So according to the handy chart in 4A when a rigger is jumped into a drone he rolls the drones Sensors plus his Gunnery to shoot something.

So lets make sure I've got my numbers right on a stock Doberman from 4A for my Rigger Technomancer.
3 Sensors
3 Gunnery
2 Specialized Ballistics
2 Rigger Box
2 Hot Sim/Technomacer bonus
2 Smartgun modified Ingrim White Knight.

Giving me a dice pool of 14?

Why Sensors and not Response? Upgrade rules from 4A say the best you can do is upgrade +2, limiting even the most hot rodded of drones to a Sensor rank of 5 (unless you can come up with the 250k and 24R availability of a Akiyama assassin drone). Using Response you can upgrade most any combat model to a 6 (since it is stated that most combat model drones have a Response and System of 4). It is also cheaper to upgrade Sensors over Response according to the table on page 222 of 4A.

Isn't there a much more expensive option that allows one to upgrade further then +2? I think it's in Arsenal, but I'm not much on the knowledge for the tech side.

Between sr4a and arsenal the sensor rules are sufficiently wazzed that I would ask your gm what his houserules are.

Why Sensors and not Response? Because the drone's sensors are how it acquires targets, not its CPU.

If the Response is the CPU and not the frame servos then why is Melee Defense based off Response?

Rigger box? Does that go by some other name in the books, or is it 3rd edition?

Response is explicitly a device's CPU speed, actually the "processing power and speed of the device's hardware." See SR4A, p. 222. As to why Response is used for melee defense, what else would you use? Response is equivalent to a character's Reaction, which is the attribute used for defense in combat.

Rigger Adaptation from 4A or Arsenal. According to Arsenal all purpose build drones have a Rigger Adaption module built in already which according to 4A gives the rigger a +2 bonus to all skill tests involving the drone while in VR.

And thus Sensors must represent Agility. *shrug* Guess I'm just having trouble relating a digital object (sensors) to something that in a human body is hand eye agility.

Isn't it the control rig that gives the bonus? And aren't gunnery tests not actually vehicle skill tests?

Yes. It's Sensor + Gunnery for Jumped-In only, so you're getting the +2 'Jumped-In with Control Rig' bonus, and potentially the +2 Hot VR bonus (don't get shot!), but the Control Rig is for 'Vehicle skill tests'.

Gunnery is listed as a Vehicle Skill in SR4. I don't know if they moved it in SR4A however.

Ah, well there you go. I forgot about that, because it's so obviously a Combat; plus the bonus cheese of costing less for Adepts to boost. Ugh.

Well it gets even more fun, I saw in the FAQ today that Threading doesn't take an action. So if you were going to take a complex action to do a full burst anyway.. you may as well Thread Command up to 9 or 10 or 12 and just issue the Command to shoot the LMG at full burst. 10 command, 3 gunnery, 2 spec, 2 rig adaption, 2 vr bonus 2 smartgun is 21 dice. Fade test might hurt a touch though.. gotta watch that.

Rigger adaption just lets you rig the drone, control rig or one of the technomance echo (immersion? i'm away from my books) give you a bonus when your actually rigging the device.

In previous editions you had to have a control rig to rig the device, they changed that it's one change I do like personally.

Yup, Threading is ripe for abuse. However, Command Rigging is totally different from Jumped-In or 'Captain's Chair' rigging. You don't get the Control Rig bonus, for starters.

If you are using command you are not rigging.

Thats still 19 dice vs 14..

Whatever, Lurker. Rigging is anything controlling vehicles and drones, even if you're just directing the Pilots.

Miri, you're clearly *way* to concerned about the number of dice. Riggers own, so just enjoy it. Try not to Fade yourself to death.

isn't improving the Sensor rating as easy as replacing the standard sensors with a 600 rating 6 camera? Just don't put in a Rating 4 UWB radar, as your sensor suddenly drops to 5 -.-

Sort of, though the GM would rightly rule that your camera (and thus, your entire Sensor rating) didn't apply in certain situations.

It's kinda funny, people me It's no good without the VR bonuses, but I've found that AR Rigging can stack just as many dice.

Current rigger: 20 Gunnery dice in VR, 25 dice in AR.

Yes, two dice of that is the Adept Improved Ability cheese, but even without it they're comparable.

Also, Command goes up to 10 now, whereas Sensors are still stuck at 6.

I give people funny looks when they ask why I don't take advantage of drone target locking. Why bother?



-k

Great dice pool, but AR won't let you shoot twice in one IP, or get 5 IPs.

Why shoot twice when you can have full bursts?

Multiple targets – Full bursts can only be aimed at targets within a metre of each other, but two bursts can be aimed completely independently.

Recoil – Though drones don't generally suffer recoil, I believe there's a mention in Arsenal about small drones with big guns being an exception (something like Body = RC?). If this applies then one full burst will carry a recoil penalty of 9 minus the RC, whilst a short burst followed by a long burst will carry penalties of 5 minus the RC and then 8 minus the RC*. Consider the following –

Narrow bursts with 3 RC
Full burst: -6 DP, +9 DV
Long burst (first action): -2 DP, +5 DV
Short burst (second action): -5 DP, +2DV

In this case if -5 or -6 is a big chunk of your DP then you might do a lot better by splitting the shots to get a good chance of a good hit with the long and then a difficult shot with the short, rather than an all-or-nothing full. In addition, you're doubling up the base DV in exchange for doubling the dodge and resistance rolls, but in many circumstances this will be a net gain (in probability-terms) for you since each DV needs (on average) three dice to be cancelled out. If your target is difficult to hit or difficult to damage then full burst is likely the better option.

Called shots – These can only be attempted with short bursts (or SA/SS).

* I have just noticed that by RAW a short burst followed by a long burst in the same action phase does not accumulate recoil in the way that two short bursts do. I.e. two short bursts give recoil penalties of -2 and -5, but a short then a long is technically -2 and -6 where it logically should be -2 and -8. I have no doubt at all, though, that this is a simple omission of the word 'additional' in the long bursts description and have no intention of ever playing it that way.

Actually, A Short Burst is -2, and a Long Bust is -6. There is no need for the word "additional," becasue it is not in addition to the already initiated -2. So, if you had RC of 3, your First shot would be at no penalty, and the 2nd shot would be at -5.

For your Short Bursts it would be -2, -5, with RC3, it would be 0 and -2.

The wording is actually correct, and, as you can see by the example, the numbers still work out to the correct recoil penalty.

Maybe it is just semantics, though...

Considering my GM was going to let me put a Vindicator in a turret mount on a Manservent drone and ignore recoil penalties, I don't think he is worried about that option.

It is pretty trivial to eliminate recoil in this game, even if you're using the optional vehicle recoil rules.

So many stacking RC modifiers!

Well, so many stacking modifiers in general. Even starting characters can have pretty impressive primary dice pools while STILL being decently rounded in other areas.





-k

I'm not sure you've expressed this as you intended. If the long burst is at -6 and it is not in addition to the -2, then an RC of 3 would make it -3, no?

Personally I don't know why they didn't simply say 'One point of recoil per bullet after the first in the same phase'. Much more elegant.

It's a weird and bad rules style that SR4 uses. Instead of making straightforward generic rules and guidelines and then go specific, instead make a bunch of specific rules and guidelines in a wordy but less communicative way.

As for the Sensor rules, ask your GM. There's a couple ways you can think it'll work, but they're either annoying, complex, or houseruled. Why they didn't just have a "Sensor Upgrade- Increase Sensor Rating By X" style mod, I have no idea.

Its possible to have a sensor of 6 with an UWB4 in the package, due to the magic of rounding.
Its easier to do on vehicles with bigger sensor capacity, as you can afford to bring up the average sensor above 5 with things like forward and rear facing cameras and microphones at rating 6.

And, uh, i'm fairly sure arsenal's updated sensor rules trumps 4a's stupid 'upgrade +2' rule, because Sensor is not part of a Device Rating. It SHOULD be, because then military vehicles would have decent sensors in them, but hey.




For what its worth, there's also the option to use Evasive Driving.



While this is true, I would remind people that you don't HAVE to use Sensor Targeting. Gunnery is Agility linked, and you can use that if you so desire - or if your car is so old it doesn't have electronics. Per 4a 245, jumped in riggers use the Response of a drone for agility. So thats another option.

Also, Reality Filters actually really do benefit Riggers. +1 response is a big deal when its part of your defensive and offensive dice pool.

Double post. However what I really want to say is below.

I don't know. I only ever had one player attempt to bother with a reality filter, while hacking. Failed the test, and was impeded until he got his act together and shut off the program. Cost him time and stealth, though. Makes my opinion of the program less then stellar.

By RAW only in BF but wide bursts as well, which is BS. If you want to use a long burst before/after you will have to switch firing modes.

While its pretty terrible on the offensive, I'm fairly sure you can instruct nodes on which you have admin access to not oppose the reality filter test.

You know, configuring your own servers to work with your software tools.

I thought the use of Gunnery was a Complex Action... SR4 p160 lists under Complex Actions "Fire a Vehicle Weapon".

How can you shoot twice?

-D

Sensor is not restricted to Current Rating +2. Only the four Matrix Attributes are.

Even then, there is the Modular Electronics modification in the SR4A Changes PDF that allows vehicles to exceed the Rating+2 restriction when upgrading those Matrix Attributes.

Frustratingly, the PDF implies that the ME modification is available for other devices besides vehicles, but then does not provide any rules to do this with.



A lot of folks read this to only apply to Remote Command operation. Jumping In allows normal actions, and the drone can of course take normal actions if acting on it's own.



-k

Ahh, thanks. So it's just one interpretation of the rules. We've played it that gunnery was a complex action no matter what. It helps balance out the drone army power scale that tends to happen with riggers. It's worked quite well for us. It does make the Sensor lock-on a little less useful as that takes a simple action, but it is still situationally useful.

-D

In full-auto mode you can fire short bursts, long bursts and full bursts. No need to change mode. SR4a p.154.

That's only for manually-controlled gunnery. Jumping in makes it Gunnery + Sensors and remote control uses the Control program.

Now active targeting can be a very nice bonus if you've got a good Perception rating.

I do not believe this is true. Rigging was a lot clearer in 4th, i think (among other things, a list/table of actions for riggers got cut), and before the 'common rolls' table was introduced.

The only reason you think its Gunnery+sensors is because the table says so, and because you CAN do it with active targeting. Nowhere in the rules does it FORCE you to use it. Active and Passive targeting are non-obligatory combat options, and nowhere does it force you to use them.

When you actually dig into the rules, rigging is covered by a bunch of Attribute Swapping. The whole core of the system remains intact, but it can be very confusing to know what your options are under any given circumstance unless you're very familiar with the rules.


Gunnery+ agility to fire, makes sense. Gunnery IS agility linked, of course. The example given of command is later backed up here:

So, if you're using command, it forms the attribute half of the dice pool. Good to know.


But wait. We don't use Intuition+gunnery when jumped in. We use Agility + gunnery. Because we are rigging, Response is swapped for Agility, so we use Response+gunnery by default.

Furthermore, we have this option. Emphasis is mine.

More attribute swapping. Gosh, its so hard to keep some of this straight.

I think the burden of proof is on you, Aerospider, to show that you MUST use sensor+gunnery. Just because it is listed as such on the common roles for riggers table does not mean it is the only option.

Vehicle weapons are the big Single Shot buggers in Arsenal. You take actions as normal when jumped into a drone, so a semi-auto weapon on your mount stays semi-auto.

Dang. Ninja'd. Kind of. I didn't read everything between here and there.

Vehicle weapons doesn't mean the big ones in Arsenal, here.

So to confirm there seems to be two interpretations of the rules about Gunnery:

1. Gunnery = “Fire Vehicle Weapon” = Any vehicle mounted weapon is a complex action to fire in any mode (turning SA into SS, and making BF single burst only)
2. Gunnery = [Firearms Group] for jumped in riggers and can be used in any fire modes as per standard non-rigger rules
2a. This also applies to drone Pilots and Targeting Autosoft
2b. This leaves “remote piloted” (using the Command Program) looking at rule #1

Hmm, seems to me using rule #1 is much simpler, rather than having two different rules to cover the same situation. I guess our group will likely stick to the more strict interpretation.

Thanks all.

-D

Then what does it mean?

Weapons on vehicles.

For example an AK-97 on a gun port?

Weapon Mounts

It's not that complicated. A gun port is just a hole you shoot out of.

Even though firing a semi-auto weapon on a mount would be a simple action if you were using something other than remote control? For example, jumping in or letting the drone control itself.
"Controlling a drone is a Complex Action, even if the drone
would be performing a Simple Action such as firing a semi-automatic
weapon or using the Take Aim action."