Thanks
Your devices are 100% available to you at all times. I'm not sure why they wouldn't be. If you're worried about the whole distributed computing thing taking functionality, the distributed bit would only take idle cycles, the stuff you're not using anyway.
Make sense. But had to be sure.
I'm also not sure why a rigger wouldn't be able to use his drones in a desert. Static zones are slower due to there being fewer devices to pass data and therefore less bandwidth, but nothing completely cuts off Matrix access. Except maybe Faraday cages.
There is still the problem of area like research facility and so on, where corps or gov could cut access from the Matrix on the surrounding zone by cutting the relays (or making them unusable unless you have this nice authentication program and this chip embarked -allegedly could be spoofed-).
Or when you go underground (you could be underground, using your drone as a scout, but if you must go through matrix, you will need a long long roll of optic fiber;))
If you really depend on Matrix for this, it makes thing strange, even more if you need a special control console to pilot drones (in previous ed, it was the emitter, drones were receiver, period). I think that making riggers needing to go through Matrix make more complication for everyone. And as it was related to the fact that it is impossible to hack slaves without hacking the PAN, then it destroy an interesting possibility for the hacker, which is against all the things you set up for making them more useful.
I understand the need to have some defense against them, but it could simply a high difficulty for spoofing slaves due to the hardness of the protocols.
