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Abbandon
Ok I have some newb questions about rigging now.

-Please describe all the wonderous ways an individual can drive/pilot a vehichle or drone and what kind of tech that would require, and what skills it would use. I know there is manual driving, "remote control" driving, and "being the vehicle/drone" driving. But I dont know any of the details.

I have a vision of one of my characters who is not and doesnt want to be a full blown rigger being able to plop down into the chair of a vehicle and have the chair be skin linked and be able to drive it like that without ever touching the steering wheel. Can you manually drive stuff through skinlink ?

Also I would kind of like to maybe have one of those eyeball drones, I dont want to ever "be" the drone but what would I need to drive it around and stuff??
Karaden
Well, if you don't ever want to 'be' the drone, then all you really need is a commlink, a decent command program, a decent piolet program, decent autosofts... and that's about it. You only need actual vehical usage skills if you are going to manually drive the vehicle or rig it ('be' it)

I'm sure others will add tons of stuff, but that is the basics.
Abbandon
Ok what about a skinlinked drivers seat, what would that entail.
kzt
50 nuyen.gif , assuming the GM follows the "all vehicles are rigged" that is a possible interpretation of the poorly written and unclear rules in the book (p238). Or 2500 + 50 if the other interpretation of the poorly written and unclear rules is used.
Karaden
I don't see much reason for a skinlinked driver seat. If your sitting in the dirver's seat anyway, just grab the wheel. Also, if it is only the seat that is linked, then you'd only really be able to control it by leaning side to side, which wouldn't be very effective.
Fortune
QUOTE (Karaden)
Also, if it is only the seat that is linked, then you'd only really be able to control it by leaning side to side, which wouldn't be very effective.

That's not how Skinlink works. It would be exactly the same as if he was using a wireless connection, or even a datajack to control the vehicle.
Karaden
*clears throat*
QUOTE

Skinlink: With skinlink, a device is adapted to send and receive data transmitted through the electrical field on the surface of metahuman skin. Though limited to touch, skinlink communication has the advantage of being protected from signal interception or jamming.


So, givin the definition, I don't see how he would be controling the vehicle through his chair unless he could figure out how to flex his butt properly to make the chair recognise what commands he was sending.

*edit*

And even if it was easier then that, I don't see it being any more effective then just using the wheel.
Fortune
One could assume that Abbandon intended the chair to actually be wired into the vehicle itself.

I still fail to see where you think it states that any movement (of a butt or otherwise) is necessary to utilize a Skinlinked device. If I skinlink a Medkit, I don't have to molest it in order to get it to work. A skinlink merely facilitates wireless signal between two sources utilizing the skin as a medium instead of airwaves. No manual manipulation (other than actually touching the device) is required.

The reason you would want to do it is the same as the reason behind driving via a datajack. You are using purely mental commands to manipulate the vehicle instead of the normal manual interaction, which in the past (can't recall for SR4) has granted a +1 (minimum) to the user's skill while operating a vehicle in this manner.
Abbandon
Actually my reasons were far less techy. One of my characters is a troll and I see skinlink as a way to manipulate things without having them be troll sized. Thus allowing myself and the other people on my team to use the same object without any loss of function.

Theres no way in hell I would skinlink the chair so that you have to touch it with your naked ass lol. I was thinking more along the lines of arm rests. Or maybe even a skinned steering wheel. It would be cool to be holding onto the steering wheel and turn the car without actually moving it lol.
Magus
Good old fashioned datajack with fiberoptic cable to the "Rigger Black Box" as in SR1-3.
Malicant
@Karaden
I get the feeling you haven't realy understood what a skinlink is. If the seat is skinlinked, it does not translate your movement into commands. It just transfer the commands you issue from your commlink to the vehicle, the medium not beeing WiFi signals but the electrical field of the skin. So as long as you have contact with the skinlinked seat the vehicle would do exactly what you want it to do. You dan't need your butt to do anything and you don't even need to move if your controlling your commlink via a DNI.

The point of this beeing that you can disable any WiFi capabilities on your commlink and vehicle so no punk can try to hack you.

@Topic
I so totally will steal this idea. For my NPCs of course. Skinlink is the way to go to defend against pesky Runners who try to hack the planet smile.gif
Dashifen
QUOTE (Abbandon)
Please describe all the wonderous ways an individual can drive/pilot a vehichle or drone and what kind of tech that would require, and what skills it would use.  I know there is manual driving, "remote control" driving, and "being the vehicle/drone" driving.  But I dont know any of the details.
  1. Manual Driving
    Requires the vehicle and it's manual controls. Uses the driver's vehicle skill and reaction for tests. The handling of the vehicle modifies this dice pool and the threshold his determined by the difficulty of the test and the terrain (see p. 159 and 160 for the appropriate tables). In fact, the difficulty and terrain always determine the threshold unless otherwise specified (e.g., the specified Crash Test threshold of 3).

  2. Manual Driving w/ AR
    Requires the vehicle and it's manual controls plus a subscription to the vehicles node. Uses the driver's vehicle skill and reaction and provides a +1 bonus for the extra information provided to the driver via AR. Handling modifies this as above.

  3. Remote Driving w/ AR
    Exactly as Manual Driving above; no bonus for AR is applied.

  4. Manual or Remote Driving w/ VR
    Dice pool is still vehicle skill plus reaction, but VR provides a -1 to modifier to the threshold of the test using VR.

  5. Commanding the Vehicle as a Drone
    Commanding a vehicle (assuming it has a Pilot rating and can, thus, act as a Drone) can be done with a subscription to the vehicle. Vehicle tests are then performed by the drone's Pilot + Maneuver Autosoft (if available). For evil GM's the drone may need to make a "common sense" test (Pilot + Response) to determine if the drone can understand the issued command and follow it appropriately.

  6. Rigging a Vehicle
    Rigging a vehicle, or "jumping into" a vehicle, uses the Rigger's Vehicle skill and the matrix attributes of the drone. I take this to mean that you substitute the vehicle's Response for the Rigger's Reaction attribute. The Control Rig cyberware can provide a +2 bonus to the dice pool for these tests if the Rigger has one.
For more reading:
  • p. 159-162, Vehicle Tests
  • p. 213, Pilot Programs
  • p. 220-221, Controlling Devices and Issuing Commands
  • p. 238-240, Rigging and Drones (don't miss the errata for p. 239)
  • p. 331, the Control Rig
  • p. 341-342, the Vehicle list
Karaden
QUOTE (Malicant @ Dec 11 2007, 11:49 AM)
@Karaden
I get the feeling you haven't realy understood what a skinlink is. If the seat is skinlinked, it does not translate your movement into commands. It just transfer the commands you issue from your commlink to the vehicle, the medium not beeing WiFi signals but the electrical field of the skin. So as long as you have contact with the skinlinked seat the vehicle would do exactly what you want it to do. You dan't need your butt to do anything and you don't even need to move if your controlling your commlink via a DNI.

The point of this beeing that you can disable any WiFi capabilities on your commlink and vehicle so no punk can try to hack you.

@Topic
I so totally will steal this idea. For my NPCs of course. Skinlink is the way to go to defend against pesky Runners who try to hack the planet smile.gif

Ya, that was my problem. I generally thought of the skinlink as being like a glove or something that you wore in order to manipulate stuff. *edit* Not as something that turned your skin into a fiberoptics cable.

And as for getting a bonus due to driving through the skinlink... Looking at the rules it says if you use AR you get a +1 bonus (which wouldn't require a skinlink) And if you use VR you get a +2 bonus (Which I believe would require a control rig, and if not then using a control rig grants you -another- +2 bonus on top of already being in VR)
Dashifen
QUOTE (Karaden)
And as for getting a bonus due to driving through the skinlink... Looking at the rules it says if you use AR you get a +1 bonus (which wouldn't require a skinlink) And if you use VR you get a +2 bonus (Which I believe would require a control rig, and if not then using a control rig grants you -another- +2 bonus on top of already being in VR)

Driving with AR gets you a +1 to the dice pool as long as it's not remote driving. Driving in VR with a Control Rig gets you a -1 to the Vehicle Test Threshold and, if you have a Control Rig, you get a +2.
Karaden
Wow, totaly misread that dead.gif
Jaid
the remote driving dicepool is actually skill + command program rating, not skill + reaction.

when rigging in hotsim VR, you get +2 from hotsim and +2 from control rig (if you have the control rig, of course). they are 2 separate bonuses, and both can apply.
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