My PC has a Response 3 commlink and a Pilot 3 minidrone.
If I want to use the commlink for EW, I could buy a Rating 3 Agent for $3000, the EW autosoft at rating 3 ($600), Sniffer 3 ($1500), Decrypt 3 ($1500).
If I want to use the drone for EW, I buy the EW autosoft at rating 3 ($600), and Decrypt 3 ($1500); I don't need Agent because the drone has built-in Pilot; and for $150, I can install a Radio Scanner lvl 6, which acts as Sniffer 6.

Looks like the drone is the far, far better option, not requiring an Agent or a Sniffer program. Am I missing something? Does installing a radio scanner really fulfill all the abilities of the Sniffer program?

On BBB p. 227, under the description of the Spoof program, the only listed use is the "Redirect" action. However, the section on the Spoof Command, p. 224, says that the Spoof program is used with the Spoof Command action. Which is correct?

If the Agent on my commlink or the Pilot on my drone wants to send commands to someone else's drone, it needs to roll Hacking skill plus Spoof program. I don't see an autosoft that replicates the Hacking skill. -1 for defaulting, plus the Spoof program rating?

Agents and Pilots use their Rating in place of Skills like Hacking and EW.

A Pilot can have the EW Autosoft; does the Rating of the EW autosoft add, with their Pilot Rating, to the dice pool for "intercept, decrypt, jam signals" and related actions (quoted text from p. 240)?
If so, that gives Pilots a big advantage over Agents for such tasks.
It also makes a metahuman hacker much less replacable than a metahuman EW specialist.
If not, then what's the benefit, if any, of an EW autosoft rating higher than 1?

p, 240
"Electronic Warfare
Th is provides the drone with an in-depth knowledge of
radio communications and the use of electronic warfare against
them. A Pilot with this autosoft can intercept, decrypt, jam signals,
and take on other actions made possible by the Electronic
Warfare skill (see p. 225)."

The roll will be
EW Autosoft + Program

Not
Pilot + AUtosoft + Program

Skill + Program is the model for wireless dice pools.

So then, it is only Agents that use their Rating in place of the actual Skill?

Ah, good point DireRadiant, but if Fortune is accurate then one can just use Pilot rating instead of Skill, which means that the autosoft conveys no improvement to the dice pool (unless a drone can use an autosoft at a higher rating than its Pilot rating, which strikes me as inconsistent unless the Pilot has a lower rating than the Response of the drone's hardware).

p. 214
"In game terms, the
Pilot attribute stands in for
Computer, Cybercombat,
Data Search, and Hacking
skills, as called for. It may
also represent an agent,
IC, or drone’s “Mental
attributes� when called
for (usually Intuition and
Logic, and sometimes
Willpower)."

Note that EW is not on that list.

Therefore when rolling EW..

Pilot Skill of 0 + Program

Interesting interpretation. I would say its more like:

Drones use autosofts

Agents use hacker software

Agents are specialized in the virtual world while Pilots are the equivalent of "dual natured", running hardware that moves in meatspace while also acting as a node in contact with other nodes. But can an Agent run an EW autosoft, since that's all about abstract signals? if not as RAW, as a viable houserule? In general... what's a good limit on the AI of an Agent?

A rigger can operate a drone's guns, either as captain's-chair or jumped in, and if she has decent Gunnery+AGL, the drone's fire will be more accurate when directed by the rigger, than when the drone is operating on its own. Could a Rating 6 Agent operating on a Response 6 commlink, run a drone and direct its fire more effectively than the drone's low-end "dogbrain"?

I see a market for an AI program that runs on a commlink and can direct a group of drones as a coordinated fireteam... indeed, possibly assigning targets based on EW intel, eg lay down suppressing fire at locations where the radio scanner indicates that someone's operating a commlink, even if no target appears on visual scanners. (An AI getting signal scanner input from multiple drones should be able to triangulate locations of RF-broadcasting devices.)

You'd still have the limitation of System = Response. So buy Response 5 and everything works at lower of System or 5.

And Pilot = System

all that is required to use an autosoft is a pilot rating. agents have a pilot rating. therefore they can use autosofts.

the advantage to a pilot program over an agent in terms of dealing with computers is that your agent:

1) counts as a running program
2) needs to have a command program to be able to control devices at all.

whereas the pilot:

1) does not count as a running program
2) does not need any sort of special program to control most devices (with the exception of weapons, oddly).

this means that on average, a pilot of a given rating can have 2 more active programs than an agent of the same rating. which is a fairly significant difference, imo

as far as "no rules for tripod/bipod/etc", i would direct your attention to the rules. feel free to point out where it says that vehicle mounted weapons do not have accessory mounts. let me know if you find somewhere, because i sure haven't. conclusion: vehicle mounted weapons *do* have accessory mounts, and therefore anything with an 'under' mount can be given a bipod or tripod (though i personally would represent this as extra bracing or whatever in the mount rather than an actual bipod or tripod for drones).

So why can't I use a Pilot program on my Commlink instead of an Agent (or indeed instead of System)?

Pilots/Agents are special software in that it can be both an OS and a Program.

On a commlink, or any device with an OS already, it acts as a program.

On a device without it's own OS, it can act as OS and system.

There's no reason you couldn't get rid of the OS on a commlink and have your Agent act as it's OS. Except that then it can't wander off and operate independently.

There's no reason for a vehicle pilot to not have both an OS and a Pilot program. Except that since the Pilot software can act as it's own OS, and it's probably undesirable for the Pilot software to leave the device it's running in the case of your urban commuter vehicle, and it's cheaper to install one program instead of two.

So, what benefits would (or could) a person gain by replacing his Commlink's OS with a Pilot? And couldn't he also just run an Agent on that Commlink as well?

i never said it was a poorly-thought-out house rule, just that it's a house rule that's fairly widespread, and i gave the reason for the thinking behind it.

i personally have no major problems assuming that the pilot program basically connects to programming built-in to the body it's controlling (that is, a doberman has the information to control it built-in, and the pilot just tells that programming what to do, with a higher-rating pilot being both smarter and better able to integrate itself into the control interface) but i can certainly understand how some people don't like that approach =P

I found this thread and didn't really read a consensus.

A drone will use Autosoft + Pilot for most actions.

Reading the EW autosoft, it sounds like it supplants the other EW programs a hacker would normally use (

EW is one of the skills a Pilot does not come with. Therefore you need this autosoft for the Skill + Program test. In most cases Pilot = Skill, but not for EW.

p. 214

"In game terms, the
Pilot attribute stands in for
Computer, Cybercombat,
Data Search, and Hacking
skills, as called for. It may
also represent an agent,
IC, or drone’s “Mental
attributes� when called
for (usually Intuition and
Logic, and sometimes
Willpower)"

Scanning is a Scan Program + EW skill test, see p. 226

Sniffer is a Sniffer Program + EW skill test, see p. 227

Decrypt is a Decrypt Program + EW skill test, see page 227