[PiXeL01]

So the Target Device EW action gives dice bonuses to any attack made against a device targeted via the matrix.

What if I target a stealth tag, have a drone or pickpocket put it on a target, would attacks made against that target then received the bonuses?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Sounds like a good plan to me.

[Jack_Spade]

Yes. You can even use a Tracker round to do so. Having your own device traced should allow you to forgo the resistance roll and make your successes into net successes.

[PiXeL01]

Even better.

Thank you for the quick responses

[Tinkerbell]

It's a nice idea.
But you would attack the device not the person.
I don't know how this would damage the person. Does the armor count as a barrier then?

Normally pocket are placed in the clothing. When you attack the chip in the pocket you will hit the person at an armored spot. Normally you try to hit is where the armor is weak (at least this is what I understand multiple attacking successes are representing for me). I guess there are no RAW for that but I would assume this resulting in some negative dice.

And the tag is very small - so maybe this would result in some size modifyers or it is handled like a called shot? How would it be handled when your decker would hack into the enemys cybereyes and uses Target Device there?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Combat in Shadowrun is highly abstracted. I'd just leave it at that, to be honest. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, be prepared for a lot of issues like this to start cropping up.

[Jack_Spade]

I think you are over complicating this a bit.
The matrix action is meant to be a boost for drone riggers so that their drones can hit the target more reliably. It's not the exact location of the device that matters, but that it is moving in sync with the target so you can adjust your aim accordingly with sudden direction changes.

I love this action, because now you can use a long range rifle to apply a tracker on a vehicle and than have some heavy artillery follow up (which in essence is like the NARC system from Battletech)

[Herr Brackhaus]

Fire for effect!

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, given that it requires you yourself to tag the target first, I think gameplaywise you've put in sufficient effort to deserve the bonus your drones get.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Speaking of...

You can target that device and feed targeting data to any pilot program or person with a Sensor rating or smartlink that is slaved to your RCC.

I'm assuming person is correct and shouldn't be persona, and this means you can feed targeting information to your street samurai as long as their smartgun is slaved to your RCC.

That's potentially gamechanging, as it introduces a legitimate way for Riggers and Deckers to provide targeting information to other members of the team, which have been a gray area up until now under RAW, at least. Heck, they wouldn't even need to slave their smartgun to your RCC, you'd just have to give them a sensor package they could use and slave that to your RCC.

Attacking through walls have never been easier. A really good decker or rigger could entirely negate the -6 Blindfire penalty, and a reasonably good one could feasibly halve it.

Assuming a decker or rigger with some time to plan ahead (i.e. run Matrix Perception Tests), and an EW skill of 6 and a logic of 6, you're looking at a dice pool of 12 vs anything from 4 or 5 (PR0 and 1) to 8 or 9 (PR4). That's a great situational bonus that allows a high-initiative decker or rigger to contribute directly to the combat effectiveness of both his own drones and other team mates without exposing himself to unnecesary risk.

[adzling]

This all sounds rather cool.

[Jack_Spade]

You don't even need a rigger to to that: Get yourself a spotter drone with a decent pilot rating and EW autosoft and have it do the targeting.

Personally I like to tie the goldfish drone for that purpose to my rifle 

[Herr Brackhaus]

You don't even need a rigger to to that: Get yourself a spotter drone with a decent pilot rating and EW autosoft and have it do the targeting.

Personally I like to tie the goldfish drone for that purpose to my rifle 

Heh, not a bad idea, though I'd use a Crawler instead and have it tag along with me. It comes with a Rating 4 pilot stock making it slightly cheaper (4,000 vs 500+3,600) and could be upgraded to Pilot 6 (unlike the Goldfish which can only handle Pilot 4).

Actually, this makes Fly-Spy drones pretty powerful; grab the cheapest RCC, slave 10 Fly-Spy drones to it, run a Rating 3 EW and Stealth autosoft as well as Swarm on the RCC, and you've got yourself a swarm of flies that are hard to detect (-2 for mini, -3 for speed) but can give you 15 dice on the EW test... And this is why Swarm needs to be hit with the wifflebat of nerf.

[falar]

And this is why Swarm needs to be hit with the wifflebat of nerf.

The house rule my GM is using is that Swarm is a rated Autosoft that can support up to Rating + 1 drones in the swarm and maxes at Rating 6. Otherwise, it's exactly the same. In this case, you could get a maximum of 6 Pilot + 6 Electronic Warfare + 6 Swarm = 18 dice for that check for 44,000 nuyen or so.

[FasterN8]

Actually, this makes Fly-Spy drones pretty powerful; grab the cheapest RCC, slave 10 Fly-Spy drones to it, run a Rating 3 EW and Stealth autosoft as well as Swarm on the RCC, and you've got yourself a swarm of flies that are hard to detect (-2 for mini, -3 for speed) but can give you 15 dice on the EW test... And this is why Swarm needs to be hit with the wifflebat of nerf.

Don't forget that the cheapest RCC won't slave 10 things.  You need at least a R4 RCC to swing that. 

But if you were going for the best bang for your buck you could use and R3 deck and slave 8 of them for a +7.  (leaving 1 slave spot for the shooter's smartgun)
R3 RCC   - 16k
8 Fly Spy - 16k
R3 EW     - 1.5k

That's still  $33,500 for a dice pool of 13 (if you don't use falar's house rule).  Still pretty awesome, but I would worry about losing 16k in drones as soon as someone targets it with supressive fire or even worse - flechette supressive fire.   

    The obvious counter to that would be range, but how far away can the swarm be and still be effective?  100m?  Because nobody is going to target those bugs at that distance or even half that distance.   

[Edit -  I apparently hit post before I was done typing and didn't realize it.  I had some more to say and fixed some numbers to account for the weapons slaving.]