Hey all,

I'm new to Shadowrun and working on building some characters so I can play in Reddit's upcoming community games. I like building characters to get started in a system. One of the ideas I had was a rigger, but the rulebook's rigging rules are hard to follow, and I've seen a fair bit of discussion on r/shadowrun about how some options aren't optimized as well as others. So I have a few questions for you more experienced players/GMs:

1) What programs are best to run on a drone?

2) What is my "must have" equipment (e.g. control rig, RCC, drones, etc.)

3) Which stats are most important?

Thanks—looking forward to learning the system.

Depends on what you want: Herd a swarm of drones or jump into one?

Would like to be able to jump into one. Basically I'm looking at making a smuggler character—Resources A. Buy a Cessna, a Gopher, and a couple of Rotodrones, with some little spy drones in addition.

RCC is very handy, but not necessarily a "must have" if you have a tight budget.
Control Rig is a must have. You are a bad rigger without one.

Programs are a little trickier; you can share autosofts over an RCC, but if your drone is running any autosofts on it's own, it won't work. On my rigger I had a mix of drones, so I just bought individual programs.

I had a tight budget, so here are the programs I purchased:

For my RCC:
Encryption
Signal Scrub
Toolbox
Viritual Machine
Armor
Wrapper
Biofeedback Filter

For my Doberman:
Electronic Warfare
Maneuvering
Ak-97 Targeting
Clearsight

Fly Spy:
Clearsight
Maneuvering
Stealth

Stats:
Reaction is obviously important. I cheaped out and bought some reaction enhancers over wired reflexes, to give me a boost to vehicles tests and to go a little faster in the meat world.
Intuition is handy for Matrix & Meat Initiative.
Logic is handy for repairing your busted drones.

Jumping into a drone is a great way to get some serious biofeedback damage. They're even worse glass cannons than normal for the setting. I'd opt towards remoting commanding a swarm of drones over jumping into one and being super effective in it.

For vehicles, obviously you have to jump in; you need the edge there more than ever.

A bit of a jumbled post, but hopefully useful. I've played riggers off and on since 3rd edition, so they're something I enjoy. If you have specific questions (should I get X or Y?) I'd be happy to answer them.

Oh, one thing I did this time I'm happy about; I got 2 cars. One go-fast car, and one beater (in this case, a Ford Americar painted like a cab). It's handy having multiple vehicle options for ferrying the team around, and you'll appreciate the go-fast car over the traditional RV when you're getting chased by the cops.

important thing to note: if your GM considers missions rules to be errata (or just doesn't give a crap that the chargen rules technically won't allow you to buy used 'ware for no good reason, even when various character archetypes have done just that), you can buy a used VCR 3, which is an amazing investment for a rigger. i highly recommend it, *especially* if your GM follows the run payout guidelines in the core book (because if your GM is using those, odds are very good that you'll never scrape enough resources together to even be able to afford a used one, never mind a better grade).

Yeah getting the level 3 rig is sweet, and 208K is hard to come by in play. I use the suggested rules for payouts and they make 15-20k a piece on a run, so what 20 runs in maybe at that rate given that you can;t save every penny. Yeesh most campaigns don;t last that long/

I would add the comment that I would definitely check with your GM about their setting before purchasing any vehicles. Are they running a mirrored sunglasses, nothing bigger than a pistol setting? Looks like you're getting a Hyundai Shin-Hyung. Is their setting more aligned with Mad Max / Road Warrior Pink Mohawk? Ares Roadmaster with mounted machine guns!

Additionally, I would make sure to check the setting would make sense for a Cessna. 146k is a lot of resources from chargen to drop for something you may not get to use. OR, you'll use it all the time (because hey- you're the rigger whose got a plane!). Either way, a ground vehicle / more gear / 'ware probably makes more sense for a starting character.

If you DO end up getting the plane, be sure to listen to "Treetop Flyer" before every session to get you in the right mindset.

-DrZ

I appreciate the responses, guys. Have been putting together a build, but haven't had much time to work on it. Will come back to it Sunday night or Monday. I may have some more attribute questions for you, DrZaius.

Also if anyone wants to get in on it, Reddit's RunnerHub is up. They're going to be Skype/Roll20 games, so for people like me who don't have groups nearby it comes in handy.