We recently came across a situation where a player maitained that personal sensors reduce scatter by thier rating. I am of the opinion that only missle sensors reduce scatter. Could we get some developer clairification on this?

Your character can use his/her personal/vehicle sensors in Active Targeting (SR4A 171) to get more dice for an attack, but the only sensors factored into the scatter test are those built directly into your missile.

Now, technically it's not RAW to allow a character to use Active Targeting if s/he's not in a vehicle, but your average runner has at least the same quality of sensors and computer power (in commlink form) as most non-military vehicles, so I feel it's appropriate to let runners roll Sensor (usually the rating on a camera or other sensor device) + Perception modified by the Signature of the target as a Simple Action, and let the successes be used as a positive dice pool modifier for subsequent attack tests. It's like a high-tech version of Take Aim.

But I'm not a developer, so this is just my opinion.

To the OP:
No he can't. SR4a is very clear, first paragraph deals exlusively with a player using heavy weapons skill to fire the launcher. (and then only for missile launchers; FYI: airburst is the grenade version of smartgun... description states 'smartgun accessory').
Roll Heavy Weapons + missiles's Sensor rating. What is unclear is whether this is merely the first roll to 'lock' the missile on target or the actual attack roll. Based on the way it's written I suspect it's the actual attack roll.
(for most characters I suspect their agility is higher or better than the missiles sensor rating... then again each point of sensor is an assured 'hit' on reducing scatter).

Second paragraph deals exclusively with vehicles.
Vehicles have the option of passive targetting or activing targetting. And use the HIGHER of the vehicles sensor or the missiles sensor when fired.

Sensor Targetting p171... pertains only to vehicles and using the 'gunnery' skill. (gunnery isn't a catchall term but a specific one which deals only w/ that named skill to utilize vehicle mounted weapons).

I don't think you'll have any real problems w/ using Sensor + HeavyWeapons (simple) to lock the target, followed by agility + heavy weapons (simple) to then actually fire it. As the scatter rules are so brutal that guided missiles deserve all the help they can get.



That shows a large bit of not understanding the rules McAllister, or an idea of why active targeting is only for vehicles. There's a very good reason that PC's don't get bonus dice from sensors. Quite frankly they have larger dice pools and DON"T NEED IT.

With the exception of manual turrets, and crew served vehicles. Vehicle attacks are ALWAYS made using the vehilces sensors (directly or indirectly). Vehicle attack dice pools are noticably smaller than those available to player characters.

In the case of a rigger, you have 6 sensor, 6 gunnery, +2 hotsim... maybe +2 specialization, There's some disagreement whether vehicles can get a smartgun bonus (their targetting autosoft is basically smartgun software already). But there's another +2. All said and told... you'll notice that dice pool is only 18 maxed out. A character can easily push that into the mid-20's w/o breaking a sweat w/ augmentation.

Command + Gunnery for remote control still needs to view the target through the vehicles sensors (not through the players eyes)
Autopilot + targetting autosoft again through the vehicles sensors. (autopilot & autosofts capped at rating 4... so generally this isn't a strong attack capping out at 10 dice... in which case, those sensor 'aid' tests from locking on can swell the dice pool by 30-40%!!!)
Sensor + gunnery for a rigger is the most direct version of this and allows for the most dice. Only with a lock-on can it even approach to get close to a gun adept or street sam.


Also, I'll point out, unlike w/ PC's detection and perception w/ drones is not assured... in order to attack the drone MUST make a sensor + clearsight/perception test to notice any target (and spend a simple action to actually lock-on to a noticed target). Just because the camera has a PC in it's field of view, doesn't mean the drone recognizes it as a moving person any differently from a tree swaying in the background.

The question pertains to the usage of the airburst accessory attached to an area alpha AR. The question is whether "Visual Sensors" as listed on pg. 332 of SR4A are considered "Sensors" for the purpose of subtracting their rating from the scatter distance of an airburst gernade. Thanks.

Miles

Miles... that is a definate no.

The (-Sensor Rating) in that chart deals ONLY with missiles. (that's the reason it's in parenthesis)
p156 "Missile scatter is further reduced by 1meter for every poitn of sensor the *MISSILE* possesses." (not the missile launcher, the missile itself).
p155 under grenades only uses net hits to reduce scatter.

Missiles subtract their sensor rating from the scatter.
Missiles cost quite a bit for this bonus (500Yxsensor rating OVER the cost of the rocket). Is he firing 3000Y + cost of grenade greandes?

Also you open up another can of worms... what is the sensor rating of the smartgun. (not going to be very high)

I can see how the last entry in the Scatter table should read "Airbust Missile" instead of simply just Airburst.

Now, the followup. Pg. 155 SR4a says an airburst gernade only roll 2d6 for scatter, then promptly refer to the Airburst weapon accessory on pg 233. which says it reduced from 3d6 to 1d6.

Which is it? An errata would be nice.

Miles