Shadowrun cameras are trideo cameras, offering depth perception even if only one is used,

I thought that taste was used as a medium for communication. So the drone might send a taste of butterscotch pudding to you and you send the taste of a fried egg back to it. So, while you're conducting a symphony, you could also be eating breakfast and watching/listening to a trideo... although doing all of that at once would sure seem to be overstimulating, like it would be leading to Matrix addiction.

I'm trying a SR system based on a d20, and the character's abilities improve only when set benchmarks are reached...except for spending money on stuff...

No, I'm pretty sure it's sense channels OUT only, to the tacnet. The tacnet returns AROs of relevant info. I don't think there's any reason for it to be a synesthesia-net. Does a tacnet require simsense on the users?

There's simply zero reason a drone shouldn't be treated *exactly* the same as a person in a tacnet.

Ascalaphus, that makes perfect sense to me. If it's too strong, require more local users or something.

But couldn't those ARO's be structured to be received as a sense other than visual if the user was wired for such?

I think you could do that as a personal customization if you wanted to (=were crazy), Banaticus, but there's nothing about the tacnet itself that suggests/requires it. It wouldn't have any mechanical effect.

What? No special exceptions that are intended to simplify things, but create even more problems?
Madness!

Tacnets and Drone Sensor channels....

"For a tactical network to function effectively, it requires a
minimum of 3 members. Each member must be running tactical
software of an equivalent rating (if the ratings are unequal, the network
functions according to the lowest rating software) and must
be subscribed to the tactical network (taking up one subscription).
Members may be characters running the tacsoft on their commlinks
or drones running the software on their systems."

Form this we see that Drones count as Members of a tacnet.

Followed by

"Tactical networks rely on data supplied in real-time by sensor
systems to maintain an up-to-date model of the tactical situation.
In order to function effectively, a minimum of sensory input is
required from different sources, measured in the form of sensor
channels. In order to be counted as a member of the tactical
network (and to receive bonuses from it), each member must
contribute a number of sensor channels equal to the tacsoft
rating x 2.
Sensor channels are defined as any type of sensory input
that can be transmitted to the tactical network (and that contributes
in some way to analyzing the tactical situation). Each
sense or sensor accounts for a separate sensor channel. This
sensory input could include:
Natural Senses: Visual, audio, or olfactory senses
recorded via simrig each count as a sensor channel. Natural
enhancements such as low-light and thermographic count as
additional senses.
Cybernetic Senses: Any visual, audio, olfactory, or
other sense acquired via cybereyes, cyberears, olfactory
booster, orientation system, etc. Sensory enhancements
such as low-light, thermorgraphic, smartlink, ultrasound,
radar, spatial recognizers, and so on each count as a separate
sensor channel.
Sensor Systems: Data acquired from worn, carried,
or mounted sensor systems of various types (cameras, microphones,
range finders, motion sensors, etc.) may also be
contributed to the network as a sensor channel. Drones sensor
systems also count; each drone can supply a number of sensor
channels equal to its Sensor rating."

Which boils down to Members can provide Natural Senses, Cybernetic Senses, or Sensor Systems.

Noone seems to object a Metahuman providing Both Cybernetic and Natural senses.

There is no reason a drone cannot provide both Sensor Systems and Cybernetic Senses.

In my personal opinion a Drone, as a member of a tacnet, provides either Cybernetic Senses, or it's Sensor Rating, but not both. This is in line with existing Sensor Rating rules for vehicles and Drones.

Right: 'Sensor' rating is a shorthand, simplified, abstracted value to be used to ballpark a drone's basic sensor abilities. It is like Professional Rating. If you want to itemize instead, do so, and everything still works perfectly. One or the other, whichever is easier/better for you.

Hell, no they don't. Quote the rules instead of paraphrasing them with a bias. Look at DireRadiant's post. Good job, man. Drones can contribute Sensor in rating channels. Not may, not must, not 'are forced to'. They can contribute those channels. That's nowhere near an explicit cap.




Lets move onto an ingame example. I use a doberman with the following sensor configuration configuration. Its a small drone, with a Sensor Signal of 4, and a Sensor Capacity of 6. No rangefinders or motion sensors because the cameras do it better.
Olfactory sensor 6(1cap)
2 Camera 6(2cap, front+Back), Lowlight, Thermographic, Flare Compensation, Vision Enhancement 3, Smartlink, Ultrasound
Microphone 6(1cap), Audio Enhancement 3, Select Sound Filter 3, Spatial Recognizer
Ultrawideband Radar 4(2cap)
This gives it a average Sensor of 5.6, rounding up to 6.

Now try to figure out how many channels it contributes. Olfactory(1), camera(2), Lowlight(3), Thermo(4), Flare(5), Visionenh(6), Smartlink(7), Ultrasound(, Microphone(9), Audion Enh(10), SelectSound(11), Spatial Recognizer(12), Ultrawideband(13), Sensor Rating(6), second camera(7 more, see below)

Oh wait.

I've two cameras. That means I get to double-dip on channels!

No, really. Try to figure out what counts and what doesn't. I've just listed the max possible for that setup.

What a mess.

I do not believe that I said you CANNOT do that (Went back and checked... nope, I never said that), because, of course you can, but not every one likes to get to that level of detail (I know of several in my group who are like that), and just using the base Sensor rating of the Drone works out well for them... so, generally, when we are running a TacNet, and they are included, the drones that they tend to use are the limiting factor in the network, and as such it degrades from 4 to 3... which is okay... I am not going to force them to itemize when they do not want to do so...

But a note... it is generally far easier, and cheaper, to raise a Fly Spy to Sensor 6 (Camera 6) with no other optical upgrades than it is to purchase the Camera 6, with its available slots filled with Smartlink, Thermo, Lowlight, Flare Compensation, Vision Enhancement, blah, blah, blah... at that point... you have an economical drone that is perfect for inserting into the TacNet... no one has to worry about what mods it has, because it is a Senor Rating of 6... look at one number and move on... Larger drones can have more Sensors, and it generally pays off to detail their sensor capacity...

Now, Me... I tend to optimize my Drones for specific Purposes... so I would probably fill out the Drones Sensors on a more developed level... to each his own I guess...

But I will say this, the difference between the optimized Drone loadout and the Sensor Rating Limit of 6 is only a single dice... and at that point, there is really no reason to stress over the "lost" dice if you do not want to deal with the headache of tracking every drone and every sensor loadout...

Keep the Faith

Related question...is TacNet available to Technobrokenmancers as a CF?

Precisely

But, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be *able* to do it. Except seriously, instead of crazily.

YES... it is... If you can emulate Software (which you can) and Hardware (Smartlink and Simrig specifically mentioned), I am positive you could emulate Tactical Software... it would not be any different than emulating an Activesoft...

Keep the Faith

Thanks for the detailed answer. I was going to assume TacNet 4 would be treated like Exploit 4 or whatever.

Null perspiration... But you may also get differing opinions on this as well...
Glad I could be of some service...

Keep the Faith

Oddball question... once you form the TM bionode... can you slave other links to it, and run the tacnet on it in master-slave mode so that it's effectively unhackable except by another TM? I haven't played with TM's at all and don't really have a good understanding of them. (that really only comes w/ playing them and learning their ins and outs).

Whell I guess you could try and spoof your way into the edge slaved nodes as they're not bionodes... but still that's pretty rough.


Really, what's the advantage of a tacnet in a bionode... it doesn't bypass the limitation on software grade I'd think. And lets say you did... you now need even more channels and more members. Master-slave causes limited subscriptions to be a possible problem. Slaved nodes still need to run a copy of the code, correct?



Also to clarify what I mean in the case of a rigger...
A rigger is a PC (a drone or swarm of them are not)... but he's remote... so his senses/remote sensors generally aren't relevant to the tacnet. Maybe a radio scanner if listening for the fuzz or other EW tasks... but generally in order to get his contribution of relevant sensors, he needs to have a few drones on scene subscribed feeding sensor data to his commlink and through that to his tacnet.

As to the poster who commented that a drone isn't worn, carried or mounted... the sentence which immediately follows is "Drone sensor systems also count; each drone can supply a number of channels equal to it's sensor rating.". There isn't a requirement that the drone is worn or carried, (though it better be reasonably close and relevant sensor feed).

Also again: Most of the complication comes from the SR4a updated rules!!! (which unwired does NOT include... on top of all of unwireds OTHER problems including a lot of other weak and broken rules). Sensor capacity, rating, and such was completely redone there, and some silly stuff such as cameras and mics having 'sub-capacity' were done which needlessly overcomplicated things. If it was up to me, I'd probably go with, each visual/auditory enhancement uses up 1 sensor capacity, A drone or vehicle can not provide any more sensor channels than it's sensor capacity rating. (IE: large vehicles or those with improved sensor arrays would stand to be quite valuable in tacnets). Overall much more streamlined and makes a lot more sense with a lot less book-keeping.

That relationship between Sensor Rating and Enhancing sensors is not how I think it works normally? That is, when not considering the tacnet rules, when you enhance sensor ratings there is a capacity limit for the Drone/Vehicle and the sensor rating is calculated on the rating of the channel, not the number of channels?

For example, a Drone with only visual sensors, but all at rating 6, would be a Sensor 6 drone, where as the same drone with 6 different types of sensors(Radar, visual, audio, weather, etc etc), but at rating 1, would be a Sensor 1 Drone.

Tacnets are clearly focused on having various types of sensory input channels mattering rather then the quality, or rating, of each individual type.

Just because it's a Drone that is carrying the equipment to provide the breadth of sensory input doesn't suddenly make it any different from the ways other ways different channels are presented to the tacnet. In my mind the "use sensor rating of the drone" is merely there, at the end of the entire block of rules on tac nets by the way, to give a short hand way of using generic drones rather then forcing the player to figure out the build of the sensor system on the fly every time. Absolutely everything about tacnets written prior to that point indicate that the number of different sensory channels is what matters.

Yep, a TM can just thread the tacnet as a complex form (sustaining only incurs a penalty while not actively using a threaded form), slave all the team's commlinks to his bionode and voila. There are times when being a karma-eating freak of nature has its upsides


IMO that only applies to drones as independent members of the net. The idea behind these sensor channels is that every member provides X senses from his POV, and the numbers of senses determines how good the additinal information from the tacnet is. If several entities could just be clustered together to get more sensor channels, that would defeat the whole purpose. A drone flying around the riggers head would still be OK for me, because the difference beteween wearing a sensor and having it hover over your head is neglectible, but as soon as the drone moves away from the rigger it becomes an independent member of the tacnet and can no longer supply sensor channels for the rigger.

Sengir:
I read that differently... The rigger is remote and has telepresence, but his drones are not.

I see that as giving the rigger one of two options... he either fields a squad of less expensive drones with lower sensor ratings, then subscribes enough of them to fulfill his personal requirement for contribution (all the drones are on scene, he isn't). Then *HE* gets the bonus whenever he's jumped into or remote controlling a specific drones, but the individual drones don't. (IE: the members of the swarm don't qualify... but the 'hive mind/rigger' of the swarm does)

Or he accepts that he needs to use expensive max upgraded drones and only get a rating 3 tacnet, but in which case EVERY applicable drone would get it's own individual benefit, but at the cost of limiting the rating of the tacnet since sensor which limits "sensor channels" caps at 6.

(I know that's under dispute, but from a balance perspective and RAW perspective, that's how I read it. I view the other arguments as maybe RAI... but I see no reason for allowing it since drones are the easiest way to flare up the size requirement in membership of a high rating tacnet and hypothetically w/ just a simple cheap upgraded camera the drone could provide all it's sensor channels keeping it both stupidly cheap and more than doubling it's effectiveness)



TM's:
Yes, but the slaved nodes are still not bionodes, and technically they could still be hacked or spoofed providing a backdoor of sorts into the TM's bionode. (if you're going to mix both TM and hardware... you get both the strengths and weaknesses of each). Granted it's much harder to break into a slaved node.

My personal fix for this little rules discrepancy is the same "incompatibility" that makes bionodes unhackable also keeps people from slaving devices to them.

Lurker:
I slightly disagree with that. All slaving does is forward wireless login requests from the slaved nodes to the central one.

Slaving devices is pretty much SOP for riggers, TM riggers for example, and they still have a vulnerable wireless comms channel between them and the drone. This is where my complete lack of experience w/ TM's comes in... I don't fully understand what a normal decker/rigger could do if presented with a TM rigger for example.

If a TM is logged into or has a system slaved, then his icon is present in that system and can be attacked.

Oh well, then again that starts to derail this thread... maybe good fodder for a new thread. How to bionodes and normal nodes interact.

However, the Issue is that the slaved nodes automatically route everything to the Bionode of the TM. As such, any attempts to hack the slaved nodes will fail outright if the Hacker is not a TM. However, there is nothing that would stop the hacker from attempting to spoof the Node with the TM's Access ID... and it should not be all that hard to obtain... it is just time and listening in on the transmissions after all...

As for hacking a Drone with a TM present... Yes, you just attack the TM's Icon, and you can get rid of him if you win, thus taking over the Drone...

Keep the Faith

I think slaving uses up subscriptions, as well, so it's not a free lunch.

Hi all,
OP here. Thanks for all the insightful commentary. At our table we're going to use Dire Radiants interpretation as it, well, just sorta seems to make the most sense.
Thanks again!

Yes, Slaving does indeed use a Subscription slot... so yes, there are drawbacks... But being unhackable, except by another Technomancer, is a powerful Benefit...

Keep the Faith

Which would defeat the whole point of sensor channels, that every individual member needs to contribute a certain number of "senses". If you could just cluster a bunch of low-rating members for one of a higher rating, what are the different tacnet ratings for?


Slaving means that you have to access the slaved node over the master, and every connection to the slave nodes is redirected to the master. Hacking the slaves directly is simply impossible without a wired connection...another example why you shouldn't confuse the Shadowrun matrix and real computers

Uh. Where are you guys getting 'Completely Permanently Unhackable, LOL' from slaving. Its far from the case. The answer lies in Spoofing.


After puzzling around the Juhnseung Saja, and its function of loading itself onto someone's commlink after knocking them unconscious, i was trying to figure out how it accomplished that. I was wondering how it could do that without exploit, and why it was loaded with Spoof instead. And then it hit me - it the command it spoofs to the unconcsious person's commlink is a Log On command. It blackouts a user, traces them for their ID, impersonates it and goes "Hey! lemme back in!" with Spoof until the commlink does. Which is great. Because you can use the same technique to defeat Slaving.

FIrst, an overview (Unw55). Slaving can be defeated by a 1) a physical, wired Hack. 2) Hacking the master node. If its a TM, this is right out for non-resonance entities. 3) Spoofing commands from the master node.
Oh ho. Spoofing. And a Slave node refuses network connections - from any node except the master. Which we're pretending to be. Which spoofing lets us do - so we spoof a Log On.

Yeah, I don't see any reason you couldn't wi-fi spoof commands to Slaved drones. Its on wi-fi, its scannable, tracable, and interceptable. The only downside is taking a -6 on your test to spoof commands from an admin account(unw 100). If someone's relying on slaving for system protection, then they probably haven't upgraded the system/firewall of their drone minions, which generally means an opposed 6-8 dice vs the spoof test. Easy enough with Edge, hotsim, and other hacker dice pool modifiers.

However the owner can easily configure a drone to ignore certain commands - for example any remote requests to "unslave" it

Even if redirecting the slave link is not possible (GM fiat, rules interpretation, whatever), all the classic Spoof options still are: Reload, Reboot, etc. It is definitely *the* option in such a situation.

Only if those commands are accepted.
Which they won't be for anything secured.

That's the whole point of Spoof, and it's a pretty worthless drone that has all its commands turned off. Besides, all that 'ignore X command' stuff is not really RAW anyway.

Not really – you just need to turn on only those you need.
For a spy drone, this might be movement and sensor commands. No need to be able to command it to reboot – you can do that with your persona.

Which....really doesn't matter!

Because once you've spoofed a Logon to get inside, you can jump it, overriding all external input, and then you've pretty much got full control over that drone until someone tries to get in and kick you out.

Defeating a Slaved setup is as simple as dropping the subscription to the master. For further hilarity, you may use your -own- commlink or wireless device, and a Complex action to change your access id - its a hack+spoof(2) test, to the master's ID, and connect it to a formerly slaved device with a subscription.
Granted, doing it with your own commlink is a bad idea, because it'll change your own subscriptions around, but its a reason to carry other devices - like spare commlinks or microtranscievers.

Um. Like I said, a drone is worthless if you disable all the commands, and if any commands are enabled, they can usefully be spoofed. My whole point is that 'those you need' will never be a 'safe' set. That's the entire reason for Spoof.

I loved this run.

Mesh

In SR terms spoofing means sending commands to the drone with a fake sender adress. You cannot spoof a logon since a subscriptions is a continuous bi-directional connection and the drone's reply to your logon attempts would go to the sender address of a logon request...which is not your ID, but the one you just spoofed.


Sure, and all I need to evasdrop on SK's newest evil masterplan is find out their company access ID and then change my link's ID accordingly

Setting an access ID to one which already exists should immediately drop you from the matrix (because otherwise the routing will go south), and also inform the original owner that somebody was trying to steal his credentials. Or course sending the original owner offline and then spoofing his ID should work

AFB-If a drone has a sensor rating of 4 and 8 different sensors the Tac net could either use the 4 sensors or the 8 different sensors. IIRC a sensor rating is based on the average rating of the sensors. So insome respects it may advatageous to use that rating 6 camera and nothing else on the drone.

??---Does a person have to be contributing member to recieve the tac net bonuses.

Yes, all members must contribute. That's another problem with the TacNet (besides the 'weaker members drag everyone down' effect): it'd be nice if the TacNet separated total input from the output (bonuses), so that 'passive' members could be involved. I say this because it makes sense logically, but I have no suggestions about implementation or balance.

Well, if you're going to jack someone's Subscription, you need to boot them off of it first. Jamming should work, as would an EMP attack(lowers signal by 3, which messes with Mutual Signal range.)

Since people don't seem to understand my point...

It is possible to have 'passive' members... that's my point w/ a rigger subscribing his on-site drones as *HIS* sensor contribution to the net. So that when he's actually remotely rigging one of those drones *HE* (the player) gets the bonus. While the individual drones don't get any bonus, but are providing relevant sensor feeds, allowing the rigger to react better than he normally would.


Similarly, if you had a teammate w/ say a military or SWAT helmet w/ some sensors... nothing is stopping someone from subscribing that teammate's sensor feed (in excess of their own sensor feed requirement). (if he for some reason doesn't have enough channels or a registered copy of the software to contribute). A player can feed more sensors than necessary to meet the minimum.

As far as that goes... yes, tacnet bonuses right now are way too vague and apply to far too much. So giving any passive bonuses is probably too much. (one thing I dislike about tacnets is that AR bonuses are SUPPOSED to be limited to +2... then you have tacnets which are an AR bonus, stacking with say a smartgun which is also effectively an AR bonus).

I could even see a commander type person... using his edit software to forward information to non-joined people to give them a limited situational bonus.

What. I mean, really, what? How does that even make sense for the flexible 1-4 system the entire ruleset for tacnets is based around.

Okay... Try this one then...

Originally, the Situational bonus for using AR was a +2. Then Unwired came out and created a more defined system called the Tactical Network. This Tactical Network replaces your AR bonus that you would otherwise get, and it is now rated 1-4 (rather than the flat +2 originally used). The Drawback is that you need a number of Individuals with Sensor Channels/Rating equal to twice the Bonus provided... Though honestly, that is Not too hard to accomodate...

For those who do not contribute enough Sensor Channels/Rating, I would give a maximum of a +2 bonus, if they were still actively participating in the TacNet (Had a Subscription to the Tactical Network) to represent the benefits of the Tactical Network and the cross communication that it entails...

Hope that makes a bit more sense...

Keep the Faith

Falconer, that's not what I was referring to at all. I meant 'passive' members to be members who are gaining intel from the net, but *not* contributing.

And where would I find the rules for this? Is this a third edition carry over thing?

Yera:
All you need to do is subscribe the sensor feed then.

Look at the 'information guided' indirect attack option in arsenal. (it also works w/ smartguns for shooting through walls). A tacnet is just automatically considered a subscribed sensor feed. You don't need a tacnet to feed information between friends.

And yes in the SR4 book it listed that the AR bonus is +2, I don't know if it's in the SR4a book anymore.

But I just find it a little overpowered to double defensive pools and such based on a piece of software (IMO: tacnets as currently written are cheesier than emotipets, the bonus is lesser but it's far more relevant to be used for pretty much everything).

I don't want the indirect attack, though. I want passive TacNet participation, because it makes sense.

Divide all the bonuses by 2, and/or limit the bonus by skill.