[adzling]

Thanks for posting that Wak.
I agree that this rule makes sense, without it drones are just not good enough imho.
Happy to have it for our table.

We're gonna houserule the "all autosofts are specific to the drone" however, changing it to "only Maneuver are specific to the drone" as otherwise an RCC is pretty useless.

Looks like it got squeezed out by the Pilot chart. Something else for teh errata.

(From the original writing)
***
The Pilot program determines the Rating of the drone as a whole, serves as the primary source of attributes for skill tests, serves as a cap on the highest rating Autosoft the drone can run, and more. Is there any reason that it’s in such high demand? Civilian Pilot programs are generally rating 2 (or, rarely, 1), restricted security Pilots are 3-4, while military-grade Pilots (5-6) are forbidden for general use. Cost and availability is shown on the chart below:

RATING   AVAIL   COST
1      4   100$
2      -   400$
3      8R   1800$
4      12R   3200$
5      16F   10,000$
6      24F   20,000$

(Due to advancements in Pilot programs, a Pilot may now operate as many Autosofts as its Rating, rather than half its Rating (rounded up) as per SR5. )
***

I had to go check to find that out! I was *wondering* why no one was talking about this! It's an important thing!

[KarmaInferno]

Hm. If drones and vehicles with robot arms limbs can be equipped with cyberlimb mods, can ones with cranial analogues use cyberskull mods?



-k

[Finstersang]

As per RAW, the Swarm programm allows a drone (even a single one?) to use a "the highest rating of each autosoft running on any Drone or the RCC", which means that you can circumvent the (IMO, needlessly restrictive) "Drones can´t use dormant autosofts when using RCC autosoft"-rule from Core.

By using swarm, I could run some less important (and backup) Autosofts on the Drone(s) and deploy the important stuff (like Targeting) via the RCC. Since that would offer a cheap solution to make Multi-Drone Riggers kinda viable again, that´s obviously not intended.

Just kiddin´. Please leave it that way! Instead of closing that "loophole", I suggest you remove the line from the core rules and make the drones able to use mixed autosoft deployment by default.   

[Herr Brackhaus]

When running Swarm, and using "the highest rating of each autosoft running on any Drone or the RCC" rule as well as the "Pilot rating is equal to the highest Pilot rating of its member drones, or the Device Rating of the RCC, whichever is higher", what is the highest rating autosoft that can run on a drone?

For example; 4 drones with Pilot 2 slaved to a DR5 RCC running Swarm. Can the drones run Rating 2 or 5 autosofts, since they are now considered to have pilot 5.

[Malevolence]

The drone's Pilot is always ignored as a cap when using autosofts running on the RCC, even without swarm. So in your example, the highest autosoft rating is 5.

A Pilot program may not run an autosoft of a higher Rating than itself (meaning a Rating 3 Pilot may run an Autosoft with a Rating of 1, 2, or 3, but not 4 or higher).  When using a rigger command console, the console may run a higher-Rating autosoft and share that with the drone, allowing it to exceed its normal capabilities.

[Herr Brackhaus]

The drone's Pilot is always ignored as a cap when using autosofts running on the RCC, even without swarm. So in your example, the highest autosoft rating is 5.

A Pilot program may not run an autosoft of a higher Rating than itself (meaning a Rating 3 Pilot may run an Autosoft with a Rating of 1, 2, or 3, but not 4 or higher).  When using a rigger command console, the console may run a higher-Rating autosoft and share that with the drone, allowing it to exceed its normal capabilities.

Ah, but my question isn't about autosofts running on the RCC; Swarm specifically mentions that drones in the swarm can share autosofts running on the drone. But since they are now counting as having a higher pilot rating, can they also run higher rating autosofts directly on the drone?

[Malevolence]

That is a question I have as well, but I'm guessing no, since technically the "Pilot" being used exists on the RCC and the drone is only using it for dice pools. But the rule is unclear enough that it could, RAW, be interpreted either way. Actually, by RAW, it's pretty clear cut.

 Its Pilot rating is equal to the highest Pilot rating of its member drones, or the Device Rating of the RCC, whichever is higher.

...and...

The Pilot program determines the Rating of the drone as a whole, serves as the primary source of attributes for skill tests, serves as a cap on the highest rating autosoft the drone can run, and more

So, technically, by RAW, a drone in the swarm gets the best Pilot Rating available and thus Device Rating, attributes, and autosoft cap that is the better of either the RCC DR or the highest pilot in the swarm. Again, probably not RAI, but in the absence of clarification, it's what we've got.

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, the question would be if you can actually install a soft the drone can't actually run, in the hopes you'll later link it to enough processing power.

[Herr Brackhaus]

And a followup to that, UnLimiTeD, would be if you can ... I hesitate to use the term "install" so much as run... a program of higher rating than the pilot rating at all.

I.e. can I run a Rating 6 Clearsight program on a Rating 2 Pilot and have it count as Rating 2? And then, later, upgrade the Pilot to 6 or slave the drone to a device rating 6 RCC and make full use of the Rating 6 program.

This would make sense to me at least, but I somehow doubt that this is what was intended.

[Wakshaani]

I'd have to check. My understanding that you can either meet the requirements to run it or it's a no-go. Kinda like trying to install WIndows 10 on your TRS-80.

[Malevolence]

Well, the question would be if you can actually install a soft the drone can't actually run, in the hopes you'll later link it to enough processing power.

There is no restriction on what you can install, I think, from this line in Rigger 5.0:

Remember also that an autosoft is designed for only a single drone; you cannot slot a Clearsoft autosoft designed for an Az- technology Crawler into an Evo Proletarian. (Well, you can; it just doesn’t do anything.)

So apparently you can "slot" whatever you like, it just won't run if the requirements aren't met. The requirements being: sufficient Pilot/RCC rating, appropriate drone/weapon model (not required if running on RCC), proper registration (each autosoft is registered to one and only one device but if the registered device is an RCC then it may be shared per the RCC Sharing rules), and of course a functional processor to run on (i.e. a non-full Matrix and Physical damage track and the drone/RCC is powered on). So you can load a rating 5 autosoft on a Pilot 2 drone and it will just sit there dormant until it joins a swarm on a rating 5 RCC (or with a rating 5 pilot drone as a member), at which point it can run if you choose.

And I wouldn't count it as taking one of the drone's limited autosoft slots unless it was active, much like in a Cyberdeck you can have a copy of every cyberprogram but chose which subset you want to have running at a given moment.

[Herr Brackhaus]

That's a fair reading, Malevolence.

And Wakshaani, I can't help but feel your analogy falls a little short. Windows 10 doesn't exactly have the most stringent system requirements, nor is the hardware of a Pilot 2 drone the modern equivalent of an 8 bit microprosessor.

to my mind, a more apt analogy to Running a Rating 6 program on a Pilot 2 drone would be like running a Linux cluster on a single desktop hosting multiple VMs. It probably won't work because the compute resources just aren't there.

Now, slave that Pilot 2 drone to a Rating 6 RCC and you've suddenly got significantly more processing power, even more so if additional drones are added to the mix. This would be similar to running said cluster on a dedicated blade server with sophisticated software running on top to utilize the cumulative computational power of the entire system.

And this is why I like my matrix rules to be grounded in reality, because it makes everything so much easier to draw real life analogies to

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, I personally read it as the drone using that programming power, not having it.
I would assume if you have the spare power on your RCC, it'd be infinitely better to just run your program there.

[Sintis]

ARMADILLO (GROUNDCRAFT)
HANDL SPEED ACCEL BODY ARM PILOT SENS SEATS AVAIL COST
3/4 4 2 13 10 1 2 2/4 — 22,000¥           
Standard Equipment
Armory, cargo pod, drone rack, food truck, rigger
cocoon, off-road transportation, sleeper command
cabin, transport, workshop

Is there any chance this could be clarified?
Is all of the standard equipment included, if they need to be purchased individually an avail/cost?
The fluff talks about moding the truck bed and the cab separately so stats for each please.

Thanks!

[drseltsam83]

Both vehicle modifications "Secondary propulsion: amphibious (submersible)" and "Life Support Level 2" come with water and air tightness. I think there should be cost reduction when buying them in combination. (Or something like free Life Support Upgrade Level 1 -> 2)