Shadowrunner say what?
I think my love for complex characters, and in this instance Drone Riggers in particular has finally shot me in the foot. x_x If spent a couple days with the Shadowrun 4th rule book, reading and rereading everything that relates to drone riggers, I've looked at FAQs on the subject and even spent time lurking on the Dumpshock forums trying to figure out exactly how to build a drone rigger... and I'm still not exactly sure how it's supposed to work out. Several things I've read, both online and in the book would lead me to believe that the stock rigger in the book is built badly and probably wouldn't actually be good at being a rigger and a few things I've looked at have made me think that I actually kind of need to build a hacker but instead of having agents, I just have drones and the matrix combat style programs can be allowed to fall to the side because I operate out of my own comlink more than say... actually going into the matrix and operating in foreign nodes. That and some things are just contradictory. In one part of the book it seems to state that you actually need the Command Program to remote operate a drone, though it never actually lists any mechanics on how this functions while in other parts of the book it says that you can just issue commands and the drone will try to figure it out on it's own. And then there's the fact that appearently drones and such have their own innate ratings in Firewall and other such softwares though it doesn't specifically mention that in the drone section. I actually had to reference the device rating section. And then there's the cost of actually upgrading software and the rather nebulous nature of autosofts which is presented as being both purchased on a by drone basis and also as being like programs that are simply run on the comlink and used by any drones you have subscribed. @_@
At this point, I would KILL to have a Rigger Book out and on the shelves for 4th ed... hell... I'd kill for anything that just had more drones and drone rules. It doesn't seem really good to have a skill like Pilot Anthroform when there's only like... 1 drone that actually uses the skill, and that one is too small to even be equipped with a hard point to put a gun on it. I still wanna play a drone rigger... it's just... damn, it's rather confusing.
I have figured out how much a step-van costs when it's rigger adapted though... and it's not cheap:
GMC Bulldog Step-Van: 35,000
Rigger Adaptation: 2,500
Upgrade to Pilot 4 (from 2): 10,000
Upgrade Firewall to 4 (from 3): 2,000
Upgrade Response to 4 (from 3): 2,000
Upgrade Signal to 4 (from 3): 500
Total: 52,000
Oh, and I found an old picutre from one of the older editions of a steel lynx too. Seeing the size comparison to a human, I might actually get one:
At this point, I would KILL to have a Rigger Book out and on the shelves for 4th ed... hell... I'd kill for anything that just had more drones and drone rules. It doesn't seem really good to have a skill like Pilot Anthroform when there's only like... 1 drone that actually uses the skill, and that one is too small to even be equipped with a hard point to put a gun on it. I still wanna play a drone rigger... it's just... damn, it's rather confusing.
I have figured out how much a step-van costs when it's rigger adapted though... and it's not cheap:
GMC Bulldog Step-Van: 35,000
Rigger Adaptation: 2,500
Upgrade to Pilot 4 (from 2): 10,000
Upgrade Firewall to 4 (from 3): 2,000
Upgrade Response to 4 (from 3): 2,000
Upgrade Signal to 4 (from 3): 500
Total: 52,000
Oh, and I found an old picutre from one of the older editions of a steel lynx too. Seeing the size comparison to a human, I might actually get one: