[Hephaestus]

Reading through CRB6, I don't see any listing of Pilot programs for drones/vehicles. Are we stuck with the basic dog-brains until a supplement comes out?

EDIT: I am specifically looking for cost/availability.

[FastJack]

Autosofts, p. 201 in Drone Rigging has the Pilot Programs.

[Hephaestus]

Autosofts, p. 201 in Drone Rigging has the Pilot Programs.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I'm looking for the cost and availability of Pilot programs.

The Autosofts section only lists that you can take programs on a drone up to Pilot Rating/2 rounded up (which is a terrible change IMO, but not the point of this post). There is no listing to buy them in either the Rigging or Gear sections.

[FastJack]

Software, p. 272, Autosofts have an Avail equal to their rating and cost Rating × 500¥.

[stuh42l]

Reading through CRB6, I don't see any listing of Pilot programs for drones/vehicles. Are we stuck with the basic dog-brains until a supplement comes out?

EDIT: I am specifically looking for cost/availability.

I understand what you are asking.

The answer is unfortunate.  Yes you are stuck with the dog brain pilot stat.

[FastJack]

Reading through CRB6, I don't see any listing of Pilot programs for drones/vehicles. Are we stuck with the basic dog-brains until a supplement comes out?

EDIT: I am specifically looking for cost/availability.

I understand what you are asking.

The answer is unfortunate.  Yes you are stuck with the dog brain pilot stat.

If the question is where are the rules to modify vehicle/drone attributes, that will probably be in a Rigger expansion book, as it was in previous editions.

[Hephaestus]

Software, p. 272, Autosofts have an Avail equal to their rating and cost Rating × 500¥.

Pilot programs have always been separate from Autosofts, and more expensive. The Pilot program is what interprets the Autosoft, so logically it would have to be more complex. And while they are discussed in the Rigging section, there are no gear entries to buy them.

So it looks like drones start out this edition being dum-dums, on top of having less slots for programs and no dedicated rules/language for swarms.

[kr3wZ]

no dedicated rules/language for swarms.

I thought if a Rigger has a swarm of Drones it would follow the Grunt combat rules?

[Michael Chandra]

One drone explicitly mentions it counts as 1.5 in a grunt group. So the Rigger chapter may not mention it but you can grunt group them.

[kr3wZ]

One drone explicitly mentions it counts as 1.5 in a grunt group.

Does that mean when adding them up for attacks and what not, instead of counting 1 for each drone you count 1.5?  I remember reading that and wondering what exactly that mean.

[Jayde Moon]

One drone counts as 1 or 2 for group size (depending on whether you round up or down, I would go with up, so 2).

Two drones count as 3 for group size.

[kr3wZ]

One drone counts as 1 or 2 for group size (depending on whether you round up or down, I would go with up, so 2).

Two drones count as 3 for group size.

Thank you, sir.

On a related note, can someone explain what Autosofts do?  Other than the the [Weapon] Targeting one.  Are they the equivalent of skills?  Do they give them a bonus to the related rating?

[Michael Chandra]

Yeah, they're skills. So for example Clearsight + Sensor for Perception tests.

Autosofts are programs accessed by the Pilot
program in drones. They serve as skills to augment
the drone’s performance. The attribute used with
each autosoft is included in the listing

If you were to group half a dozen Blackhawks (rules don't say you can group other drones but it'd make sense, especially for groups that throw out a Perception net), they'd count as 9 so they'd get +8 AR and +4 dice. Now page 203 mentions grunt groups can also be used in other tests, such as resisting Con. So a strict reading would say 'Blackhawks only, grunt attack only', but a GM could for easy usage let you group all your drones for Attacks, Clearsight, etc.

[Hephaestus]

Yeah, they're skills. So for example Clearsight + Sensor for Perception tests.

If you were to group half a dozen Blackhawks (rules don't say you can group other drones but it'd make sense, especially for groups that throw out a Perception net), they'd count as 9 so they'd get +8 AR and +4 dice. Now page 203 mentions grunt groups can also be used in other tests, such as resisting Con. So a strict reading would say 'Blackhawks only, grunt attack only', but a GM could for easy usage let you group all your drones for Attacks, Clearsight, etc.

The issues are:

- No mention of program sharing between drones in a swarm. So while the grunt rules cover highest AR for attacking, other tests (such as Stealth or Perception) have nothing to say they get bonuses for those tests. And since you can only stack half as many programs on a drone, this hurts particularly bad unless you want to clog up your RCC.

- Grunt groups are stated to being armed the same, which limits drone swarms configuration. While you could swarm different types of drones, they all need to have the same weapons. This is opposite 5th, where all drones were "treated as being armed the same" so that you could have a swarm of differently armed drones and just pick which weapon you wanted to use for the single swarm attack.

[Shinobi Killfist]

You are a rigger and where you are going you don’t need rules.

I get the full modification stuff will be in rigger 6
X years from now but that’s not enough for a archetype
Based around this. There is enough to be a mage, enough a decker but the rigger remains edition after editions stunted at launch.