In 4th Ed they merged riggers and deckers into one class. I guess that makes sense. All the computers work the same whether it is an ATM or driving a lawn mower after the cat, but that is the new tech brought in when Matrtix 2.0 came along.

I can understand that most deckers were eaten alive when the old Matrix did a melt down, and survivors were glad to grab the new tech, but won't there still be the old riggers? Their stuff is hard wired into them and while drones can be easily redone, the cars/vans/tanks were still intact after the Matrix meld down because they were not involved in it and these gear heads probably would not want to adapt their vehicals to the new stuff. I mean why risk having your car grabbed by a new decker/hacker with the new tech, when the old tech requires the much more invasive VCR set up and actually plugging in to a car?

So how do you incorporate these old school Riggers in the new world?

The only ones left are the ones who downright refused to upgrade.

Seriously, the tech is so cheap, there's no reason not to.

They are already fully capable and this will make their vehicals more vulnerable to hacking by others.

He could work exclusively through skinlinks and turn his wireless connection off when he doesnt need it.

the difference is he has a matrix and/or wireless connection if he needs it.

If I were making an old tech rigger in SR4 I'd simply use the old rules - let the VCR rating determine initiative passes (essentially work it like wired flexes) instead of the normal bonus for running in VR (hot or cold) even though they are running hot sim VR by default. Give em bonus dice to vehicle actions equal half (round down) the VCR rating. Use the same Essence costs, of course.

There are no classes in SR. Haven't you heard that games with classes gives you cancer.

Lars

If that was true, I'd be dead since long. >>; That meme is dumb.

Really you bring up the question of why does anyone use wireless in SR4?

The answer is simple, the benefits outweigh the risks. By upgrading the rigger can now use a pilot program to drive his cars/drones. By upgrading he can use targeting autosofts. By upgrading he can access his drones from greater distances and with greater ease.

Also keep in mind that SR3 had wireless, it just wasn't as pervasive as it is in SR4. Riggers could jack into their drones remotely, thus there was wireless, thus they could be hacked into by an SR4 hacker. In fact it would be child's play because the systems are so outdated. The same very likely applies to vehicles. I didn't play a ton in SR3, but I believe Riggers where able to remote access their cars just like their drones, which once again indicates wireless technology.

So, the choice was fairly obvious, used dated equipment that any 5 year-old with a commlink could hack into, or upgrade their stuff. Now of course they could use their old stuff and manually disable the wireless, but they would still benefit from upgrading their stuff to SR4 grade stuff and simply turn off the wireless functions.

I think she's pointing out that while people just starting SR4 won't know any better, people carrying over from 3rd to 4th ed in theory would be using tech that isn't offered in the 4th ed rules.

It's easy to say a person will want to upgrade to the SOTA AR connections BUT in real life? Maybe not. Suppose a 20 year old in the CAS army in 2064 has just agreed to get a VCR installed. He's a military rigger and damn good at what he does. Matrix 1.0 crashes. His gear still works because it is seperate from the matrix. As chaos trampled the world in the panic following the collapse of the Matrix, he's able to do his job. His machines respond in just the same way. now it's 6 years later, he's out of the military and has a skill set that's needed, why change? He's seen the mess those 'deckers' made of the world and his stuff works just as well as it always did. Sure there's some hotshots with faster tech now, but he's got experience and a few tricks he's picked up over the eyars and he can hold his own- so why would he change?

The point is these guys are still going to be out there and probably in more numbers than the modern AR SOTA 'riggers' After all he spent essence getting this stuff put in his body, does he want to waste that? Not everyone wants SOTA. as a RL analogy, they are still making new games for PS2 even though the fan boys drool over SR3

As I said, it is one of those things of life that benefits outweigh the risks and costs.

Sure, his stuff still runs fine, but if any of his old school drones have any kind of wireless connection, they're going to get fried in about two seconds by any decent hacker. And if he disables the wireless, then he's going to only be able to control them by a direct jack, which would put him in the line of fire and thus not be very useful.

Really, he has three options.
1. Upgrade
2. Have a bunch of drones that can be hacked by any kid with a commlink
3. Be required to stand next to his drones whenever he is using them, which makes them mostly useless.

Now there may be an exception or two in the case of his personal vehicle, but once again he is only going to be able to jack into it directly, which means he's sitting in the car. While that isn't so bad, your basically looking at one increadablly minimal advantage which any SR4 person can have.(This is something you can do just fine in SR4 by having a datajack and turning off the wireless on your car)

As for the lost essence.. take it out, sell it (Parts and such are still going to be worthwhile) and fill the hole with some of the new age rigging stuff (Which there is believe it or not). Rigging isn't all that different now then it was, so he'd still have all that experience and know those tricks. Anything he could do with his old equipment he can do with the new stuff, and so much more.

and the person to whom he sells it? We've just created another 3rd ed rigger. You've just made DLN's point

read about five more words and you'll notice I said parts and materials, not for someone else to use. I didn't say he'd get good value from it.

You're all forgetting that the 3rd Ed VCR effectively included boosted reflexes in it's rating, effective solely in VR, and a skill boost based on the VCR's level. That's one hell of an advantage, especially in the light of 5 possible IP for hackers.

I suppose you could emulate this more or less with a st of cybersuites.

A quick idea:

Vehicle Control Rig level 1: VCR, Sim Module, Reaction booster 1, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 1 Rigger nanites (total: 1,17 essence)
Vehicle Control Rig level 2: VCR, Sim Module (hot), Reaction Booster 2, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 2 Rigger nanites (total: 1,44 Essence)
Vehicle Control Rig level 3: VCR, Sim Module (hot), Reaction Booster 3, Simsense Booster, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 3 Rigger nanites (total: 2,16 Essence)

Now, granted, the essence cost is way off, but at least, you get somewhat comparable boni and initiative out of this. Also, if you're playing with a GM who likes his matrix, you might consider clustering the suite components by default and upping their matrix ratings. Wireless removed is, of course, a nescessity, as is linkage to the datajack implant, if only for that SR3 feel. Also, you could, of course, sue that cluster as an internal commlink (which would requitre it to be wireless enabled, and have it's ratings pushed to 6, and a cryptosense module, a simsense accelerator and a response booster added).

Then again, wireless enabled cyberware is only a measure of how stuopid you are and serves no purpose other than screwing it's owner over, really, so I wouldn't have any save for commlinks anyway.

I look at it as more of a fluff function. Shadowrunners will have theirs disabled by default, but average joe cyberware lover might need those wireless connections for diagnostics and such.

Even shadowrunners could make use of that by using DNI and wired connections to an implanted commlink. If you wanted your local cyberdoc to look at the diagnostic utilities, you could skinlink it to an external commlink or broadcast that information wirelessly from your implant commlink.

I´d be like, totally grateful if you would add the prices to those suites . Please?

(Those are SOTA. Assume that old-school paid much more essence for old-tech versions)

Point about SOTA.

VCR 1: CR, Sim Module, Reaction booster 1, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 1 Rigger nanites (total: 1,575 essence, costs 37.000 Nuyen)

VCR 2: VCR, Sim Module (hot), Reaction Booster 2, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 2 Rigger nanites (total: 1,845 Essence, costs 55000 Nuyen)

VCR 3: VCR, Sim Module (hot), Reaction Booster 3, Simsense Booster, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 3 Rigger nanites (total: 2,565 Essence, costs 135000 Nuyen)

All Raction Enhancers have a trigger that ONLY activates when they're in VR. This trigger is hardwired and cannot be triggered otherwise, so it's worth nothing in the flesh.

I had to add the nanites to get that skill bonus, however, since even Shadowtech mentiones nanites as parts of neurocyber, I guess that should be okay. Also, the costs rising doesn't quite go along with 3rd's VCRs, but there you go ...

The boni the VCRs suites offer:

- one less TH on all vehicle tests
- +2 on initiative while jumped in
- +(level) on all vehicle tests
- + (level) reaction

This is fairly close to what the original VCRs felt like. We have a maximum 2 IP with a VCR 1, 3 with a VCR 2 and 4 with a VCR 4. You can add 6 initiative and an IP easily with a decent commlink, but that's progress for you, I guess.

Also, new essence ratings, because I remembered wrongly and took 3rd's nanostabilisation instead of 4th's for essence ratings.

Any comments, suggestions and corrections (it's late, I might well have miscalculated) are welcome!

Thank you! You are missing the base-VCR bonus of +2 dice while jumped in.

In short, SR4 doesn't handle this well.

Stick with SR3 and be happier. If you like wireless you got all the rules in Matrix and Rigger books to just change the setting and make it more omnipresent.

I'm not quite seeing why the old-tech rigging systems are supposed to be so vulnerable to the commlink hacker, anyway. Rigging networks were among the most secure data-transmission systems available, pre-Crash, and any rigger worth his salt (or who's player/GM had the rigger book) in the old days had to know as much about wireless networking and electronic warfare as he did about driving. Giving him Hardware and Electronics Warfare at equivalent levels with a Spec (Old Tech) bonus. And they're using hardware and broadcasting protocols that most of your post-crash hackers probably don't have ready access to (after all, who expects to have to deal with an old-school rigger in this day and age?).

Grandpa Rigger is broadcasting on three discrete transmission channels, simultaneously, which means Hacker Jr. is going to be stuck attacking one at a time. And each one only accesses a particular part of Grandpa's RC deck, limiting the possible methods of attack and forcing a re-intercept if Hacker wants to change tactics. And once he does get in, he's got to fight on an unfamiliar battlefield (being limited to the capabilities of the deck) that Grandpa knows like the back of his hand. The hacker can try brute-forcing it by flooding the airwaves. But that also limits his own abilities, and many riggers have hardware and deck plug-ins designed specifically to break through physical RF interference.

The largest drawback would probably be that he wouldn't be as flexible as a 4th ed Hacker-Rigger, because their expertise was, by necessity, so extremely focused. Plus, when not actively in use, the older drones are slightly more vulnerable to outside interference due to their lack of autonomous data-security. Though the protocol does require that ownership be hardwired into the drone's firmware and they're expecting data on all three of those channels - so you have to do a lot of cracking and spoofing to convince the drone that you're its owner. And there's definitely no such thing as a 'hidden' rigger network - that thing's going to stand out like a beacon because it's putting out so much RF energy - it may even cause interference with the lower-powered Wi-Mat hardware in the area.

On converting drones:

I'd consider all old-tech drones to operate with strong encryption of the encrypt module's rating worth of hours, and running an encrypt program of half the module's level (optimised to run on the drone with no degradation). Furthermore, all traffic would be equally encrypted. All drones have an agent of autopilot level running them; all autosofts run on their level. Robotic pilot and their pools are simulated by respective autosofts (adaptability ect). All old-tech drones take three subscription slots and can only subscribe to old-tech RCDs.

Most people assume the same kind of tech-creep occurs in shadowrun that occurs in the real world. After 8 years, a proprietary data protocol that wouldve been used in standard VCRs and/or wireless cyberdecks used for drone/vehicle control are going to be not only unsupported, but any gapingly large holes in security are going to be both widely known, and not(probobly built right into any professionally usable exploit-class program).

I totally agree with old-tech systems being worthless for security reasons. Outdated protocols can be emulated with ease at least as long as you have access to the wireless matrix. Massive increases in processing power (and, as it stands now, mathematical breakthroughs) make old-tech encryption useless.

And a wireless standard that is a mere five years old, but was used for every single drone, should be on the standard lists of things Exploit can deal with. So you can rescue the old-school VCR if you like (by rebuilding it and increasing essence cost for fluff reasons), but you are not entitled in any way to stand on better grounds because of outdated tech. That runs counter to the whole gameworld. The encrypt module should be worthless, or anyone would do it.

I agree with Tinkatuff about riggers. Heck I started the thread so I had better. The old rigger vehicals were hard wired. They are not vulnerable to hacking. But I agree old drones would need and upgrade to their security since they were already wireless.

Hmm. Old drones would just get a new response chip and a software upgrade, riggers have always upgraded their vehicles. The question is how you can most easily fill the gap in character development that comes with the time jump. NPC or PC, both have to deal with a very different world.

I´d say that drone riggers would embrace it. New month - new toy. Vehicle riggers could afford to opt-out (fear-mongers), or adapt and become drone riggers. All who use drones would have an incentive to learn hacking, if just in order to keep their own network secure. Given the kind of money some of those old-timers must have, upgrading in a time of massive cyberware price decreases would be almost a given.

(BTW, actual character rebuilds should be MUCH easier using the karma-build system from RC than using BP.)

The ratings that such tech has, are relative ones - they only simulate a balance between things. So "hightech" that is 5 or more years old, will not bring the same relative advantages as it once did. With that given, I would have the rigger that does not want to upgrade, face some serious difficulties with maintenance, as they settle for dead-end-tech. They would not get the same boni as they did, when their stuff was hot. When I look at one of my old computers, I see models, that where quite hot a century or 6 years ago maybe. They still work to this day, some of them handle themselfs very well, but they are more than slow compared to the new stuff.

It's sad, but it also is the way things go.

That is the core of the matter - SOTA should change the balance in some cases.

Assuming that the core abilities stayed the same, but high-tech permits you to have the same benefit for way less essence, is a great idea. Modern riggers have the bare-bones VCR, which provides the core advantages one needs. All "excessive" functions of the VCR were cut, because the common comlink took over one of the main functions of a VCR - acting faster.

Old-school riggers automatically have a more extensive setup, but paid more essence (2/3/5 base essence, so 2070 SOTA standard ware is on the level of 2055 betaware). If they use a proper comlink as RC deck, they would still be very deadly. And the cost is NOTHING compared to the RC decks I used to build.

Since the VCR determines IP in relation to in-the-flesh people (and I seriously doupt Adepts have gotten such an upgrade through the tech wave as well), I don't buy that a 3rd VCR 3 now is a bare-bones VCR from the BBB (as CGL's conversion rules suggest). It just doesn't work out. So, I'm with Ryu there.

Also, you can actually make the VCR your commlink. Use Clustering, upgrade all the cyber pieces' matrix attributes to 6, cluster them, and you have one hell of a commlink, at a fraction of the cost such processing power would have cost you otherwise. If you're really paranoid, disable the cyber cluster's wifi and have it access another cluster laden with IC, optimised using software suites and the ergonomic option, and use that to broadcast; the broadcast cluster would be registered as a proxy server and be hardwired to your core commlink/VCR suite, so if someone wants to hack you, they have to get through the glacier proxy deck first.

Also, make good use of Unwired's commlink mods and options - optimisation for command, custom interface, response increase and simsense acceleration all are your friends, while a cryptosense module primarily adds cool fluff.

And yes, with the above mentioned mods, specifically the response increase, a decent rigger actually has a fighting chance against a riggermancer again. He'll only have one shot, though, so he better make that count.


TRUTH!

I started playing SR1, and the bulk of my experience has been with SR2. So I see some parallels. There's a lot of differences between SR2 and SR4. I don't want to derail into an argument over which is better; I think both are just super. But I played SR2 instead of SR3 for a couple reasons. First, I knew a LOT about the world of SR2. I could have updated my knowledge by reading the SR3 books, but I didn't want to. Not because it seemed bad, but because what I already HAD was so GOOD. It just fit more in my comfort zone to keep doing what I was doing. Second, I had a pretty big investment in SR2. Not just in terms of books, but emotional attachment. Not knocking the "runners in bottomless shaft" cover of SR3 (though, really, not defending it, either), but there was just something about the "classic" cover... See what I mean? There was an emotional attachment that was easily the equivalent of a point of essence. And you know how inconvenient upgrading anything with an essence cost can be.

Now, that said, I play SR4 now. To get any new "biz," I had to be compatible with what other SR players were doing. Before, I could casually talk about my hobby with new people, and they pretty much got what I was saying. SR2 seemed "old-school," but people knew what my combat pool did. But if I brought my SR2 character to a table today, nobody'd know what to do with him, other than smack the nerf-hammer down on his better skills (but they don't understand! I don't get to add my Agility to that! I don't even HAVE Agility!). So eventually, everybody else's tech put enough pressure on me to upgrade.

And what's wrong with taking an old school wireless drone... ripping out it's wireless guts and just putting in a pair of commlink.

There now it's integrated w/ the current system, the security can be top notch or slipshod as in-character needs dictate.

You can even put 'mods' on the commlink such as non-standard frequencies and such (can't remember were I saw that, I think Arsenal).

As far as old and proprietary... security through obscurity ain't... especially for old unsuppored stuff which has since been reverse engineered or had the tech documents available w/ a good data search.

Simsense Boosters and Control Rig Boosters aren't compatible.

I would actually think, that on certain aspects the security of SR4 rigging interfaces would probably have been downgraded when switching from the proprietary SR3-Tech. SR3-Rigging did use the whole package of military SigInt-techniques to secure and obscure the transmissions already on the physical transmission layer of communication (e.g. frequency-hopping) that wouldn't work too well on a universal wireless transmission system.

For a SOTA hacker it would be more difficult to actually intercept and infiltrate the physical transmission layer (i.e. finding and keeping track of the wireless comm channels) while it would be easier to breack the actual encryption and hack the system, once he's infiltrated it. And that doesn't account for the rigger staying up to date on the encryption protocols and adapting his equipment to SOTa standarts (he doesn't need to change the protocols, just replace the encryption-modules with SOTA codes that are harder to break.

Outdated systems may be well known, but with the do-it-yourself approach of SR3-tech, you not only have an outdated protocol running on incompatible hardware, but most like one, that has been modified to certain SOTA-standards. And those modifications are most likely undocumented. Good luck trying to break into that.

Rumors are, that this will be changed in future Errata..

But a Reaction Enhancer for VR only is really bullshit, because you don't need Reaction for anything, if you driving (or doing something else) in VR.

cya
Tycho

Personally I just retcon the cyber and rule that Riggers weren't really as Essence Heavy as Third Edition's rules made them, then it just becomes a matter of normal upgrades that every character is assumed to undergo.

I was looking to emulate what the old VCR did, not minmax it. Also, when jumped in, the rigger's attributes are used for tests; since driving skills default to reaction, yes, the enhancers make sense. (p. 239 core rules book (german edition). I'll check the english version if there's yet another divergence between the books and get back to this post, though.


Synner has been very clear on that they will be, because they realised how much the printed ruling sucked, so I am deviating from the RAW there a bit. Thanks for catching that anyway.

He is right there, the riggers attributes while jumped in are the matrix attributes. Default would be to Response -1. Good catch.

(I get you Hermit. I´m keeping my fingers crossed for some good translations, too. But I think quality control is in good hands with Pegasus.)

(At least, the Pegasi have three people working on SR, and none of them is Lonsing. That gives me some hope.)

Uh, so I am right? The default is response, yes, but only if the drone is on it's own, which makes sense.

No, not surprisingly, you are wrong.

Unwired p.105:

Action (Jumped-In Rigger)
Initiative: as rigger
Attack: Sensor + Gunnery
Melee Defense: Response + Melee skill
Ranged Defense: Response
Full Defense: as above + Dodge
Damage Resistance: Body + Armor
Infiltration: Response + Infiltration
Maneuvering: Response + Vehicle skill
Perception: Sensor + Perception

Reaction isn't found here and it is only used, if you drive manually, where you don't get the VR Bonus, the Rigger Nannites Bonus, the Control Rig Bonus and so on, which means you Rigger Suite is nonsence, because a Reaction Enhancer in VR only is absolutely useless.

cya
Tycho

Tycho, learn some manners. You're no moderator here or have sucked up to them, you may need them.

That table either is flawed, as the BBB says otherwise, or it blatantly overrides the BBB, which the add-on core books were supposed not to do. And frankly, defaulting everything on device attributes makes jumped-in rigging useless. I guess, though, it's something for the Errata.

newest Rulebook wins...

look up the FAQ, its in there at least since Dec 2006, so I guess no Errata will change that and as the FAQ was published neither Arsenal nor Unwired was released, it has been so even with BBB only...

its even in the Errata for the BBB...

and I don't need to be Mod to express my opinion...
it's just another thread where you mess around with the SR4 Rules without even knowing them...

cya
Tycho

It's another thread where you act out of order because you apparently cannot take opinions that differ from our own. How nice that you spread your vitriol here, too.

Even if I made a mistake (which I apparently have), there are civil ways to state this.

That doesn't make it "nonsence." It makes it versatile. It's a Rigger suite, not a VR suite. Whatever rules you're using, Reaction is still used by riggers so it makes perfect sense (err "sence") for a Vehicle Control Rig suite to have them.

My only problem is the silly "only works while rigging" conditional. That requires a whole new piece of cyberware not just a footnote to an existing piece.

Let's knock off the fighting and get back to talking about shadowrun.

Yeah, it would ... I was a bit focused on cyberware pieces.

We could, of course, make the Suite the Rigger's commlink by clustering and Matrix attribute pugrades and, instead of reaction enhancers, use response enhancers (in steps of 2 levels - 2, 4, and 6). That would give the Rigger a pretty powerful link to work with (and a pretty impressive connection tally). Personally, I'd add a cryptosense module too, for Fluff reasons only.

This is as much a bump as it's an update:

New and improved VCR Suite builds

VCR 1: CR, Sim Module, Datajack w/ Response Increase Module 2 (internal), Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 1 Rigger nanites (total: 1.395 essence, costs 31,500 Nuyen)

VCR 2: VCR, Sim Module (hot), Datajack w/ Response Increase Module 4 (internal), Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 2 Rigger nanites (total: 1.395 Essence, costs 43,500 Nuyen)

VCR 3: VCR, Sim Module (hot), Datajack w/ Response Increase Module 6 (internal), Simsense Booster, Nanohive (1) supporting a colony of level 3 Rigger nanites (total: 1.845 Essence, costs 117,500 Nuyen)

The internal datajack has no opening to the surface, as it's interface contact is taken up by the Response Increase module.

The boni the VCRs suites offer:

- one less TH on all vehicle tests
- +2 on initiative while jumped in
- +2 on all DP because of VR
- + (level) on all vehicle tests
- + (2*level) Response

All constructive comments appreciated. I'd especially like suggestions on making essence costs more progressive, more in line with the old VCRs costs.