the current rules, I just simply find that riggers are not a valid and/or fun character class to play. I am creating a rigger for the simple fact that my team NEEDS a rigger, and despite all of the 'simplification', creating a rigger is even more complicated than before since you are REQUIRED to make up new equipment and rules to do even basic things. And who knows how many more rules for riggers we will get. Maybe a couple of pages in Arsenal/Unwired. There is no Rigger 4 in development, which really upsets me. Please note that in previous editions, riggers were always my favorite type of characters.

Rules are so ambiguous, unclear, disorganized, and just plain not there. It almost makes Rigger 3 (non-revised) look like the perfect example of editing.

Ok, I am done ranting... I love riggers, but I just feel that riggers have been seriously shafted in fourth edition. If I were to go back to third edition, that would be the only reason.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (IvanTank)
I love riggers, but I just feel that riggers have been seriously shafted in fourth edition. If I were to go back to third edition, that would be the only reason.


...Hear Hear. Riggers were my fave too. Yeah the cost and essence for the Vehicle Rig came down but so did the benefits.

[Main Topic] We can only hope that vehicle sensors will be elaborated upon more in Arsenal. And I can only hope that there will be vehicle customisation again.
IvanTank
Please excuse a brief return to ranting

There is no such thing as a rigger in SR4. The closest thing to a rigger is a hacker who has a car. Especially since now you have to spend almost a 100,000 and tons of BP for skills in what would traditionally be hacker related things, such as agents and programs, or else you will find that your entire drone network has turned against you because of one low-skill hacker.

Ranting
Jaid
QUOTE (IvanTank)
Please excuse a brief return to ranting

There is no such thing as a rigger in SR4. The closest thing to a rigger is a hacker who has a car. Especially since now you have to spend almost a 100,000 in what would traditionally be hacker related things, such as agents and programs, or else you will find that your entire drone network has turned against you because of one low-skill hacker.

Ranting

see, now that i will acknowledge as being a problem with SR4.

once you get to know the rules, the rest of your problems vanish.

the fact that a rigger has to basically become a hacker just so that he can be a rigger, on the other hand, never really goes away.

we need some rules for more hacker-resistant drone networks. probably the quickest fix i can think of is to rule that passkeys (cameo on page 215) can't be spoofed, nor emulated with software (i might allow something like a maglock passkey that works for this though, as it would more or less be mostly rigger gear), and toughening up encryption to take at least a few minutes before it is broken.

IvanTank
Just a little more ranting, please? thanks...

It has been said that vehicle rules have been simplified. I really don't think that that is a good thing. Vehicles/riggers have been over simplified, and over-simplification is not a good thing. I want my vehicle combat to play out like a strategy game. Am I the only one?

Now returning to your regularly scheduled programming already underway...
Jaid
QUOTE (IvanTank)
Just a little more ranting, please? thanks...

It has been said that vehicle rules have been simplified. I really don't think that that is a good thing. Vehicles/riggers have been over simplified, and over-simplification is not a good thing. I want my vehicle combat to play out like a strategy game. Am I the only one?

Now returning to your regularly scheduled programming already underway...

it's a good thing overall, because it's generally easier to add wanted rules than it is to remove unwanted rules.

frankly, what i want is a set of vehicle rules that play nice with the non-vehicle rules, more than anything...
IvanTank
I have tried to restrain myself, but unfortunately I am going to have to hijack this thread (which I started) and repurpose it to IvanTank's Rigger Rant. If you have a problem with that, then good, I'm in the mood for a fight smile.gif

Now, where was I. Ah yes. Despite the fact that prices have comes down on drones and the control rig, since we have to spend so much money on hacker goodies, we cannot afford essentially any decent vehicles, even without customization. Want to do a helicopter insertion? Then I hope you can get everything that you need other than the helicopter for 25K. Riggers have abolutely no place in the sky, except for things like a few drones. Sure, the prices on most everything else dropped way down, but vehicles are still as expensive as ever. With everything else you would need to buy, you shoul be happy if you can afford a van and a drone or two. And remember, you need to buy a decent lifestyle too, or else those cars and drones will be stolen so fast you won't know what hit you

I ended up turning my rigger into more of a spider, and I'm just waiting for somebody to come and try to break into my hideout. That would be fun smile.gif
Nikoli
Wasn't there a blurb in the book that said when in doubt use a default rating 3 for anything that didn't list a rating?
No sensor rating, it's a 3.
Leehouse
Specifically from 214. The table listing sample devices

Average 3 Standard personal electronics, vehicles, drones, headware, home/business terminals
Complex 4 Security vehicles, alphaware, research terminals, security devices.



If it comes with a gun attached it is a security vehicle and has a device rating of 4, if not then a 3, as it isn't specified in the table on vehicles
Jaid
sensor ratings are in the vehicles table. the vehicles in question are on that table and have a sensor of -

the device rating covers matrix attributes, of which sensor is not one.

and if the vehicle section is a bit lacking, it wasn't exactly huge in the SR3 main book either.
DireRadiant
And we do know what will happen as soon as Rigger 4 comes out? smile.gif
Slash_Thompson
@DireRadiant

5th edition? silly.gif
IvanTank
QUOTE (DireRadiant)
And we do know what will happen as soon as Rigger 4 comes out? smile.gif

There is no Rigger 4 coming out. All riggers will get is a few pages in Arsenal, and maybe a quick blurb on electronic warfare in unwired.
Jaid
QUOTE (IvanTank)
QUOTE (DireRadiant @ Mar 7 2007, 09:54 AM)
And we do know what will happen as soon as Rigger 4 comes out? smile.gif

There is no Rigger 4 coming out. All riggers will get is a few pages in Arsenal, and maybe a quick blurb on electronic warfare in unwired.

there is no rigger 4 announced. that doesn't mean it couldn't ever happen.
IvanTank
I think it is very safe to say that there will be no rigger 4. The reason I say this is because of their decision to put vehicles in Arsenal. My way of reading this is that they decided that riggers are so unimportant that they no longer deserve their own book, and will only recieve a few rules in other books. This is the same thing they did in the BBB. In previous editions, riggers/vehicles got their own chapter. Now, they were split between the combat chapter and the hacker chapter. From all appearances, this is what is going to happen in the supplements as well. And, based upon how many pages were devoted to Riggers/Vehicles in those chapters (about 20, max), it is relatively safe to say that that is proportionate to the amount of space they will receive in the supplements as well.

Maybe I should go to that petition website and create a Rigger 4 petition...
Not like those things ever work...
DireRadiant
QUOTE (IvanTank)
Maybe I should go to that petition website and create a Rigger 4 petition...
Not like those things ever work...

Swiftly followed by SR5 then...

Every recent new edition of SR have been preceeded by the Rigger book.

Go for it, you'll have your rigger gear all ready in your hands just in time for the next edition, and start over at not having rigger stuff ready.
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