Hello my dear community.

So I am back to SR4 again, but this time with an unexperience group (most of them playing for the first time), and having me GMing SR4 for the very first time. I have played quite a bit (never GM 4th ed), but not in the last year so something I will need to review em.

One of my group asked me this and I realize matrix stuff is "the" thing I will be needing to review more. When you buy a a Pilot software, you need one for each device? ya quite a newbie question, but it trigger my memory and nothing came out of it.

Hope someone can anwer it.

Thx

Yes. At the very least, one for each class of device, but I think it's really each specific model. Yuck.

Do you mean drone pilots?

Yes, drone pilots are indeed purpose-programmed for the specific vehicle they will be operating. Makes sense, imho, that you cannot use a dobermann pilot program to operate a vector-thrust drone...

-CJ

I think the question is if you have 5 doberman drones, do you need 5 pilot (doberman) autosofts? I'm not sure, but I would say yes. Though I am a newbie as well. Can you crack/copy one pilot program and distribute it to other drones?

You can crack it and distribute it, by the rules you now have to keep your cracked software up to date but this is fairly trivial for most folks.

And this is only important if you're using the rules out of Unwired.

Ok ok, very valuable info and ya whole post making total sense. At least I know now it wasnt so obvious.

What about the other programs? like for instance the ones that are a bit more common (e.g. Firewall) As I understa, you just buy one and then crack and copy it for the rest of the devices.

Is this correct?

That would be one way to do it yes if you want better firewall ratings etc then what the device comes with by default. By either an errata or unwired I believe firewall is one of those things that cna only be upped 2 points from the standard rating.

Edit: On further thought I don't think my preceeding comment is accurate but rather because most devices have firewall equal to their system they are functionally linked if not directly.

Basically yes, each program is only good for one installation unless you crack it. However in case of Firewall it's easier to just slave yur devices to one node with a high Firewall stat, which will usually be the commlink of the team hacker/rigger.



Not sure if this is what you meant, but all drones come with a Pilot program equal to their device rating (3 for most drones, 4 if the drone has a weapon mount or otherwise qualifies as "security vehicle", 5 if it's a military vehicle) off the shelf. However if you meant upgrades then yes, one program per drone.