Does anybody else think it's weird you can go Hot Sim VR with trodes but you need a cybeware implant for rigging? In other words, why is there no non-cyberware version of the control rig?

That's because you can control your car with a simrig, but you can't control it with the level of intimacy a control rig provides. You get a bonus for computer-aided control, but the purpose of the control rig is to allow the vehicle to become your 'body'. You don't increase the throttle or open up the acellerator: you flex your engine, and go faster. You don't turn the wheel to turn or think left... you just GO left. The reason there's no non-cyberware version is that the control rig wires into your brainstem.

See I could buy this if you needed a datajack or something for full VR (in other words have to pay essence), but you don't...so why do riggers get the shaft? Where's my brain stem trode!!!

You don't. A Control Rig just adds +2 dice. All you need to have to be able to jump into a vehicle is to have the vehicle modified with a rigger adaptation and to be in VR.

My reading is that the Control Rig is an extra +2 bonus when Rigging a Drone, but it isn't needed to Rig a Drone.

IE: Anyone with trodes and a sim module hooked into their commlink can rig a drone. A guy with a special plug into his middle brain can do so with a +2 bonus (which combines with the +2 for hot-vr).



A quick read of page 331 doesn't seem to say that the Control Rig is needed for Rigging, only that it adds a bonus, and only to vehicle skills (including gunnery), and only while jumped in with full VR.

It doesn't look like Riggers are getting the shaft at all to me.

Point A: The control rig, in your brainstem, has to be able to talk to your car. SO, you need a datajack that talks to a sim module modded for hot sim... Or you need to skinlink or trode to your commlink which has said sim module. You only don't need a datajack if you're running through your commlink. Which is true of any sim experience, period.

Point B: As I mentioned, and Octopiii put more clearly, you don't need a control rig to VR-wise control your car. You only need it if you want that added intimacy.

As an inverterate fan of driving IRL, I know I would.

I am not denying you can jump into a drone, etc. without a control rig (though upon reading the description of the rigger adaption and the rigger rules, it does seem sort of unclear to me, but i'll go along with it). What i am struggling with (this is metagame-wise) is that you can have a commlink (external) trodes (external) sim module (external) and experience a hot sim VR world with lethal biofeedback (and ostensibly totally realistic virtual reality where you "feel the code etc."), but to "feel" your car you need a piece of cyberware? It doesn't seem to mesh with me. I guess i should emphasize this is not a rules argument, just a game world observation. But it stems from my dislike of trodes in the first place. Sure you can rig without a VCR (some kind of pidgin rigger!), but that's not a true rigger in my mind

You "feel" the car when you're jumped in via VR as well. In hot-sim, if your vehicle gets hit, you have to deal with bio-feedback. A VCR just gives you a a faster connection (by allowing you to virtually connect to your cortex or whatever).

Well, I think the problem is that in 4th Edition, they turned the VCR into kind of a... Driving Smartlink. It's not a VCR anymore. The VCR was 3 Essence (Becuase you get level 2. Level 1 isn't good enough and level 3 it too much essence ). It was awesome. It has style. You were one with the car... Now? You don't even need it. You can just have your mage be a rigger instead.

Mage Riggers are cool .

Nothing's as cool as it used to be =(

Only if you're an old fogey! I find the fact that hackers don't have to spend every single penny they posses on a cyberdeck which can easily be stolen or trashed pretty darn cool.

*deletes his post*

See? You were trying to make me start arguing about SR2 vs. SR4. That's not nice lol. But I'm not gonna do it!

If you're rigged into the car (trodes or plugs) you feel like you're the car. Period.

The Control Rig allows for better control by sending direct connected wires into the part of your brain that handles movement (The part you aren't using in Hot VR anyway). This gets you a bonus on controlling the vehicle but neither the flavor text nor the mechanics next to it indicates that it is required to feel like the vehicle. That's what the Rigger Box on the vehicle is for. It provides the sensor inputs as SIM data so you have something to feel using normal VR methods.

Control rigs (in flavor text) are described not as hooking into the parts of the brain that let you feel things, but instead into the parts for controlling limbs and body functions so those can be mapped better onto the vehicle.

Game-mechanic wise Control Rigs provide an extra bonus to Riggers over and above the Hot Sim VR bonuses. In fact, Hackers didn't get their equivelent (an implant that provides a bonus to more or less just hacking but not rigging) until Augmentation with the Encephalon.

Why would one part of your brain require direct wired connection but the other part doesn't? It doesnt seem odd? I just think its weird you don't need smartlink cyberware for full smartlink anymore , datajack for full hacking anymore, but for some reason the ol' control rig still has to be slapped onto your brain. It seems to me the control rig should be an addon to your commlink like the sim module (or at least have both internal and external options).



I'll have to check aug when i get home, but game mechanics-wise at least that helps for balancing in my mind.

i would agree...but you dont need smartlink cyberware anymore...so why is the control rig still cyberware?

To be honest, I wish they had kept smartlinks as cyberware.

me too. i like some of the changes that made "multi classing" more natural but you lose some of the distinguishing markers of different PC types. Cant please everybody though. Overall i think its a good thing (thus my argument of 'why do control rig cost me essence!').

@Dr. Dodge: Don't dwell on it, just come up with a reason. Such as: the motor cortex of the brain is too densely packed, and too high-speed to be effectively stimulated via inductive signals like a Trode Net, and it requires a specialized piece of hardware in order to interface properly since it stimulates a different part of the brain than the datajack does.

i'll get over it. I was just trying to make a smuggler-y/mage today and kind of got turned off/confused by the essence cost. Oh well i guess those mundanes get +2! jerks!

Well, a smart-link just gives you a projected bullet path considering local condidtions, a cross-heir on steroids if you will. It doesn't actually interface with your brain.

Anyways, there is a reason a VCR is cyberware. Normally, when you go VR(assuming hot sim), you are feeling completely artificial sensations, something created by a computer for you to feel. Since there is no physical component of the sensation, no physical link is necessary(though anyone would tell you an implanted sim rig gives a much better experiance, it just doesn't affect gameplay.)

On the other hand, rigging connects you to something real, something physical. There is way more going on in a vehicle then in even the most complex computer program, and to truly experience it fully, it needs a direct analog connection to your nervous system.

If, for example, there was tech that allowed you to control a person, I'd imagine there would be a MHCR(Meta-Human Control Rig).

My next campaign. Thank you.

Check out the biodrones in Augmentation. If you can rig a tiger, being able to rig a human being with a combination of move by wire and a simrig can't be that far off.

Lies.

-paws

in a retconn-y sort of way, yes.



How does this jive with the fact that you CAN "rig" a vehicle without a control rig? I would also argue a computer (making thousands, billions, bazillions im talking out of my ass) of computations a second (especially one that can simulate/convey human emotions!!!) is much more complex than a mechanically driven car. Then again future car is probably just a computer on wheels anyhow.

Unwired goes into a lot of detail (fluff text) on how all the matrix stuff works, including SIM systems.

As I understand it it's like this:

SIM data (Sensory info, including touch, heat, smell, sight, sound, etc) is the key to the Shadowrun VR (and thus Riggin) experience. Getting that kind of info into a person's head is what you use Trodes or a Direct Neural Interface (DNI, like a Data Jack or Implanted Commlink) for. (Note that a datajack is a better link, but there is no game penalty for using even the NanoTrode Paste... which is said to be a crappy link.) That link also provides some basic input and output. Still, if you want to use VR of any kind you still need a SIM Module. A SIM module is kind of like a modern graphics card. It handles Simulated Sensory Info, such as a SIM recording, or the output of a Rigger adapted vehicle and then pumps that through trodes or a datajack, into your brain. That means a rigger that has jumped into a car feels the car as if it was his own body.

A Control Rig has nothing to do with any of that. A control rig is an extra implanted OUTPUT from your brain back to the car. Normaly when you use VR or even just a DataJack to type up a text message, you are thinking at your computer. A Rigger jumped into a Car feels like he is the car and he mentaly directs it to drive. The Control Rig is described as tapping into the middle brain which controls Motor Control. The idea being that riggers are actually controlling a physical thing instead of negotiating a virutal world of metaphores with a persona that may not even have limbs. A rigger with a Control Rig doesn't think at the car, he just moves, making it a much better form of control. Thus, a control rig doesn't make you feel more like the car (because it has nothing to do with sensory info) it lets you control the car more intutitively.

In general all the VR related stuff work in one of a handful of ways:
Trodes, Datajacks, etc all provide a connection between various parts of the brain and a computer. While it is said that nanotrode paste is a poor connection and a datajack or implanted computer and sim setup is the best, the game does not note any benefits or penalties to using any option here. All these options seem to focus on connections to sensory input and output of the brain. Of course in order for the computer to do much more then provide limited input/output, the computer will need to be able to processes digital siganls into sensory input. For that you need a SIM Module. SIM Modules only convert digital signals into sensory. If you want to conver outputed sensory data into digital signals you need a SIM Rig. SIM modules and SIM Rigs are attached to a computer, and don't have to be implanted. Unwired has a lot of details on SIM encoding meathods and codecs... if you're interested.

To enhance a VR experience (and gain a bigger dice pool) you can approch things from a few ways:
Make the SIM sensory input stronger: Hot SIM Modules and SIM Accelerators(Unwired) do this by having their safety limits removed and by speeding up processing of the digital into sensory info respectively. They work in the Commlink and thus don't have to be implanted. Note that a SIM Accelerator (Unwired) is a great add-on for both hackers and riggers.
Make a Stronger Connection to the Brain: A SIMsense Booster (Augmentation) does this. It adds extra direct plugs into the various parts of the brain in order to get signals into the brain more efficiently, and thus boosting their strength. It must be implanted. It works great for both Hackers and Riggers, and it stacks with a SIM Accelerator to give you 5 initiative passes!
Provide better output from the brain/body back to the computer: A Control Rig does this by providing motor control info from the brain to the computer, allowing for a more seamless control of rigged vehciles. It's of no use to a Hacker because the VR world of the matrix isn't exactly real... unless your in a UV Node.
Enhance the Brain to be faster/smarter which has the side effect of making the person a better hacker: Encephalons (Augmentation) & Math SPUs (Augmentation) both do this and provide benefits for techicanl actions both in and out of the matrix. They don't do much for Riggers, but they can be a great benefit for hackers.
Enhance the source of the input (IE: more sensory data from the vehicle you are rigged into): Suprisingly there isn't too much about this in the vehicle rules from Arsenal. Mind you, sensors in general are kind of a weak spot in the 4ed rules. Generaly any sensors you put on a vehicle are senses you get when you rig in, but there is one vehicle/drone mod that takes this a bit farther: Touch Sensors (Arsenal) provides sensory output from the vehicle for the sensation of touch by placing small sensors everywhere. You don't feel like your rollerskating down the road, you feel like you're running barefoot down it. You feel gunshots, or a hand on the door, etc. This extra input provides a +1 bonus to handling and some other checks, but also makes you feel a lot more pain when the vehicle/drone takes damage. You might also consider taking Improved Sensors (Arsenal) and then filling the larger amount of sensor slots with even more sensors, but that won't help you get any dice pool boosts.

For a near perfect rigger setup you need:
A good commlink with a Hot Sim Module & Simsense accelerator.
A Simsense Booster (implanted).
A Control Rig (implanted)
A Drone or Rigger Adapted Vehicle with Touch Sensors.
That's 5 initative passes with a +5 bonus on most jumped in rigger actions. You feel like your drone, move it the same way you move your body, and act at the speed of thought. It's the nearest thing to being the drone itself.

Look at it like this: normally SIM really only wants to respond to conscious motions - it's designed with the intent of dealing with very sensitive data interrelations, and reacting to a sudden shock could mean that you smear a trail of random data all over your master thesis. It doesn't even look at your motor cortex and instead forces you to do mental gymnastics to get things done - which ensures that you actually want to do something. When you rig a vehicle this means that you're doing all kinds of non-instinctual things to dodge, because you're taking a control system with different design constraints and using it for a task that doesn't care about deliberation too much.

The Control Rig connects to your motor cortex so that you can use your intuitive reactions and positional sense to control your connected vehicle. When you instinctually try to jump out of the way of a foot stomping onto your Drone the Control Rig actually pays attention instead of forcing you to also do some kind of force-of-will thing that's slower, but more deliberate.

you only get 4 IP as a jarhead, so maybe it's better than being the drone?

I always saw VCR's as translating the car parts to your parts. Instead of using VR to tell your car to turn, you just turn. This added reaction and control can have benefits.

Perhaps, unlike what I mentioned before, there wouldn't be a metahuman control rig, as you, I assuming, allready know how to instinctively control a human body.

I can get on board with the differences between the control rig and VR. But there is a little part of me that still asks: why does it cost essence to interact with one part of your brain (middle) and not the rest (whatever VR interacts with)?

Riggers are a smaller target market that doesn't mind going under the knife so much as the general populace. Trode nets (and Datajacks) don't cover the areas that need to be mapped because it's just plain cheaper not to, and they can get away with this because most of the population don't rig. I further suspect that a major part of the CR is an integrated system loaded with proprietary code designed to map your reflexes into actions appropriate to the vehicle it's connected to.