Could someone please explain to me how Pilot programs work? (what do you roll for pilot tests? how smart are differnt pilot ratings? Do you simply pay for the whole rating of a pilot program (3000nY for a rating 3 pilot) or do you pay 1000 per -upgraded- level? (i.e. a pilot 2 vehicle gets an upgrade to pilot 3 costs an extra 1000)

For some reason the Pilot rules are spread throughout the rulebook and are extremely thin and unexplained. Thanks!

(if i'm missing something, please give me a page number)

I just run them as "Autopilots" for basic driving.

Great for when you're really, really, really had too much to drink at the Big Rhino, and need to get home, but don't want to leave the Ford Americar in the Downtown Militarized Zone!

The problem is that the Pilot rating stands in for three things: the brains of IC, Agents, and Pilot programs. The first two are basically the same: you roll Pilot in place of skill, so it's Pilot + Program. In Vehicles, the Pilot program stands alone, so you roll it alone, plus the rating of an associated autosoft.

As far as upgrading goes, I believe you can do it piecemeal. However, each type of AI program requires a different Pilot system, so the Pilot for a vehicle won't be the same as a Pilot for IC. To make matters worse, each vehicle type requires its own Pilot program. So, the same Pilot you buy for your car won't be the same as the one you buy for your rotodrone, and might not even be the one you need for your tracked Steel Lynx.

One of my players would benefit greatly from his vehicle being able to follow another vehicle without him in it, or meet him at a certain location, and it doesn't usually have the benefit of GridGuide. So I'm thiking a pilot of 3 or 4, no? I have no idea what it should be. Nor what to roll if something unexpected happens and the Pilot has to take evasive action to avoid a collision.

Or what the cost of upgrading it is....

A Pilot of 1 can do that, and most vehicles in the book have that already. The problem being, as you pointed out, that said vehicle would only get 1 die to avoid an unexpected collision, make a complicated maneuver, and so on. A Maneuver autosoft will add dice, but only up to the rating of the Pilot.

ooo so for his Rover Model 2068, which has pilot 2, it'd be much more efficient to get a rating 2 Maneuver (Rover SUV) Autosoft than upgrading Pilot to 4, for example? That's excellent. I just found the Drone rules now btw, I didn't realize they were seperated from the Vehicle rules... they're hiding behind the technomancer section! pfft, travesty.

Since rolling 4 dice ensures (statistically, at least) a single success most of the time, I think that's what I'll suggest to him. Thanks Cain for the clarification! (We've always handwaved travel time and left the vehicles curbside during runs, so far.)

Here's how I describe things to my group: (Again, this is how I'm handling things until I find out otherwise)

At Pilot 1, the car connects with GridGuide, and is a nice little follower.

At Pilot 2-3, the car is able to do some nice corrections on it's own, drive somewhat on their own when GridGuide fails, and come when you Wirelessly call from the parkaide to the front entrance of the Mall.

At Pilot 4, it's almost as smart as your typical driver in Seattle. (That's not a compliment, BTW). It can drive pretty well on it's own without any outside support, but isn't going to be doing much in the way of smart things in combat, that's for sure. And erratic traffic is going to confuse it quickly.

And I'm too tired to pry out Arsenal to get more information at this time. I'll do that tomorrow, when I make pre-fab characters for a possible demo at the Con this weekend!

Geez CanRay you are really gimping your players Pilot programs. I mean as Cain stated the rating is the base die determination number ie the Attribute if you will of the device. I mean a rating 3 Pilot is just as good as an untrained average joe on the street. Add the autosoft for the skill and it has a decent chance to complete its tasking. I have my players roll the Pilot + Autosoft vs a target threshold I arbitrarily set determined on the complexity of the task.

Actually I believe that according to Arsenal you should be able to run up to a rating 3 maneuver autosoft on any unmodified vehicle. The Device/Software Ratings section on p 102 states very clearly that Pilot /= System and that all Matrix stats for a vehicle are based on the Device Rating table in the BBB. This means that while your Pilot may = 1 your System and Response = 3, therefore allowing you to run 2 programs at Rating 3.

So that Pilot 1 car could have a dicepool of Pilot + Maneuver = 4. (Similar to having Cha 1 and Etiquette 3).

Yeah. I'm talking the BASE Pilot. No Autosofts.

You add autosofts, and you add in some decision making power to the system, so it can actually do some "Thinking".

Still won't beat a Rigger, or a honest-to-goodness Metahuman, however.

Now that I agree with. The Base pilot will never beat a rigger, but an average human? Yeah I believe a rating 4 Pilot is smarter than your average unskilled Meta. Seeing as a average Meta has 2 and 3 as attribute ratings and the pilot has a rating 4 effectivly for its attributes.

Yeah, but the average Meta will also have a Drive of 1, having had to pass a driving test after all. So that puts him at a 3 or 4.

Oops, forgot about that. I was running with the BBB assumption.



Pilot's aren't supposed to beat a good rigger, so complete agreement here. However, good Pilots will trounce the average metahuman.

I'd argue that point. First of all, according to p108 in the BBB, skill rating 0 is "Basic operator's license". Second, as automation increases, the knowledge to drive a car decreases. Not many people know how to drive a manual transmission, after all. Given another 60 years, and with the advent of functional autopilots, I'd contend that the knowledge needed to drive a car has become even less.

Yeah, but Autopilots and GridGuide are still fairly new. Teens and early 20ers would be the 0-Level. Anyone older would be the 1-Levelers.

Autopilots and Grid Guide have existed since at least 2050, and probably for a few years before that. That means anyone over the age of at least 30 probably had it growing up. Still, while rating 1 is well within reach ("Seasoned driver with low insurance premiums") that's clearly not the norm, regardless of your age.

OK, fair enough. I misremembered things, and thought GridGuide was newer.

Maybe I'm thinking of GridLink.

all i can see on page 102 of arsenal about pilot programs is that they aren't part of the device rating. pilot rating still acts as system for anything that has a pilot rating.

Hmm...you're right from page 214 of BBB. So all that rule does is make it harder to hack your car. That's stupid. Although that means that your car can also hack other cars and scan for hidden nodes for you. Does anyone know if it says anywhere in the Books/Errata/FAQ that says specifically that Drone Pilot does not allow them to act as an Agent?

Other than the fact that they're treated as mutually-exclusive things in the BBB?

Pilot is also the OS of the vehicle, it takes the place of the System as far as Matrix attributes go. Therefore you can not run programs higher than the Pilot rating. Also if you run a number of programs equal to (or over) the Pilot rating the Response goes down. That shouldn't matter if your Response is higher than your Pilot, but Response is negatively modified by one for every multiple of the Pilot rating in programs that you run.

So for example if you run 3 autosofts on a vehicle with Pilot of 1 your response goes down by 3. If your response is 4 that doesn't matter as Response is a limiter for your Pilot rating and in this case your response will still be one. What happens if your response goes to zero? Well I guess your whole system crashes.

As far as your car hacking a node for you, I would think that that goes beyond the parameters of the Pilot program. I'd roll a Pilot+Response to see if it understands your orders, maybe give it a threshold of 3.

Except that it definitely can intercept and decrypt signals for you if you use an Autosoft. Wonder if they will ever publish an Exploit or Datasearch Autosoft.

Actually Datasearch/Hacking/Computers/Cybercombat are basic skills all agents/pilots already know. (I believe I got the skill list correct).

I presume most people would have needed to manual drive during the crash down period though, meaning they have some manual experience.

You are correct. I just read the rules over myself. Pilot programs, just like IC and Agents, have Computer, Cybercombat, Data Search, and Hacking skills.

Wow. Alright, CN Patrol 1 w/command 3, I want you to subscribe these 3 Steel Lynxes and use them to Kill All Shadowrunners marked by a Red X on your Sensor Overlay. Hey Kanmushi drone, please dig up all information you can find on Mr. Johnson. Forget taking along an Agent for cybercombat, my riggers are just going to bring their Dobermans along for decoy/medics. Guess they are man's best friend.

Wow, TM Riggers are SCARY.