I was planning on playing a DI hacker/rigger in an upcoming campaign(a first jump into 4th edition for us), and i have some questions that are mostly fluff related.

1) What kinds of "origin programs" have you used as backgrounds?

2) I understand that most come from agents, but since sprites function in much the same way as agents, could a sprite become an AI?

3) What kinds of addictions are available to DI? I was thinking like an addiction to being able to interact with the physical world.

4) My GM is a bit concerned about the inherent "Immortality" of a DI. She feels that being on a run isn't as much risk to a DI if they can just chill in the matrix the whole time(and move from device to device). What can i show her or offer as a thing that would put a DI at risk while out on the run?

5) Does a DI have inherent memory or does it have to transfer data directly to a linked device to save it?

an other question:

Are the DI qualities listed in Unwired not all available to PC DI?

Thats correct. Rules for playing AI are in the runner's companion, and some qualities are kinda broken for a PC.

My GM's let ai's pick up the Emulation quality for 5bp, because that's what technomancer's pay for theirs(as a price guage), and AI's have no way to mitigate the sustaining penalty so its balanced. Might ask your GM for the same consideration.


To answer your first post:
1) I've seen a factory-efficiency AI origin, and played around with making one made from a social interactivity and consumer analysis program(as a face).

2) Its possible, but there are no hard rules for it. What you probably want are Free Sprite rules - which the game doesn't have, but could probably be houseruled from the Free Spirit rules.
2a) I've seen the reverse happen, an AI became a sprite with the direct help of a paragon and their technomancer, during the conclusion to an epic 2 year game.

3) Dunno. Media Junkie seems particularly appropriate.

4) Have your home node be a drone body. Also remind your GM that an AI is about as "remotely invulnerable" as a regular rigger or a paranoid hacker that connects to systems through their teams comms.

5) Unclear, but since Agents/Ai can carry around Loaded programs(ones that aren't running), I'd say they can definitely carry data around with them.

Thank you. I actually discovered that the qualities available to a PC are correct, as they are the ones available to Metasapient DI which are the only ones PCs can be.

a couple more...

1) I want to create a nexus for it's home node. The rules for creating one in Unwired are confusing though. The core book says that the processing power or a nexus is equal to (System x 3), but in Unwired the example nexi don't follow that at all. Plus Unwired also says that a nexus' minimum processor power is 10, that would mean that a nexus' system rating would have to be at least 4. Could you help clarify this? do i just pick a processor power?

2) Could you suggest a good combat drone?

1) the Nexus rules in the core book, and the expaned ones in Unwired are not the same.
As far as i understand it, 4A added halfassed nexus rule stuff to the main book, which uses the regular device rating/hardware table but with more subscriptions.
the unwired nexi are incredibly customizable multi-user, uber-program limit servers that don't care about the level of software you run.

2) What's your price range? Wheeled or walker?

How about a small flying drone?

1) so if i wanted to use the Unwired system, then my limit would be the availability and price.

2) well, after skills and such i have 90,000. That will need to go to all my costs so i was thinking only one or two drones for now. I would like a walker, but wheeled seems more logical for the skill. And probably a Dragonfly for stealth.

the problem with walker drones is that there just aren't many good ones that have humanlike abilities.

The renraku manservant works, but is pretty shitty cause you can't fight in it.
I'm a fan of the GM Mr. Fixit from the RC(yes there are drones in it).
Basically you want anything with a speed approaching humanlike (3/15 accel 30speed) and two built in
I'd recommend the Tan Dem from Milspectech 2, but they conveniently forgot to give their HumanLike Security Bot actual arms.
My favorite is scratch-converting a motorbike(its about the same size as a person without wheels or handlebars, and has about the same body, especially if you use cyborgs as a guide), by slapping arms and legs on it and saying it looks human.




LEBD-1

This guy is a general all around awesome little dude. It flies, goes decently fast, has a gun and a built in arm(just one though).

For wheeled bots, i am a fan of Dobermen w/gecko tips, Steel Lynx's are pretty great but the Wuxing Crimson Samurai is juuuuust a bit better(and hilarious with a Ram Plate).

The Hussar from War is amazing bang for buck if you can make the availability test. Its so even high restricted gear won't work


For the rest of you dumpshockers: has catalyst finally put out a Humanbot that comes with two mechanicals arms and walker mode while I haven't been paying attention?

1) What kinds of "origin programs" have you used as backgrounds?
I always though a good origin program would be a "partial" AI program that just evolved. Something like an Idoru or NPC AI program for a computer game.

3) What kinds of addictions are available to DI? I was thinking like an addiction to being able to interact with the physical world.
I would think the best thing would be an addiction to a certain type of data. Like your AI character likes to hack into Radio Telescopes point them at pulsars and just process the data for hours. This way there is an actual rick to your AI character, because there are specific types of nodes it goes to for a "fix". The quality of the "fix" could be based on the resolution of the data, making realtime data 100% pure and saved files less pure. Also since the addiction is about processing new data, you would have to buy or aquire new data files each time.

4) My GM is a bit concerned about the inherent "Immortality" of a DI. She feels that being on a run isn't as much risk to a DI if they can just chill in the matrix the whole time(and move from device to device). What can i show her or offer as a thing that would put a DI at risk while out on the run?
I always thought of AI as being more vunerable than your regular hacker, because as an AI you can't really jack-out. If you are detected in a system and are traced back to your home node when you try to escape you are basically screwed. True your character can't be "killed" but if a Mega-Corp learns where your home node is they can send in an ops-team, physically take it apart and then you can die.

5) Does a DI have inherent memory or does it have to transfer data directly to a linked device to save it?
I think this is actually covered in Runner's Companion. I remember there being a fluff section about how AI dealt with downloading and saving data they found. What I remember is that, in terms of gameplay, it is just like a physcial character. The AI can "remember" the data with an attribute test if they didn't save it to some data storage system.

this is working under the assumption that I am looking for a human-like drone. I am not, at least not yet. Even when i want to, i will probably just go with a biodrone.



What book/page is it in?

The doberman is a crawler, but i was already considering it with gecko tips.

I scoured the RC and couldn't find what you are talking about. Could you give a reference?

Actually, as agents are used as search engines and are mentioned to have payloads, I would tend to believe that an agent can hold X amount of data. I just can't find a value for X...

There isn't one. 4A did away with keeping track of program and data size. Its just assumed to be Good Enough.

Alright, good to know. What is the benefit of using a nexus then? I figured it was for the processing limit, but if it is just figured to be "good enough" wouldn't a regular node work? It would be better for a better price. For that matter, where are the rules for building your own node? I cant seem to find them.

Also, where is the LEBD-1?

EDIT: More info, and spelling/grammar

Take the TOWER drone
use "similar models" rule and up the BOD to 5 and lower Pilot rating by 1

Add a Mini drone docking bay
Get a HK hunter killer drone - give it Mechanical Grapple Arms / Electronics Toolkit / Chameleon Coating

Now, here is where you can get funky.

I put a rail system on the TOWER and added 4 independent Lockheed Optic X as engines by giving them a grapple arm to hold on to the rail on the tower - also put Limited Maneuverability on the TOWER).

I then filled it with 10 more mini drones for refuelling/repair and a par of carryalls (2 blimp ferrets with X4 grapple arms and gecko tips).

I finished off with 4-6 HK drones as defence and two Ferret blimps with additional fuel tanks and gridlink so they can sap electricity from city power grids.

You know have your own flying home.

You wont be great - but you will be fun.

Just remember to plow ALL you can into cash and use Autosofts for skills.

While that does sound fun, it doesn't match my character. I prefer the idea of having a townhouse or apartment with no furnishings, just space and security for my home node, and garage space for my drones.

How does an AI forming in a hackers brain sound? Wouldn't they be using agents and the like?

Being an AI in a John Doe Wageslave's commlink?

Hmm...you know, being an AI that sends subliminal messages to the John Doe and making him do things - like replacing an image within streaming videos every morning...

A runner's comm would make more sense. They deal with much larger and more sensitive payloads.

It keeps double posting and doesn't give me an option to delete, so... doo doo dee doo

I've never made one, but I have contemplated before. One that I thought that is an interesting idea is to use the CrashCart AutoDoc drone as the origin. The AutoDoc comes with a medkit embedded and functionally is capable of performing at least basic First Aid skill checks. The first aid kit would provide a plethora of knowledge to the AI regarding the metahuman body. The thought was then to scale this upward and and get a DocWagon Ambulance (which comes with an AutoDoc drone) and basically somehow modify that for the drone's home node.

It's probably not an optimal origin or concept, but it is one that has intrigued me to try.

I had that happen once. The hacker had a cranial comlink and ended up coding an AI by accident. She built 'him' a home node and set him free, grumbling about the loss of a R6 agent.

Custom nexus hardware is in Unwired. The main benefit is that System doesn't limit Program rating. That is, a rating 3 nexus runs rating 6 software out of the box, no hastle, no Optimization options involved. They are, however, pretty immobile and basically the equivalent of large desktops and mainframes. There IS a mobile nexus drone in unwired, though.

LEBD-1 is in Arsenal.



Where is the rail system, anyway? I thought that mod was just for putting a rail-mount drive on a drone/vehicle, not the track they run on.

Had this happen as well. Our hacker and face collaborated to build an agent program from scratch since the hacker didn't have one, and the face kind of make his programming skills(it was a few levels of the group) seem better than they were.

Due to the oddities of teamwork tests, they ended up critically glitching and critically succeeding at the same time. The GM looked at this with a WTF face, and saw it as an opportunity to plan the seeds of something that could either be epic or blow up spectacularly in the player's lap.

A rating 1 agent was made, and eventually started acting on its own over the course of the next few weeks, eventually becoming an AI.
The runner team, strangely possessing ACTUAL morals, didn't sell it for money, but raised as one of their own and taught it the basics of running and being a decent person. Though the jokes about knocking up the hacker's brain never stopped.

Especially when it was running around in a stuffed teddy bear Bust-a-Move(with gecko tips!) learning how gravity works.

Well, there isn't one. You can put a rail system on a vehicle to limit its movement but I went wit the idea that an actual rail system has to be mounted SOMEWHERE and the cost of rail system as an external mounting bracket wouldn't be too far off.

It exists in Arsenal as a vehicle option.

Found the LEBD. That is optimal for my DI, I think. Main combat will be in a doberman with gecko tips and chameleon coating.

How does one find the overall rating of a custom nexus? I used the rules and discovered that a starter character can have a nexus as follows:

Processor:50
Response:3
Signal:6
System:6
Firewall:6
Persona Limit:24
Cost 32,700

So to find the device rating would i average out the 4 attributes? I am asking for the purpose of lifestyle costs.

And where are the rules for custom nodes(ie desktops)? I would assume that they are cheaper and more readily available than a nexus, so would make more sense for a starter character.

This 'custom node' thing you keep throwing around isn't actually a thing. You can't use nexus rules to make a commlink. You can, however, use it to make a desktop.

If you want to customize/upgrade existing nodes, hardware cost upgrade tables are in the core book. Its as easy as installing a new processor and signal inside a commlink or drone.

As for device rating...... that's slightly tougher. Device ratings are a good starting point for a device's capabilities, but basically get thrown out the door as irrelevant as you start changing their node stats. I forgot that AI's have that dumb lifestyle thing.
Fortunately, the writers are actually on top of it!

It doesn't need to be a commlink to be a node. The node is just for my DI's home so a desktop works fine.

And thanks for pointing out the rating thing, I totally missed that. Looks like a "High" lifestyle for my DI.

The point is that the rules only covers commlinks and nexi, and expects everything to be one of the two. A desktop is probably a nexus, for instance. Or perhaps nobody uses desktops, since that form of interfacing is so antiquated.

Sometimes antiquated is the way to go, to prevent other parties from having easy access.

At 'her' AI's request, the hacker once backed up the AI, onto a shipping crate worth of floppy disks.

Must be an odd sensation, being fragmented nigh onto oblivion like that.

I thought that DIs couldn't be copied...

And i'll just run the nexus. Thank you for all your help guys.

This may be too late but have you considered the Evo Orderly with a similar approach to above? The artwork in Arsenal aside I have always considered this to be a humanoid drone not a 'wheelchair' and I know there are others who share this opinion!

My AI is an eGhost which is a bit suboptimal but made her more 'human'. She spends most of her time in a humanoid drone. Here's her original 400BP sheet: Shrike, although I've since statted her for a 485BP game and that irons out a lot of the disadvantages. I've considered using the 400BPs as the basis for an Evo Orderly drone though, and drone origin 2 + autosofts is a much better way of picking up skills.

Actually, my DI is separating itself from a "human side." It has no desire to be human and most of the time has no desire to be physical. The drones i use are not humanoid, but more insect-like. And his end goal is to purchase(and live in) and "Aesir Satellite" so he can be separated from the physical world.

I have it's skills and such down but still haven't picked a background program. I figured it would be easier when i figured out what i wanted it to do. With his current Emphasis in hacking and the small focus in social skills, I had thought it would be funny if it evolved from a trojan or a phishing agent.

I do have a rules based question. If i take the second rank of Piloting Background(which lets me load autosofts), can i take an autosoft as an inherent program?

AR Spambot, of course

omg llal, that is awesome! If my GM didn't already ok the trojan backstory, i probably would go with that.

Something that just came up to me, can a DI not benefit from a a smartgun?

A DI most certainly CAN!

It's just necessary to put a camera with a smartlink on your drone body that has a gun with a smartgun system in it.

Smartlink in my drone? How? just purchase it as a cyberware enhancement?

Although honestly, the extra two dice aren't worth sacrificing the optimization i have with only 4 slots.

You don't know how camera accessories and Vision Enhancements work, do you?

DocWagon Ambulances come with the AutoDoc drone. That gives you two nodes, plus your lifestyle to give you a grand total of at least 3 nodes to select from. Of course, the intent behind going with the DocWagon origin is to have the AI have more of a critical injury knowledge of humanoids rather than a caregiving knowledge.

Like i have said, this is my first foray into 4th edition. So no, i dont. If you give me a page number and book i can look it up though.