I can understand the point of internal > external, but why would you want a simrig in the first place? Why would you want to record your illegal activities?

I forgot about the part that the languages are more common in SR4.

There's plenty of places that will pay a good buck for quality entertainment like that

Remember that when Command rigging a humanoid drone, Command + Pilot skill is used for a great many activities, that normally would use Physical skills if a human was doing them directly.



-k

I'm rereading the debate on page 2, now, about which skill to use when using your command skill like a joystick to operate a device remotely(page 229, btw) and I can't help but think:

How the hell do you noobs NOT know the difference between:
1) Issue Command/Autonomous Operation
2) Control Device
3) And Jumped-In rigging
by now?

Hey now. The rules ARE a tad more intricate than most other systems in the game, and are not spelled out near each other like the other things that allow multiple avenues of approach. No need for name calling.

Actually, as recently pointed out to me:


I find myself pondering where, exactly, gunnery+agility gets used. Not sure there's a clear answer when all is considered.

Gunnery+Agility is only used with vehicle mounted weapons that are manually fired. Manual firing of weapons is actually the default setting for those I believe. You need to upgrade to a remote weapon mount to use Command with it instead.

Doesn't this contradict your statement?


That said, the larger question in my mind is when it should be gunnery and when it should be weapon specific.

The machine gun is Heavy Weapons skill - says so in the book. I've been saying that if it is mounted (on pintle or other mount) it becomes Gunnery operated. Yet this forces the followon question of what determines whether the mounted item is gunnery or weapon skill (per the long-arm quote already mentioned).

Check the Table for Actions in Unwired. Page 204.
Under Attack... Command + Gunnery

Check the Table for Action is SR4A. Page 247.
Under Attack... Command + Gunnery.

In fact, they use the exact same table in both books.
Also see the Actuall Skill for Gunnery, Below:



Vehicle Mounted weapons use Gunnery exclusively... The "Longarms" reference in your Accreditation is a typo.

The Heavy Machine Gun is fired with Heavy Weapons Skill if it is on a Tripod or Gyro Mount (or freehand if you are a Troll, Ork, or Full Replacement Borg that thinks he is bad ass enough). It is fired using the Gunnery Skill if it is mounted on a Vehicle.

As far as I know: that rule is a developer oversight and should be fixed(except we know catalyst never does that). Gunnery is used for vehicle guns.

I know autosofts are -capable- of mimicing Automatics or Pistols or whatever, but there's little reason to actually do so when it can do gunnery instead.

Of note is Augmentation's cyborg section - Cyborgs have the option of using regular combat skills in their bodies instead of gunnery. While it would be neat if that option was expanded to jumped-in riggers, sadly it is not.

Gunnery+ agility is actually used by default. Gunnery is agility-linked, and if you're manually using a vehicle weapon(the proverbial gun on top of a jeep, lets say), you get to roll that. Manual weapon control(arsenal weapon mounts) would also allow that.
Its just that alternatives to agility are so prevalent that the default option gets overlooked so much. Lets see.

Sensor Targeting(171) can be used, but doesn't have to be. There are two ways to use it. Active Targeting, which lets you use a Lock-On test to give a dice pool bonus to further shooting attempts, and Passive targeting. (In passive targeting, the vehicle’s Sensor attribute substitutes for Agility (or Pilot) as the linked Attribute, so the attacker rolls Gunnery + Sensor. The target’s Signature modifiers are also applied as a dice pool modifier.)
Command can replace the attribute portion of a test while using Control Device.
and while Jumped In, Reponse replaces Agility and Reaction - but you can use Sensor Targeting anyway, so you often don't want to.(its easier to get a sensor of 6 PLUS enhancements than to pump your response above 6). Its worth noting that it says 'any tests are made using the riggers skills'. More on this later.



The flipside of this is that NOBODY bothers to keep track of the various control types in an ongoing discussion, and often leads to confusion.
Especially when new players are trying to figure out how everything works.

I have to point out 'that things don't work that way in nearly every thread about riggers', when people try to do silly things like roll Command+autosoft(because its a skill, right?) when confusing Issue Command for Control Device(because they sound similiar)


To answer the original quote of Command + Longarms, I think i may have discovered WHY that snippet exists.
As we know from 4A 171, Pilots use pilot+targeting, and must have an autosoft appropriate to the weapon.
As we also know from the same page, Gunnery is almost always a complex action
As we know from 4A 246, Targeting autosofts mimic a particular weapon attack skill. Note that Targeting: gunnery is not prohibited, and is thus a valid choice - in fact, it should be your default option because its so versatile.
As we know from 4a 245, while jumped in, any tests are made with the riggers skills and the drones attributes.

I'm fairly sure whomever wrote that example rule went 'Yeah we normally roll agility+longarms, so its agility + longarms for the drone' and forgot all about gunnery. Or something some combination of mixing up the complicated rules while writing the book. There's a snippet about Command replacing the attribute portion of tests - which is likely to blame, because people on foot use agility+longarms.

The question I have for dumpshock, though...
If a jumped-in rigger decides to use Automatics instead of Gunnery
Or if a cyborg decides to do the same(aug 16), using automatics.
Or if a drone has Targeting:Automatics
Does this let them use the regular short and long burst fire rules?
No, really. Gunnery is a complex action - but you're not using it.
What if mechanical arms and hand-held weapons are involved(ars102) - Blades is given as a specific example.(melee would be a complex, but what if its a pistol instead?)

Sorry I wasn't clear. Both cases DO use Gunnery.


When you remote control with Gunnery, you use Command+Gunnery. When you are using a manually controlled turret (ie it doesn't have anything hooked up to let it be used remotely. You need to sit behind it actively aiming it) you use Agility+Gunnery.


I don't see anything cited that contradicts that. I wasn't trying to say the Command Program replaces gunnery, I was saying that Agility gets replaced by Command when it is remote, but Gunnery uses Agility by default if it's not remote.

This I can answer. Command is a complex action. SR4A 229. In particular:

Well, it wouldn't be on all the time obviously, and could be useful for other situations, or recordings of parts of runs (Hey kids, want a simsense recording of a Rigger jacked into a drone flying 200mph while diving towards the ground?), or other aspects of life. Its there, might as well use it

And good to see that I'm not the only one that has to puzzle over Rigger rules

If someone tried to get a Gunnery autosoft, I would smack them.

Why? It's literally in the books already, it's called a Targetting Autosoft. Without that, Drones that are acting independently without being remote controlled couldn't actually shoot their guns, which is silly.

Also I'm pretty sure that Gunnery would be a completely valid Activesoft for someone with skillwires to get.

No. A 'Targeting: Gunnery' autosoft, instead of a Targeting: Automatics one.

ActiveSofts are their own special mess, and unrelated to Autosofts.

What would the effective difference be, unless the drone/vehicle you have it on has a bunch of different kinds of guns?

In isolation, it's fine, but you just know those bastards are copying that program a dozen times on all their drones.

Bad kirk! I am not talking about using command. While I appreciate your willingness to quote things from the book and back up your sources...
You don't use autosofts with command, and you don't use command while jumped in.

How do you not know the difference between Issue Command, Control Device, and Jumped In rigging by now?

The point I was getting at here, was that if Gunnery is a complex action, and using Automatics, wouldn't being able to use a Short/Long burst as a Simple Action(instead of gunnery as a Complex), be worth the tradeoff in flexibility? Gunnery is compatable with -everything- on a vehicle. Automatics, not so much.

Can you cite that Gunnery itself is always a complex action? I don't see it under the Gunnery Skill in the core book, the only thing I've seen is the bit that Kirk cited, that using Command is always a complex action. (So using Command+Gunnery to remotely fire a weapon mounted gun is always a complex action. Using a weapon mounted machine gun manually rather than remote controlling, you can switch to burst fire and fire with a simple action)

For reference here's the bit out of Gunnery I'm looking at:

man I know reading my posts where I give you the information already is hard, but here you go.



Also the Fire Vehicle Weapon action on page 169

The bit you quoted? That was the same page I copy pasted from that said nothing at all about a complex action.


The Fire Vehicle Weapon action on page 169 does make the difference though, thank you for citing that. I will point out that specific page hadn't been cited earlier in the thread.

Oh, wow. Thank you. That bit you quoted from page 171 basically proves my point.

It is totally possible to setup a vehicle/drone that fires using the normal ranged combat rules, instead of with gunnery.

This means my drones just got a hell of a lot better, because they can sensor lock-on as a simple action AND fire in the same pass, because they're both simple actions.

As the name says, that only covers firing vehicle weapons. Vehicle weapons are big guns like the cannon on an MBT, not every weapon installed on a vehicle. "Every weapon installed on a vehicle" is referenced in the BBB as "mounted or vehicle weapons".

Not that I can blame anyone for being confused about the rigger rules, even the person who wrote the summary table was apparently confused when to use Sensor + Gunnery and when Response + Gunnery, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not flawlessly enlightened, either. At least in this regard

Oh don't get me started on those sensor rules. I had someone argue with me that ALL attacks made while jumped into a drone take the sensor penalties, so any time you as a drone rigger shoot at a human target you take the -3 penalty, rather than just when you want a signature lock on.

Also the Vehicle Weapons thing could be seen either way, because in Arsenal those large vehicle only weapons are referred to as "Main Guns" rather than "Vehicle Weapons".


Basically all of these rules are a vaguely written pile of crap that is near impossible to have a definitive interpretation of.

A Simrig provides 5 sensor channels to a Tacnet. At the very least. For non-sensory deprived people anyway.

It's a generous GM that would allow the sense of taste to be useful in a tacnet!

Even smell is only sometimes. *But* you have more senses than just the 'classic' 5. Not all are relevant (taste, balance), but who knows. The whole mess of TacNets and *relevant* sensors is such a pain.