[Albert8611]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and am trying to learn how to be a GM for this game. I have read a bunch of books and the core book on the 3rd edition of shadowrun(mainly because I did not want to wrap my head around the technomancer class). Spells seem pretty straight forward, as well as the astral plane and even the matrix is pretty easy to understand, however, I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around the rigger rules. So I have a few questions regarding this:

1. How do you determine initiative with a rigger when operating a vehicle/drone? From what I've read out of the core book, apparently you just roll reaction +1d6 and add an extra 1d6 for each VCR rating point, plus another +1 to reaction if the vehicle has a rigger interface or something like that? Is that the same initiative used for operating drones? Or do drones receive their own initiative roll?

2. Using sensors....I noticed that mostly everything has a sensor rating of 1, yet there is a sensor success result table for acheiving up to 4+ successes..
.how is that possible when most vehicles have a sensor rating of 1? I read something about being able to use the flux rating of your vehicle to upgrade ratings of devices up to half the vehicle's body rating....so if I have a vehicle with a body rating of 4, does this mean I can upgrade the level 1 sensor I already have on the vehicle to level 3?

3. Flux ratings....I know they have something to do with the range of my electronic devices, but does a vehicle already have a flux rating as high as its body rating? Or do I have to have electronics connected to the vehicle in order to give it flux ratings?

4. Can the level 1 sensor of my vehicle be upgraded to a higher rating? What's the cost?

5. So when about to drive off with a drone or vehicle, do I make a vehicle test vs the handling in order to "turn on" the car/drone first, then do another vehicle test vs handling to accelerate it to give me my starting speed? In other words, is it a complex action to activate the vehicle/drone, then another complex action to accelerate it?

6. When accelerating from 0 meters per turn. Let's say for example, I want my drone to fly about 20 meters in a certain direction, so I roll for acceleration and come up with a result of 50 meters per turn....if I just want my drone to fly up to a window 20 meters away and just stop, do I have to wait until my next combat phase to do a decelerate to 0 action?

7. If I want my drone to hide and it is my primary drone, do I roll my normal stealth skill? What if it is my secondary drone and I give it a command to hide...what do I roll then?

8. Riggers seem to have a very unfair advantage in vehicle combat over non riggers....is this normal? They seem to get so many combat phases than their enemies, that they can immediately outrun other vehicles with 2 or 3 accelerate actions and already have almost a 100 or more meters per turn lead on them. Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong..?

9. Does a rigger always suffer dump shock when jacking out of a remote control device? Or only when he is kicked out or unwillingly unplugged from it?

10. Can a jammer be used to jam weaponry of enemies, ie: their smart link? Or is that only in 5th edition?

11. How does opening maglocks work? What is their target number?

[JD]

Re. 6: I don't understand what you mean by 'rolling for acceleration'. If it's capable of 50 metres in one round, just command the drone to stop after 20?
Re. 8: A car cannot go (significantly) faster just because there's someone capable at the wheel; the competent rigger can, however, do a lot more things (i.e. have more actions, such as making minor course adjustments to avoid bumping into things) while putting the pedal to the metal. I don't know how that works, rule-wise, but for running, at least, the total distance a character can run doesn't change with the number of initiative passes per round, we just divide the total my the number of passes (Character A can run 30 metres per round = 10 metres per initiative pass when he has three initiative passes)

[Albert8611]

Re. 6: I don't understand what you mean by 'rolling for acceleration'. If it's capable of 50 metres in one round, just command the drone to stop after 20?
Re. 8: A car cannot go (significantly) faster just because there's someone capable at the wheel; the competent rigger can, however, do a lot more things (i.e. have more actions, such as making minor course adjustments to avoid bumping into things) while putting the pedal to the metal. I don't know how that works, rule-wise, but for running, at least, the total distance a character can run doesn't change with the number of initiative passes per round, we just divide the total my the number of passes (Character A can run 30 metres per round = 10 metres per initiative pass when he has three initiative passes)

I am using old SR3 edition rules for vehicle combat. Cars have an acceleration rating stat in these rules, so typically, to accelerate, you have to roll your car skill vs a target number equal to the handling rating of your vehicle with acceleration modifiers(varies), then you multiply your succeses by the acceleration rating of your vehicle.

So, to answer your question on what I meant for number 6: lets say I rolled 10 successes for a vehicle with a rating 5 acceleration. Therefore, I multiply 5 x 10 = 50. That's how I got the number 50. So according to the rules on accelerating, this is the number I can accelerate up to in one combat turn.  My question was: what if I only want to move 20 out of the 50 meters for that turn? And do I have to do a deceleration complex action on my next turn to bring the drone to a complete stop? Or did it stop automatically in the last turn that I moved it?

For question 8, I believe you misunderstood me. See, I'm trying to figure out how to roll initiative for vehicle combat for riggers. According to the book, it's reaction(+1 if vehicle is rigged for rigger control) + 1D6 and apparently you gain an extra 1D6 for each VCR rating. So with a VCR 3 rating, that should give me 3 extra D6's added to my default 1D6. So my initiative with the rigger, I'm assuming, is 7 + 4D6, which, to me, sounds insanely overpowered over a regular driver with only 1D6 initiative. So it's not a question of the car being faster, but the fact that the rigger is given 2 or 3 more combat phases than the average driver, allows me to accelerate 2 or 3 more times in 1 combat turn...which pretty much leaves any normal driver in the dust....so my question is this: Am I using these rules correctly? Or is there something I'm doing wrong? Maybe I am only allowed 1 acceleration action per combat?

[JD]

While I'm playing SR3 as well, the rigger rules are among the many things that have, so far, not been very relevant, so I'm not familiar with them. However, just using common sense (i know, not something that should be done lightly with any edition of the SR rules), I'd say that as for the first one: You CAN get the drone up to a certain speed, but why would you? Why are you unable to take your foot OFF the accelerator for your drone after the first second or so? You rolled a ton of successes, shouldn't than make it easier for you to achieve your goal, rather than ensure that you overshoot the target (and crash your drone against every clothesline, satellite dish and fire escape stairway as it speeds up the side of the building)?

Same thing for the second question: You are, I believe, absolutely correct when you say that "Maybe I am only allowed 1 acceleration action per combat?". Having several initiative passes in one action phase does not mean that your car can suddenly accellerate to a speed of infinity plus infinity. I would think it means that, after you spend ONE action accelerating, you have many more opportunities to do nasty things that round while your (mental) foot is pressing the (electronic) accelerator to the 'floor'. So no, your rigged WWII Abrams Tank won't outpace an unrigged F1 sportscar.