So I'm working up a rigger concept that can actually participate with the group and is not confined to the van. Ideally, he can take a little fire, command combat drones, provide in person hacking and trouble shooting, and actually contribute a little damage on his own. Now I know this sounds like a lot of things to do, but bear with me. I've only seen one matrix character in play and he was a technomancer, so that doesn't translate well to what I want to do. I wan to know what are good 'wares to take to augment a rigger, and part-time hacker.

I'm looking at the following:

Control Rig
Math CPU
Cerebral Boosters
Sleep Regulator (to stay up really late breaking software, modding stuff, etc)

To help in the meat world, I'm looking at taking two obvious cyber legs, that would basically take my meat scores of 3, and take them all to 5's for the main 3 physical attributes. Additionally, you'd get 2 armor each, plus some grips and jacks.

I'm wondering if there are any other good 'wares to toss in there. I have a ton of cash. I was thinking of even going with wired reflects I, just to help in the meat world.

Thanks and let me know what you all think!

I wouldn't use cyberlegs, unless it's a style thing. There are very few cyberlimb options that can't be replicated cheaper and easier with other methods. Look at bioware for some cheap attribute boosting.

It is possible to use cyberlimbs to get an effective character, but you really have to concentrate and expend serious resources to get it to pay off.

Definately look into boosting initiative passes, unless don't WANT the ability to take multiple actions every round. Remember as a rigger you have vehicle tests to worry about. If you don't want to spend most of your time only having your one action each turn be, "I do a vehicle test to keep from crashing", you need more init passes, at least in AR mode.

Remember you can only directly control one drone at a time, so if you run multiples they're going to be in autonomous mode most of the time. Don't skimp on their ratings.

You like a hacker will live and die through your commlink. Get a good one.



-k

Er. Get a good three.

Whenever you go into combat... some reaction enhancements. (My rigger used MBW I). And since you already are the rigger: Some sensor enhanced fast drones (flying would be best) all in a tacnet centered in your node.

Well my combat-rigger (though not optimized) was pretty much the information hub for the group. So i had an internal radar (could carry one though), enhanced eyes and ears and a lot of genetek (He was the son of a exec), for logic and intuition skills. Qualia, Dynomitan, PuSHed... somethink like that all helps.

And if you REALLY needto go to overdrive. The "Control Rig Booster" nanites can give you up to 3 dice more to use your vehicle skill. (But normaly any rigger already has enough... now if they would also give it to gunnery *g* ...

And also... as a rigger you can always be a backup hacker (and grow into a GREAT one too) so everything they can use... you can use too. (Encephalon for example).

If you want to have more survivability... bioware (to balance out the demand of cyberware you already have). Bone Density and orthoskin maybe?

EDIT: Hm, forgot something. Not really carryable equipment or cybertech. But i guess you should want a shop for your drones. So you can fix/modify yourself. So you don't leave some trails and tip off people to whatever evil deeds you are planning.

I would not go with full cyberlegs. Get partial cyberlegs (if you have to) and you can still squeeze a whole lot of crap into them.

I would get one partial cyberleg because you would put your commlink (and other goodies) in there and since you'll be wearing pants most of the time, it will be concealed.

i guess i would prolly drop the cyberlegs too strength dosent come in very handy in most firefights. i think i would add cybereyes for the smartlink and all those goodeys add long arms for the use of a sniper rifle and pick up some stealth skills, then use my drones to spot targets and as ecm platforms focusing on little drones, but that is a wide set of skills so i think a skillwire is a incredably useful tool, and wired reflexes is a no brainer

As KarmaInferno said, bump up those IPs, from how it sounds like you want to run this character, he'll be predominantly an AR rigger (because in order to go VR he has to slump over while someone carries him or stay in the van). And yes, invest in some good commlinks, good drones, good drone autosofts and pilot ratings, etc.

The problem is not can you do all that, but rather, how do you want to do all that .

You can, btw, be a rigger as a technomancer. I haven't read the technomancers rules (they have never been legal PC character in any game I've played in. I'm not even kidding), but my understanding is that then can emulate most of the warez with echos or some such, so you could be a technomancer rigger, for instance, and that could be cute.

You could also play an adept or mystic adept rigger, and that's again a very different set of build considerations.

But let's assume you want to a be non-magic rigger. Even here, there are really a lot of options. You have to get a more clear vision of what kind of rigger you want to play. First, you want to decide whether you are going to ride a drone into combat or command drones in combat. With pilots and autosofts, you can order drones around like they were linesman on an American Football team and go about using your weapon of choice. If you ride a drone in combat or Command them intermittently to course correct their pilot programs (their ai), then you might be able to get away without having any extra meatspace ips. You could go with a longarms specialist with drones providing surveillance, allowing you to provide tacnet, recon and coverfire, with the option to pull back to get the vehicle in an emergency. You could ride a doberman into combat or a lynx, relatively cheap combat drones, and send commands or orders to any other drones you have to provide flanking or support fire. You could have a walking medtable drone following you around to stabilize and cart off injured comrades. There are really so many options it's kind of mind boggling.

So, some key pieces to consider.

Utilizing drones:
Command allows you to micromanage drones you are not riding. You do not need Command to simply give an order to a drone (that's free). Command lets you specify a specific action using a skill of your own outside the drones usual programming (or using your skills instead of the drone's software). Non-ridden drones will need to have autosofts added, their pilots, and potentially sensors upgraded in order to be truely effective on their own. This all costs money. Autosofts are in core and UW, Sensor upgrades are in Arsenal (as is drone modding, iir).
Gunnery, Dodge, Perception and possibly Melee (Unarmed typically) are used for actions you take while riding a drone. If you spike your Perception, you can take a perception test with a drone to get a sensor lock and then let the drone use active targetting from that point on. This is good in combat when most GMs won't allow the target to use Infiltration to avoid the sensor lock. Response replaces Reactions, Sensors replace Agility for most rigged actions. In both cases it is the statistics of the drone (not your commlink) that are important.

Driving the vehicle:
You need to decide if you want to drive hot simmed or in AR. AR driving will require you to have meatspace ips to be good. Driving in the AR requires Vehicle Skill, Reaction and good handling on the vehicle. You can get an AR bonus for the vehicle up to +4 depending on how loopy your GM is.
Jumped into the vehicle you are using Matrix ips and initiative. Response replaces Reactions, but you still need Vehicle Skill and good handling. Hot simming will give you +2 dice.
In both cases, Infiltration and Shadowing control driving casual, pursuit evasion and pursuit in vehicles. No really. Shadowing is probably the most important for a Driving Monkey Rigger.

Making the Vehicle:
Arsenal is the book with vehicle modding. There are a lot of mods, which you want is really more about what you want to do, the campaign and your group's style. Beyond the mods on the vehicle, you should think about upgrading the vehicle's device rating. Increasing its signal will allow you to grab the vehicle and command its pilot program to come pick you guys up (without getting jammed). Increasing its response will give you the processing power to run an agent to monitor for hackers and car thieves, run eccm to prevent jamming, encrypt the vehicle node and keep anaylze running 24/7. If you are hot simming the vehicle, its Response replaces your Reactions for every test I can think of, as well as the all important Vehicle Test. Also, don't be afraid to keep a drone in the vehicle while you arn't, to vehicle sit. A drone with an optical link to the vehicle can be a nice fail safe if someone jacks your car. You could even keep an agent on it designed to hack your car back and return control to you.

Utility Programs:
You have some choices as a rigger. Obviously, you can take an ever expansive list of progs to be more and more like a hacker. The challenge is more how few programs can you purchase and still do what you want. You have some options. The first order of concern for a rigging is getting your drones and vehicles jacked. There are three methods via which this could happen. They could hack your commlink, they could hack your device (drone/vehicle) or they could spoof your commlink talking to your device (drone or vehicle). Of the three, spoofing is the hardest to defend again.

The first line of defense against spoofing is using the Encrypt program to encrypt your communications to your drones. This requires your signals to be decrypted in order of the hacker to get your access id to spoof it. He also has to run encrypt himself to encrypt his spoofed command. Your second line of defense against spoofing is Jamming. Jamming is done with jammers (there are alot, I recommend getting smart jammers) and the Electronics Warfare skill. Any hacker trying to jack your stuff gets stuffed himself if you jam his signal. If Jamming and Encrypting fail, you are in trouble. At this point, your options are to hack his commlink yourself, cycle your subscriptions to refresh your encryption or change your access id and reset all your drones. All these plans have risks and costs. Spoofing is bad. You can try, depending on your GM to limit your spoofing risks by gimping your account. Your GM might allow you to slave your drone to your commlink but have that account not be an admin account, and have a separate admin account that can issue more dangerous commands like shutdown, self-destruct, shoot my friend Ted, etc. Having a separate admin account that presets certain information that can't be changed by the slaving account prevents spoofed commands in combat from issuing those commands (for example setting all the PCs as friends, to avoid friendly fire). Upgrading the Firewall (and therein the Response) of your drones can also help prevent spoofing, but it's not percentage.

Against being hacked, the situation is similar whether they want to hack your commlink or a drone. Your commlink can be set up to be pretty hard to hack, with analyze, disabled accounts, agents, etc. (see commlink below). Your drones, however, are not cost effective to protect in this way. As slaved devices they are unlikely to be unhackable. Fortunately, the tricks for spoofing also work against hacking. Encryption and Jamming. If these fail, then you are looking at trying to lock him out somehow. Disconnecting a hacker requires seeing him, which requires the program Analyze and the Computer skill. If he beats you to the punch, and disconnects you first, then you're going to have to spoof his access ID or rehack your own drone to get control. If he's booted you out of your commlink you're going to have to manually turn off wireless and hack back in or reboot it. First, decide whether you want to do your own hacking, or you want an agent to do it. SR4 agents are rediculously competent for most of the hacking tasks you are likely to want to accomplish. An analyze agent on your commlink can be set to scan every slaved drone and the commlink itself on a rotating basis for unauthorized access, launch an alert on the device as well as a second IC and alert you, or reboot the drone, attempt to disconnect the user, etc. Hacking a drone requires Exploit program and the Hacking skill. Analyze and Edit are likely the only other programs you will need for retaking your devices via hacking. If your GM is mean, he might send a hacker after you in cyber combat. Every drone you control is an open subscription, which means you are vulnerable to a hacker attacking you with Black programs (progs that do meatspace damage). You are unlikely to need to engage in cyber combat with a hacker, but if you do you are going to want Biofeedback Filter and Armor, as well as an Attack program. An agent with Medic is very handy as well. You'll also need the Cyber Combat skill. As a rigger, I'd ignore all these. If you are paranoid, have an agent whose job it is to disconnect you from the system if you signal it. You'll take dumpshock, but that's much better then getting dead.

On the flipside, you can take progs to be an anti-rigger. The main progs to hack a drone or commlink are Exploit, Stealth and Edit. The skill is Hacking. The main progs to spoof a drone are Sniff, Analyze and Spoof. Those three programs use Hacking, Computer and Hacking respectively. You may also need the Command program, depending on your GM. To hack a device you need to find the node, which requires Scan and Electronics Warfare. If their communications or the devices themselves are encrypted you'll need Decrypt (and Hacking). You don't need to decrypt a drone to spoof a command to it (but you will need to decrypt the signal to the drone if it's encrypted). If the signals are encrypted, you'll need Encrypt to talk to them once you've Decrypted their signal.

Commlink:
More is always better, but a few things to consider.
Signal makes you harder to jam. If your GM has read the rules carefully, he's going to require you to have mutual signal to control your drones, that means both your commlink (or whatever device you have on hand to route through) and your drones should have the same signal rating.
System (limited by Response) determines your maximum number of subscriptions (Systemx2). You need 1 subscription per drone you are commanding, as well as 1 for each node you are logged into (beyond a guest) and for each slaved device. Get it with Crashguard if you can.
Firewall is very important, not because it's going to stop you from getting hacked, but because it's going to stop you from getting /owned/. A good hacker can beat an r6 firewall. But he can't beat an r6 firewall and hack an admin account without getting spotted. Disable all other accounts on your commlink. Slave your peripherals. Drones are peripherals . Get firewall with crashguard if you can. Your GM may not allow you to entirely eliminate non-admin accounts on your commlink (the jerk). If he doesn't, treat them as honeypots and sit an agent to log off or otherwise do bad things to any non-admin who logs in. Also consider having an agent watch your access log 24/7.
Response is your initiative in the matrix. If you are riding a drone, it's your initiative in that drone. Int + Response. Also, Response limits your Firewall and System ratings. Response good.
Simsense Accelerator (commlink mod) grants +1 ip in the matrix. That's another command to another drone or another action while riding a drone.
Program Optimization grants a +1 total for one specific program. ECCM, Analyze or Command for instance.
Sim Module with Hot Sim mod (so you can go into Hot VR)
Depending on your GM, Hardening can be useful to protect from EMP, Biometric lock to prevent someone from stealing it or hacking into it remotely

Qualities:
Gearhead -- Break the rules for the type of vehicle you specialize in.
Codeslinger -- For hackers it's great. +2 on a type of matrix action. For instance, Command .
Analytical Mind -- Good for data search and software tests
And obviously, anything that gets you more money...

Warez:
Control Rig Module (self explanatory)
Control Rig Nanites add to your vehicle dice pools while rigging. Great for driving but incompatible with Simsense Booster.
Encephalon I/II add to all your hacker skills
Neocortical Nanites add to all your hacker skills when you are not under stress, this one you should discuss with your GM as to how he interprets stress
Simsense Booster gives an extra matrix ip
PuSHeD adds 1 to all your hacker skills
Math SPU adds to your EW and descrypt/encrypt totals, which is particularly useful for a rigger (see above)

Platlet Factories, Trauma Centers and the like can be nice for biofeedback and dumpshock, but not terribly important
MBW and skillsofts is very powerful if you are using meatspace IPs, particularly since as a part-time hacker you can use data search to get pirated skill softs (again, check with your GM first)
I like Datajacks. Old school, yes, but still very useful and very cheap.

Cerebral Boosters, Mnemonic Enhancers, etc. are not terribly useful unless your GM is playing with house or optional rules. Although Cerebral and other logic boosting mods can help your Electronic Warfare and modding/crafting totals.


Logistics:
Hardware and Armourer are your main logistical skills for modding your drones
Mechanic for your vehicle (still want hardware and armourer)
Software for the softs in all of the above

Of the four, Software is the least important. Data Search can sub for Software for searching out useful pirated autosofts, agents and pilot programs.


As a rigger, more then anyone, you need to consider your PAN topology and your drone setup. What's slaved to what, what devices are running analyze or encrypt or agents and which agents are analyzing which devices for what, etc. are important considerations.


You can't do all of the above--it's too expensive. You have to pick, mix and match for the style of Rigger you are playing and what you can make work with your build. Hopefully, though, this gives you an idea of the parameters. You should also flip through the Drones in core and Arsenal and a few in UW.

I would, personally, make a 1-point-of-ware TM/rigger.
You will want a Control rig(because it stacks with immersion, which you will want later), and a simsense booster cyberware(check the FAQ, a technomancer CAN benefit from it). 4 passes is fine once you have Macro, way down the road trade it for cybereyes or something.
A trauma damper gets special mention for riggers, due to the way Biofeedback damage from drones is calculated: A drone gets hit, rolls to soak, and takes X damage. Then, if the rigger's in Hotsim(and only hotsim, which technomancers automatically do), the half that damage(round up ) carries over to the rigger, who gets to soak -that- remainder with his Black IC defenses(biofeedback+willpower). So, basically, any hotsim damage a rigger -would- take is reduced twice: First by the drones defenses, then halved, then reduced again by the hacker. A trauma damper automatically reduces stun damage by 1, so even if you horribly botch your Biofeedback test and some damage carries through a trauma damper will reduce it by 1 more - it'll generally keep riggiong feedback back from adding up.

You'll also be wanting some drugs, at least at the start: Cram and Jazz ought to do it. This is just to get you alive during combat situations before you have a chance to submerge.

For your complex forms, load up on Stealth, Encrypt, Tacnet, Telematics Infrastructure at at least 1(it is really, really, REALLY handy for keeping track of stuff), and Command forms.

take a 5bp resonance bond and a free sprite contact, and a group contact representing your techomancer network.(unlike mages, no karma to join), giving you both submersion discounts at the start. Your first submersion will be 9 karma (unlike initiation, unwired doesn't have a 20%+20%=40% discount, so its 13*.8*.8=8.32, which rounds up to 9. If your GM is merciful, it will be 8: 13x.6=7.8, which rounds up to 8.)
Make sure to grab More than Metahuman. If you save a free action each round (free actions can be explicitly delayed and taken later in the pass, see the free action rules) then you'll never suffer dumpshock.

When submerging, your immediate concern is to grab Macro. Because its awesome, and if you have it, suddenly you don't need to spend a complex action each turn maintaining control of your vehicle.
The second is Multiprocessing. Turning 'observe in detail' into free actions while in AR/VR is very important, because free action sensor tests are amazing....due to Active Sensor Targeting. The extra free action each turn will also let you jump into any drone. It also lets you AR/VR in multiple nodes, an ability which only grows stronger as you submerge more. The important thing to note about this ability is that unlike the regular 'alt-tab' rules, a technomancer only adds half their -skill- to relevant tests with it. Complex forms are not skills, and your drones are nodes too.
The last echo is Multiprocessing. It makes you dual-natured, except instead of the astral and real world, its the real world and the matrix instead, and use your superior cyberinit in meatspace. The hidden bonus of this echo is the ability to finally use Macro for matrix-based combat. More importantly, you can claim your hotsim bonus all the time, because you're using your VR initiative all the time. (i would like to remind everyone that RAS systems are properties of Sim Modules, and TM's don't use commlinks/simmods to comment to the matrix.)

All this costs is 30-33 karma(depending on rounding). Once your first few runs are under your belt, you'll have a hacker dude who's able to run multiple drones at once, and depending on how you build from there, able to fight alongside them. With a plethora of free actions and a Macro each pass, the ability to Jump In at a moment's notice, and the ability to thread up the Command complex form, a technomancer of this particular type can pretty easily swap between Captain's Chair style rigging (sitting somewhere, and using Issue Command actions to remotely manage his drone units/sprites and trusting them to get the job done), Joystick Jockey-ing (picking one drone and making it awesome with Command-based Control Device) or Jumping In directly to deal with a tough situation himself. A side benefit of being able to jump in/out of your drones at will comes with quirks in the Drone/Rigger initiative rules: You can change a drones initiative to Yours(which is undoubtedly higher) when you jump in, but the drone keeps it for the rest of the turb when you jump out. This is clarified in the FAQ, and is something any rigger with More Than Metahuman should look into, whether or not they're a technomancer.

From there, you have a few options available to you in terms of further submerging.
Immersion stacks with a control rig, meaning you get a really, really hefty bonus while jumped in: +2 to all Vehicle tests while jumped in, +2 to anything while hotsim, and a further +1 to +2(the echo can be taken twice) to anything you do while jumped in. While rigging, thats pretty much a +6 to everything you do with a drone. Its also a prerequisite for:
Mind Over Machine. A deceptively good echo, it lets you Jump Into -anything- (any wi-fi device, technically), regardless of whether it has Rigger Adaptation or not. If a rigger is Jumped In, external output is overridden. It combos nicely with More Than Metahuman, because you typically have a free action left after hacking into a node: By hacking in, then Jumping In, you never need to worry about Admin level accounts again. Its a very, very nice way to steal nodes right out from under people.
Skinlink is nice. Any device you can touch you can hack, and with mind over machine, you can control very easily. Like mind over machine, its underrated - while a teammate may break out a sequencer or a hardware toolkit to open a maglock, a technomancer can just touch it and tell it to open. Doesn't even need a skinlink adapter - the resonance version is just plain better.
Sparky gets a special mention, because you can actually blow up people's hardware with your Attack program. However, it is better in Pre-4A games, because Attack is no longer used to Crash Nodes. Yeah, sorry, CGL never fixed that one, so your GM may be lenient. The only things free from your wrath are (TMs, sprites, agents, ai, and e-ghosts.)
E-sensing is, quite frankly, amazing. Its one of the only things that can just flat out detect stealth tags. With Multiprocessing and E-sensing, you can do it for free once every turn.(well, while not in combat). Additionally, it can pseudo-analyze a node, potentially telling you its signal(jammability), firewall(hackability), system, sensor rating, or what type of node it is - without even connecting to the node.(which means no datatrail). For an AR-hacker who likes to hack while walking about, its well worth considering. Combined with a Telematics Infrastructure program, a technomancer is just kind of *aware* of any/most wi-fi devices around their physical body. Its also a Resonance+Perception test, so don't forget to specialize Perception for it if you use it frequently.
Living ECM is at a glance a terrible complex form. However, with E-sensing, only 2 hits are required to sense the Signal rating of a device. Additionally, it works like a jammer - not any specific type. So its good as both an Area and a Directional jammer. For a Technomancer who makes a habit of carrying a HERF gun or EMP grenades (which affect antennae, reducing the signal by 3), even a mighty signal 6 commlink can be nerfed into auto-jam range with a low about of submersion grades. Since its a jammer, you can also jam on the fly with it if you find a node that you aren't able to auto-jam by being higher than its signal.

But yeah. Technoriggers are pretty badass.

Er I think the "last Echo" you mean is "Mesh Reality"? I'd like to point out, though, that while you get to use your cyberinit in meatspace, you can only use as many IPs in meatspace as you could normally use without the echo. Any "overflow" may only be used for cyberspace actions. Also you retain a -4 to all dicepools (lowered for Cybercombat as noted with Macro) if you are engaged in physical and cybercombat at the same time.


I'm not sure I track how the resonance bond gives you a submersion discount, but there's nothing fuzzy about stacking the two Submersion discounts I know. p.140 of Unwired clearly states that the cost is
base cost -20% for both Network Submersion (round up) and Submersion Task discounts.
Furthermore there is a note that says outright "These may be combined for a net submersion cost of Base Cost - 40% (round up). therefore if you have network submersion and execute a submersion task successfully, then the first submergence will be 7.8-->8 karma.

I'm not convinced that a free Observe in Detail (out of combat) is the same as a Sensor lock-on Test (in combat).

You can't 'claim your hotsim bonus' for non-VR actions. That would be lame.

Don't forget that Macro imposes a -2 on each Test, which may affect your non-Maintaining-Control action.

It's true that Technomancers can do some neat things, especially if you're combing for exploits and loopholes, but don't get carried away.

The Observe In Detail part of MultiProcessing isn't non-combat-only.

You're thinking of the extra Free Action.



-k

Ah, free-as-in-action, not free-as-in-no-cost. You're right.

Yeah, its mesh reality. While you do take a -4, its offset by the Hotsim bonus, and being able to thread up your complex forms. What. If you're allowed to use your matrix initiative, you get to use your matrix initiative. Additionally, with two Immersion echoes, as long as you're jumped into something, anything, you get the bonus dice to everything. The echo itself is rather poorly worded, but if a multi-node multiprocessing/mesh reality technomancer is jumped into a recon drone he gets the extra dice while, say, threading, or perception tests, and if you extend that line of though, includes stuff that the drone isn't even part of.



Nice catch on the discount - a search for that clause in my unwired PDF didn't find it. Thanks.
Merely having a free sprite contact doesn't give you cheaper submersion, but anytime you ring it up and feed it a registered sprite, you can count the reassembling as a submersion task, so it -really- makes sense for a technomancer to have a free sprite contact.



I don't think its lame. If you're using your VR initiative, you're using your VR init, and that comes with certain bonuses. All mesh reality does is expand upon what counts as VR. Mesh/multiprocessing also comes with its own downsides: a technomancer active in a bunch of nodes at once can get shot at in a bunch of nodes. Its not like it doesn't have its downsides.
No, its far easier to look at Mesh Reality as a poorman's Adept Centering. It also takes -29- karma(cuz it has a prereq), so the bonus ought to be worth it.
For comparison, a 2-initiation Adept Centering costs 29 karma as well, and saves 2 dice on most tests as long as the adept can hum the power rangers theme.
Getting bonus dice and getting rid of penalties are roughly equivalent. Adept centering gets better, while mesh reality remains at 2 dice, but applies to more things.
When you think of it that way, they're about the same in terms of cost and effect.

That doesn't make any sense. Hot sim: "You also receive a +2 dice pool bonus to all Matrix tests while using hot sim." Matrix tests. Period. Getting to use your Matrix Init/IPs *is* the bonus, and it's bonus enough.

Using the Immersion bonus on tasks unrelated to the vehicle is clear abuse; it specifically says, "for the purpose of directly manipulating rigged vehicles and drones". I wouldn't even allow it on Threading.

Again, surely Technomancers are cool enough without actively inventing bonuses and exploiting errors.

Living ECM trick is an interesting idea, but the use of 16F devices (and 500¥/grenade) to support your Echo seems inefficient. What's the trick for, anyway? You're a rigger, and anything you use EMP devices on is possibly getting fried anyway.

How exactly are you combining E-Sensing with TI?

Not exactly; A HERF gun is a solid investment for a technomancer who wants to steal drones.

First off, optical tech is very prevalent in shadowrun and most things aren't affected by EMP. Signal, however, explicitly is.
Consider that a security drone, such as a steel lynx or doberman costs about 2000-3000 nuyen before mods, and has a device rating of 4.
If you find one, EMP it, its signal is now 1, and pretty much automatically insta-dumpshocks its former rigger due to loss of mutual signal range. You, however, are probably within 40 meters, and can proceed to hack it. Thats a base threshold of 4 for a basic account, followed by a free action Jump In opposed by 8 dice. Once you've done that, the drone is now *yours*, and there's pretty much nothing anyone can do about it. If you were so inclined, you could even pop a sprite into the drones node, turn the wireless off completely, and control it solely via your sprite-TM link.
Even better, any RFID tags the drone's been carrying now have no signal, too. No signal, no broadcasting, no tracking, no datatrail. When you consider that a macro/mesh reality TM can do this all within one pass pretty easily, and you make the nuyen that you spend on the HERF/EMP every time you steal a drone, then it starts to look really, really good.


E-sensing with TI isn't so much a combination as an overlapping of information.

TI automatically detects any wi-fi device in active or passive mode in its coverage area, automatically scanns for hidden nodes every so often. It also gives the TM the position, direction and speed of any device, as well as its access ID and any public data.
Interestingly, TI doesn't care about mutual signal range, just its coverage area.
E-sensing can potentially tell you all of the following about electronics, vehicles, or people:
the presence, direction, emmissions, size, type/model(rfid/commlink,etc) of a node, cyberware locations, rating of sensors, rating of nodes, exterior nanites, vehicle/drone modifications, firewall of a node, nanites in a bloodstream, whether a node is slaved, and the presence of stealth tags. E-sensing, unlike electrosense, doesn't have a range limit. (in practice, i think its supposed to be the TM's Signal)

When you consider the type of stuff each sense tells you about, they kind of fill in each other's blanks.

Its also worth noting that Multiprocessing also lets you Free Action percieve in detail. The implications of this being, you -always- have a free action to make a perception test, every pass, even while walking around doing casual stuff - so you never take the penalty for passive perception, because you're always actively looking around, even if its just with e-sensing.

It gets better, though, when you add in the Tacnet complex form(or program, whatever), which a TI can explicitly be tied into. The entire purpose of a tacnet is to take information from a variety of sources, turn it into a complete whole, and offer tactical input on it. As per Tacnet Information, a Tacnet rolls Response+Tacsoft to look up information from its tactical databanks on anything it can percieve, or automatically up stuff on the matrix it doesn't know with Tacsoft+Browse.(how's THAT for a macro!). Whether or not it gives a dice pool bonus is irrelevant in this case - the ability of a tacnet to tie information into a comprehensive whole doesn't require a certain number of members or channels, but it does get better with them.
You could use a simrig complex form to include e-sensing into the tacnet, but since its resonance based, and part of your signal/bionode/etc, I don't think its necessary. If you want to get an actual dice pool bonus out of the tacnet, however, you're going to want the simrig complex form anyway to include eyes/ears/smell in its channels.

Just a couple of minor points:

I think you typically need better than a 'basic' account for a vehicle node.

I'm not sure you can simrig a Resonance sense, just as you can't simrig Magic senses.

TI doesn't really do anything you can't already do. Its purpose is to do it across a whole building/etc. If you're just running it on one node (or even just a few nodes), you're only really running a normal Agent set to scan. And yes, Tacnets are cool, but again, you're not really doing anything Technomancer-y there.

I think we're pretty far from 'Rigger Essentials', that's all.