Hi there
its been a long time since i build my last rigger (sr3, 4 years ago) and i have almost zero experience with sr4,
so youre welcome if you have some advice!

Target is to make him a good rigger and acceptable support with his grenade launcher (smoke/fire...Frag^^)
He should be able to capture or shut off the enemy drones/network
nice would be if he could fetch some data from the Matrix but thats not main goal

Building system is Karmagen with easy racial attributes, Race cost is Double bp, Attributes cost 5 points, free Knowledge skills


Name: Trash born as: Richard Wagner (Austria)
Race Orc
Age 16 (orc years double, so 32 in human)
has Connections to the Mafia (vory or italy i dunno atm) owns a Junkyard but Works most of the Time for his Don (30hrs).
His younger Brothers live with him, his father an alcoholic his mother died giving birth.
He lifes now, not much thinking about tomorrow.
Takes some Drugs but max 1 time a Week he has seen what it can do if youll take it to often.
Is indepted by his DON cause he wanted that new Tata Jeep ^^

Well to be true didnt think much about background for now

ABIS
Body 8
Agility 4
Reaction 4
Strength 3
Charisma 2
Intuition 3
Logic 5
Willpower 5
Edge 4

init 7, 1 pass
matrix 8, 4pass

SKILLS
Electronic Warfare 4
Hacking 4
Electronics group 1
Mechanic group 1

Unarmed spec Spurs 3
Heavy Weapons spec Grenade launcer 3
Demolitions 3

Perception 3
Dodge spec range 3
Infiltration 2
First Aid spec Combat 2

Pilot Ground 4
Air 4
Anthroform 4
Water 2

Gunnery spec Ballistic 4


LANG
German m
Orzet 4
English 4
Japanese 4

KNOW
Criminal Mafia 4
Criminal Vory 2

Security Design 3
Security Procedures 4

Gambling 2
Street Drugs 2
Chemistry 3

Hangouts criminal 3
Hangouts Shadowrunner 2
Hangouts Junkyards 2


CONTACTS
lvl 8 / 4 Mafia groupcontact

Edges&Flaws
Made Man
Dependent easy
In Dept 30k


Comlink Fairlight Caliban
response 5, Signal 5, Firewall 5, System 6, personatly software, optimization (?)

Progs
Biofeedback Filter 6, Exploit 3, Sniffer 3, Spoof 6, Stealth 3, Eccm 6
Analyze 6, Browse 6, Command 6, Edit 6, Encrypt 6, Scan 6


WARE
Simsense Booster, Control Rig, Commlink
Nictating Membrane
Sleep Regulator
Muscle Toner 1
Spur + Cyber Gland
Cyber eyes +smart+lowlight+thermal
Cyber ears +Datajack

Gear
Formfitting full + Camouflage Suit
(Autoinjektor, Biomonitor, Skinlink, Nonconductivity 3, Fire 3, Chemseal 6)

Vehicle Morphing License Plate + Spoof chip
Nanopaste Disguise

Weapons
Ingram White Knight +smart+sound suppressor +thermal suppressor
Ares Desert Strike +smart+silencer+2cnd clip

Vehicles & Drones

Tata Hotspur (ar)
+rigger adaption +Runflat +antitheft +Drone Rack Large +Drone Rack small landing

Steel Lynx

Renraku Stormcloud
+Concealed, fixed, remote mount for Desert Strike

Cyberspace Dragonfly
+Injector for Narcojet

Lifestyle Low 1month

Ask your gm about splitting skillgroups during creation. If you want to be semi-decent on the matrix, you need a higher Computer skill. Analyze tests are important.

Attributes: You need a higher reaction if you plan on being in combat.

Looks like you've got the basics down.
Unarmed + dodge covers melee.
Dodge covers ranged, and vehicle defense.
Perception. Might want the Sensors spec.
Infiltration is necessary for vehicle stealth, and its not higher than your pilot. Good.
Gunnery spec is spot on.
Heavy weapons is fine and dandy, but pick up Automatics 1 for the flexibility.

Qualities: If you're running out of money, Born Rich(runners companion) is for you.




Commlinks: This is a weak area for you, i feel.
Get firewall 6 at start. If you have the 500Y for it, there's not reason not to. It will work at 5 until you pop a response 6 chip in your link. Getting the boost at start and waiting to get the hardware upgrade is a lot better than paying for a new firewall 6 at full price during gameplay.
Use Unwired program options. Put Ergonomic on all your Common Use. This is due to availability constraints: hackware you can either get at rating 5 with an option, or rating 6. If you plan on using an agent, put Optimized 3 on them all as well. This prevents the agent from dragging down the program rating, and gives it better dice pools.
Get a Reality Filter 6 - its not usually good, but +1 response is a big deal for a rigger.
Boost your stealth to 6. This is the single most important thing you can do. Exploit 6 is right behind it. You need decrypt if you want to break into anything - remember that encrypt is common use, and unrestricted, and anyone with 50 nuyen will encrypt their data AND their tacnet nodes. If you don't have decrypt, you can't break into it.
You're probably going to want Track, at some level.
I would strongly recommend an Agent 4: Extra actions are amazing when you have to multitask. it MIGHT be worth an instance of restricted gear quality to pick up an Agent 6 with the mook option.(unwired) This will work out to 18000Y/Availability 20(plus quality), but will net you a high rating agent capable of taking any illegal action you order it too.
A standard Attack program is always a good idea. If you need it, you need it, and Attack is great because it works on everything. If you plan on network subversion, Blackout might be a good choice: you can knock someone unconscious, and back-hack their still open link. Not always useful, but a nice tool to have.
If you're doing tacnet spoof games, do yourself a huge favor and get a telematics infrastructure software from Unwired. unlike track, it shows precisely where signals are, and you can tie it into your tacnet.
Speaking of your tacnet, why do you not have one? head to unwired and get yourself a Tactical Ar Soft. Rating 2 is the best you can do at start, sadly. Rating 1 is worth considering, because anyone with a smartgun qualifies to join.(smartguns have cameras and laser range finders, which count as 2 channels.)
Simsense accelerator, the commlink mod: Its in unwired, and combos nicely to give you 5 initiative passes. Its fairly cheap, but availability 14. This is an item you should pick up as soon as you can after character creation.

Cyberware: I am not sure nictating memrane and cybereyes are compatable - there's usually cyber/bio incompatability clauses, but this might be a case in which it doesn't apply.
Muscle toner: Its cheap enough you might as well go for 2. Agility is important.
Cyberears: You actaully can't fit a datajack in these. If your gm has houseruled such, go for it. Do yourself a favor and get a damper, though.
Cybereyes: Vision enhancement 3 is worth it. Vision magnification can get rid of any long-distance shooting penalties. Get flare compensation, though.
Pick up PuSHeD from augmentation.(geneware). Its cheap, and helps pretty much anything you want to do on the matrix.
Reception enhancers are expensive, but worth considering: They help real world perception, matrix perception, and explicitly stack with Sensors. They don't hit the essence too hard either, because its bioware(augmentation). On the same note, Attention Co-processors are cheap and good, but don't help physical perception. They do, however, stack.

Get a jammer.
If you plan on jamming on the fly, Microtranscievers and Directional Antennae are fantastic for that.


Vehicles: Get sensor 6 on as many as you can. Camera 6's are cheap. Radar is cheap too. Bulky, but cheap.

Hotspur: Have you considered a GM hermes? Its basically like your hotspur, but significantly cheaper, and not using modification slots for those drone racks. Buy used(arsenal), its even fairly cheap, and fits with your junker concept.
If you're looking for a cheap battlebuggy, an uparmored Thundercloud Morgan(arsenal) is really cheap for what it does. (change the weapon mount to Remote, make it flexible, upgrade the armor. If you plan on having a gunner, Armored Manual controls for the turret give them the full vehicle armor protection.

Drones: If you're using drone racks, LEBD-1's are pretty awesome bang for buck. (arsenal)
Note that the steel lynx, at body 4, is capable of taking a Reinforced weapon mount. The recoil is really bad unless you go out of your way to minimize it, but it does open up other options, like rocker launchers. Or even an HMG with an underbarrel-mod missile launcher. Just something to be aware of. The Crimson Samurai(arsenal) is another good alternative. Its stats are in such a range that it can take a Ram Plate and never self damage, which can be unexpectedly hilarious.
Dragonflies are kind of bad, but make more sense when you realize that the entire reason its so expensive is because it comes with an ultrasound sensor(1000Y cost), but the stats don't say it because they don't give detailed sensor loadouts for drones. Get a camera 6 for it asap, and ask your GM if you can make a hardware test to port the ultrasound accessory. Their weapons loadout is kind of bad, until you realize that since it comes with a built in weapon, it can take mods. Using an Underbarrel Modification(this limits the size of the extra weapon to the size of the original. In the case of the dragonfly, that is about the size of the hand grenade, using one of its provided variants to judge for size.)What you can do with the underbarrel mod is extremely limited: but the best thing you CAN do is put a real melee weapon on it, which a proper damage code and AP.


Gear: You do not appear to have actaully bought a grenade launcher. You should fix that. And make SURE to get an airburst link(core book), as it will save you so much grief. Make sure to clarify with your GM which edition of scatter rules you are using (anniversary edition has teleporting grenades).
If you are brave enough to take a grenade launcher into anniversary edition scatter, do all you can to minimize friendly fire. Mark 74 smartlink(war1), safe target system, make sure its a smartgun grenade launcher(and put Encryption on it. No, really.) Remember that in SR4, grenades have a wi-fi link, so use that to your advantage.(grenades, rockets, and missiles, 4A 324). So use it to your advantage! They are fairly easy to turn into booby traps/mines by by firing a grenade and setting it to blow up on your command instead of on contact. However, a wi-fi link is a downside: Make sure they're set in Hidden Mode, and run encryption so they can't be counter-hacked before they go off.
Airburst links are important, because your grenades go off when you fire, not at the end of the turn.



Those are my specific nitpicks and attempts at optimizing you a bit better. You don't NEED to use any of my advice, but since you're new to SR4, being aware of the options is a good thing.

The character looks pretty great as is. Much better than other rigger attempts I have seen.

the nictating mebrane should wotk just fine with the cybereyes - they' don't replace the same bits. thouhg given what you cna cram into a decent pait of cybereyes, I'd just go for flare compensation built in the eyes. Or even a pair of flare-compensating lenses. Afterall teh eye irritation issue you might have with organic eyes will be a fairly moot point with cybereyes...

Huge Thanks

Splitting Groups should be no prob, as we already discussed something like this.

Attributes, i will look what i can do. btw is Willpower importent other then biofeedback/spell resist?

Qualitis: i already have 30k extra and dont really want to give up more skillpoints but ill look into used option. Sounds great.
but it seems its easy to overlook such things when u only have pdf ^^

Commlin: tac and agent are a bit pricey also i dunno how much players we will be, so ill just go easy on that.

Ware: nictating membrane and cyber eyes are compatible
i already had designed the eyes out but then i did run low on money so something had to go and eyeware is easy to upgrade
Cyberears: i like it and it does have almost zero impact on anything so no prob here
Pushed, Reception and Co, again did run out of money ^^

Jammer, heard understood and acknowledged

again money probs ^^ but good to know whats worth

Vehicle:
actually i had an hermes, before i came up with the idea that my rigger made his dept by the mafia don cause he wanted that cool plaything
maybe ill reconsider change if used doesnt bring enough

Drones:
ill look into it
@steel lynx it already has an weapon mount and again i wanted to save money
sounds cool ill try
@Dragonfly: didnt think of them to bad, cause if micro where that cheap, all we would see where rigger with hundreds of flying grenades ^^
btw what do you mean with port?

another thought: 10dragonfly + 10monowhips = fun? ^^

Gear:
Lazy Lazy old me didnt write the full list
no grenade launcher cause i didnt think of it, as 10min before i had written the text above i only had throw and came up with the memory of launcher with airburst being better
especially with only 3 strength ^^

again thanks a lot

i already had built the final config for my cybereyes and there wasnt enough space ^^
yeah eyelaser eats up but its so fun and i want it again, i had them on my first SR char.

They don't replace the same bits, but the purpose of nictitating membranes is to prevent irritants from affecting an organic eyeball, and a cybereye won't have that problem.



-k

no, cybereyes are also subject to dirt/mud/teargas etc and i sure as hell dont want to take them out and clean them in the field ^^
also the count as flare comp.

You realize that naming the character "Trash", things will end up with a naked strip dance in a graveyard and zombie noms.

hehe i dont know from where that is but it sounds fun.

http://www.load.to/OQ1cZk4KRS/Trash_-_Ork_Rigger.xlsm

Quasi final version of my Rigger, -30k cause the buggy will be bought at 50% (will be fun when my GM tells me what a crap car i have ^^)
last Karma points unspent cause i dont know if i will get more Karma for background story also i will take a longer look into the rigging rules. I am sure i forgot something ^^
btw what spec for Hacking/Elect warfare/Piloting and would spec Drone be suitable for Infiltration?

I like him a lot as is. Reminds me of one of my first attempts at a ogre rigger some time ago (except I named mine Roadkill, hinting at what he uses his Ogre Stomach for).

Unfortunately, I don't know much about 4th Edition's hacking rules because they make my eyes bleed, so I can't offer any kind of "optimization" advice. However, I will suggest that you find a way to throw in a few more interesting Knowledge Skills outside of the ones that are an obvious connection to his base background. They're a great way to add some interest to a character, and everyone knows something about a weird topic or two. Maybe he likes opera, has an obsessive desire to collect TwenCen music files, or perhaps he dabbled in demolitions early on before deciding hacking was a better use for his brains.

"Return Of The Living Dead" (1985).

Nope, that's pretty much it. Resisting black IC, mana spells(body for physical), but the other main important thing it does is give you boxes on your stun track. The formula is 8+half stat, round up. So to maximize your gain, you want it at an odd value.

Given that you are running karmagen, I would drop your body to 7. Frees up 40 points, which should be all you need.



Hacking: Exploit. Stealth is a trap.
Electronic warfare: Scan(threshold 4 detect hidden node is a bitch), Cryptology(the fast your break encryption, the more actions to get to mess with people. Also this spec is largely made redundant by the Math SPU).
Computer: Analyze is hugely important.
Infiltration: vehicle would likely be a good choice. Remember, drones are vehicles.
Piloting ground: wheeled +2 is fantastic and covers all your bases. Its a core book example anyway.

Oh what the hell is this, a Texas Strimmer Massacre?!

Just a reminder: Monofilament != monomolecular. Modern fishing line is monofilament, too.

But that's exactly what I had in mind! Monomolecular strimmer: when you need to mow damn near anything. People included.

Shame on me! i am quite a huge fan of Zombie flicks but never seen RotLD 1 and 2.
But sounds like i have finally found something to watch on Christmas Eve.

i reworked a few things.
Body 7, will 5
Electronic Warfare is now specd Scan
Electronic group 2
Infiltration specd vehicle

thanks

also corrected a few equipp pieces
grenades are now mini grenades for the launcher,
also bought 6 splash narcojet and removed safe firing from launcher,
will be fun to shoot 2 splash in close encounter while wearing chem isolated ^^

Modern SHOELACES are monofilament.

It's also heavily used in movie practical special effects, which is a dying art...

monowire for movie stunts, no wonder its an "dying" art ^^

Again, MonoFILAMENT, not Monowire.

Monowire is monofilament as well, not monomolecular. It's just a thin, relatively strong wire. It doesn't slice through limbs or anything else just by whirling it at someone; it only does about twice as much base damage as barbed wire.