Can anyone point me to rules for riggers in combat? Specifically, I'm wondering if a Rigger can pilot a vehicle and manually fire the weapons at the same time (ie. not using sensors). Are there penalties? Does it matter if a weapon is in a fixed mount vs. turret? I can see it being MUCH easier if it were in a fixed mount as the Rigger can then see where he's flying and shooting as opposed to diverting his attention between driving/flying and trying to acquire a target. Also, is it a Simple or Complex action to shoot while piloting?

IIRC they just fire the weapons normally. there is no penalty for a character rigging a vehicle as to the rigger the vehicle is his body as he percieves it.

That's what the VCR does. To the Rigger: Aiming and firing a turret is as difficult as aiming and firing a pistol, with the exception that you don't get penalties for movement unless the vehicle is using legs.

You use the gunnery skill, and all normal modifiers apply.

Supposing, though, that for some reason you had a rigged Americar with a rocket launhcer bolted to the driver's side door (my personal rush-hour fantasy), and you were rigging the car, but had no direct link between the rigger adaption controls and the rocket launcher, you could fire the rocket launcher, but at something ridiculous like a +8 penalty for non-rigging actions whilst jacked in.

As I remember, the +8 was for actually seeing stuff while jacked in, let alone doing anything. Gotta love that RAS over-ride...

if the weapon is linked to the vehicle's controls, the rigger can fire the weapon. basically, if a non-rigger could tell the weapon to fire without leaving the cockpit, a rigger can do the same.

Now, does this apply to multiple weapons systems? Ie. firing two turrets and a missle all without penalty?

can't do it, unfortunately. that's one reason the rigger's init bonus is so nice.

Random thought of the moment: What if the weapons systems were all slaved into one? As in, you use a laser targeter to direct all the mounted weapons on your car to fire at a certain target?

Then you would be vehicle-weapons God. And your GM would hate you for having to figure out how much recoil translates through a vehicle.

~J

No such thing by canon as far as vehicles go.

Ok, that sounds good. . . What do you mean by "unfortunately. that's one reason the rigger's init bonus is so nice"?

So it sounds like then that a rigger cannot fire a pair of assualt rifles mounted in a Weapon Value 2 in a mini-turret?

Now, can a drone fire multiple weapons that it has mounted?

If you're a rigger with three to four actions, you can fire all the weapons while a normal human might be fiddling with one.

And drones are subject to the same restrictions. Only one weapons system may be active.

~J

If you crammed a pair of rifles into a turret, it would count as firing one weapon in my book. I guess it's a good thing no one in 2060 has ever played Mechwarrior, or they might wonder why their porcupine-o-guns van can only shoot one at a time. It wouldn't really be vehicle combat god since NPC vehicles can (and will) do it too. As far as recoil goes, add up all uncompensated recoil from all firing weapons and apply it to ALL the weapons' target numbers. That should help a little. Also, all firing weapons use the range brackets of the shortest ranged weapon in the interlock circuit for TN penalty purposes. So that shot might be short range for the Ultimax MMG, but it suffers the long range penalty of the HK-227s sharing the circuit.

You could make each remote turret a drone by giving it rigger adaptation and a pilot rating. Then you could use captin's chair mode to order all the "drone" weapons to fire on the marked targets.

if you're really smart (and rich), you'll put a seperate drone pilot with an autosoft interpretation system and a sharpshooter autosoft in control of each weapon system. then, you can do things like call an alpha strike, instructing each weapon-controlling drone to fire its weapon at your currently-designated target. you can even tell each drone to fire at whatever you designate as an enemy, then spend your time highlighting targets.

What I want to know is can I drive while my drone pilot uses the guns? Can the drone pilot drive while I shoot the stuff behind us?

yes. pretty sure, anyway. i'd allow it. i don't believe there's anything in the books that says you and the drone pilot can't share control.

Hmmm, and I guess I should ask: How much of the rules for Riggers, including building your own vehicles, does Rigger 3 Revised change? Is there stuff in there that's not in the R3 errata? Is it worth getting if I already have R3?

From what I've heard it's got pictures, the changes in the errata, and that's about it. Still might be worth it for pictures of all of the vhicles, but I'm sticking with my copy of R3 for now.

I (stupidly) ordered Rigger 3 instead of the revised. OTOH, I do have a copy of Rigger Black Book collecting dust at home. That's probably the biggest reason why I wouldn't immediately buy the revised, althought I might down the line (just so I can leave RBB in storage).

Don