I'm pulling together a drone rigger for a player who will only be able to make some games due to real world commitments. Looking at the actual drone stats in the anniversary book, it only gives stats for the Pilot attribute. It's other stock attributes are equal to the Pilot rating, yes? And I can pay to bump those up, just like with a comlink, right?

There is a sample devices table on pg. 222 of SR4a. Drones are rated 3-5 for all otherwise unspecified matrix attributes. And yes.

As far as I can recall that is correct. On both: Pilot is every attribute and you only need to raise that if you want it to be better.

Also, do not forget drone skills like Clearsight, Targeting or even "pilot (vehicle)" for the vehicle it is operating since it would only get its base Pilot attribute on its own.

Also, look into using the rules from unwired for upgraded nodes like optimized (for Pilot if you can talk your GM into it) or software options for the autosofts.

Now... I think it is silly since raising Pilot does not affect response technically since the costs do not line up for buying both up. So I house ruled (well self ruled since I didn't GM the game I was just a player using drones) that to buy up Pilot you needed to buy up response accordingly.

I am the GM in this case, and for the moment I'll just be sticking to SR4A rules for Matrix, thank you. If all of a drones MA's are equal to it's Pilot, that's awesome. A little less number crunching is always nice.

Yes, there is a "Device Rating" but using it tends to create issues where the Device Rating is less than the Pilot rating which should not really be possible. So it is just easier to make it based on Pilot rating. For Drones at least...

Drones are a little confusing. They are specified to use Pilot for the System attribute (SR4A p245). However they are also specifically said to use the Device Rating for all Matrix Attributes (Arsenal p104). Most GMs seem to interpret that you use Pilot for System and Device Rating for Firewall, Signal, and Response.

The attributes can be upgraded of course, though Signal and Response have a hard limit of (base rating+2) unless you mod the vehicle with Modular Electronics from the SR4A Changes document.



-k