What cyberware and skills would you use and why? Would you try to make the Rigger perform two functions like rigging and magic or rigging and decking? What vehicles, drones, and other equipment do you find necessary. Who does your rigger know? Please be as exhaustive as want.

There are many ways of creating a Rigger character. It depends on what you want your Rigger to be good at. Is he primarily a getaway wheelman? Or a heavy fire-support character? A VCR and a Remote Control Deck is almost par for the course for a Rigger, along with a vehicle and some(1 or 2) drones. Magic do not usually fit very well with a rigger concept since riggers usually have VCRs and VCRs cost essense. Useful people a rigger should know are usually people that he would either obtain his vehicles/drones from or miscellaneous information sources.

Rigging and Decking really wouldn't be two hard to do in the same character. Granted, you can't do them at the same time, and it would be hella-expensive, but it would be possible (since to deck all you need is a datajack, which a rigger needs, too -- heck, you could use an electrode net to deck, if you really wanted to deck w/o cyber).

I think a wheelman rigger with a few drones could do quite well, but try to get FDDM and Battletac gear because then your runner buddies can lay down some serious hurt. Put FDDM on a blimp with missiles and grenades, and you're runner pals can call in fire support without bugging you to fire (they pull out target designator, and use battletac to fire the weapon).

I'm working on a rigger right now, for a series of short fiction I'm writing, and possibly for play if I find the right game, that is a vehicle drone specialist. Essentially he remote controls a series of three idential vehicles, one of which he and his team are in, the other two of which mislead the Star, well, in theory.

As far as being a rigger is concerned I would take the VCR RCD command vehicle (armed and armored) getaway vehicle (armored) and drones for ground combat, aerial combat, indoor combat and aerial surveillance (some drones perform more than one task). I also like powerful electronic warfare options.

As far as doing something other than being the rigger

combat rigger works using the same tequnike as a combat Decker but I wouldn’t as your indoor combat drone is a superior combatant to what you could do yourself and you cant do both at the same time. The drone cant perform fine operations like opening doors but your not likely to be sending it in without the rest of the team.

Skill wise Decker rigger works but its far to expensive IMHO. Your trying to combine the 2 archetypes that use the most cash. There is a way to pull it off but GMs don’t like it. Start play with minimal vehicles (probably just a van) a moderate cyber deck and programs and a sharpest electronic warfare deck you can get. As part of the legwork for the first run MIJI yourself control of the combat drones you require, works well if combined with a connected contact to sell drones and make this your SOP, funds from the sale of the drones will upgrade your decks, programs and command vehicle

Rigger mage has possibilities but your going to have relitivly low magic due to the essence loss of the VCR.

Edward

A rigger mage can be a perfectly viable and effective char. In fact, I'm playing one now.

Check if your GM is cool with either you starting with an ally spirit or you starting off initiated. If you pick an ally spirit, take Sense Link and make it Force 4 if you can. Your ally spirit is your eyes and ears on the ground with the team and can loot things for you. Check if your GM would allow you to use your Ally to soak drain, like how they can soak sorcery(ESPECIALLY for shamans).

If your GM is ok with you having multiple ally spirits, you can do some seriously cheesy shit. An ally spirit is a rank 1 power foci for 1K nuyen and a point of magic. A rank 2 ally spirit costs 2K nuyen and is a rank 2 power foci and still costs just one point of magic. You can jack up the number of dice you throw at conjuring tests straight into crazy town with this method. Why can you do this and not OTHER mages? Because you don't give a shit about your magic most of the time. You only summon those allies up when you're summoning.

1. Hermetic. You can use your elementals to guard your drones or yourself against magical assaults. If you have an ally spirit, summon the elementals and ask your GM if you can bind them to the ally spirit AT the ritual. Otherwise, just spend a service to transfer it. Voila! You can call down an elemental strike wherever you need one. The major disadvantage here is that elementals can be an ugly, ugly drain on your already-thin resources. If you go Hermetic, try to pick a good school. It doesn't really matter if you get penalties for trying to work with others, you can't anyways as there are no rules for ritual conjuring.

2. Shaman. Some spirit powers, like conceal, are VERY nice and useful for a getaway rigger. The disadvantage is that you might show up at a run already stunned - Not good. This disadvantage is pretty much non-existant if your GM allows your ally to soak summoning drain.

3. Houdoun. If I could re-do my char, I'd definitely make him a Houdoun. Zombies are totally pimp and PERFECT for augmenting a drone assault. You can keep them in your van alongside the drones. If you need to move the drones in and out, hey, zombies! If the team needs a suicide bomber, hey, zombies! If the team needs a wall, hey, zombies! The major downside is that Loa will be pretty useless to you unless someone else on your team is able to be possessed by them. However, two of the Loa have domains of 'Everywhere'. Think about that.

There's other options, but those are the biggies. Geasa are your friend.

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But for more traditional riggers -
A: Resources
B: Skills
C: Attributes
D: Race(Dwarf)
E: Magic.

If the point system or sum-to-10 is available, just take high resources, skills, and decent attributes and don't go Dwarf(That karma pool is so, so nice). Riggers can get by with lower attributes than others because they don't ever need to show up with the others, their drones are their hands and feet.

Skills
-A computer(programming) equal to the highest pilot among your drones. Probably 1(3).
-Car skill. This is a very important skill. Consider a specialization in Remote Operations.
-Another vehicle skill is nice, preferably something you have a drone for. Again, consider a specialization in Remote Operations.
-Gunnery. Gunnery is pwnage.
-Electronics. Do NOT take Elec B/R too or else your team might try to take you inside to crack maglocks. YOU DO NOT WANT THAT! You may want to consider specializing in electronic warfare.
-Car B/R. Seriously, mechanics fees are extortionate in SR. You might end up paying more in installation or repair fees than you did for the equipment itself. It's cheaper to just rent a facility(You need a facility for, uh, EVERYTHING. I've made a chart).

You need a big vehicle, ground assault drones, ground scouting drones, aerial combat drones, aerial scout drones, and some random weird drones.

Big vehicle: Any body 4 vehicle. Anything bigger is too conspicuous, anything smaller is too small for your drones and the team. An armor of at least 5 is critical. If you can get that, you're pretty much done. Don't put too much money into vehicles though, a morphing license plate, photovolaic paint and armor are pretty much the limit. Anything more is too big a target for your GM. Edit: And yes, this should be remote-operated.

Ground Assault Drones: Ignore the Steel Lynx. It's very tempting, but don't give into temptation. There are so many times you'll end up stuck twiddling your thumbs while everyone else has fun. Try to build a good, solid Body 1 drone if at all possible. Much more portable. If your GM doesn't allow custom drones, try to build one off of the Ferret(The Ferret is an illegally-built drone, you can't replicate it with a custom built drone). You may also want to consider a walker of some variety for hard-to-reach places. Don't forget to add a smartlink system to it. Consider carefully an autosoft system; My team doesn't let me set drones with guns on autopilot under any circumstances.

Ground scout drones: 0-body drones. Not much to say here.

Aerial combat drones: Rotodrones are best. You'll want that skill anyways just in case you somehow get your grubby mits on a 'copter.

Aerial scout drones: Blimps > All.

Random weird drones: Drones with arms, drones that make smoke, drones that are wired to self-destruct, portable missile platforms, drones with flamethrowers - The sky is the limit for strange, off-beat drones. You might only get a chance to use them once, but the look on team mates faces when you mention that yes, you DO have a drone that looks like a dolphin with a freakin' laser beam on its head is priceless.

EQUIPMENT
-Remote control deck and accessories. These are absolutely necessary for any half-way competent rigger.
-VCR-2, a smartlink-2 processor(You don't need any other Smartlink parts), a datajack, and you're on the path to awesome. A VCR-3 can be nice, but think very carefully before you take it. It pretty much permanently pigeon holes you in the role of Rigger without any room for cybernetic growth.
-Mnemonic enhancer 1. Cheap skills = Gud.
-Ares alphas are your weapons of choice on drones. Try to talk your GM into letting you somehow dual-mount them.

CONTACTS!
You absolutely want to do everything in your power to get the Connected edge at 3 points. I'm not kidding, it's so, so useful to get, say, vehicle components at no SI. Just LOOK at the SIs on some of those things, they're absolutely crazy.

-Mechanic
-Arms dealer
-Misc info guys
-Guy who can rent you a vehicle facility
-Used car dealer
-Guy who can sell you military-grade drones.
-Guy who can sell you drone parts.

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I'm not much of a fan of FDDM and such. It just doesn't come up all that often in my experience.
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Edward comments on one cheesy idea, but talks about spending money 'upgrading decks'. WTFNO. Just kill someone else and take THEIR deck. It'll have everything you need already because, well, they were using it already.

My favorite rigger is the flying rigger. It has some serious advantages and serious disadvantages. Fist-off most aircraft worth having are either A: way to expensive or B: have an astronomical availability, wich means you won’t start with one. Bonus to this is ya save the Cred to buy other things. Often I only start with 400K if I’m making a flying rigger. Get the cyber and a few drones; end up with more skills – skills to help me get my Tilt-rotor or T-Bird at a five finger discount. The first time I did this trick I ‘hired’ the rest of the team to help. We stole 2 T-birds from Boeing and sold one and split the cred. I kept the other one.

Skill wise the flying rigger is fairly well off. Remember that the VCR reduces default penalties. I suggest arming your flyers with guns rather than missiles because missiles are very expensive. (One or two AIM-99’s might be good though incase you piss of the metroplex guard)

Why go Vertical? Beat traffic, move faster and farther. With a decent fast moving aircraft you can be anyplace in minutes. Our games usually leave Seattle fairly often so having our own transport is nice. Believe me; having a fairly easy way to get in to CalFree is worth it. I usually take a contact inside SEATAC ATC incase I really need to break air traffic rules.

Riggers also make great keepers of the comm-gear too.

IMHO the rigger is the most all around useful guy on a team.
A 30K Lone star stratus 9, with a little mod is better at combat than a handful of street sams. And they can spot/destroy invisible bad guys too.
A condor plus a couple of little walkers will let you get into any place in the world that has air ducts, electronic conduit, or any other chink in the walls.
He also provides the wheels in and out, he can take over the security system if it's rigged, and since he needs shop space he's always got an emergency safehouse.

You don't need to give him other functions, just maximize what he can already do.

For flying combat drones, I'm a big fan of the Ares Guardian. Nine armor, and explicitly designed for use indoors. Try adding an autosoft interpretation system and sharpshooter/clearsight: seven dice on Sensor tests, then eight (3pilot + 3soft + 2SEG) for gunnery when you're not jumped in. The Strato-9 is an excellent drone (the rigger in my campaign has five), but they're unarmored and can't, IIRC, mount much armor without breaking their load limits.

Speaking as said Rigger, Stratos are excellent surveillance drones with good offensive capability, but don't have nearly enough armor to work autonomously. If you're not willing to dance the Rigger Jig with what all you're jumped into, a Guardian may be a better choice.

I don't have R3 on hand, though—can Guardians hover?

~J

Yep

You buy a Strato for the MMG, if you have to build one similar from the ground up, it isn't worth it. But by the book, a Strato is allowable.

Eh even in a stealth run there is use for it... if the hell hits the fan,... and in most runs a device that hums quietly, fits in elevators, and is equal in combat to a well armed squad... is valuable


at least until i can get an ares guardian

Rigging and magic together can be expensize as hell, but to the guy that can do it, wow. One word for that: the general

IF you can get a cranial remote deck, and a bunch of elementals on service, and send them all out against an enemy at once, they're in for a world of hurt. Coordinate the drones with batteltac, and if you've got the skills and , build them into robots. You can give the elemental commands such as 'attack whatever that drone attacks', or pass them off to an ally for one service.

Take the encephelon and/or an infusion focus w/ multitasking to free up some free actions, a taccomp and small unit tactics. Sit back in your van w/ fiberoptics cables to cast spells out of and just coordiante your forces. To make it a little easier, just make the character a conjurer and ditch tthe whole spell thing. But of course then you can't anchor spells to stuff.

Now granted it would be a pain to coordinate everything correctly, take way more resources and karma for initiation and boosting charisma then a lot of runners have available. But it is possible.

Or just play an atypical rigger and leave the decking to the decker and the mojo to the mojo man

In small groups though, rigger and decker combined's a viable option. If you have a larger group, and especilialy if you're the only rigger on the team, I'd concentrate on mainly rigging myself.

As far as rigger/mage or rigger/aspected magician or adept, I've never touched either of those. Odds are the character in question would come from a poorer part of town, and thus end up with low resources at Gen. Most people on societies high-end get tested young for magical capability. I could see a kid growing up and getting involved with a go-gang, not realizing he was a mage, and going under the knife for a VCR. On the other hand, said kid grows up, wants to join the military, does so, has a knack for vehicles, is about to go under the knife when the military realizes he's magically active. I'd bet they'd push him another direction.

Remember it's not just about what your character can do but who he is. Would the go-ganger in the above example be tormented by the huge chunk of essence he gave up when younger? I'd guess most likely.

Non-Connected Riggers aren't good fits for the Shadows. It's not that bad an assumption that a dedicated Rigger will have at least one-way Connected.

~J

I wouldn't say a bad fit but a connected Rigger certainly will end up with alot cooler toys in the long run then a non-connected one. An SI of even 1.5 can be killer when the base prices are hitting 50k+. That extra change adds up quick.

At a hefty 3 points for the one way connection I'd say it's worth every point.

The primary skill for Decking is a requirement for effective non-direct drone use. You won't have the hardware or software, but if you pick those up you'll be ready to rumble immediately.

~J

I wouldn't be so convinced that we're the only ones who can learn from the mistakes of others. Certainly the communications network is superior, offering a greater pool of people to learn from, but unless you've got studies backing this up (and I certainly haven't seen any) I'm inclined to call bulldrek on it.

~J

Something like this: (I know, some of this stuff is funky. It's played somewhere with strange house rules. Like the multi-specializations. And I'm fairly sure some of the essence costs are off.

Note that initially, he had a 1 charisma. For ett rolls, he was facing a +10 TN at base. He's an interesting guy, and the sheet is absolutely monstrous.

Speaking of Riggers, I have a friend who is trying out a rigger for the first time. Thing is, he wants to be on-site, with the team, in the flesh. He's decided to focus on drone-rigging and basically wants to go about on a mission while escorted by his drones, which will use autosofts and higher pilot ratings to not suck. My question is this: Is this possible? Can you act normally while using a remote control deck? If not, can you give your drones their orders, then jack out and act normally? If so, what types of orders would you give in an indoor mission? Fire at anything we target designate? Fire at anything these people fire at? I want to help my player accomplish his goal, I'm just not sure how to go about it. I suspect I may have to get into robotics, but there seem to be insufficient rules in R3 for that. Are there better rules in R3Revised? Where in the books are these rules? I assume he would want to turn existing drones into semi-autonomous machines.

Any help is appreciated, and thanks in advance.

OSUMacbeth

It's possible. It's very difficult, and requires a lot of experience creating algorithms, predicting situations and possibilities, and overall knowledge of the way the world and automated systems work.

Alternatively, get him a very high Intelligence rating (nontrivially higher than the player's), some appropriate Knowledge Skills, and talk the GM into allowing limited adjustment of drone orders on-the-fly to reflect the character's greater competence as compared to the player.

~J

Actually, we seem to have found the pertinent rules that will allow him to do what he's looking for. On Rigger3 27, it says that a rigger using captain's chair mode can still act normally with a +1 to all actions, and a +8 from the RAS override if he jumps into a drone. Between this, drone commands, and pre-programmed drone commands, he should have no problem having his drones follow him around and help out during runs.

OSUMacbeth

Going for stuff noone else mentioned.

Demolitions are nice to have as a rigger, you don't have to risk your precious hide to do it either, cheap drones with articulated arms are great for this. Heck you could just make the drone the bomb.

Computer is an always handy skill to have for any character, but especially for a tech character like a rigger. you have a datajack anyway why not use it? Even if it is just to be a back-ip decker.

Kinda odd noone mentioned any type of water-based vehicle skills. As there is a very large body of water right next too Seattle. Probably my pirate side talking.

Parachuting, cause while going down with the ship is noble, going down with the plane is, well dumb.

Diving/SCUBA, cause well sometimes you want people to think you went down with the ship.

For Cyber/Bio
Math SPUs are nice you can calculate a ton of stuff with one. Combat-wise I'd get a smartlink-2 atleast. Preferably with spurs and a synaptic accelerater, cause face it you can't be in a vehicle all the time and the 6th world is a very dangerous place. Trauma Dampers are nice because, in SR dumpshock is not your friend.

For Gear
JIM suits are cool. Mount a Assault Cannon on one and you could be a glitterboy . Kits to make on-the-fly repairs, parachutes where needed, Demolitions gear, Signal amplifers are nice.

For Vehicles
Bulldog Stepvans are close to the ultimate rigger vehicle, these things are made for riggers, get the security version if you can, can't tell it from the commercial and has nice load/CF.

The Hughes WK-2 Stallion is cheap, can carry the most of all other helicopters. Downside is no armor, but that's easy to remedy.

For a vehicle you don't have to mess with besides rigger adaptation, the BMW Blitzen can't be beat. It's the second fastest bike but is not even half the price of the fastest (Harley Electroglide) but has room for two. It's fast, armored, and has good handling.

Carwise I like both the Ford Americar for it's ability to blend in and the Saab Dynamite for sheer speed. With minor mods. these are nice cars.

Rahte rthan parachuting, just make sure the riggable glider thingie is in the cockpit. you've got a better chance of piloting it to safety than parachuting under labratory conditions in SR.

Guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I might not get into alot of non-rigger fights, but those I do I'd rather say "Huh, didn't need my reflexes jacked to take out those guys." after a fight. Then "Oh, damn wish I had some spurs/a smartlink/some sort of speed increaser." during a fight.

100k is easy to make as a rigger, smuggle something or somebody (even something as easy to get as water is worth millions in certain places), rob a deliverly truck and fence the loot, stealing cars, etc..

Gonna horribly mangle this quote but, "I'd rather spend money and live, then save money and die." Sure I could have a drone following me all the time, but I don't have a CRCD so I'd have to be plugged into a regular one a good percentage of the time. I doubt alot of places will allow me to carry a RCD in them. What happens when I run into trouble somewhere combat drones aren't feasible?

It's a personal style thing I guess.

I'd have to agree with Angelone on this one. Maybe the rest of you guys play games where the rigger never has to leave their vehicle, or can always have an RCD network up, or doesn't have to deal with jamming or bad conditions or anything like that, but it certainly isn't the way our games go. I'm not saying it's a bad playstyle, just different.

I guess I'd say that our games tend to be more realistic in this respect, but there are certainly many situations, even in a single game where it's impractical to use vehicles or drones, or simply impossible. Like the last poster said, in our games the more prepared you are, the longer you live. For our games, I would never ever suggest not having at least a little combat and survival ability, unless you're a decker who is never within ten miles of the run, or like my quadraplegic rigger, for whom such skills would be pointless. Even my mage has a very high skill with a Steyr TMP and a smartlink, cybereyes, trauma damper, and damage compensators.

I've never regretted their purchase.

OSUMacbeth

I'm going to disagree here. A little flux boosting can cut through most jamming, and keeping your drones in tight negatives the vast majority of poor condition problems. Sure you still have to leave the vehicle, but this isn't a case where you can be protected with minimal sacrifice—if you're going to make sure that you don't have to rely on others outside of the vehicle, you'll be ensuring that you do have to rely on them inside.

~J

All those riggers sound nice and peachy. And quite useless in most of the "stuff" I had to suffer. So here is another option for those suffering groups with mage overload:

Go Security Rigger! Forget all those tons of vehicle skills and vehicles (A fast motorcycle is enough). Get a low-level VCR, a low-level internal Rigger deck with good decryption etc, a small deck (so you're the decker), MagBreaker etc. Add some enhanced reflexes and a smartlink (you will be the only fighter)

Get some B/E skills, some gun skills, good Etiquet/Street, Good Stealth/Sneaking. Feel somewhat useful since the mages will allow you to use some of your skills on occassion

Make a Thamanous contact. Sell the other characters. Feel happy. Retire wealthy.

Jokes aside:

A security specialist/fighter combo can be a quite interesting character, even more so if you use the new stuff and skills from the SotA books. He gets more action than a vehicle rigger, has less toys (maybe 1-2 small drones) and makes for good day jobs

Birdy

[QUOTE="Angelone"]Then "Oh, damn wish I had some spurs/a smartlink/some sort of speed increaser." during a fight. [/QUOTE]If you are just totally dead-set on setting fire to nuyen for a high initiative, grabbing your local spell-slinger and getting him to cast Improved Reflexes +3 into a sustaining foci is a valid(and cheap relative to a synaptic accelerator) option. Unless your GM comes from the school of thought that every single Stuffer Shack has a ward on the door, it's not likely to ever come up.[/QUOTE]

Like I said personal style. I'd rather have something that's harder to spot, but not as effective, than something that lights me up like a Christmas Tree to anyone who happens to look at me astrally.

[QUOTE="Angelone"]but I don't have a CRCD[/QUOTE]
But you could. You've already said you bought spurs. Those are .3 each. A CRCD is .3 essence and, pre-SI, 2K more than a pair of spurs. Granted, it'd have a range of 250 meters, but you don't need to build up a new melee skill to use it either. [/QUOTE]

Don't really like CRCDs personally, to weak and to hard to upgrade for my tastes. I can always toss or fix my RCD if something goes wrong with it, but it's kinda hard to do when it's in you.

[QUOTE="Angelone"] You don't know my GM. Everything's fair game, so the more prepared you are the longer you'll be around.[/QUOTE]
If my character dies...I make a new one. If a GM insists on randomly killing chars that try to avoid combat, I can just keep making new, original characters. He might get concerned about my constant influx of nuyen into the group from dead characters. A dead rigger created with 1 mil resources is a pretty big windfall for most groups.[/QUOTE]

I make new characters when mine die too. My GM doesn't randomly kill character's who avoid combat. I'm just preaching preparedness. Your group doesn't do a run right after they get it do they? I hope they scout, plan, and plan some more before they do the run. EDIT- Isn't a rigger with spurs an original character?

[QUOTE="OSUMacBeth"]unless you're a decker who is never within ten miles of the run[[/QUOTE]
That describes most riggers absolutely perfectly. Check out the flux chart on page 137. Even with lots of negative modifiers, you can be very far away from almost all runs, especially with a good signal amplifier and a signal retransmitter unit or two. [/QUOTE]

Rigger's aren't meant to be frontline fighters, their drones are supposed to do that for them. However, saying a rigger will never get into a situation where they need to fight with their flesh body is as unrealistic as saying they live in their van and never come out. Is it really such a bad thing to be prepared for it?

EDIT- Umm...wow I can't quote please excuse the big mess of poor formating my post is. What I do wrong?