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odinson
Well, is it mechanics, hardware or hacking? It came up the other day. I ruled it was mechanics on the idea of how remote car starters work now, you can start the car wirelessly but you still need to physically turn the ignition switch to drive the car. I would kinda figure they would keep this sort of safety in vehicles.
Wasabi
What is Triangle Buttoning?
Backgammon
Remote starting?
odinson
lol. reference to gta. it's what you press to jack a car. someone else called it that in a previous thread i got a good laugh out of it.
hyzmarca
Adding rigger adaptation or a pilot to a car is rather easy to do.
kzt
Look at a prius or other similar car. There is no real ignition key, just a system to verify that you have the fob. You touch the door to unlock it, then you get in and push start.
odinson
QUOTE (kzt)
Look at a prius or other similar car. There is no real ignition key, just a system to verify that you have the fob. You touch the door to unlock it, then you get in and push start.

what is the fob? is that something like in delivery vehicles where you wear a wristband with a wireless device attached and wave it over a scanner and that lets you start the vehicle?
kzt
QUOTE (odinson @ Jun 2 2007, 08:55 PM)
what is the fob? is that something like in delivery vehicles where you wear a wristband with a wireless device attached and wave it over a scanner and that lets you start the vehicle?

My boss has a prius. He says as long as he has it in his pocket it will sense him. And If he gives me a ride we walk over to his car, he touches the door, it unlocks, we get in, he pushes a button and we drive. Never seen the fob/key/whatever it is.
odinson
That leads me to think that all you need to do to steal a car is hack in and make the car think your com is the fob thing and walk up and you're golden.
Sterling
A FOB is a device with a chip in it that, when detected by a scanner, allows access to something. I've had a job where your ID card had a thick plastic back that unlocked the door for you.

So I houseruled (and have not had time to revise it yet, so my take on it may very well be wrong) that most cars are wireless beasties. Gridguide, GPS, etc, all sound very similar to a commlink and its capabilities, so I simply did a detect node and a hack on the fly test, etc.

I'd be interested to hear what people think, as a car with a decent autopilot helps you steal it. You drive up in your totally inconspicuous Bulldog stepvan, pop a surveilance drone, and start hacking car nodes. If you break into it (and our hacker rolled over the base threshold into security access, which would be a great idea to be able to wipe the logs, reset ID, whatever) then tell it to 'follow your vehicle', you could theoretically have your max subscriber list in stolen cars following you home.

Again, I suspect others will have advice/suggestions/corrections to the above, as I'm sure I missed something somewhere.

kzt
QUOTE (Sterling)
If you break into it (and our hacker rolled over the base threshold into security access, which would be a great idea to be able to wipe the logs, reset ID, whatever) then tell it to 'follow your vehicle', you could theoretically have your max subscriber list in stolen cars following you home.

Of course, you can have a completely seperate system that is linked to a GPS-type connection that will be happily and constantly telling the central station where it is as you do this. . .
Sterling
QUOTE (kzt)

Of course, you can have a completely seperate system that is linked to a GPS-type connection that will be happily and constantly telling the central station where it is as you do this. . .

Well, I was thinking the car's matrix ID and license is reported every time it goes through a light (which is basically a drone) anyway. It's not anything a runner has to worry about until the car is reported stolen and a data search on that license is run.

Of course, that means you could either a) wipe its ID and replace it with a fake, or b) spoof it. Neither is an optimum solution, but driving it to a vacant lot, disabling the electrical completely, and then loading it onto a truck is the best bet I'd foresee for getting away with the least hassle.

Of course, the problem here is that stealing a car shouldn't be cake, nor should it be impossible. It needs to be difficult enough that a runner would stop and go 'Maybe I should see if there's a Johnson offering work, this is a total pain in the hoop.'

kzt
QUOTE (Sterling)
Of course, the problem here is that stealing a car shouldn't be cake, nor should it be impossible. It needs to be difficult enough that a runner would stop and go 'Maybe I should see if there's a Johnson offering work, this is a total pain in the hoop.'

There is a reason why carjacking became popular after car alarms and anti-theft system started actually working.
hyzmarca
When the underdoor flamethrower becomes standard carjacking will become significantly less popular.
Cain
Look at it this way. If a car were like that, a rigger can't order it to do *anything* wirelessly. It's pretty clear that the devs wanted you to be able to hack the car, as opposed to hotwiring it. Sure, older cars would be immune, but think of this: older tumbler locks are immune to maglock passkeys.
toturi
QUOTE (Sterling)
Of course, the problem here is that stealing a car shouldn't be cake, nor should it be impossible. It needs to be difficult enough that a runner would stop and go 'Maybe I should see if there's a Johnson offering work, this is a total pain in the hoop.'

No, it should be easy enough that a runner would stop and go "Maybe I should see if I can steal the J's ride, he's being a stingy pain in the hoop."
Spike
I would think that unless the car is 'set up' to be piloted remotely that it won't go anywhere without a warm body in the seat. Even if it has the capability to drive itself. I imagine there are even safety laws, probably a bit controverisal, about requiring a concious, capable 'driver' to handle emergencies... even if they are as popular as seatbelt laws.

It'd be a basic security option to prevent remote convoy jacking, probably a hardware cutout of the drive system... that means if you want to 'pay extra' for remote driving, you have to go get that hardware removed professionally. Unless you 'know people'... rather than just download an illegal patch or otherwise hack the system to enable the remote piloting.

Just a thought.
odinson
QUOTE (Spike)
I would think that unless the car is 'set up' to be piloted remotely that it won't go anywhere without a warm body in the seat. Even if it has the capability to drive itself. I imagine there are even safety laws, probably a bit controverisal, about requiring a concious, capable 'driver' to handle emergencies... even if they are as popular as seatbelt laws.

It'd be a basic security option to prevent remote convoy jacking, probably a hardware cutout of the drive system... that means if you want to 'pay extra' for remote driving, you have to go get that hardware removed professionally. Unless you 'know people'... rather than just download an illegal patch or otherwise hack the system to enable the remote piloting.

Just a thought.

So which cars would normally be ser up to be piloted remotely? How about any that have rigger adaptation are set up for it and those that aren't have some sort of safety?

@Cain: How old do you think cars with keys would be? Anything per crash 2.0 or even older?
Spike
I imagine it's an 'option' that you can get from the dealer, or aftermarket. So, anyone who wanted to pay extra could, theoritically, have it. Higher end cars might even have it as a standard option. Of course, as this can lead to 'remote theft', it might not be as ubiquitious as, say, Air Conditioning.

Then you factor in the safety laws and public mindset. Unlike a CD player or Air Conditioner, there will be strong concerns about cars driving around without anyone on board, even if it's just an alternate to 'Valet Parking', where the car self parks. If, for example, you have to get a special permit showing you have the right qualifications to 'remote pilot' your car, then you can buy the option.

Given that valet parking will still be a sign of wealth, you know, paying actual PEOPLE to do stuff for you...

The sorts of cars that will be remotely piloted are likely to belong to upper middle class sorts with enough disposable income and time to like toys like that, but not so much that they can afford to pay people to do stuff for them. They are likely to be very popular with amateur 'gear heads', which means you might find a few unusual 'modifications' to the security systems, the value of which would be highly variable: not all modifications are necessarily 'good choices'. One is reminded of the decade plus popularity of the 'unpickable' bike locks that could be defeated by a five year old with a ball point pen...
Red
Keep in mind the average driving skill of a driver in SR is 0. It is right there on the skill chart. The average joe isn't a good backup for a computer failure. In fact a real driver is just plain dead weight which just decreases your mileage with their excess body mass.
Spike
Red: yeah, but people still make the laws. Doesn't matter if the computer is better than the meat, the meat makes the rules.

It's basic human psychology at it's finest. Driverless cars are 'dangerous machines' and need to be carefully 'monitored' by the 'safe human being'.

It's sort of like bicycle helmets. In a ten year span there were three fatalities from head injuries among bicycle riders in the United States. No data to suggest that 5 oz. of styrofoam would have saved those three lives. Yet bicycle helmets have become the norm due to aggressive 'safety' marketing and even legislation (on federal instillations they are mandated by law, I belive several counties do as well).

Why? Because bicycles are vehicles, and vehicles are 'dangerous'. And as a people we have become aggressively safety minded. Perhaps there is some schlub who's life has been saved by his helmet... who knows, anything is possible.
FrankTrollman
The big hold up of course is getting the illegally modified commlink in the first place. Everyone's comm comes with firmware that gives it a fixed access ID and allows cars to distinguish one set of "keys" from another. But if you happen to be a hacker , chancesare good that your access ID has already been set to float, meaning that you can impersonate keys and activate cars as if you were the lawful owner.

---

In game terms, if you want to walk up and triangle button a car, you make a Spoof check. If you succeed in spoofing your commlink as having the activation module for the car then you are instantaneously able to open the doors, start the car, drive around, and play with the stereo. Which is great if what you want to do is hop into someone else's car and drive away with it.

But imagine what happens when the generally recognized owner gets out of the Taco Temple with his Churro Swirly to find that his car is gone. He's going to flip open his commlink and call Lonestar. That's bad, because the carin question has a transponder in it that identifies its location in the Grid. Lonestar really can just find it immediately. Heck, they can even remotely turn it off (depending upon the model of the car, the generally recognized owner may be able to remotely deactivate your newly stolen vehicle as well).

What to do about that? Well, the obvious solution is to not get reported. That means that if you time your joy ride for a period of time when the owner is at work, or asleep, or maybe under 20 meters of salt water and some cement then it'll be a while before anyone calls your activities into the Star. That gives you some time. Time to bust open the hood and do some crazy work.

Here are some things you might do:
  • If you disable the remote cut-off, it's less important if people try to remotely disable your vehicle. That's a Auto Mechanics test to disable the cut-out mechanism, or a Hardware test to cut out the antennae (which will force you to fall back on your CD collection but also prevent the car from receiving instructions like "cut off power until Lone Star arrives).
  • If you swap out the transponder, Lonestar can't find you on the grid because the car they are looking for no longer exists. That's a Hardware test if you've got new chips with working firmware on you, and a Software test if you just want to reformat the chips with new firmware.
  • If you keep the car in a Faraday Cage or a Jamming Field, no single comes in or out. That can buy you time to work on it while the tracking systems and remote cut-offs don't happen.
  • If you successfully hack yourself an administrator account on the car, you can perform the functions of the parent corporation. That means that you can give the vehicle an entirely new identity without changing the hardware at all by transforming it into a certified pre-owned vehicle. New serial number, new access key, new transponder code, new stereo pre-sets, everything but the paint. It won't stand up to actually geting checked over by the Toyota because it won't be in the factory master database, but none of the other options will work for that either.

So yeah, starting a car is as simple as making a Spoof check with your Electronic Warfare skill (basic book says Hacking, but as defined it should be an EW test). Actually keeping said car can be assisted with a number of skills:

Auto Mechanic
Hacking
Hardware
Software
Electronic Warfare

-Frank
hyzmarca
Due to safety concerns, I imagine that manual driving is highly discouraged. Grid-guide is standard. Robot pilots are an optional feature for added safety when driving outside the city where gridguide is not available.
Cain
QUOTE (odinson)

So which cars would normally be ser up to be piloted remotely? How about any that have rigger adaptation are set up for it and those that aren't have some sort of safety?

@Cain: How old do you think cars with keys would be? Anything per crash 2.0 or even older?

Thing is, all SR4 cars have a pilot rating, which automatically means they're set up for rigger adaptation. Going back a bit, I'd say that any pre-2050 car might be safe from hacking, since it was in SR1 that not all cars came with Pilots or Autonavs standard.

Spike: Like Hyzmarca said, you're foreggting about GridGuide, which is the norm. Cars not operated by the driver are standard in 2070. Past Shadowrun fiction has had riggers remote-operating "Land Train" truck convoys. And what's the point of the autonav/pilot system that can drive a car by itself, if it can't drive a car by itself?

I can see the Pilot program having many uses. For example, it can be an automated valet parking for you. Busy workers can turn it on, and get work done while commuting-- heck, that feature alone would make the megacorps encourage autonavs. Since Pilot programs are standard, remote operation is standard. Not a single vehicle in the SR4 book has a Pilot rating of 0.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Spike)
Given that valet parking will still be a sign of wealth, you know, paying actual PEOPLE to do stuff for you...

...makes sense to me.

Sort of related, I live in Oregon which is one of two states (the other being New Jersey) with a law prohibiting you from pumping your own petrol. This has been a topic of ongoing debate between state oversight agencies which see the law as a safety & environmental issue and the motoring public which looks at it as unnecessary, antiquated, and job protectionism that forces petrol prices to be higher here than in other states.

So far, the State is clearly in control of the matter & efforts to overturn the law have consistently failed. Were it not for the TT banning all private ownership of IC vehicles, I could see this law still in effect at least up through the 2060's.

...BTW, wasn't there a thread sometime back on the topic of inane and obsolete laws still on the books?

As to Grid Guide. It is great when it works & a nightmare when it doesn't.

In the old London Sourcebook there is mention that the local grid guide is spotty at best. Those who live in what remains of the UK countryside (which is the majority of the nobility) have chaffered limos and the occasional eccentric, his or her nimble low slung exotic sports car. Motoring is considered a pastime in the UK, one which I still see very much alive in the 2050s-60s.
Spike
Cain/Hyzmarca:

Don't forget, laws can be remarkably schizophrenic too. You can see where they would have laws mandating the use of Gridguide, etc, while simultaniously limiting the useability of such systems by demanding that there be a human 'operator'.

Even if the operator isn't actually doing anything! cyber.gif
coolgrafix
QUOTE (Sterling @ Jun 2 2007, 11:34 PM)
A FOB is a device with a chip in it that, when detected by a scanner, allows access to something. I've had a job where your ID card had a thick plastic back that unlocked the door for you.

Just to be clear, this definition is not accurate. See here: Webster's

The fob just contains a chip. It's the chip that allows access to the Prius. Same with your ID card... the ID card is not a fob, but it does contain a chip. See the difference? If your card was connected to something like a keychain then it could be considered a fob.

Anyway, didn't want anyone to walk away from this conversation thinking that the term "fob" referred to an electronic device of some sort. =)

I have a watch that's a fob, and it doesn't open anything. =)
odinson
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)


Here are some things you might do:
  • If you disable the remote cut-off, it's less important if people try to remotely disable your vehicle. That's a Auto Mechanics test to disable the cut-out mechanism, or a Hardware test to cut out the antennae (which will force you to fall back on your CD collection but also prevent the car from receiving instructions like "cut off power until Lone Star arrives).
  • If you swap out the transponder, Lonestar can't find you on the grid because the car they are looking for no longer exists. That's a Hardware test if you've got new chips with working firmware on you, and a Software test if you just want to reformat the chips with new firmware.
  • If you keep the car in a Faraday Cage or a Jamming Field, no single comes in or out. That can buy you time to work on it while the tracking systems and remote cut-offs don't happen.
  • If you successfully hack yourself an administrator account on the car, you can perform the functions of the parent corporation. That means that you can give the vehicle an entirely new identity without changing the hardware at all by transforming it into a certified pre-owned vehicle. New serial number, new access key, new transponder code, new stereo pre-sets, everything but the paint. It won't stand up to actually geting checked over by the Toyota because it won't be in the factory master database, but none of the other options will work for that either.

Wouldn't removing the antennae be a mechanics test also? Wouldn't hardware be for disassembling the cut out mechanism and moding it so it didn't shut down the car. Removal of an antennae or the device itself would be mechanics.

I don't think that hacking the car would allow you to change things like serial number. Cars nowadays have them stamped on numerous places around the vehicle and I imagine that the serial number would be hardwired and unable to be changed.



What about security systems for cars? If standard cars are all electronic with access codes and such what would after market security systems look like? Would people start paying extra for things like night switches or mag locks on the doors?
kzt
QUOTE (odinson)
Removal of an antennae or the device itself would be mechanics.

I'd argue that cutting off an antenna is trivial enough to not test, assuming you have a pair of diagonal cutters. This isn't rocket science. It sticks up, you trim it flat.

It's the well hidden backup security system that gets you. Like the viper GPS you can buy now, which has it's own battery and radio to tell the central station where it is. So go after junkers and avoid high-end new cars.
Spike
I would imagine the old whip antenna of ages past is naught but a memory for those whose lives are bound by shadows.

Alas, I weep for the daigonal cutters that languish unused in the bottom drawer.
kigmatzomat
QUOTE (Cain)

Thing is, all SR4 cars have a pilot rating, which automatically means they're set up for rigger adaptation. Going back a bit, I'd say that any pre-2050 car might be safe from hacking, since it was in SR1 that not all cars came with Pilots or Autonavs standard.

Actually not true. The pilot rating means the vehicle has an AI and the internal mechanisms for the vehicle to drive itself. Rigger adaptation includes systems to provide biometric/simsense data to a rigger to allow the "jumped in" condition.

I personally go a step further and say that without rigger adaptation a vehicle will not obey any instructions that don't come from within the passenger compartment. This can be faked by hotwiring in an external comm (or just passing along voice commands) but that requires some effort.

Most of the safeguards against car theft in SR4 are the need for illegal software and the right skills, which isn't much different than today. Any 13yro with a slimjim can get into a locked car and hotwiring most of them is a pretty trivial job. In SR4 once the owner notices the vehicle gone and reports it to the cops, GridGuide is pretty likely to know where the car is, or at least where it went. Today the top of the line vehicles have OnStar and Lojack, with transponders to locate the vehicle.

Really not a big difference.
kzt
QUOTE (kigmatzomat)
Any 13yro with a slimjim can get into a locked car and hotwiring most of them is a pretty trivial job. In SR4 once the owner notices the vehicle gone and reports it to the cops, GridGuide is pretty likely to know where the car is, or at least where it went. Today the top of the line vehicles have OnStar and Lojack, with transponders to locate the vehicle.

Actually, it's gotten far harder. Many current cars, and most luxury cars, have pretty effective immobilizers built in, and they are commonly installed aftermarket on those that don't. That's commonly believed to be the main cause of the big upsurge in carjacking and theft via flatbed.

OnStar is trivial to disable, it doesn't even have an internal battery. Lojack and the GPS based aftermarket systems are much harder to disable, as you first have to find them, and they do have internal batteries.
odinson
QUOTE (kzt)
QUOTE (kigmatzomat @ Jun 3 2007, 04:39 PM)
Any 13yro with a slimjim can get into a locked car and hotwiring most of them is a pretty trivial job. In SR4 once the owner notices the vehicle gone and reports it to the cops, GridGuide is pretty likely to know where the car is, or at least where it went.  Today the top of the line vehicles have OnStar and Lojack, with transponders to locate the vehicle.

Actually, it's gotten far harder. Many current cars, and most luxury cars, have pretty effective immobilizers built in, and they are commonly installed aftermarket on those that don't. That's commonly believed to be the main cause of the big upsurge in carjacking and theft via flatbed.

OnStar is trivial to disable, it doesn't even have an internal battery. Lojack and the GPS based aftermarket systems are much harder to disable, as you first have to find them, and they do have internal batteries.

Aren't most of the immobilizers built into the ecms of the cars? Thats why you need the special keys with the chips in them to start the car. In SR you can hack the cars so you wouldn't need they keys.

I was wondering about using the secret RFID tags. If the cars call for one of them can the tag be spoofed? It only responds to something with the right code to begin with and you can't scan for them so would you just not be able to hack the car without the tag?
FrankTrollman
A spoof can make any matrix capable device claim to be any other matrix capable device. So if you need the RFID tag in the key, you can spoof the RFID tag off your commlink or even your belt buckle.

QUOTE
I don't think that hacking the car would allow you to change things like serial number. Cars nowadays have them stamped on numerous places around the vehicle and I imagine that the serial number would be hardwired and unable to be changed.


It would not allow you to change the physical imprints on the vehicle parts, nor would it allow you to change the registry of vehicles contained at Aztechnology central (or wherever). So it won't hold up to a sufficiently thorough investigation.

But you could change what the transponders, RFID tags, and on-board computer thinks the car's serial number is. So when you're subjected to a currsory pass from the Police of something like "Are you a car that has been reported stolen?" the car would answer "No."

This means that to properly make this work, you need to tell your new car that it is now owned in some other country or corporate enclave so that the local police contractor doesn't immediately notice that you aren't on the registry the first time they run your plates.

---

Remember that there's two places that a car's data is stored: the car, and the DMV of the country or corporate enclave of origin. In the balkanized world of Shadowrun, you actually can dodge people noticing the discrepency so long as you make sure that whoever is in a position to notice that sort of thing does not have access to the master registry that you've convinced the car that it is on.

-Frank
kigmatzomat
You shouldn't be able to change or wipe the RFID tags with the VIN (or SR4 equivalent) since they should be a security tag. You'd need to find them and cover them with some kind of RF-shielding. I'd expect secure RFID tags with the VIN numbers to be embedded in a dozen different locations in the vehicle in the frame or unibody.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (kigmatzomat)
You shouldn't be able to change or wipe the RFID tags with the VIN (or SR4 equivalent) since they should be a security tag. You'd need to find them and cover them with some kind of RF-shielding. I'd expect secure RFID tags with the VIN numbers to be embedded in a dozen different locations in the vehicle in the frame or unibody.

The thing about secure RFID tags is that they aren't 100% secure. There's always a hack.

In this case, the hack is the certified pre-owned vehicle process. Mitsuhama can buy back a car, have Mitsuhama engineers give it a once over, and reset it with a new identity so that it can be sold as a "certified pre-owned vehicle". Once the vehicle goes through that process, it has a whole new electronic identity, and ideally the only organization that knows who used to own the car is Mitsuhama.

Corporations use this process today in order to make purchasing and selling a used car into a more sanitized experience. But in 2071, hackers can take advantage of this system to reset the electronic systems in a stolen vehicle.

All you have to do is successfully impersonate the Mitsuhama Factory, which requires hacking yourself an Admin account (recall that the actual owner of said car only has a user account on his vehicle).

-Frank
mfb
hm. i was going to say it's kinda silly to have to update the car, instead of simply updating a constellation of databases the way you do with a SIN--but then, that would require the same type of globally-accepted verification process that SINs enjoy.
Cain
QUOTE

Actually not true. The pilot rating means the vehicle has an AI and the internal mechanisms for the vehicle to drive itself. Rigger adaptation includes systems to provide biometric/simsense data to a rigger to allow the "jumped in" condition.

Sorry, but no. SR4, p238:
QUOTE
The key difference that sets drones apart from ordinary vehicles is the rigger adaptation that provides drones with a Pilot program, which enables the drone to act independently of its controller to a limited degree.


Now, for some reason, every single vehicle in the BBB has a Pilot progam. Therefore, every car in the book (and every car legal to put into a SR4 game) is also capable of acting as a drone.
fistandantilus4.0
Except unless I missed the upgrade, motorcycles still require that gyroscopic gizmo from Rigger 3.
odinson
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
QUOTE (kigmatzomat @ Jun 3 2007, 09:48 PM)
You shouldn't be able to change or wipe the RFID tags with the VIN (or SR4 equivalent) since they should be a security tag.  You'd need to find them and cover them with some kind of RF-shielding.  I'd expect secure RFID tags with the VIN numbers to be embedded in a dozen different locations in the vehicle in the frame or unibody.

The thing about secure RFID tags is that they aren't 100% secure. There's always a hack.

In this case, the hack is the certified pre-owned vehicle process. Mitsuhama can buy back a car, have Mitsuhama engineers give it a once over, and reset it with a new identity so that it can be sold as a "certified pre-owned vehicle". Once the vehicle goes through that process, it has a whole new electronic identity, and ideally the only organization that knows who used to own the car is Mitsuhama.

Corporations use this process today in order to make purchasing and selling a used car into a more sanitized experience. But in 2071, hackers can take advantage of this system to reset the electronic systems in a stolen vehicle.

All you have to do is successfully impersonate the Mitsuhama Factory, which requires hacking yourself an Admin account (recall that the actual owner of said car only has a user account on his vehicle).

-Frank

The thing is a car never changes it's identity. The serial number for a car is unique to that car and doesn't ever change. Who the car is registered to does that is why you have a registration for the car. You might be able to hack a car and have the car say that it is registered to your sin but the vin number on a vehicle doesn't change. So the RFID tags would not be hackable as they would not have a need to ever be changed so the numbers on them would be built into the hardware and not the software.
kigmatzomat
QUOTE (Cain)

Sorry, but no.  SR4, p238:
QUOTE
The key difference that sets drones apart from ordinary vehicles is the rigger adaptation that provides drones with a Pilot program, which enables the drone to act independently of its controller to a limited degree.


Now, for some reason, every single vehicle in the BBB has a Pilot progam. Therefore, every car in the book (and every car legal to put into a SR4 game) is also capable of acting as a drone.


I'll see your quoted RAW and raise you another.

QUOTE (BBB p.341)

Rigger Adaptation: When added to a vehicle, this “black boxâ€? allows a character with a control rig (see p. 331) to rig the vehicle (see Rigging and Drones, p. 238), either  through a direct fiberoptic cable or wireless link.


Either "Rigger Adapatation" is standard, in which case why call it "adaptation", or every non-drone needs it. I chose the latter for the basic reason that most people are not riggers (skill 0) and will simply rely on the AI pilot.
Cain
Apparently, it's standard. Again, every car in the book has a Pilot program, and having a Pilot program automatically means it's rigger-adapted. The name is probably a holdover from previous editions. That isn't to say that vehicles without Politos don't exist, they're just not the norm. For example, most cars come with auitomatic transmissions standard, but that doesn't mean every car on the road is an automatic. That just means that every car currently legal to use in an SR4 game is rigger-ready, and that most cars in 2070 are riggable off the showroom floor.
DireRadiant
Read the entire section.

p. 238

"rotorcraft , ground patrol vehicles the size of a large dog,
even modifi ed sports cars—may serve as drones. Th e key diff erence
that sets drones apart from ordinary vehicles is the rigger
adaptation that provides drones with a Pilot program, which
enables the drone to act independently of its controller to a limited
degree.
All drones that are incapable of carrying passengers are
usually automatically pre-adapted for rigger control. Passenger
vehicles or larger passenger drones are not usually pre-adapted,
but can be adapted quickly by the manufacturer, a mechanic, or
even a rigger character (see Rigger Adaptation, p. 341)."

The second paragraph explains which are or are not automatically supplied with rigger adaptation.

Pilot != Rigger adapted
Cain
Actually, it *does* mean that Pilot=Rigger adapted. What it also means is that *all* the vehicles in the SR4 BBB are rigger-adapted. In R3, there's probably dozens of vehicles listed as coming without a Pilot, and therefore without rigger-adaptation. That line, about Pilot separating Drones from Vehicles, has held true in the last two editions of SR, and has not changed.

If you don't want a vehicle that's rigger-adapted, you simply get one without a Pliot program.

The sentence you refer to simply means that not all vehicles are rigger-adapted. And while they imply that it's supposed to be a minority, they contradict themselves by their sample vehicles. Since the only legal vehicles to use have Pilots, the only vehicles you can legally put into a SR4 game has to be rigger-modified. QED.
odinson
can't a vehicle have a pilot and not be rigger adapted? the rigger adaptation is what lets a rigger jump in to the machine a pilot is an ai that can drive the car. You can have a car with a pilot that does not have the rigger adaptation.
Cain
Apparently not. p238 is pretty clear on that point:
QUOTE
The key difference that sets drones apart from ordinary vehicles is the rigger adaptation that provides drones with a Pilot program, which enables the drone to act independently of its controller to a limited degree.
DireRadiant
QUOTE (Cain)
Apparently not. p238 is pretty clear on that point:
QUOTE
The key difference that sets drones apart from ordinary vehicles is the rigger adaptation that provides drones with a Pilot program, which enables the drone to act independently of its controller to a limited degree.

While on the whole, given the implication of other evidence, I agree ti appears vehicles with Pilot Ratings are likely to have rigger adaptation, the fact that drones get a pilot along with rigger adaptation doesn't explicitly mean other vehicles do.

This statement by itself doesn't support the argument unless you also assume other vehicles are considered drones.
Darkest Angel
QUOTE
the rigger adaptation that provides drones with a Pilot program,

It is posible to add a pilot program without making it rigger adapted. Your quote just says that Rigger Adaptation provides a Pilot Program, not that a Pilot Program requires/provides Rigger Adaptation.
cx2
Pilot program is what allows autonav or to take orders.

Rigger adaption (which it seems was misused as a term in your quoted section of the BBB) is what feeds the simsense data, and allows direct control by a rigger.

Perhaps this should be forwarded for errata.
Cain
How is it possible to add a Pilot without adding rigger adaptation? There's no rules for it. Even in SR3, you couldn't add a pilot without rigger-adapting.

A Pilot program allows a vehicle to become a drone, and act independantly. If it can act independantly, it's a drone, and therefore rigger-adapted. You can claim it's a mistake, but this is consistent with previous editions of SR.
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