Yeah, right, they aren't. But of all things I think a rules system has to maintain inner consistency. Is there any way you could fit four external fixed mounts on a drone with those stats if that wasn't a standard upgrade?

Several of the playtesters are active posters here on DS. I'm not sure if just raising their hand counts as violating their NDA or not, so I won't say who or ask them to speak up, but...well, yes. Sorry you don't feel it happens, but it is in playtesting right now.

Nope, but neither could you fit 2 weapon mounts into Nimrod or 1 into Ares Sentinel “R” Series or Modified GMC Chariot(all of these drones are in Arsenal, a book you accused of This Old Drone writers of not reading)
Also good luck trying to add multilaunch drone rack into any drone(GTS Tower has this, even thought it reguiers a Body 10)

I do a bit of playtesting, though I'm now sort of without a group since I moved. But I'll read things over and go "Hey, that doesn't look right!" (Something I didn't get to do as much as I should have with War, as I have a lot of other stuff on my plate as well).

Bull

I mean, exactly which drones do you think *need* a multilaunch drone rack? Jesus.

It's always easier to optimize and build around things when you're designing from scratch. Much harder to "bolt it on" after the fact, so it takes up more space. Hence, something that's "factory designed" can break the optimization rules a bit.

Bull

Unless you're the Canadian Armed Forces. Then it's just another day.

Dear Playtesters.

Please put a Micro-weapons mount modification in milspec tech.
I mean, like, guns no bigger than SMG sized, with two clips of reloads(or something suitably tiny). 0 slots, pay for visibility/flexibility/control as normal, but minimum 1 slot, but ISN'T a Standard mod, so it can go on Small vehicles

The ability to have a smallish drone with a light gun is a feature thats been sorely lacking in the current edition of shadowrun. You know, when you need a ferret with a machine pistol, stungun, or something appropriate to its size. It just always seemed silly that between 2060 and SR4, drones now apparently only come in One-Size-Fits-All: LMG.

I'm looking forward to seeing this. Ways have been fluff without crunch since they were first mentioned, and I'm curious to see how you are handling it.

I for one, keep hoping they will basically re-release/ update rigger 3 that was an amazing book imo.

They won't, flat out.

i know but it would be downright amazing.

It certainly would, but they have decided to kill the rigger as a viable character archetype, so ...

I've played a rigger against the opposition using the core book stat blocks. He kicked major ass.
What were I doing wrong?

They still allow vehicle-oriented hackers, but they kicked the idea of the rigger as a supported archetype. They seriosuly nerfed the VCR, which isn't good for much anymore ecept a de facto free success of you have another success. They reintroduced some tidbits in Augmentations, but needed an errata to actually make the Rigger nanires work with other riggerware. And then there is the mess that is the vehicle rules in general, which aren't good for more than vaguely tracking a chase with two cars.

The point is not that you cannot build a half-decent vehicle hacker. The point is that the rigger as an independent archetype does not exist anymore. he is a specialised hacker and has a few tricks to be a bit more viable than a standard vehicle hacker, but he's nowhere near where the rigger was in previous editions.

Psh. They simply made the riggers *also* be hackers. What's the problem, not enough DP inflation?

That they made the hackers *also* be riggers. That the vehicle rules are moronic, vehicle modding tacked on and improperly done, and that riggerware is sabotaging itself. A streetsam with wired 3 and a decent driving skill has a better chance of success in vehicle tests than a dedicated rigger character (and more init passes when commanding drones).

Seriously, what? I won't argue the vehcle rules being a clusterfuck, but *riggers are no longer a viable archetype?* They are, if anything, *more* viable, because now they don't have to sink 2-5 essence into their VCR and be totally worthless outside of their vehicle. And I think your assertion that a street sam with wired reflexes 3 can be an equal or better driver than a rigger is ... dubious at best. Here's why:

A street sam with wired 3 a stat of 9, a skill of 4, and AR can get 4 passes and will roll 14 dice on his driving tests. It's not bad, not by any stretch of the imagination. He can't get the Control Rig bonus, though, because he if chooses to use the Control Rig, he can't get his fourth pass.

A rigger/hacker with a stat of 9, and a skill of 4, and hot sim can get 4 passes a lot cheaper. +2 for Hot Sim, +1 for Simsense booster. And he'll be rolling 9 reaction, +4 skill, +2 hot sim bonus, +2 control rig bonus, and that's 17 dice for a much cheaper buy-in than Wired Reflexes 3. He can still pick up wired 2, or a some other meat-booster, and be rocking and rolling the matrix for a fraction of the cost. Plus, he can also buy up his die pools with other cheap ware, and can pick up a Simsense Accellerator and have 5 IPs in hot sim.

The whole point of how riggers are handled in 4th edition is that they can be other things as well. Saying they're not viable is like saying metahumans aren't viable because they aren't automatically saddled with allergies like they used to be.

+ AR bonus, + teamwork with Pilot ...


And cannot use the rigger nanites then, because those are incompatible with riggers. +3 dice are not that much better either. Nowhere near where they were before. Riggers have a slight edge, like a vehicle adept. That's roughly 1 Essence point spent on something that doesn't get you a whole lot of return.



Exactly. Being a rigger has become a mere add-on on another archetype, like the hacker or the streetsam.

remember Rigger nanites only count towards vehicle tests.

So they only help you with response+vehicle skill tests.

Yeah ... makes the rigger all the less worthwhile.

That counts the AR bonus, yo. 1 die. 9+4 = 13. It'd 14 because of that extra 1. If we're counting teamwork with pilot, the rigger jumped-in gets it too.


It was merely an illustration. if I'm going to invest karma in "being a rigger" instead of "being a street sam", that die bonus is going to jump to 7 or 8, because I'd rather invest in Rigger nanites, and extra IPs don't matter as much when you have a 2 tons of metal between you and the enemy, or you're jumped into a drone, or whatever. The driving skill would also because 6 with a specialization, rather than 4. Our difference is now immense, because you're also forgetting the biggest difference when I'm jumped in: I need one less success than you to succeed at any test, because I'm jumped in, using hot sim, and have a control rig. My thresholds are one lower. That's statsically a 3-die bonus as well. Effectively, you roll 14 dice, and I roll 25 or so.

If you say you can also invest karma into skills, well congratulations. I can invest karma into street sam skills. Which brings me to the next point:



And the problem with this is *what*, exactly? You're bitching about the fact that people can now eat a sandwich AND drink a coke, rather than have to drink the coke OR eat the sandwich. Your complaint is *pants-on-head crazy*. You don't like people *having options*?!

I'm bitching about every meal on the menu becoming a supersized BigMac meal, that way.


I dislike every archetype being made an *option* except for supermages and supermancers.

Ridiculous. A dedicated rigger is excellent.

Yeah, you can still build a stupidly broken rigger in SR4.

That it can ALSO do non-rigger stuff pretty well I would call a positive, not a negative.

Really, in SR4, it is more helpful to STOP thinking in terms of archetypes. Most optimally efficient characters are not one particular type, they tend to be blends of different focuses. And there's multiple ways to fill many of the character roles - you can have a TM-rigger, a implant-rigger, or an adept-rigger, and each will be pretty damn good at it.



-k

You can, although he's not that far away from being a Hacker as well.

It doesn't cost much to be a rigger/hacker.

To be a Rigger you need:
Pilot X
Electronic Warfare

If you want to be able to boost cars:
+Hacking
If you want to be able to do maintainance on your drones/vehicles of choice
+mechanic
+hardware
if you want to beat up that hacker who comes to steal your candy
+cybercombat

but at the very base all you need is the first 2.
Everything else is added on flavor which brings you closer and closer to being a hacker.

A rigger does not need ANY electronics group.
A rigger does not need most of the cracking group.
Really a Rigger doesn't even really need the EW group.

For those of you that are actually interested in MilSpecTech instead of discussions of technomancers, riggers, hackers, etc, it's available now at DriveThruRPG, BattleCorps, RPGNow, etc.

$8 is quite the price for a pdf only publication. How many pages is this?

Checking the preview, it looks ... okay. Different author than with War! (who coordinates between all these different authors?), which probably is a good thing. Pity it is the guy from That Old Drone, which probably is NOT a good thing.

The MPUV really could have gotten a bit more shadowtalk. Also, the formating is clumsy. But at least this document seems to have been proofread now. Wow.

Overall, this looks better than That Old Drone, and gives the vehicles more space. Art is pretty good - all that's in the preview seems familiar, but it'S been colored and modified to an extent that that's excusable. One hover tank on the cover page of the catalog is looking like new, but like imported from the Big Robots Game.

Info Santé! Really, what is it with you guys and foreign languages?

Why does the Devil Rat have a turret in the image but not listed in the stats? Also (nitpick), there is a comma missing in the Devil Rat's listing of options.

Impressions from the preview: looks better than war!, but could use some improvement. Also, the price is a little high if this is another 20-page document with 5 pages of record sheets to beef up document size, like TOD was.

Which is actually best to use?

Do prices differ between?
Can you re-dl stuff you bought in case of a hard drive failure?

DriveThru probably.


No. At least not with these three.


DriveThru and RPGnow yes (they allow you a given number of downloads), BattleCorps only for a few days before they close your download.

I don't have an answer for ya, because I really don't know (and I'm not gonna pretend that I do). A couple quick google searches tells me the price is the same at all three, but I don't know which ones "best" or what rules any of 'em have for secondary or tertiary downloads, etc, etc.

I'm not the official announcement or the e-book guy, I was just tryin' to give folks a friendly heads up that it was for sale.

yeah, and i seem to remember some shit with battlecorps and lost limited edition preorders, wasn't it?

Not meaning to stir the pot, just simply offer some info. If you do buy through the Battleshop (and really, it's likely a personal preference thing, I've used all three but haven't found any massive differences...so whatever works for you), even after the download link is dead, you can easily get it re-opened with an email message. So it's not permanently closed off or anything. I will admit that I've found DTRPG a bit better about reminding me when updates are given on the PDFs. Battleshop has seemed to be slower in that regard.

Just as a note... For Battlecorps, I talked with some of the higher ups about the download issue. While the links do expire, all you need to do is get in contact with them if you need to redownload at a later date. They said they've never had a reason to "deny" someone a download before, and can't imagine there would be a reason to down the road.

The other difference between the two is that CGL gets, I believe, full $$ from the Battleshop, while Drivethru gets a cut of anything sold through there.

Also, just to confirm, there is no price difference between the different sites (And RPGnow and Drivetrhu are, I believe, owned by the same company these days, so there's not really much difference between the two).

Oh, and as for proofing, well..> I know I made ita point to give it a couple thorough reads and offer up a few corrections on an early proof of the PDF, managed to catch a few minor errors.

I suspect this is a writer not knowing the ALT code for é, honestly. It's not a question of not knowing it has an accent - the author obviously intended one - but may not have known how to do it. Seriously, I get asked *daily* by people how to add special characters, and some of these people are professional writers.


Yeah, that's a goof. It should probably read Weapon Mount, External, Turret, Armored Manned.

RPGNow and DriveThruRPG are, as far as I can tell, the same company.

So far right off the bat this PDF gets a thumbs up from me, if for no other reason than it's got the old edition style one-item-per-page, with stats and then shadowtalk discussing each item.



One thing I notice right off, though - there's no indication of the vehicle sizes, nor of which are drones and which are passenger craft. I mean, you can kinda tell on many of them by reading the context of the descriptions, but it would seem a kinda important bit of info. Especially the sizes, as that determines other game mechanic numbers.


-k

Bah, kids... Back in my day we had to learn how to do that in ASCII using ALT-Codes! 'Course, I cheated and had a base document that I had save that had them all at the start and copy/pasted them rather than do them constantly, trying to remember which number was which.

Trust me, it's a royal bugger trying to type something for a French class when you can barely read in the language.

Checking out the preview now.

YAY! My MPUV!!!

Quick fact sheet :

$7.95, 39 pages. Date is 20 February 2073. Presented as Ares and Dassault (Aztechnology group) catalogs. The vehicle and weapons described are, in order :

GMC MPUV (light armored car)
Ferrari "Appaloosa" (armored scout vehicle)
LAV-98 "Devil Rat" (infantry fighting vehicle)
LAV-103 "Striker" (light tracked tank)
GD Stonewall (vectored-thrust main battle tank)
BAe Centurion (vectored-thrust main battle tank)
Aztechnology Lobo (vectored-thrust scout vehicle)
GMC "Harpy Scout" (vectored-thrust interceptor)
EFA Variants (multirole aircraft)
Aztechnology Halcon (ground attack aircraft)
C-260 Titan (transport aircraft)
Moonlight Avenger 2 (military ultralight)

Ares Heavy Rail Gun
Ares Fire Blossom Vehicle Laser
SS-N49 Sirocco (anti-ship missile)
Saab-Saaker AIM-11R (short range air-to-air missile)
Phalanx Rotary Cannon
Krupp Phoenix Mk VI (long range air-to-air missile)
IZOM MT-87J Torpedo
Ares Demonfire (not clear, air-to-ground missile AFAIR)
Ares Mk 27 Incendiary Bomb
Ares Trailfire (area denial munition)

Federated-Boeing Unicorn (bomber drone)
Ares Arbalest (bomber drone)
Saeder-Krupp Blitz (interceptor drone)
Federated-Boeing Woodstock (multirole aircraft)
Nissan Hound (special operations transport helicopter)

Hawker-Siddley Popocatepetl (multirole aerial drone)
Marine Technologies Ahuizotl (patrol submarine)
Dassault Paynal (vectored-thrust attack vehicle)
Aztechnology Atlacamani (corvette)
Esprit Camaxtli (hovercraft tank)
Hawker-Siddley Mixcoatl (helicopter drone)
Hawker-Siddley Huitzilopochtli (tracked tank drone)

Terracotta Orochi Light Rail Gun
Dassault Lancia (cruise missile)
Esprit Poignard (short range anti-tank missile)
Esprit Cazador del Cielo (man-portable air defense missile)

OK, I bought it. Will go through it and make my own opinion, and post here, of course.

From the preview, I found it light on the Shadowtalk, but I think I have a plan for that. Perhaps even one that I can write and DO! If folks are willing to give me permission...

This is all OPINION and not estasblished FACT... "Methinks thou doth protest to much" and all that... Wobble:

There are those who disagree with your opinion, and have few to no problems with the Rigger as an Archtype in SR4; I actually rather like the archtype myself... My biggest complaint is the lack of massive numbers of different drones to choose from, which was fixed (somewhat) with This Old Drone as far as I was concerned (even if the drones are a bit outdated or obsolete)... And as for Vehicle Mods, Absolutely no issues with them whatsoever, though I would agree that a Rigger 4 would be nice indeed...

OK, first read-through, it appears to be a pretty decent item, and exactly what it says on the tin. Nice change from what I'm hearing about War! Right, right, sorry, forgot that I said I'd forget to stop saying that.

Anyhow, one complaint that immediately comes to mind: Passenger Space for some of the items. Yes, we're given reference suggestions in SR4A, but, well... Ah well, a minor complaint now that we have a floppy (As opposed to firm) answer.

Will go through with a fine-toothed comb at a later time as I find the mental strength.

Hell's bells, do they actually have stats for the Stonewall MBT, instead of basically saying "It's a tank, you can't fight it"?

Yes, they do. And they're significant enough to not want to fight it with out a hella-good plan.

Don't forget, however, that it's probably nearing the end of it's lifecycle. 'Course, the M1A1 Abrams tank is about as old... *Shrug*

The flipside is that these are now being released on a world market, so you're likely to find some in some weird hands... Probably stripped and obsolete models, which will make things a bit more acceptable, but still something that will make the Troll Physical Adept with a Panther Assault Cannon short out his Databoxers.

If it has stats, we can kill it!
especially after WAR MRSI for Grenade-Launchers that cen be modified for auto fire *snickers*
But from just that list up there, it seems as if they mainly took some of the old SR3 Vehicles and updated them . .
I still remember fondly the face my GM made after i told him what the ferrari REALLY is, adfter i had his okay to buy one . .

Welcome to dumpshock.com.

Heheheh.... Sometimes I forget...

TJ, seriously, try and contribute, instead of baiting all the time.

If you read the whole post, you will see that I did contribute... at least as much as you did anyways...

Ha, yeah, coming from *hermit*… Ouch. Hehe, I guess a scathing review is still a review, after all?

Does this book include suggested ways of telling your players to stop asking for this stuff?

Anyway. I don't see actual MBTs, just 'vectored-thrust' ones. Does that mean 'it's hovertanks all the way down' in 2070, or are they just calling T-birds 'MBTs' now?