Ok, why do you feel that giving them thier full bonus is not the way to go?

CBT.Com is FanPro US's classic battletech website. Neko is a big fan of the cartoon by the same name, and he is somewhat of a looney toons at times. It is a tradition over at CBT.com to add the option of "Neko in a dress" to every poll.

Ok, now to me this would seem to be reflected in the control pool and reduced TN's.

Would you be happier if the player had to spend an amount of nuyen to "modify" the vehicle to be able to keep up with his/her enhanced reactions? If so, what kind of amount (in percentage of the vehicle's base cost) do you feel would be appropriate? And what kind of CF/ load do you think this type of mod will take?

Even giving non-riggers their Reaction/Initiative boosts while driving *and* the more controversial limited Control Pool that I suggest won't make riggers useless. Far from it; they're still better drivers than a non-rigger can ever hope to be, for the various reasons mentioned above. It's just (IMO) a bit more plausible this way.

As for Sargasso's comment, I don't buy it. Even with power assisted systems, maneuvering systems are still mostly mechanical. Saying that a sam shouldn't get his reaction increases because the car's steering column can't keep up is like saying that an adept shouldn't be allowed to make more than one attack with his katana because it can't keep up with the adept's hands. Or that an adept can't use his Improved Quickness to run faster because the pavement can't keep up with him.

Reaction/Handling could work for non-rigger control pool, but in most cases that would reduce a normal person's pool down to 1 die, or maybe 2 if the vehicle were really easy to drive.

Give me a street sam instead of a rigger then... vehicle handling can be reduced below 2 quite easily... at 1 I get full reaction, and at 0... INFINITE CONTROL POOL!!!!!!!!! can we say 1,000,000 soak dice every time we are hit... for a dodge test at tn 4...

You'd be surprised what you can get used to. Just because an environment is artificial doesn't mean that you can't react to it on instinct. None of that is particularly important anyway. Most Reaction/initiative increasing 'ware works by increasing the speed of your sensory and motor neurons, not by hard-wiring specific reactions into your muscles. Hard-wiring your muscles would be pretty stupid, really, and mostly counterproductive; you'd have to spend almost all your time countermanding the orders your hardware is giving your wetware, an unnecessary strain when you need your attention the most. Or are you telling me that aiming and pulling a trigger is more "instintual" than turning a wheel?

As for the other comment, honestly I *still* think that a rigger is indispensible to a team, because they are still so much better at driving, plus they have their drone networks and general omnipresence that no other team member can really match. But as it stands, without an actual rigger the GM has to either cut all riggers from the opposition, or make up implausible scenarios where riggers will never be found. You can do without the Matrix, you can do without magic, but doing without a rigger is like living in LA without a car.

And Kremlin I think is deliverately trying to misinterpret what I'm saying. First off, I've never seen a vehicle with a Handling of less than 2, but it should be obvious to everyone that I intended the Handling to be a minimum of 2--that is, Control = Reaction/(Handling - min 2).

The only real problem I have with that statement Sargasso is that a Sam with wires will pay 550,000 and will pay the same 5 essence as the Rigger. But when he deicdes to drive, ALL his enhanced reactions somehow go away? Not even close to being realisitic. And from a game balance point, the Rigger gets so many other advantages in a vehicle that crying balance just doesn't wash either. But my main beef is that there is no middle ground. (Datajack driving is such a miniscule improvement that it doesn't count.)

A) A Sam with a datajack, anyone with a datajack, can get -1 to teir vehicle skill target numbers.

B) The Fanpro errata regarding Adepts says that letting adepts buy vehicles skills is acceptable, which makes for nifty adept stunts.

C) One of the themes of shadowrun is that unless you have an *edge*, you are meat. Goinging into a firefight against someone with initiative enhancing ware or magic is suicide. Suciide unless you have a different edge to compensate. Riggers have pais dearly for their edge. With vehicles, they own the road. It's their edge. Cope, compensate, or capitulate. It's the way of the streets chummer.

And yet you have drugs like jazz and Kami that were (in game) designed to help mitigate the gulf between regs and sams, and with adepts, having 60,000 dice to roll ONCE PER TURN (maybe twice) still means you crash and burn in any "not normal" situation. (like combat) Riggers would still own the road, there is SO MUCH a rigger can do that (even with extra actions) NO ONE ELSE can (drones, rigged security) and COME ON a -1 TN and +1 reaction is not the big advantage you seem to think it is. To illustrate, take a normal wired sam (any level) giev him a SM 2 and then put him up against a person with equal attributes and weapons skill, no smartlink, and a laser sight, and 1 level of reaction enhancement (the .3 E +1 reaction ware) and see how mitigating that is versus someone without it. I think you'll find the answer is "not much".

And, yes, the way of the streets is to make any contest as unfairly balanced in your favor as possible, but there are BILLIONS of other people out there doing the same thing. (Exactly like real life) And this tends to breed balacned environments, not situations where one thing completely dominates all aspects of anything it does. Middle gorunds are made if they cannot be found, even if for the most basic reason of "I need to compete but don't have the porper money or access to the proper equipement." And how many corps do you think would look at it that way huh? ( I think all of them would.)

Finally though, for everybody, put this to the test, let the sams in your group have thier full inits and reactions for a game versus some riggers and see how it changes things, then get your hoops back here and spill the data to the rest of us.

Actually a Rigged car can have its physical controls removed entirly. The reason no enhancements work is because there is no movment.
Wheelmen adpets have the ability to toss 14 dice, vs a riggers 7, both are equal in reactions, however, your adept cant shoot mounted guns (with out a nice penelty), dosent get a control pool, and dosent drop his target numbers. Huge differance. Does this mean my sammy with gunnery 6 and car 6 and 4d6+12 init are a match for a rigger? No, said sammy, or adept will get schooled.
What Id adress is the wired reflexes + VCR problem. Other then the essance hit, I dont see why not. Its not like the init bonuses stack or anything. Id like to play a rigger with a physical init better then 1d-ass + jack.

i thought it was boosted reflexes that weren't compatible with a VCR? In any case, I'm pretty sure synaptic accelerators and reaction enhancers are compatible with each other and a VCR, so you can still get plenty of bonuses. And there's always your friendly neighborhood mage...

Erm, actually the smartgun like *is* applicable; he can still fire a smartlinked weapon out an open window, if he takes the +1 to actions taken while driving. The spurs are still usable too; they probably won't be *useful* for anything, but he still has them and can conceivably fight off a guy trying to climb up the side of the truck he's driving or something.

The wired reflexes, however, for some reason completely disappear the moment he steps behind the wheel. They work just fine anywhere other than in the driver's seat of that car, but for some reason the moment you grab that steering wheel they shut themselves off and don't turn back on again until you crash into something. No matter how hard I try, I still can't see the logic in that.

Huh, you're right. You know what elce? If you play a group with sams using their full reastion, and put both the rigger and the sam in Citymasters with mounted HMGs, the rigger will be able to fire the mounted weapons without penalty, get his VCR rating as a bonus to any driving tests, and will have a massive Control Pool to soak damage. The sam, meanwhile, will be taking penalties left and right, have *no* chance to soak anything, and will very quickly have his ass handed to him.

This is why sams generally don't fight from inside Citymasters with the windows rolled up, and riggers generally don't fight from a motorcycle.

Actually, just about nothing is compatible with a VCR. And that kinda makes sense, if you think about it, for the same reason that no physical reaction enhancers work while you're in the Matrix. Simply put, you aren't using your limbs at all while rigging. All physical reaction enhancers work by increasing the speed at which your brain communicate with the rest of your body. Therefore, rigging through a VCR, which doesn't involve your body in any way, means that you bypass all those reaction enhancers entirely.

Officially, none of the reaction enhancers stack with VCR. The specific incompatability with boosted reflexes is that you can not have both systems installed in a single human. The electrochemical change of the boosted reflex process will cause the VCR to fail.
With any of the other systems, a person can have both installed and only use one at a time. Like wired and VCR. You can have them both, and they both work fine, just not at the same time.

Personally i considered this when voting "Seems ok to me." I too have issues with the tendancy of the pure cannon rules to boil down to either you are a rigger or you limit driving to going down to the Stuffer Shack to pick up some Soy Twinkies...and even then at your own peril.

I'm not sold on a Control Pool for non-riggers. Though maybe the idea of Reaction/Handling where Handling is a minimum of 2 is passable, it still -feels- wrong. Also it would be quite concevable for a tweaked sam or adept to rival a VCR 1 rigger as long as he kept to vehicles of Handling 2 or less. For example the best starting human rigger (sans Edges) would have a Reaction 6, Control Pool of 8, and Init roll of 8+2d6. Same human with Wire 3 (ok, not legal starting PC, but give that) has a Reaction 10, Control Pool of 6, and Init roll of 10+4d6. As long as the sam is in a vehicle he is trained in (to avoid the killer +4 penalty for defaulting) that's going to be a bit of a toss-up. Especially if you don't implement my following paragraph.

Also I would be inclined to limit how extra initative passes are used by non-riggers, specifically I'd cap it to a total of 1 complex Acceleration and 1 complex Braking actions worth of speed changes. They could accelerate on multiple combat passes, but the total within the Turn is capped. The rational here is that the VCR is allowing the extra speed from fine controling of the engine ignition/fuel system/transmission. Likewise on braking the VCR allows you to have extremely fine control and feedback from the braking system. This keeps the rigger on top for flexibility and flat out speed, but a cunning non-rigger can still work within that limit to get stuff done.

With all that in place the rigger still rules vehicles, especially complex and cumbersome ones, or when flat out speed is a requirement. The reduction to +2 for defaulting also provides a great edge. But you also allow non-riggers (both NPCs and PCs) to function within the game.

As for motorcycles i have no problem with riggers having problems on them. Afterall motorcycles are more akin to a handtool than a vehicle, especially dirtbikes and cafe racers. That is a big part of the appeal of people riding them, or at least it is for me. Your entire body is used to drive them. Remember that riggers need that extra gyro to even be able to use them riggered, that's a sign that they are different.

P.S. I agree: Go, go, go gangs!

Well, notice all the qualifications you have here. You have a guy who uses 2 Essence on cyberware versus a guy who spent 5 Essence and a boatload more cash. The sam *still* can't use any onboard weaponry without a penalty, is restricted to vehicles he can drive well and have a Handling of 2, and can't call for backup on his drone network. The rigger, with the cash he saved buying the VCR 1 instead of the wired reflexes, has a whole mess of attack drones working for him as well.

I'd say even with the limited control pool *and* the init boost factored in the sam is in trouble. And this is against a guy with the cheapest VCR on the market; against a VCR 2 the competition is even more skewed, and forget about a VCR 3.

I'm still sticking with non-riggers needing a Control Pool. Without it you might as well not be touching the wheel.