Haven't made too many riggers and one of my players is working on one. What are the basics that he needs. He will mostly focus on helicopters. Ground vehicles and hovercrafts are his secondary, and drones will be his tierciary. Im sure he wants a VCR , but how fancy do we have to get to be decent?

Oh, we are playing 3rd edition and he has 'one million dollars'(in a bad Dr. Evil voice impression). That might be helpful information.

I wouldn't go higher than a rating 2 VCR, as that gives you the advantage over pretty much everyone else, without totally swamping your Essence.

Others, like Kagetenshi, will disagree.

Thanks... Level 2 VCR now purchased.

Any other recommended cyber/bioware? He is also a B/R specialist so I got all the brain buffs.

The first thing you need to do is stop thinking about drones as tertiary, or as different from your main vehicle. I can't for the life of me figure out where the idea of a divide between a "vehicle rigger" and a "drone rigger" came from—the closest thing to a useful distinction is that a "drone rigger" is what happens when a rigger loses, or doesn't have, a nice primary ridable vehicle.

Ok, I guess this is for one of your players, in which case it's something the player needs to do.

Then: to be decent, you only need a VCR-2. To be great, you need a VCR-3—the extra between -1 and -2, together with the +2 to Reaction and by extension Control Pool, makes a big difference. If the character is going to be fairly dedicated to the trade, a 3 is the only way to go IMO.

Make sure you have a variety of drones for a variety of tasks, and make sure you know how you… damn, I'm using "you" again. Ok, just interpret it as applying to the proper person, I'm tired. Know how you're going to deploy the drones, get them into position, and get them back out of wherever you put them. A Doberman may be a miniature tank, but as a ground vehicle it's easy to get trapped, or to require too much setup to get into position. Not to say they should be avoided, but IMO the air-based drones are your primary.

More later, maybe.

Edit: RAAAAAAAAGH! *gnaws at Fortune's ankles*

~J

Roger. We will have drones as well... and they wont be tertiary.

What about the remote control deck?

Microscopic Vision (or even complete cybereyes with that enhancement) would help with most B/R stuff.

I'm not as well versed as I should be in SR3 anymore. Damn Senility!

Edited while you were typing Fortune...

What about a remote control deck? Not sure if thats the proper name... its been a long time since we have made a rigger.

Crack? What a loser. Smack is the way to go.

Thanks for all the last minute (at least for me) helpful info.

All this has been helpful. Thank you for everything, any additional advice and info is welcomed.

Remember though, crack is bad, get hooked on smack.

As far as RC decks go, it primarily depends on the level of rules detail you want to devote to the rigging sub-game. But on top of Kagentenshi's suggestions, I'd also recommend getting a Biofeedback Filter so every little speedbump and ding won't risk killing you and a signal amplifier (for a cheap, mostly-portably Flux boost). Storage memory would also be something to look at - not only can you store command programs, recon and blackmail recordings, fake sensor logs, and (I think) alternate subscription lists, but you save money on autosofts by streaming them from the deck instead of having to install a copy in every single drone. I'd also suggest investing in at least some degree of ECCM - even throwing out the optional MIJI stuff, the basic RC rules still call for interference that you'll need to overcome.

Decryption, Protocol Emulation, and the two Battletac systems are fun toys to play with, but they're pretty expensive (even with Resources A - and moreso when you're dealing with an active character's other expenses), and their utility depends completely on the campaign and the role of the rigger in it. If there's not going to be any CCSS-hacking, SIGINT, or complicated combat operations, they're best left on the fixer's shelf.

We've been through this.

VCR-3s are definitely worth it ... if the character doesn't want to ever do anything else, like leave the van.

If, on the other hand, the character intends to actually be useful outside of the Yellowjacket, then a VCR-2 is ample.

A single cyberlimb with a remote control deck and flux boost installed in it is always a good option, but it would usually be something to add later in the campaign after a little battle damage.

a bulldog step van with the changing number plate and colourchange, or plain white with a few useful stencils and some fast set paint. everyone uses step vans, and a quick u-turn in a side alley while you switch colours and identity plates is an excellent way to loose pursuit.

a condor with an excellent sensor suite and maximal stealth on constant orbit over your operational site with the data fed into either your battletac™ or just being watched by your rigger/decker/operations leader.

a bulked out roto-drone with a cargo of 100+ kg can be used to ferry other team members from rooftop to rooftop or to the ground...unless they are trolls...

Or Orks. Or just large humans. I'm not small, but I mass in at about 90 kilos in light clothing, and have been up at about a hundred—add any meaningful amount of gear, and that "+" quickly becomes the important part.

I mean, it's definitely doable and can be very handy, but don't underestimate the kind of lifting capacity required.

~J

can't believe people forget improved artwinculation for the B/R Angle O.o
and of course they give give +1 for technical and combat which includes gunnery in 3rd ed too *g*
also they give +1 point of natural reaction, and a suprathoid gland is a good thing too . . if you're lucky it imrpoves your reaction by not 1 but two points by giving you one point reaction and one point quickness which is used in the calculation of reaction . . reaction is pretty much important later on too, as the cost to rise vehicle skills depends on your reaction . . and of course the natural reaction gets used to calculate the controll pool, so you will want more of that . . the biggest draw of VCR is the inability to use boosted reflexes and thereby not being able to get a + on you ini-score on game start without using wired reflexes level 1 . . and those are generally not worth it, because they take up too damn much essence . .
As for vehicles, what kind of vehicles would you be planning on using?
i'd suggest hover-craft and vector thrust and lighter than air for drones . . the hover-craft could be used as a drone carrier for example *g*

we're just listing basic stuff, Stahlseele.

I'm a big fan of spider drones and miniature recon drones.

the ability to go anywhere, and see everything is priceless.

they also don't draw as much attention as a 2-meter turbine-powered helicopter with an under slung LMG.

If you're accepting vehicle designs, I've posted the Vector Kimji elsewhere on the boards—it's essentially the rotodrone equivalent of the spiders, and the enhanced mobility is really useful.

~J

ahem, the ruger thunderbolt is lone-star only weapon O.o
and way above usually available items on game start o.O
for that one you would have to have killed at least one member from an Lone Star HTR-Team to have looted it off of his dead body *g*
synaptic accellerator and cerebral booster are cultured bioware and not available on char-gen . . or did i miss something? o.o
The Deck is optional, while a DATAJACK to actually USE the VCR3(i would go with level2 tops) is not . . without said deck you just can't Remote controll anything but will have to jack directly into the vehicle in question . . so no drones without that *g*
if you want an internal deck you should look into cyber-limbs, as those decks can be placed inside one of them *g*

in SR 3rd ? O.o
and the availability of 14/12 days?

Thanks Kagetenshi.

I agree with stahlseele, drop the articulation or go VCR-2, the benefit of articulation is mostly for a more generalist character. Not sure I'd go with the synaptic accellerator either if your planning to stay mostly in the machine. Based on this build it looks like your going more generalist, where you can fight from the machine or in the fray.

I personally go with a VCR-3 since I tend to dedicate myself to the job. Typically I'll usually go alpha for that much needed meat space my future upgrades will include.

Some advice:

A problem I've found with my rigger characters is always running out of skill points. So in the end I've usually opted for taking no more than 1 vehicle repair skill and having a GM Mr. Fixit or 2 complete with autosofts for my basic vehicle repairs.

I'd suggest taking the SUT skill at some point, specialization in IVIS if your team won't gain much benefit from it.

Don't bother with Encryption for an initial character, the cost to implement it on each drone across the board and on the RC deck gets quite costly, I do quickly buy this upgrade as soon as I can. Remember they all have to be running at the same rating or it will fail.

Other upgrades can be skipped as well but I'd recommend anything that can go directly on the RC deck only be bought at a fairly high rating.

An edge I never pass up is connected (3 points) vehicles. so I have a contact I can buy vehicles from without street index.

I'd suggest a router of some sort so you can hook up external devices like offline storage to your deck. Lots of other uses as well and not too expensive.

sleep regulators and jolt alerts can be your friend.

3 drones to look into are the steel lynx if you want a mini tank, lone star strato for a rotor drone with good manueverability and an MMG, and the previously mentioned condors with some form of photogenic paint/camo/rheuthenium polymer to make a nice hidden eye in the sky.

I would actually advise against going alphaware on the VCR—it means you need a big wad of cash to upgrade later, but on the other hand it saves you about 30% of your budget to start (for the VCR-3). Plus, there's not that much 'ware you really need as a Rigger, and the stuff that would be most useful needs highly advanced 'ware to use.

*Mutters things about how they made the Tactical Computer useful primarily to Riggers and then made the Essence Cost so steep that you need either both to be betaware or one to be deltaware and the other alpha to get them into the same character*

Edit: I'd also advise away from Condors—wait, I'm smoking crack. Damn it, why do these things have to have another name? Yeah, I'm a big fan of the LDSDs. Mini-blimps for the win.

~J

Some vehicles made according to the vehicle design rules:

Get a small chunk of headware memory linked up to your VCR. Install your homebrew rank 9+ encryption algorithm in it. Add a chunk of memory to the Rigger interface of all your vehicles, with a nasty nasty Black IC installed.

Your encryption automatically allows you to access your vehicles. Anyone who lacks your gear gets smashed by the Black IC...and the VCR is not the usual direction for such attacks, so it will have little or no defence. Thief suffers horribly.

Just a neat little idea, that can work even from the beginning.

FYI, Black IC can't be active on Rigger networks, and broadcast encryption is fundamentally different from data encryption in SR (and can't be programmed by oneself).

~J

Kage, those drones are beautiful.

yeah, pretty good . . even if i wuld a)include the translation of Schattenauge[Shadoweye{Eye of Shadow(s)}] and b)probably not give a drone IR-Sensorics if it's going to be armed with a Flamethrower *g*

Well, I didn't include the translation of lanceur, either ("launcher". I'm so imaginative.)

~J

yeah, but that's french . .

link
Here's a list of micro UVA drones.

My suggestion is to check R3, page 27 under Reflex Boosters.

There's no point to getting the Orientation System, though; each point of Sensor counts as an entire extra sense, and doesn't cost Essence.

That said,thanks for pointing that out—I always overlook cyberlimbs, probably because they're so bad the vast majority of the time.

~J

so house-rule them O.o
style is important, nobody should get Problems because of style requirements!
use the 4th Rules for Limbs in 3rd for example ^^

let me precicise(SP?)
use the augmentation rules, that's the first time i actually thought of limbs worthwhile . .
Use Prices of SR4, use Limb-Rules of SR4 converted to 3rd standard . . if needed be BRIBE your SL *g*

All good points thus far. My two cents are as follows.

There is absolutely no substitute for solid surveillance capability, in fact this is the primary use for riggers in games I run and play. Putting a couple of very stealthy drones over a target for a few days prior to the main event means priceless intel. This has always meant having a sh*tload of memory on your RC deck, through external storage media or whatever, and generally mini-blimp drones made with a high signature stat and the suncell adaption (so they rarely run out of power). Remember surveillance can be vehicle sensors as well, not just drones - parking a car with decent sensors in the long-term parking lot over the road from the target is good cover too.

I agree with the step van. You really can't have a rigger without a decent van.

Generally I go for Connected 5 (vehicles, drones and accessories). The reason is that car theft and drone theft with the right gear is a fantastic side line for keeping up the cash flow on what is a very cash-hungry character type. Ensure the GM is OK with that first, however, because not everyone likes characters to have such side-lines for cash.

My personal preference with all drones is having onboard memory on the drone with at least a minimal pilot and autonav rating. If the carrier signal is lost (rigger gets knocked out, jamming, have to go offline for some reason etc) the onboard memory runs a pre-written program which basically says 'go to point X quietly and wait there for instructions'. This way your drones are much more recoverable in emergency situations. There are rules for writing such programs in SR3.

Electronics is a vital skill. Remember you can put an RF scanner (from SOTA2064) on drones, in vehicles and so on so you can triangulate enemy signals quickly and accurately. You can have a go at broadcast decryption to 'hack' enemy radio frequencies and stuff with them. Surveillance drones also benefit from the specialised Intelligence-type sensors (highly refined visual and audio at the cost of the other systems, especially good for surveillance).

I have always found Electronic Deception worth the huge cost. Being able to insert false readings on enemy sensor networks is pure gold. In the right circumstance it is just as good as a mage with an illusion spell for creating a distraction.

Combat drones need to be able to fly. It's as simple as that. The tactical versatility of a flying drone cannot be underestimated, and nothing sucks more than when your rigger has to leave behind their multi-thousand-nuyen drone to hold off the ravening hordes whilst the rest of the players escape. One flying combat drone is worth many wheeled combat bricks.

Sniper drones (mini-blimps or rotor drones) are beautiful if the GM will let them happen, but most GMs find these too annoying. Loading an 11S single silenced shot from 100m up into the heads of NPCs is a very fast way to win fights and annoy the GM.

Finally, chuck a few MGL-12s onto a few cheap-as-anything flying frisbee drones. Nothing puts up a smoke cover like two of these dumping IR smoke grenades, four per turn, anywhere and everywhere. For extra effect have one load smoke and one load pepper punch gas - this virtually guaruntees a successful getaway from pursuers on foot.

Sniper Drone Wars is one of our group's few mostly-unspoken taboos. It makes a huge amount of sense to use sniper blimpdrones, but that goes for NPCs as well, and while we generally dislike the solution of voluntarily ignoring things that make sense to do in-game, we've collectively decided that we have more fun in a game where characters who are visible from the sky don't have their heads explode in essentially unresistible ways.

So yeah, be very careful of what you may start there.

~J

have Droner-bombers . . load them up with grenades of all kinds . . Thermo-smoke, Stun-Grenades, Gas-Grenades . . SLIP-SPRAY mwahahahaha! . .

basically you're installing sensors into your cyberarm with that thing *g*