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How do I fix Riggers?

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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #15 on: <07-16-18/1426:09> »
Swarm limitations make sense, better to hardwire those to perhaps RCC-rating per individual swarm max. As for problematic rules, here's stuff I can dig out, which includes a lovely mixture of terminology and contradicting rules. (Redownloaded my SR5 book since the original PDF was stuck on an unplugged computer.)

Gunnery
p185: G+A[Acc] manual, G+L[Acc] remote
p240: G+A for drone-mounted:
"You perform an action through a device you control (or at least control sufficiently), using your commlink or deck like a remote control or video-game controller. The dice pool of any test you make using this action uses the rating of the appropriate skill and attribute you would use if you were performing the action normally."
p186: G+L[Sensor] Passive Targeting with signature penalty (active targeting requires a Simple action and will provide the defender with a penalty)

Drones always lose 3 dice? Weird.
Assumption: Control Device description mentions AR-gestures. Makes no sense in VR. Ruling required.

Bonuses & Vehicle Active skills:
p267: All Pilot skills, + Gunnery, are Vehicle Active skills
p268: Jumped In: Vehicle Actions, inc Gunnery and Sensor tests, become Matrix actions, which means a Hotsim bonus. Claims Hotsim bonus is +1, which is a point of contention. (Assumption: default +2, not the +1 listed)

Control Rig:
p201, p203: Piloting AR+1 Limit, VR+2 limit. Jumped in threshold down by rating Control Rig.
p268: Limits + Rating Control Rig (what about VR? Do the bonuses stack to max +5? It does say it connects more smoothly), this includes Sensors, Speed, Handling, Accuracy.
p454: Control Rig gives Rating as dice-bonus on Vehicle skill tests (Vehicle Active?), adds rating to Handling and Speed, reduces thresholds
CONTRADICTION: Bonus on Handling and Speed, not Limits, means a Rating 3 Control Rig lets you eightfold maximum speed of a vehicle.
CONTRADICTION: Dice bonus not listed elsewhere?

Vehicle Speed: Helicopters can hit 140 in town, 220 open terrain. Tiltwing can hit 300. Cars can hit 80 in town, 120 in rural areas. These are not supported by rules, and any Speed 3 vehicle can't hit 80, only 50, under RAW.
Decision: Change Speed rules

Since she's chasing a F9 channeler, even with average agility of 4 that's... 288 in a combat turn.

That's a speed 8 ground vehicle, a speed 4 air, a speed .8 Jet.   (Wakshaani wrote about the varying speeds that never made it into rigger 5)

So she should be fine keeping up especially with control rigs to bump it up.  Maybe not on foot, but rotodrones can definitely keep up and part of most arsenals, same for noizquitos or fly spies, etc.

In general the houserules to keep it simple would probably be:

* Intuition for reaction, logic for all gunnery.
* Any held weapon is gunnery, the appeal of riggers is that swiss army knife feel.
* Repair costs capped at 20% of the drone cost, if recoverable. Or base drone price cost, or any combination of the two.
* Forget noise except as a plot device once fresnel fabric, cyberears with antennae x3, datajack is bought.
* Allow extra armor outside of mod points or vehicle points.  This way you can make some fragile drones semi armored.  That said, just keep it reasonable for both sides.
Yeah, vehicle speeds make no sense. Under RAW, Speed 3 vehicles can't reach the speed fluff says cars have on a highway in town. That's why I designed a flattened table, which doubles every 2 steps and has the same velocity at Speed 5. Also helps nerf the Eurocar Westwind a bit. Included rules to boost the Velocity of aircrafts to compensate. Not sure what those houserules are?

My own decision would probably Agility for AR, Logic for VR for Gunnery. Repair costs nerfed helps yes. Noise can be fought quite well. Not sure about armor.

It doesn't matter if a control rig will increase the Speed Attribute or the [Speed] Limit. The Speed Attribute is never actually used as a dice pool modifier or measure of how far you travel in a combat turn compared to other vehicles in a chase situation. Game Mechanic wise you only use [Speed] as a Limit. Game mechanic wise raising the Speed Attribute or "only" the [Speed] limit is the same thing
Uh. No. When I know enemies are X distance away, the amount of time it takes to get there does enter play. And when a Channeling Mage goes way faster than a Drone, that's rather significant. So there is a BIG difference between Speed and [Speed], so there's 100% a contradiction.

One thing that helps on a more "holistic" scale, consisting of two steps:

  • Nerf to the Hardened Armor Rules: Hardened Armor still grants half its rating as automatic hits BUT these are Hits deducted from the remaining dice of your Soak roll - Think of them as Dice that automatically score a hit instead of flat out bonus hits. (There are other ways of facilitating this Nerf, f.i. leaving the auto hits out entirely and flat doubling the amount of Soak dice generated by hardened armor).
  • Buff to Drone Armor: With the Nerf in place, houserule Drones and Vehicles to have Hardened Armor.

Working together, both rules should help to:
  • Make Hardened Armor in Spirits and Milspecc Armor less ridiculous.
  • Level out the fields between Summoners and Riggers (at least a little bit)
  • Make Armored Drones more survivable
  • Make Armor Penetration more important when fighting drones and vehicles - which is quite plausible!

My players like it; even the Shaman and the Milspeccīd Streetsam  ;)

Oh and fuck the Movement Power. It doesnīt add anything to the game except cheese.
Eh, Hardened Armor can be fought with Bullseye. And Immunity is vulnerable to magical damage. But yeah, Drones should have some sort of anti-squishiness. As for Movement, when time literally is of the essence, that speed has both tactical and strategical value. So I wouldn't ditch it 100%, even though my houserule of max -80% bonus depending on circumstances doesn't balance out enough.

My other Houserules for Riggers:

  • Base condition Monitors for Drones (before adding Body/2) are based on their Size: 2 for Microdrones, 4 for Minidrones, 6 for small Drones, 8 for medium Drones, 10 for Large Drones and 12 for Huge Drones and Vehicles.
  • Electric Damage: If the Damage is physical (f.i. by a Ball Lightning Spell), apply the full amount of applied Damage to both the Physical and the Matrix Condition Monitor and also apply the secondary Effects if the Drone is controled by a Pilot Program. If the damage is Stun, split the amount between both Monitors. (half a nerf and half a buff. IMO, it makes sense that High Voltage Electricity is dangerous to Drones, but not Tasers. This way, physical is more dangerous and stun is less dangerous then in current RAW)
  • Aktive Sensor Targetting is handled as a success test and not as an opposed test. The victim can still break away (with a Complex Action and an opposed test).
  • Excess Capacity of Weapon Mounts: Based on the Rules detailed in Rigger 5.0, a drone mount equipped with a smaller-than-possible weapon may have the remaining space "filled up" with an appropriate smaller weapon OR add 1 point of recoil compensation for each Point of unused "space". Example: A Heavy Weapon Mount (6 MP) equipped with an Assault Rifle (which only needs a 4 MP mount) can add an additional Machine Pistol or smaller weapon OR 2 Points of Recoil Compensation.
  • Shooting Mounted Weapons: Shooting mounted weapons uses Logic instead of Agility, as long as the shooter doesnīt use manual control (may be already RAW?). Also, firing them uses the same Actions (Simple or Complex) as firing unmounted weapons.
  • Manual Weapon Mount Control: (Unarmored) Manual Control on a  Vehicle Weapon Mount adds to the Cost, Threshold, Availability and Modification Slots needed only if itīs added to the Remote Control, but not if Remote Control is replaced entirely.
  • Autosofts: Drones have access to all internal Autosofts and to all RCC-shared Autosofts at the same time and will automatically choose the Autosoft with the highest rating for any given task. Thereīs also no limit on how many internal autosofts a drone can have and run. However, the max. rating of an internal Autosoft is the droneīs Pilot rating (with the ecception of pre-installed Autosofts(), the max. rating of an RCC-Shared autosofts is the RCCīs device rating. (It should be obvious why the current rules are not reasonable...)
  • Nozquito: The negative dice pool Modificator from multiple Nozquitos is not cumulative. (Classic Catalyst: The Nozquito is one of the best drones in Rigger 5.0, but itīs so obviously OP that many tables, Missions included, outright ban them after first use.  Nerfing them is essentially a buff for Riggers...)
Condition Monitor makes sense. Stun damage, so nerf weapons that are meant to stun, seems interesting.
Allowing so many internal autosofts kind of takes out the fang of having to make tactical decisions, so not sure there.

Nozquitos I already nerfed in the past. I forget what the limit was though. But the second didn't just add a full penalty again. We've used them in the past, which turned out to not be a smart move. XD Something with enemies getting so confused they sprayed bystanders instead.
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Xenon

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« Reply #16 on: <07-16-18/1828:03> »
Uh. No. When I know enemies are X distance away, the amount of time it takes to get there does enter play. And when a Channeling Mage goes way faster than a Drone, that's rather significant. So there is a BIG difference between Speed and [Speed], so there's 100% a contradiction.
In basic vehicle rules described in core your Speed value have no influence at all on how fast your vehicle is moving in a Handling environment. In a Handling environment only the Handling value (and the Acceleration value) matters. In a Speed environment while trying to catch up to someone ahead of you or trying to break away from someone behind you the Speed value is only used as a Limit to your vehicle test. In fact in no vehicle test in the entire core book is the Speed value used as anything else than a Limit. It doesn't matter if the Speed value is increased by the control rig or if it is "only" the Speed Limit that is increased as the two are interchangeable. There is no contradiction.

The rate of meters per turn table from p. 203 in core is not referenced in any tests at all.

What really matters is the relative Chase range (short, medium, long, extreme), your net hits (which are limited by [Handling], [Speed] or [Data Processing]), the Acceleration value of your vehicle and your initiative score (if you have a high initiative score then you may take the action multiple times in the same combat turn). Just having a vehicle with a higher Speed value does not automatically mean you will travel faster....



The Speed value might be used differently in the advanced rules found in Rigger 5.0 (to be honest I never really got around to use them, but if I recall correctly all tests are now limited by the Handling value, the current Speed value is basically just added to the terrain threshold and the catch up/break away action is now an opposed test), but the rate of meters per turn table from p. 203 in core is still not referenced in any tests at all. In fact Rigger 5.0 even clarify that Speed value is not meant to be used as a meters per turn attribute and that the relative Speed value of an airplane is only relevant against other airplanes. Cars against other cars. Boats against other boats etc;

Rigger 5.0 p. 173
Speed is defined as a general value rather than a rate of meters per turn...the Speed value is relative only to the vehicle classification.


At Rigger 5.0 p. 49-50 you can also find two ground vehicles (the SAAB "Gladius" 998 Ti and the "Dynamite"). Without even involving the control rig they both come with a Speed value of 9 (straight out of the box). Using the translation table (which the book says we should not do) that would give us little more than 3000km/h.

This is part of the reason why the errata team is looking specifically at that table.... Until then, don't look blindly at the table.


Also; In the advanced rules in Rigger 5.0 - Speed is never used as a Limit which would make Control Rig increase to Speed pointless if it only affected Speed as a limit rather than Speed as a value.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #17 on: <07-29-18/0732:29> »
So now that I know the new Speed table W-something made for Rigger 5.0, I have to disagree with it because its lack of exponents loses value for some cars. The Eurocar Westwind is supposed to be massively fast, not just 30 kph faster than Speed-6 vehicles. Of course houseruling those means nerfing the Gladius and I8 Intercepter down to 7 instead of 8 or 9. But those still are only 240/270 kph right now, which is bollocks when we got plenty of cars at 350+ and even rare cars at 450+ in reality.

So I'm going to tweak the multiplication and exponents, trying to get average vehicles to still be a decent value while boosting the good and nerfing the bad. Just wondering about whether to go x2 in 2 or in 3 steps. Any thoughts on the first draft? Note that 1200 is just below 1 mach, so Jets would hit supersonic at either 7 or 8 (and Roto should be capped to not go past Speed 8 under multiplier 2).

Code: [Select]
W1 W2 Wo G1 G2 Go R1 R2 Ro J1 J2 Jo
SPD Mul1 Mul2 30 25 15 60 50 30 120 100 60 300 200 600
1 1 1 30 25 15 60 50 30 120 100 60 300 200 600
2 1,33 1,5 40 37,5 30 80 75 60 160 150 120 400 300 1200
3 1,67 2 50 50 45 100 100 90 200 200 180 500 400 1800
4 2 3 60 75 60 120 150 120 240 300 240 600 600 2400
5 2,67 4 80 100 75 160 200 150 320 400 300 800 800 3000
6 3,33 6 100 150 90 200 300 180 400 600 360 1000 1200 3600
7 4 8 120 200 105 240 400 210 480 800 420 1200 1600 4200
8 5,33 12 160 300 120 320 600 240 640 1200 480 1600 2400 4800
9 6,67 16 200 400 135 400 800 270 800 1600 540 2000 3200 5400
10 8 24 240 600 150 480 1200 300 960 2400 600 2400 4800 6000
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Xenon

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« Reply #18 on: <07-29-18/0833:18> »
Where is the rigger 5 table posted

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #19 on: <07-29-18/0943:55> »
The thing people reference is this:
https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=22807.msg419909#msg419909

With conversions made by someone:
https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=22807.msg421773#msg421773

I still dislike it, because the exponential growth meant a few more points actually mattered, so looking for a fair balance. Having separate base kph per vehicle-type is simpler than my 'reduce/increase Speed with X for calculating kph if you're Y' houserules, even if it means separate tables.

With G1, I think I'd boost the Westwind to Speed 8. With G2, I'd reduce the 8/9 vehicles to 7. My brother suggests a different flatrate (x40 for normal driving, x40x1.1 for risky driving, x40x1.25 for really pushing it, so like Speedx40/45/50 depending on how hard you're pushing the car) but meh. =P
« Last Edit: <07-29-18/0951:05> by Michael Chandra »
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Xenon

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« Reply #20 on: <07-29-18/1408:55> »
Thank you for the link.

But seeing as speed is [still] just used as a relative value compared to the speed value of the other vehicles in the chase (this part never really changed) it doesn't matter what the conversion rate is.... but the new table sure beats the one in core.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #21 on: <07-29-18/1423:29> »
Uh. No. When I know enemies are X distance away, the amount of time it takes to get there does enter play. And when a Channeling Mage goes way faster than a Drone, that's rather significant.
Let's see, how many runs did velocity matter in SR5, either in transport runs or otherwise... Of my own campaign, out of 32 SR5 runs, at least half a dozen speed was literally of the essence. In several more, players spread out for recon and combat actions, causing movement speed of both Channelers and Drones to matter greatly and attributing to a grumbling Rigger who couldn't beat the Mages even under nerfed Movement. And don't get me started on SRMs that literally broke down based on drone/spirit velocity.

So velocity matters. As I stated before. So I'd appreciate it if you stopped coming into my topic, where I ask for advice on how to handle the problems, just to claim there's no problem and I just am wrong.
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HP15BS

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« Reply #22 on: <07-29-18/1950:21> »
So I'd appreciate it if you stopped coming into my topic, where I ask for advice on how to handle the problems, just to claim there's no problem and I just am wrong.

I'm barely on these forums at all, and yet this is the 3rd instance of this kind of attitude I've read from you in about a week.
Yeah... you definitely seem the "How dare you disagree with me?! "  type.


Now for the part where I happen to agree with you... while still partially agreeing with the other side.    Ah, well, what can ya do?


Xenon is saying the written Speed should be viewed as an abstracted comparison between similar things. This is how it's written; this is a pen-and-paper rpg; thus it's the most correct way to look at it.

The problem with that is you're inevitably left comparing apples to oranges to mangoes to watermelons.
- Which poses an obvious problem.

The only solution I expect would work very well is to scrap the abstraction entirely in favor of concrete numbers (possibly number ranges?). Changes to these numbers should probably be as percentages.

Of course, the obvious problem here is that each individual vehicle would need its own concrete speed... which I certainly wouldn't care to assign unless paid to lol.
- Actually, keeping track of any variety of such things at a time would likely prove quite cumbersome, so... idk, just pick your poison, I guess.
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« Reply #23 on: <07-29-18/2230:19> »
My other Houserules for Riggers:

  • Autosofts: Drones have access to all internal Autosofts and to all RCC-shared Autosofts at the same time and will automatically choose the Autosoft with the highest rating for any given task. Thereīs also no limit on how many internal autosofts a drone can have and run. However, the max. rating of an internal Autosoft is the droneīs Pilot rating (with the ecception of pre-installed Autosofts(), the max. rating of an RCC-Shared autosofts is the RCCīs device rating. (It should be obvious why the current rules are not reasonable...)
I kinda like this. How well does this integrate into the game?

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #24 on: <07-30-18/0211:54> »
The only solution I expect would work very well is to scrap the abstraction entirely in favor of concrete numbers (possibly number ranges?). Changes to these numbers should probably be as percentages.

Of course, the obvious problem here is that each individual vehicle would need its own concrete speed... which I certainly wouldn't care to assign unless paid to lol.
- Actually, keeping track of any variety of such things at a time would likely prove quite cumbersome, so... idk, just pick your poison, I guess.
I lack the time and interest to make up Max Velocity rules for each vehicle. That's why I'm redesigning the Speed-to-Velocity formulae instead, and asking for feedback on those formulae, while basing it on a mixture of Core (too exponential, but I like the significant differences) and Wakshaani (too flat, but I like the difference between movement types).
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #25 on: <07-30-18/0257:40> »
I received a suggestion to improve the base Ground speed, so I made it 75. (Should I make Water 45? Thoughts?) Resulting table, where X1 is my formula and Xo Wakshaani's:

Code: [Select]
W1 Wo G1 Go R1 Ro J1 Jo
1 30 15 75 30 120 60 300 600
2 40 30 100 60 160 120 400 1200
3 50 45 125 90 200 180 500 1800
4 60 60 150 120 240 240 600 2400
5 80 75 200 150 320 300 800 3000
6 100 90 250 180 400 360 1000 3600
7 120 105 300 210 480 420 1200 4200
8 160 120 400 240 640 480 1600 4800
9 200 135 500 270 800 540 2000 5400
10 240 150 600 300 960 600 2400 6000
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Finstersang

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« Reply #26 on: <07-30-18/0632:22> »
Posted in the Errata thread: A revised Version of the Signature Modifiers.

+3  Oversized Vehicles and Critters (i.e. Dragons), Fire Spirits (makes sense, right?)
+1  Large Metahumans (i.e. Trolls), Critters and Drones, Cars
+0  Medium-Sized Metahumans (i.e. Elves, Orks Humans), Critters and Drones, Motorcycles, Other Spirits
-1   Small Metahumans (i.e. Dwarfs), Critters and Drones
-3   Minidrones, Very Small Critters
-6   Microdrones

And also a +1 Modificator for Targets with spotted wireless Equipment/Presence.

Currently, Sensor Targetting (and, if consistently applied, Sensor Perception Tests!) are way too deep in the "Too bad to ever use"-Zone. With a -3(!) Modifier to spot the most common targets (Metahumans), you have to ask yourself why Drones are considered viable tools for surveillance at all  :o

Finstersang

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« Reply #27 on: <07-30-18/1407:33> »
Oh, and another thing for Riggers using RCCs:

Currently, you can decide to distribute the RCCīs "Digital Resources" (i.e. a number of points equal to the device rating) over two special Attributes:

  • Sharing: For sharing Autosofts (and probably also Apps, RCC Matrix Programs and the Swarm Program? ???)
  • Noise Reduction: Self-explanatory

Iīd suggest two additional Special Attributes these Points can be used for:

  • Concealment: Serves as a Sleaze Attribute for the RCC and the devices slaved to it, but only for defensive tests.
  • Target List: For each in this attribute, the RCC can share the target lock acquired by a single active Sensor targeting test for all Drones in the WAN. Any attack can only profit from one active targeting lock (usually the tightest). Another way to make active Targeting more worthwhile  8)
« Last Edit: <07-30-18/1410:54> by Finstersang »

Baby Rigger

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« Reply #28 on: <08-01-18/1407:58> »
I really like the idea of concealment Finstersang. I think that should not only be a option for RCCs but comlinks as well either as a program or a hard ware upgrade. right now there is no way for non deckers to defend against hacks . non-deckers should not be able to go toe-to-toe with deckers but they should have options to protect them selves other running in hidden mode .

 

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #29 on: <08-02-18/1233:29> »
Wouldn't allowing Commlink Dongles (hello Stealth Dongle!) and running Smoke-n-Mirrors suffice for concealment, though? That way you don't fully cripple yourself to get Sleaze, you just pay cash and sacrifice a program slot.

I like the adjusted table, but I think it might be better to combine it with the Target Size Modifiers table from Rigger 5.0 (p181)? So -1/-2/-3, not -1/-3/-6? Thoughts?

I think the 75 base speed with the 3-step-doubling formula works good for Ground vehicles, but I'm not sure what would be good base values for the other 3 kinds of movement. Under the current values, a Banshee can go 1.3 mach, a Trimaran Speed 6 goes 100 kph which is the top speed of some catamarans nowadays, and a Rotodrone would go 240 kph, just like a Dragon. These values do seem fair (though I'd probably require vehicle tests if you want to fly a Dragon at max speed through a city. =P) to me.
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