I'm curious, I assume a rigger with smartlink can obviously manually fire a smartgun on their vehicle, but is there anyway to get the smartlink bonus in SR4 while jumped in or for that matter for a remote control drone/vehicle weapon to get smartlink bonuses? I swear I seem to recall that being possible in earlier editions, but not sure. And if it is possible, where does the smartlink have to be installed? On the rigger (implanted I presume for jumping in, can't see how contacts would help you in VR), or maybe as a visual enhancement option on the camera of the vehicle/drone in question? It's obviously not exactly a critical NEED to get the +2 dice given the general advantages a vehicle/drone mounted weapon has (no recoil for one), but my metagaming curiosity is making me wonder .

My understanding was that as long as the drone was set up for a smartlink (both the gun and one of the cameras) then it would work as it is a seperate system giving balistics data to the pilot of the drone normally and then the rigger when jumped in.

Basically how I've always seen it run.

The most succinct description of rigging is also the most often spouted: "When a rigger jumps in he 'becomes' the vehicle".
The gun is his gun, the drone's eyes are his eyes, so it's implicit that he would get the bonus for having a smartlink in the camera and a smartgun module in the weapon.

An implanted smartlink wouldn't be any good because that still requires use of his meat-body eyes instead of the simsense feed from the drone. Even if the cyberware was subscribed to the smartgun on the drone it wouldn't know how to imprint that information on what the cameras are saying.

You need two parts for a system.

1. Smartgun System installed on the weapon.
2. Smartlink accessory, which can be a vision enhancement, camera, glasses, goggles or implanted.

You might have your rigger have both an implanted smartlink, for when not jumped in, and a smartlink on the camera of the vehicle for when you are jumped in.

OK, but can the following happen?

Rigger has a Smartgun link and cybereyes.
Drone with a gun that is Smartgun enabled, but has its sensors damaged so it can't fire.
Drone is in sensor range of the riggers comlink.
Rigger enables wireless link to the smartgun through the drone.
He then supscribes the smartgun to his PAN.

Can he then fire the gun (with the smartgun bonuses) through this link as he can still control the weapon mount on the drone?

Why not? Both pieces of the system are there and interacting. How is the smartlink in the cybereye camera different then the one that was damaged in the drone? What if the drone had two cameras with smartlinks, and one is damaged, would the drone still have a smartlink system?

I would say yes but you would be commanding it not rigging it from the inside

Depends.

Command the drone to fire when the riggers gun fires. Command the drone to aim on the target the riggers gun aims on.

Drone takes delayed action
Rigger fires weapon
Drone fire weapon at the same time as the rigger on the same target using targeting data from both it's own smartgun and the riggers input.

Wouldn't the ballistics data be skewed from having to refer to his eyes which are meters away? And would the rigger even be able to see this data?

What this sounds like (and how I would run it) is you're trying to use your rigger's eyes as a channel for a TacNet, which would be totally feasible (as long as the rigger's eyes are open).

People forget that Smartlinked guns have a camera and that's where the data comes from. I think it would be no different than if he pointed the gun around a corner and fired.

I always get confused why people think you need a camera on a drone to use a smartgun. The smartgun has a camera, you need the drone to have a smartlink and a smartgun.

My question was more about controlling the turret on the drone while using a smartlink.
Pg. 322 SR4A

I'm not seeing your problem at all. If the drone has a smartlink on its camera, there is no reason that it couldn't get the bonus from its smartgun.

Also, the point I was making is that the rigger isn't using his eyes which have the smartlink on them. You might be trying to tap into his eyes to utilize their view option for the smartgun, but I see that as more of a TacNet option than a standard run-around, since the rigger's eyes are not the drone's.

I'm not saying the drone shouldn't get the smartgun bonus, I'm just saying that you can buy a smartlink for a sensor array without buying another camera because the camera already on the smartgun. If it has a smartlink and smartgun it sure as hell should get the bonus.


As for the other part I'm just saying that any smartgun subscribed to my PAN and wirelessly enabled can be fired with a my smartgun link. The only issue is moving the gun to get a better shot.

Interesting point. But now you need to keep that smartgun in range of your PAN, and with the smartgun's Signal of like 0, that'll take some work (upgrade, daisy-chain, or hug your meat).

Not hard. The drones smartgun is directly integrated with the drone and uses the drones signal of 3 to send and receive tactical targeting data.