Ok, so rigging's changed some, I can live with that. Having gone through the rules and boards several times, I do want to check some stuff though on AR vs VR DPs

I'm looking at a vehicle rigger, not a drone specialist. Thinking about the poor guy strapped into his seat with his head flapping around got me thinking about how much difference VR actually makes, so I went and ran some numbers. There's a good chance I've missed something or messed up somehow, hence this post

For these comparisons, I'm going to assume identical skill levels, Intuition and IPs. As I'm including a control rig booster, the Rigger can't reach 5 IPs and the other 2 can reach 4, if more expensively. Reaction of 10 or Response of 6 seems likely for a hardcore vehicle user. If someone could run through and point out any glaring mistakes or omissions I'd be grateful.

Piloting first.



If I got those figures right, the Rigger comes out slighlty ahead when the VR threshold reduction applies. The Adept is better at ramming and possibly opposed vehicle tests, I'm not sure how the threshold reduction would work there, if at all.

I'm also not sure if the Adepts Improved Ability works in AR or if it's possible for him to also use enhanced articulation and a reflex recorder on top of his +3 from Improved Ability.

Now initiative


Unless I missed something, init's equal across the board. Time to move onto gunnery



Again, the Rigger is slightly ahead, and we're assuming now that the Adept's been able to get +3 Pilot, Gunnery and 4 IPs. He's either initiated or skint at this point When we through in Sensor targetting, it's rather more skewed in the Rigger's favor.

Basically, what I'm seeing is that piloting and init can be more or less equal, init is equal, but anything else the jumped in Rigger is ahead. Still not sure about the flapping head bit and the Rigger Cocoon's 1 minute entry/exit time is putting me off.

On which note, why do the GMC Banshee and the Honda pursuit cars come with Cocoon's but not Rigger Adaptions?

What about Technomancer Riggers?

Oops, didn't mean to actually post this one. Couldn't get the tables to look right so I summarised in another post, not realising this one was already posted.

As to TMs, I left them out as it's a whole new ruleset to learn. I think they'd be slighlty ahead of the rigger though as they can overdrive their Response rating.

your tables are a bit unclear, but i would point out the threshold reduction for the rigger is a nice advantage for crash tests. like the crash test you get if you choose to not spend an IP specifically controlling the vehicle. which means that even if they have equal IPs (though as you noted, it is *much* more expensive for the others) the rigger can afford to take that extra IP and easily pass the crash test threshold.

a few notes:

enhanced articulation doesn't help. piloting is a vehicle skill, not a physical skill, and enhanced articulation only improves physical skill (which is an actual category of skills).

adept improved ability does in fact work in AR, and even in VR, officially.

reflex recorder does not stack with adept improved ability.

it is entirely possible that there is a "rigging" specialisation for most piloting skills (there is, after all, a "remote operation" specialisation)

control rig boosters will also boost gunnery, i thought?

there is supposed to be some sort of future errata permitting the use of control rig boosters and the simsense booster at the same time.

if you really want the best dice pool right now, and you can't wait for the errata permitting control rig boosters and simsense boosters to stack, you could create an adept who uses the rigging method and has the appropriate improved ability powers in piloting and gunnery. with a bit of cyberware, your adept rigger can still use the control rig, after all.

I think the control rig booster clearly says Piloting.

Control rig boosters specifically state piloting, at least in my copy of Augmentation. Allowing them to work with simsense boosters seems a little too much, currently you have to make a choice.

If the adept powers work in VR, jumped in or otherwise, that makes the max dicepools option a no brainer, even with the increased IP cost.

However, I wasn't so much looking for the best DP as working out for myself where a Rigger's advantages came in, assuming equal IPs.

I still don't like the idea of an (effectively) unconcious guy in the drivers seat but it's certainly more cost effective and seems to be the best option if you want to do any shooting. for plain driving, a vehicle adapt would be close.

The option I'm considering is a +! meat IP char who drives AR most of the time with tactical use of VR as neccessary.

just thought i'd repeat, one of my points above is that 'adept' and 'rigger' are not mutually exclusive. you can, in fact, have an adept with a control rig who enjoys the benefits of his adept powers while rigging vehicles in hotsim VR.

Are Improved ability and the control rig booster bonus bound within the same skill *1.5?

yes. but since you don't want to combine the control rig boosters with the simsense booster, not using the control rig boosters frees up the simsense booster for use.

Having run the numbers, mixing adept with a high resource char doesn't work too well in a 400 bp char.

Maybe I'll work up a car rigger and a bike adept