I guess an explanation is in order, so here it is:

All my other SR characters have been weapon specialist/street sam types, and I fancy a change for the game I've signed up for, so I'm gonna try my hand at being a vehicle/drone rigger.

Now, I got a copy of Rigger 3 (revised) on Thursday, and I've been reading through it looking at the vehicles & drones.

The problem is, I'm not really sure what equipment (aside from the control rig) to take, nor what drones I should take, or how to equip them.

So I'd really appreciate any help.

If you're going to be a dedicated Rigger, I'd advise going with the VCR-3. It's more than worth it. If you're going to branch out before you get about 50-90 karma, though, go for the VCR-2.

Also go for a Remote-Control deck, of course. Rating 6. Encryption rating either 3 or 5. Expensive, but worth it to never have to worry about drones being stolen. For drone loadout, I'd suggest:

1) ignore the ground drones entirely with the exception of the microspiders and maybe the skimmers. They're just too hard to deploy properly.

2) Get a few Strato-9s. These things are pure gold. Consider stripping the MMG off of one of them; Sensors 5 without getting anyone to call the cops is, again, worth its weight in gold.

3) Spotlights, spotlights, spotlights. And infrared spotlights. Being able to selectively set vision penalties to 0, especially when you can also give enemies glare modifiers, is extremely valuable.

4) Sensors, sensors, sensors. The ability to track targets up to and above twenty kilometers away is going to be a key part of your value.

5) Armor your command vehicle, but thanks to the dodge rules, Handling is more important.

6) Winches! I love these things. A million and one uses.

7) It sucks having to abandon a command vehicle because it got identified. Use the colour-changing paint, the morphing license plates, the transponder library, and more importantly, use your ability to be a part of the action from several kilometers away. Get another car to use as a getaway vehicle unless you're prepared to be very careful about how you play approaching the target.

8) Sensor-enhanced gunnery is your friend.

~J

Yikes. The first question is: How much money do you have left?

You need an RCD (remote control deck) and maybe Rating 1 or 2 Encryption on all the things in your network (talk to your GM, the prices are crazy high, he or she may say to forgo it for now).

I'll probably dump enough points to get 1 million , since the drones look pretty expensive to me...

I might take at least one ground drone and keep it nearby whatever vehicle I end up in (probably get an Ares RoadMaster & modify it with armour + drone racks), partly 'cause I think they look cool.

The other thing I was wondering was this: Since I'm thinking primarily of being fire support, how do I go about arming drones? I know a few come with MMG's, but most are above starting Avail. so I was thinking of giving a drone an SMG or assault rifle, but I'm not sure about the rules.

Thanks for all this by the way.

also, the transducer is a must for communication.

There is one really good ground drone, the MK-6. it's a crawler, it's got arms and can act as a decent telepresence drone for doing electronics and such.

The Redball express makes for a good deployment drone.

Also, invest in GPS and tracker technolofy as well as the head map implant. It's wonderful for your rigger to have a comprehensive view of the situation. Remember, trackers aren't just for following a non-friendly. Put the AOD's on your party members so you don't have to keep sensor logs on them. Also, get the survival sensor gear for your drones, gas detector, ultrasound emitter/detector, scanner, chem-sniffer, (shock system and gas dispenser are also good choice for defense).
Watch out for ECM, it can knock out your drones in a heart beat. Do not give them standing orders to shoot anything moving as this will almost invariably lead to you finding yourself in need of either another team to work with, a new place to live or a new character.

flashpacks on your drones are a good thing.

Always keep one armed drone near you for protection. (the steel lynx or doberman are good choices)

when you can't pack overwhelming lethality into your drone, pack in versatility. the basic grenade launcer can be mounted in conjunction with a SMG and gives you a nice wide variety of coices.

Remember when placing firm/hard points on a vehicle, SR rules do not support linked fire weapon systems very well, beter to spread out your arc of fire and compenate with recoil adjusters.

They're in Rigger 3, customization section.

~J

If you're thinking about being fire support, arm your drones with Ares Alphas and get yourself a Smartlink-2. Your drones now have direct fire capacity, plus the versatility of grenades.

For heavier armament, load at least one combat drone with a Great Dragon ATGM, and buy as many of them as you can spare. It's the only antivehicular weapon you can start with, and you should be prepared to fight off other vehicles. It also does a nasty number on nonvehicular targets.

If you're going total drone rigger, you may want to consider getting a CRD and using the supersubscriber rules to give you a bit more flexibility.

installing retrans units on your high-fly-spy drones isn't a bad idea. it extends your drone range.

In my opinion the CRD isn't worth the cost. Buy a cyberarm instead and put the regular RCD inside it

I'm going to disagree with Ed on the decryption issue. Don't bother. Seriously. Even Rating 3 Encryption is enough to make it statistically unlikely that you'll be able to crack networks with less than a Rating 10 Decryption module and 6 points of Electronics (Electronic Warfare). Rating 5 is, for all intents and purposes, unbreakable.

~J

I know next to nothing about rigging, but I've heard it said that if you're going to be primarily a vehicle-rigger--that is, if you're planning on sinking a whole lot of money into one vehicle and using that over most other things--then go ahead and pick up the VCR-3. For the drone riggers though it's usually not worth it, as you likely have much better things to spend the vast majority of your Essence on.

Disagree entirely. Even as a drone rigger, you are at your most potent when jumped into a drone. The VCR-3 is still a godsend in my experience.

~J

Rules are that you roll your Decryption (which is more expensive, point-for-point, than encryption) plus complementary Electronics (EW) skill against a TN equal to 4 plus the enemy's Encryption (so TN 7 for 3, TN 9 for 5).

Kicker is twofold. First off, the base time is five minutes times the encryption rating. 15 minutes for 3, 25 for 5. The big one, though, is that you need to get successes equal to the Encryption rating divided by two, rounded up. For Encryption 3 you need two 7s or better to get the job done in fifteen minutes, more to shorten that time. For Encryption 5, 3 9s are required. To put that in perspective, to be able to expect to crack a Rating 5 network half of the times you try (an expenditure of 50 minutes!), you'd need 18 dice. Decryption maxes out at Rating 10.

~J

And I say go for the VCR2, and in the future replace it with a Beta VCR3 which fits into the same Essence slot.

Keeping in mind that when you replace it it'll be ¥1,200,000 all at once post-chargen. It all depends on what kind of game you're playing, but that's usually pretty darn far in the future.

~J

That's true, but I don't usually start a campaign with the intention of it not being long-term (or at least thinking long-term from the character's point of view).

Essence is your friend, and a 5/6th Essence hit off the bat for a single piece of ware hurts my head.

But you and I have gone back and forth over this subject before.

So we have, haven't we?

Though I do just want to point out that I'm all for thinking long-term, and when I think about that long a term I think of a bunch of other really neat stuff I could spend the money on that really doesn't make the betaware (or alphaware, for that matter) all that worthwhile. I guess it all depends on how much you love your Essence.

~J, future cyberzombie

A rigger can either get the VCR 3 or get a few odd peices of cyber that no one else has. Knowsoft link - speaking any language is useful. Skillwires 3 and CED3: get the right chips, and you can do a poor version of anyone else's job. Hell, get a cyberarm, put the DNI-equipped Bugscanner, GPS, commo gear, RCD, camera in your finger hooked up to your image link, and every other tech toy you want (Including a cyberholster) in it.

A dedicated rigger without his vehicles is a fish out of water. Give the poor sucker some other abilities. He'll never be able to toe the line with the muscle, but he can at least do something other than hide.

Try to get the group to count some of your Skillwire chips as team expenses. Sure, you're the one who uses them, but the plan needs the skill, doesn't it? And if you awnser that a rigger will never be without vehicles, I salute your planning skills, and know that you've never played Harley's Back.

Right, but having the drone supporting your team suddenly open fire on them is usually a bad thing. Losing a drone is one thing, losing control of a drone another.

My last group contributed to a fund we called the keeping the rigger's drones from shooting our @$$ fund. We figured it would be cheaper than medical bills over the long run.

Also get the Vehcle empathy Merit from the Companion, its a rigger must, especially if you intend to do a lot of driving

Yes. I cannot believe I left that one out.

Also, Drive-By-Wire and lots of it.

~J

And off road handling if you expect to go off the beaten track alot...

Another Question:
When Customizing a vehicle, and you want to buy sensors, (original Sensor lvl 0) Do you add Rank 1 and rank 2 togeter? CF, Load and price for instance...?

Would a Rank 3 Sensor cost 22500 bucks or just the 10000 for the Rank three?
Same thing with CF and Load issues?

Also does this work the same for ED, ECD, ECM and ECCM?

Working on a car for to morrows session, you see and the newyen is running out...

You buy straight to a level. Sensors are not stepped. Same with ED, ECD, ECM, ECCM, etc. etc. etc.

~J

As i figured yes.

What is better in your opinion; Electronic Warfare or adding some firepower?

Depends. How much of each?

~J

45000 New Yen's worth of gadgets or firepower.
Also thinking about Thermal Bafflers, to reduce Signature, for the van I'm creating it will cost 40 grand...
But not being detected might mean not getting shot at...

What is your current signature?

If you've got the space and load, I'd suggest Rating 2 ED. If you can free up another 5k, go for Rating 3. You could also go with ECM, potentially, and get your jamming on.

~J

My .02 nuyen worth:

My own experience, as a GM and a rigger player, is that building one or two insanely cool (and expensive) super-vehicles is fun for a little while, and then your 600k nuyen vehicle gets hit. Hard. The repair bill makes you want to cry. Or you get made and you have to dump it. So my advice is to not buy really expensive vehicles or really expensive facilities. These things tie a runner down, and make it harder for them to operate in the long term. Besides, they scream "Target!" to any GM worth his salt.

So my advice is to not invest all your money in a few vehicles and spend time and money tricking them out. Vehicle customization takes a long time, both in game and out of game, and costs a fortune. Instead, concentrate on having a lot of vehicles/drones, so that when you lose one, you don't much care.

As I see it, a rigger needs to be able to do the following with vehicles.
1. Steal it.
2. Quickly add rigger adaptations and remote control interfaces.
3. Add minimum customizations to get desired capability.
4. Use it.
5. Lose it in a heartbeat if that's what it takes to pull of a run.

In addition, the riggers are most useful to a team when they provide tactical coordination, reconnaissance and communications support. Just being the wheelman isn't enough.

So, what do you need to do this? Here's my list:
1. VCR-2. The nuyen and essence cost of the 3 just isn't worth it.
2. Encephalon 2. +2 Task Pool dice to all Tech and B/R skills. (M&M, pg. 20)
3. Car 6 skill.
4. Rotor Craft 6. Default to all the others. A few points in Motorboat is always good in Seattle.
5. Electronics 6.
6. Elect B/R, Car B/R, & Rotor Craft B/R as high as you can get them.
7. A vehicle facility if you can/must. 2 if you can.
(Alternatively/additionally - get a bunch of mechanics contacts so that you can have them do your customization work, or rent their facilities.)
8. A good RC deck. Encrypt if you can, don't worry if you can't. It takes forever for somebody to hijack your drone network, so don't worry too much.
9. A good recon drone or two. The A.S. LDSD's are good, if you can upgrade the sensor suite. The L.S. Strato-9 is great, but is easily spotted.
10. A couple of ground vehicles. Nothing too expensive. Nothing too modified. Maybe some armor. Some Nitrous, some suspension improvement if needed.
11. A weapons drone or two. Nothing insane. Just a drone with a weapon. Once you start shooting, assume that it's going to be brought down, so don't spend a huge amount on it.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Just remember as a rigger you are exposed to a lot more financial risk, second only to the decker (and maybe even worse). Don't sink everything into a few vehicles - spread your risk around so that if (when) something goes wrong and you lose one, you aren't going to be out a year's worth of nuyen. Be light, be lean, be flexible.

- Runner Smurf

The van is a GMC Bulldog, it has a Sig 2, have added Active Thermal masking adding another 2, and I can add another 2 points with the Bafflers. Getting a sig of 6 for 50 minutes. That leaves me with no Electric warfare options.

This will be the teams mobile operations center, and the plan is to keep it for a while...

Also considering taking a Ford Canada Bison and rework it a bit, but the budget is just under 200G, going with the bulldog gives me more tinkering space.

That seems like a tank yes, but I aint sellin my Ferrari to get to that prize range...

Sig 6 is worth every penny. Getting the TN for SEG when you're in direct LOS above 2 is also very valuable. I'd say go Bafflers.

Get some power amps, if you don't already have them.

~J

Thanks for the tip, need to read up on the Power amps though...

Increases flux of selected devices by rating, you can divide amongst devices. Flux table is in SR3.

~J

thx, gotta go now, will probably have more questions tomorrow.

You would have to have a VERY lenient GM to give the Ares Boomer a cost of 628K. The markup factor would be considerably higher than 1 with the mil grade sensors alone minus the turret and smart materials. It would most likely be ruled military or more than generously as security only.

That's cost before street index, natch.

~J

Not street index, mark up factor.

*Double-take, goes back to read R3*

Nope. P113, those apply to Street Index only, not markup.

~J

Hey, GMs out there. Would you really allow a Strato-9 packing a MMG for starting chars? A Rigger with 3-4 of them has a LOT of firepower imho. Besides, the avail ratings of MMG are ~12, the Strato-9 has 8.

Math question in regards to Drive by Wire,
A base cost for a vehicle is 32600, the DbW is Base Vehicle cost pr.level x 1.25 =40750.- for the lvl 1. Does this mean that lvl 2 is 81500.- and that lvl3 is 122250.-? That is insanely expensive, and this is before any street index...
Or do you take the new cost after lvl1 40750x1.25= cost of lvl2? I like this method better....

Change the MMG to a LMG for a lower availability, less damage but better than nothing...

I just figure that since they are specifically Lone Star drones, they are either purchased as surplus (minus the weapon), or fell off the back of a truck during delivery, but before the weapon was installed.

Well, at the moment this is what I'm thinking of getting vehicles wise...the cyberware I'll figure out later.

I'm currently thinking of taking a Steel Lynx & a Doberman for ground drones, using one to protect wherever I'm commanding from (I'm thinking of modifying an Ares Roadmaster with drone racks & some concealed armour then using that), then just taking a bunch of different drones like the Ferret Perimeter Drone, MK 6 Utility Machine (this especially looks useful...it's got a big cargo space so I thought in some runs it could be used as a mobile suitcase and loaded with ammo, medkits, etc.), and probably a rotor drone or two, most likely the Nissan Roto-Drone.

Assuming I have any spare cash left I was then thinking of getting a couple of different vehicles, probably a fast car, something that can carry people and a slightly modified 'tank' type vehicle (a truck or something with concealed armour & nitrous).

Oh, would it be worth arming a drone with a Gyrojet pistol? I dunno if it'd be effective or not, but it'd provide a hell of a bang and some anti-armour capacity if I gave it some AP rounds...