Shadowrun

Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Ghost Rigger on <02-13-19/1317:16>

Title: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-13-19/1317:16>
So, I've gotten into a heated debate about whether or not driving without Gridguide makes you a menace to everyone driving with Gridguide. We agreed to take it to a different thread aaaaand here we are.

Let's start with a description of Skyguide:
Quote from: Rigger 5 pg 126
By linking with SkyGuide, a drone can use the network’s own guidance systems to get where it needs to be. The downside is that the system takes priority over the owner’s commands, allowing the drone to be controlled by the Guide, or Riggers employed by SkyGuide, against the owner’s wishes. The upside is that SkyGuide provides both a Navigation (6) autosoft and a Maneuver (6) autosoft to any drone while it’s logged in to the network.
Based on that description, we can think of the Skyguide host as an RCC with control over every drone linked to it. Can we also think of the Gridguide host (and long as we're discussing the matter, the Harborguide host) as an RCC? Common sense says yes, but just to be sure I read the original description of Gridguide given in Rigger 3. Everything checks out: the Gridguide of the 2060s takes data in and puts instructions out, self-driving autonavs follow those instructions and collisions are averted by a vehicle's sensors and autonav. This closely matches the behavior of an RCC issuing commands to drones or vehicles.

With that in mind, I can answer some important questions:

How does Gridguide work?
Smartass answer: like an RCC. Real answer: Gridguide takes data from various sources and based on that data gives instructions to the vehicles it controls. The vehicles follow these instructions, and that's how you go from point A to point B.

What kind of data does Gridguide use and where does it get it from?
Gridguide hasn't been described in detail since Rigger 3, so it's not quite clear if all the old traffic cams, directional radar stations and whatnot are still up. However, I can tell you that it knows the identity, location, speed, and direction of all vehicles it controls. If asked for directions (which is almost always the case), it knows the route and destination of the vehicles as well. This data is used to manage traffic, get everyone where they want to go in good time and meter any paid parking you do. To gather information on road hazards, Gridguide relies on traffic cams, weather updates, sensor data from the vehicles it controls and probably some other things I can't think of off the top of my head.

How does Gridguide manage traffic?
Every street in a metroplex has a maximum traffic rating, which is the maximum number of vehicles that can be on it at any given time. Gridguide determines the route of every vehicle it controls on the basis of keeping every street below its maximum traffic rating. During emergencies, Gridguide will divert traffic away from the emergency and out of the path of first responders while changing traffic lights to accommodate the first responders. Additionally, Gridguide will divert traffic away from any vehicle pursuits.

How does Gridguide enforce traffic laws?
Illegal driving actions are impossible to commit while following Gridguide's instructions, and Gridguide takes precedent over all other inputs (except for rigging, as Gridguide is a form of remote control).

How does Gridguide prevent crashes?
Vehicles controlled by Gridguide cannot crash into each other or any known obstacles because it is impossible to do so while following Gridguide's instructions, barring a mechanical malfunction or certain unavoidable road hazards such as ice. In those cases, or in the case of a sudden, unforeseen obstacle or road hazard, either the Driver must make a Reflex+Pilot Groundcraft check or the vehicle must make a Pilot+Maneuvering check. Gridguide does provide a Maneuvering autosoft, with rating depending on your level of service. To learn your level of service, bug Wakshaani about it.

Is it important to having functional sensors while using Gridguide?
Yes. Not only does Gridguide use data from your sensors, but you need them to detect any sudden, unforeseen obstacles and road hazards.

Does Grideguide allow all vehicles it controls to see each other over the Matrix?
No. Pilots cannot see Matrix Icons. Where did you get that idea?

Are vehicles without Gridguide dangerous to Gridguide users?
Not as a rule. Unless concealed in some way, Gridguide would be aware of any vehicles on the road that it doesn't control and could compensate for them like any other known obstacle. A detectable off-grid vehicle would only be dangerous if driven incompetently and/or recklessly.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: PiXeL01 on <02-13-19/1920:19>
I agree with the above. As long as your vehicle can be detected by other vehicles’ sensors you are not a hazard when either disconnected from the Grid or driving manually, unless you want to be of course.

The corporation holding the policing contract of that city would have limited access to GridLink and can request vehicles be shutdown if they suspect foul play. Much traffic control is handled by drones though iirc
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Overbyte on <02-13-19/2046:13>
It depends what you mean by "hazzard".
Clearly, since you are not operating your vehicle in the same way as the grid guide would, you are creating unknown movements that have to be adjusted for. This can only make things more difficult for grid guide and hence you are creating increased risk.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Michael Chandra on <02-14-19/1804:17>
It depends what you mean by "hazzard".
Clearly, since you are not operating your vehicle in the same way as the grid guide would, you are creating unknown movements that have to be adjusted for. This can only make things more difficult for grid guide and hence you are creating increased risk.
Only if you're driving weird. If you're driving proper, the AI can easily figure out how to keep you in mind. If you drive crazy (Gremlins-glitch, vehicle chase, movement-boosted runner literally running while invisible but the cameras pierce the spell, etc), THEN things will become tricky.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-14-19/1921:01>
I plan to go into that at some point in The Future (ooo), but, the basics here are correct. The biggest problem is that a metahuman driver can't be anticipated for as they don't make rational choices, are distracted, etc. Which means that letting GridGuide (tm) drive everything is safe until someone NOT using the system is around. They screw it up for everybody. This is less true in areas where GG isn't around, like the Barrens. There, most people handle it themselves which makes people downtown terribly, terribly nervous.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Overbyte on <02-14-19/2011:40>
It depends what you mean by "hazzard".
Clearly, since you are not operating your vehicle in the same way as the grid guide would, you are creating unknown movements that have to be adjusted for. This can only make things more difficult for grid guide and hence you are creating increased risk.
Only if you're driving weird. If you're driving proper, the AI can easily figure out how to keep you in mind. If you drive crazy (Gremlins-glitch, vehicle chase, movement-boosted runner literally running while invisible but the cameras pierce the spell, etc), THEN things will become tricky.

You don't have to drive "weird". No matter how you drive you won't be as predictable and have as good of response time or precise of response as the Grid Guide and therefore you can only INCREASE the hazard, never decrease it. (Assuming really good AI which is pretty much the standard in SR).
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Hobbes on <02-14-19/2055:35>

You don't have to drive "weird". No matter how you drive you won't be as predictable and have as good of response time or precise of response as the Grid Guide and therefore you can only INCREASE the hazard, never decrease it. (Assuming really good AI which is pretty much the standard in SR).

Rigger with Knowledge skill Local Grid Guide specialization Traffic Maneuvers.  Zip right through that red light without a problem.  For the Rigger anyway.

Gamewise stats on Grid Guide Hosts, who has access, how the Traffic is actually managed (I would presume a few hundred Agents overseen by a couple dozen traffic operators), degree of coordination with Law Enforcement.  Marks on vehicles?  Slaved Vehicles?


Honestly I would think in many cities the Grid Guide Contract is a subsidiary of or a partner with whoever owns the local Law Enforcement contract.  That particular partnership may make too much sense though if you get my meaning. 

How Grid Guide reacts to high speed maneuvers from non-guided vehicles... I could honestly see shut down controlled traffic and let the lunatic pass would be an option once the danger level gets high enough.  And just start re-routing traffic away from possible/projected routes so Law Enforcement has a clear shot.  And I could see it go the other way too, where GG turns on all the red lights, drops barricades in your path, and tries to keep the rest of the traffic moving in spite of your shenanigans. 
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Beta on <02-14-19/2156:28>
About how grid guide reacts to vehicles not under its control:. I'm assuming that the system is able to be punitive towards them, and the engineering level pitch may evem talk aboit thise capabilities ..... But no way in an elf's life were all the rich and powerful going to forfeit the ability for their drivers to ignore gridguide in an emergency (you know, like being late to see your paramore or something).

But for sure mixing in direct controlled vehicles really hurts GG's effeciency.  When all under GG control can keep vehicles closer, leave less gaps between crossing traffic flows at intersections, and optimize the overall flow even if it is suboptimal for individual vehicles
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-14-19/2332:19>
Rigger with Knowledge skill Local Grid Guide specialization Traffic Maneuvers.  Zip right through that red light without a problem.  For the Rigger anyway.

Gamewise stats on Grid Guide Hosts, who has access, how the Traffic is actually managed (I would presume a few hundred Agents overseen by a couple dozen traffic operators), degree of coordination with Law Enforcement.  Marks on vehicles?  Slaved Vehicles?


Honestly I would think in many cities the Grid Guide Contract is a subsidiary of or a partner with whoever owns the local Law Enforcement contract.  That particular partnership may make too much sense though if you get my meaning. 

How Grid Guide reacts to high speed maneuvers from non-guided vehicles... I could honestly see shut down controlled traffic and let the lunatic pass would be an option once the danger level gets high enough.  And just start re-routing traffic away from possible/projected routes so Law Enforcement has a clear shot.  And I could see it go the other way too, where GG turns on all the red lights, drops barricades in your path, and tries to keep the rest of the traffic moving in spite of your shenanigans.

What's that? Renraku operates GridGuide(tm)? And SkyGuide(tm)? And has a new high-tech security force that it's selling to cities as part of its overall "We'll run the city for you" package? How strange. How strange...

(Neo-PD; Serving the community.)
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Michael Chandra on <02-16-19/1047:07>
About how grid guide reacts to vehicles not under its control:. I'm assuming that the system is able to be punitive towards them, and the engineering level pitch may evem talk aboit thise capabilities ..... But no way in an elf's life were all the rich and powerful going to forfeit the ability for their drivers to ignore gridguide in an emergency (you know, like being late to see your paramore or something).

But for sure mixing in direct controlled vehicles really hurts GG's effeciency.  When all under GG control can keep vehicles closer, leave less gaps between crossing traffic flows at intersections, and optimize the overall flow even if it is suboptimal for individual vehicles
Exactly, GG can make everything stick close because all are controlled simultaneously. Other people, not so much. Worse when runners or invisible stuff is involved: If one car under GG (which even under my 'OR-9 for Sensor-tests by vehicles against Illusions' has a plausible chance when you have dozens of cars involved) pierces the Illusion, a dozen cars or more will suddenly 'freak' and scare the other uncontrolled cars.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-16-19/1143:34>
Gridguide's purpose is to allow coordination between vehicles well beyond LOS/vehicle-based sensor range.  If you've ever driven through a construction zone on the interstate, think about how one doofus braking too hard causes a ripple that magnifies back through traffic, sometimes culminating in someone getting rear-ended.  Gridguide eliminates that.  Under GG guidance vehicles maintain closer following distances at higher speeds than metahuman attention spans permit.  Cars under GG guidance don't accelerate only to have to come to a stop due to a traffic light.  They maintain steadier, more constant speeds.  Consider in the real world cars average about 20kph in dense urban environments (lots of time stuck motionless in gridlock/red lights) whereas Gridguide guided traffic averages 80kph in the same conditions! (SR5, pg 200).


Your vehicle can get real-time status of at least the next three intersections (SR5 pg 421) and so your vehicle's speed can be tweaked to ensure you hit them all green.  Assuming they even HAVE lights; imagine almost any traffic-depicting scene in a Sci-Fi movie... streams of traffic cross right through each other with no collisions as individual cars all pass through the gaps between cars in the crossed stream!

Consider also that Gridguide doesn't just use proactive controls of the traffic; people can indeed do "crazy drek" and GG will do its absolute best to ensure nearby traffic is as minimally impacted as possible.  For example:

Quote from: SR5 pg 260, The Danger of Side Jobs fiction piece
:She made her way to the 520 bridge and told GridGuide
that she needed a priority turnaround. Like magic, a gap
opened up so she could make a U-turn and pull in front of the
broken-down limo. Traffic was still moving smoothly, if a bit
congested, thanks to the automatic rerouting of cars around
the distressed vehicle.

Think about that.  You can just flip a sudden Yooie into oncoming traffic and so long as you warned GridGuide, and "like magic" the traffic just parts and gives you a lane.  And nobody gets wiped out in a T-Bone or Head-on collision!  And think about what that means if some of the oncoming traffic is NOT on GridGuide.  Yeah, owch.  And if you go pulling extreme maneuvers while not on GridGuide, remember that vehicles under control of Gridguide are considered under the control of their Pilot program (SR5 pg 202).  Even assuming everyone involved has perfectly good sensors working on the vehicles, most vehicles Pilot ratings don't go higher than 2, and that's not a lot of dice to succeed on a Crash test.


Anyway, this thread exists in part because I was the other partner in the OP's heated discussion.  It revolved around whether or not it's reasonable for municipalities to require GridGuide participation/usage.  Obviously it wouldn't be in places where GridGuide is not operational, natch.  But in certain cases, sure it'd be a no brainer that Gridguide be mandatory and noncompliance could result in being stopped and ticketed.  Afterall, making any kind of turn or lane shift without being linked to GridGuide is in effect the same thing as doing it today without warning everyone around you by using your blinkers beforehand.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Beta on <02-16-19/1221:29>
I'd think that mandatory Grid Guide (or equivalent other brand) would mostly only happen in areas controlled mostly by a single corp, that can be confident that it is reasonably aligned on what is a priority.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-16-19/1225:45>
OTOH I'd view it being a lot more common.  Interstates and similar highways, bridges, any toll routes, and etc.  Also many downtown through routes, especially elevated ones.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ajax on <02-16-19/1230:08>
I'd think that mandatory Grid Guide (or equivalent other brand) would mostly only happen in areas controlled mostly by a single corp, that can be confident that it is reasonably aligned on what is a priority.

The roads are still considered part of the government infrastructure, so depending on exactly where you are in the world, it will be the municipal/state/province that is responsible for them.

However, I imagine that Grid Guide (or equivalent) is considered an essential part of a modern 21st Century roadway and too profitable to be a government service. Ergo, most governments will probably turn to private companies to provide the Grid Guide. Grid Guide is probably a government-backed monopoly, like Lone Star/Knight Errant or Ma Bell.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Michael Chandra on <02-16-19/1713:30>
OTOH I'd view it being a lot more common.  Interstates and similar highways, bridges, any toll routes, and etc.  Also many downtown through routes, especially elevated ones.
Unlikely, because toll routes, bridges etc aren't usually a place that a, can afford a full gridguide system, and b, are traffic-crowded enough to demand that. Downtown, on the other hand, definitely will be secured.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-17-19/0018:07>
You're talking about so many things that I want to talk about. gah!

gridGuide(tm) isn't REQUIRED in many places but it's getting there. Some municipalities are starting to pass laws about requiring it in certain areas … the Downtown areas of major sprawls for instance, or Manhattan, but not so much the suburbs or smaller towns … yet.

Insurance companies are increasingly giving people a choice as well … pay a huge premium for "Bate hand driving" or get a car with GridGuide(tm) and get super-low rates since they won't crash. This leverage is causing more people to make the move.

There's also some movement on the priority scale (manual control vs Pilot vs remote control) and a few other things.

I'm *super* glad that anybody but me cares about this. :D
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Michael Chandra on <02-17-19/0323:31>
You're talking about so many things that I want to talk about. gah!

gridGuide(tm) isn't REQUIRED in many places but it's getting there. Some municipalities are starting to pass laws about requiring it in certain areas … the Downtown areas of major sprawls for instance, or Manhattan, but not so much the suburbs or smaller towns … yet.

Insurance companies are increasingly giving people a choice as well … pay a huge premium for "Bate hand driving" or get a car with GridGuide(tm) and get super-low rates since they won't crash. This leverage is causing more people to make the move.

There's also some movement on the priority scale (manual control vs Pilot vs remote control) and a few other things.

I'm *super* glad that anybody but me cares about this. :D
Oh god it sucks so much when people's debates trigger your NDA's conditions. Good luck restraining yourself. ^_^

As an asides, I remember how in my campaign, because I tried to nerf Movement while allowing it and didn't nerf it enough, GridGuide got really upset at people running invisibly over the highways at 100~200 km/h: Because sometimes a car would pierce the illusion and GG would freak. So GG wanted to have a 'word' with the Speedster, at which point the Speedster covertly paid a visit, all 'parking lot, dark and scary, "I heard you were looking for me"' and spooked the poor executive. Tosh Athack called up the runner and went 'how did you know they were looking for you' and was told 'I didn't, but it just felt like the right thing to say given the situation?'. Ah, characters that are writers for their dayjob... -,-

Anyway, eventually all Speedsters in Seattle made a covert deal with GridGuide: Either they use a GPS tracker that they enable solely when running over the roads and that they tell their intended directions, so traffic can keep them in mind... Or traffic won't keep them in mind, even if the illusion is pierced, and instead that eight-tonner will decide to scrape that concrete wall with a speedster inbetween the two...

((Under Movement = +F instead of Movement = xF*obstacleMulti, this would be less of a concern, but when people can run 100+ km/h, they WILL. And cut down a Roadmaster kidnapping a Decker while they're at it.))
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-17-19/1032:52>
Gridguide's purpose is to allow coordination between vehicles well beyond LOS/vehicle-based sensor range.  If you've ever driven through a construction zone on the interstate, think about how one doofus braking too hard causes a ripple that magnifies back through traffic, sometimes culminating in someone getting rear-ended.  Gridguide eliminates that.  Under GG guidance vehicles maintain closer following distances at higher speeds than metahuman attention spans permit.  Cars under GG guidance don't accelerate only to have to come to a stop due to a traffic light.  They maintain steadier, more constant speeds.  Consider in the real world cars average about 20kph in dense urban environments (lots of time stuck motionless in gridlock/red lights) whereas Gridguide guided traffic averages 80kph in the same conditions! (SR5, pg 200).
None of that means that off-grid drivers are necessarily dangerous, though I will concede that most people don't have the skill needed to safely drive in downtown without Gridguide, and that most people who do have that skill are riggers.

Quote
Your vehicle can get real-time status of at least the next three intersections (SR5 pg 421) and so your vehicle's speed can be tweaked to ensure you hit them all green.  Assuming they even HAVE lights; imagine almost any traffic-depicting scene in a Sci-Fi movie... streams of traffic cross right through each other with no collisions as individual cars all pass through the gaps between cars in the crossed stream!
Rigger 3 mentions traffic lights as being something that Gridguide controls. Furthermore, the very example you bring up specifically says "next three traffic lights", not "next three intersections", so we can assume that they're still around. After all, you need them for pedestrians, and why bother spending money to tear down pre-existing infrastructure when you can use it as a redundant safety factor?

Quote
Think about that.  You can just flip a sudden Yooie into oncoming traffic and so long as you warned GridGuide, and "like magic" the traffic just parts and gives you a lane.
She was a tow truck/recovery vehicle driver. Along with other first response vehicles such as police vehicles, firetrucks and ambulances, tow trucks and recovery vehicles are mentioned in Rigger 3 to have Gridguide priorities and privileges other vehicles don't. I don't think this is a good example to use.

Quote
And think about what that means if some of the oncoming traffic is NOT on GridGuide.
That is a question the designers and engineers of Gridguide have spent a lot of time thinking about. In that specific scenario, the u-turn is delayed until the off-grid vehicles have passed, much like if a pedestrian or large animal had wandered onto the road.

Quote
And if you go pulling extreme maneuvers while not on GridGuide
Overlooking the fact that only a privileged few are allowed to pull extreme maneuvers while on Gridguide, consider: what makes this dangerous? Is it because you're doing something inherently dangerous, or because you're doing it without Gridguide? I should think the former.

Quote
remember that vehicles under control of Gridguide are considered under the control of their Pilot program (SR5 pg 202).  Even assuming everyone involved has perfectly good sensors working on the vehicles, most vehicles Pilot ratings don't go higher than 2, and that's not a lot of dice to succeed on a Crash test.
I would point out that the Maneuvering autosoft provided by Gridguide increases that dicepool significantly, but I feel it would detract from my previous point.

Quote
Anyway, this thread exists in part because I was the other partner in the OP's heated discussion.  It revolved around whether or not it's reasonable for municipalities to require GridGuide participation/usage.  Obviously it wouldn't be in places where GridGuide is not operational, natch.  But in certain cases, sure it'd be a no brainer that Gridguide be mandatory and noncompliance could result in being stopped and ticketed.
Consider, for a moment, the humble seatbelt. It provides great safety benefits, has no real downsides other than personal mobility within your vehicle, and all you have to do to use it is put it on. Think about how you, the average driver, feels about seatbelts, and hold onto that feeling for a sec.

Now, think about all the benefits Gridguide offers. You don't have to pay for fuel, it's almost impossible for you to get into a crash, you get better insurance rates for using it, you get to your destination in good time and you can let the car drive itself if you want. For the law-abiding citizen, there are literally no downsides to using Gridguide, and you don't have to do anything to use it; in fact, you'd have to go out of your way not to use it! Considering how you feel about seatbelts, how do you think the average driver in 2080 feels about Gridguide?

I must think that it is the case that either:
A) Gridguide is so ubiquitous and beloved that no one has felt the need to make it mandatory or
B) Gridguide is mandatory in some areas for safety reasons, but it is so ubiquitous and beloved that not using Gridguide in a mandated area is an extremely rare crime on its own. As such, it's like seatbelt usage in that it's not something that the police are constantly on the lookout for; rather, dangerous drivers are arrested for driving dangerously, and failure to use Gridguide in a mandated area is slapped on top of their dangerous driving offenses. Wakshaani's comments seem to indicate that this is the case, meaning that you could get away with driving off-grid if you were skilled enough to do it safely.

Quote
Afterall, making any kind of turn or lane shift without being linked to GridGuide is in effect the same thing as doing it today without warning everyone around you by using your blinkers beforehand.
Let me explain why that isn't a valid comparison: the difference between turning with and without your blinker is how much time the driver behind you has to react to your turn. The difference between turning with and without Gridguide is whether or not the "driver" behind you has to react at all. Alright, maybe that makes off-grid driving sound worse, but it's not like people have stopped using their blinkers just because cars drive themselves now. A system like Gridguide would need to be built upon multiple redundancies for the sake of safety, and some of those redundancies would be the systems we use today. If an off-grid driver uses their signal lights to inform other vehicles of their actions and drives their vehicles in a reasonable manner, then Gridguide would be capable of accommodating them.

You're talking about so many things that I want to talk about. gah!

gridGuide(tm) isn't REQUIRED in many places but it's getting there. Some municipalities are starting to pass laws about requiring it in certain areas … the Downtown areas of major sprawls for instance, or Manhattan, but not so much the suburbs or smaller towns … yet.

Insurance companies are increasingly giving people a choice as well … pay a huge premium for "Bate hand driving" or get a car with GridGuide(tm) and get super-low rates since they won't crash. This leverage is causing more people to make the move.

There's also some movement on the priority scale (manual control vs Pilot vs remote control) and a few other things.

I'm *super* glad that anybody but me cares about this. :D
As long as I have your attention, might I ask a few questions? First, somewhere on Reddit you stated that Gridguide, like Skyguide, provides Maneuvering and Navigation autosofts to the vehicles using it. You also stated that there are different levels of service to Gridguide, so they're not always going to be R6 autosofts. Could you clarify those levels of service? Are they based on what area you're currently in, what level of lifestyle you're living, or something else?

Second, I noticed that Rigger 1, 2 and 3 state that Gridlink physically cannot provide power to vehicles exceeding the speed limit (this is by design) and that sometimes during rush hour the Gridlink power grid overloads and crashes; is this still true in 2080?

Third, what is difference between driving off-grid and driving with a Gridlink Override? Obviously the Override lets you keep several benefits of Gridguide, but how do the vehicles around you react? Does a Gridlink Override provide the priorities and privileges granted to first responders, or at least some of them?
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-17-19/1159:03>
Only privileged users can do privileged things on Gridguide:
You're missing my point.  My point isn't that anyone can be the one making the U turn into oncoming traffic, my point is anyone can be part of the oncoming traffic that has a U turn appear right in front of them.  If you're on Gridguide, there's no crash test necessary. GG received the intention to U-turn via the Matrix, and it accommodates that intention immediately by diverting oncoming traffic "like magic".  If you're not on GG it can't warn you much less divert you over a lane or two, so by not being on GG you're driving into an unsafe condition and good luck with your crash test to avoid hitting the U-Turning vehicle.  That lack of safety is part of why I'm arguing that Gridguide would be mandatory in certain locales/contexts.

Of course your (imo) misguided counterpoint does raise a question in of itself: what's involved in a PC getting "privileged" GG status?  Gotta hack a host? Install a transponder?  Honestly, it's easier for me to wrangle that issue to decide that as of 5th edition, everyone is "privileged" and can pull a sudden Yooie if they have a desire to.  It's just that normal people have little to no reason to ever do so, barring suddenly changing their mind about where they want to head to. But if assuming "everyone" else is on GG, then it's not an issue to do sudden U Turns or similar.  Hence it being logical for GG participation being mandated.

Seatbelt analogy: I'm not sure what your point is.  I don't know about where you're from, but I've lived in 8 states and 5 foreign countries. Seatbelt usage is pretty well commonly mandated, and in many places I've lived it was a stopworthy offense (it's not just an added offense when stopped for some other reason, you can be pulled over simply because the seatbelt wasn't on).  As far as I'm concerned, comparing GG to seatbelts is making an argument that GG participation can in fact be legally mandated.

The blinker analogy: You seemed to be making a point about safety with regards to seatbelts (and again, I'm unclear on how that fits in with it not being appropriate for GG use being legally mandated) which segued into responding to my analogy comparing GG with using turn signals in the real world. Yes, there are other layers of safety that should result in yourself and everyone around you remaining safe if you don't use your turn signals (or GG).  However in the real world, removing layers of safety is something that's rather often sanctioned.  In the real world using your turn signals warns others of your intent, and yes if they're all driving defensively and paying attention if you don't use your turn signal before a lane shift noone gets hit and it was all "fine".  Do we disagree that the paradigm carries over to GG?  In-game, if you assume manual control of your vehicle and turn to head in a new direction, signals to Gridguide accompany your turn signals (assuming they don't replace them entirely).  Again if you're on grid guide, no crash tests are called for as it reacts "magically fast" compared to human reaction times.  If you're not on GG, it's the equivalent of making an unsignalled real life turn.  If every other layer of safety is in place, it'll probably be fine.  But in those circumstances where your participation in GG was the lone remaining layer of safety preventing a crash, you're risking a crash by removing that last layer of protection.  Again, just like failing to signal a turn may result in no impact 999 times out of a 1000, it's still illegal IRL.  I see no reason why the Sixth World equivalent of "using your turn signals" cannot be legally required.

OTOH I'd view it being a lot more common.  Interstates and similar highways, bridges, any toll routes, and etc.  Also many downtown through routes, especially elevated ones.
Unlikely, because toll routes, bridges etc aren't usually a place that a, can afford a full gridguide system, and b, are traffic-crowded enough to demand that. Downtown, on the other hand, definitely will be secured.

I dunno.. I think that many (if not most) toll routes and bridges satisfy both of your A and B. 

The context of Downtown GG raises another interesting thought: SR5 establishes the average speed of vehicles going thru densely urban areas on GG as 80kph.  That's like 50mph to "normal people"! :D  That's... awful fast in comparison to foot traffic potentially only a meter or two away over on the sidewalk. It sure sounds to me like Jaywalking is a MUCH bigger deal in GG areas than it is IRL.  So how DO they keep people from wandering into traffic causing crashes (again, Pilot ratings of most vehicles aren't up to the challenge of a probable crash test treshhold...)  A) Are GG roadways constructed similarly to Interstates in that there just ARE no roadside pedestrians (barriers, elevated roadways, etc?)  B) Is Jaywalking aggressively, even draconianally enforced? (Police drones swoop in to warn pedestrians if they so much as get close to the curb?)  C) do downtown GG roads reserve 80kph average speeds to the centermost lanes, and the curbside lanes require much slower speeds for exiting from/merging into the faster speeds in the center of the road?   I think C is the most probable answer.

Another thought related to the 80kph average speed factoid: How fast are vehicles travelling if the AVERAGE speed includes time spent idling at a stop sign or red light?  I prefer to rationalize that number as being evidence for an argument that vehicles on GG roadways DON'T stop at intersections.  There are no red lights.  (barring perhaps, those that turn red to permit pedestrian crossings).  Thanks to GG, everyone just blows thru intersections at about 80kph and noone hits one another because GG times their arrivals into intersections to allow safe "near misses" by RL standards.  And again if that is true, absolutely I have a hard time seeing it being legal to shut your GG off.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Hobbes on <02-17-19/1331:56>
Grid Guide only lanes.  Or, more likely, Manual lanes that Grid Guide uses as needed.  Any Manual drivers leaving the Manual Lanes would trigger a response, a ticket, drone flyby, or possibly a police stop.

And stopping at Red Lights would get most folks to flip on Grid Guide.  No way do most folks sit in traffic when their is an option to not.

You would have to account for Manual drivers because there will be some vehicles that aren't equipped for Grid Guide.  Or for security reasons won't be linked to Grid Guide, like competing corporate interests.  Would make extraction damn easy if the target handed over the controls to the car...  Rerouting... Rerouting... Rerouting... Welcome to your new home.   8)
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-17-19/1335:49>
As long as I have your attention, might I ask a few questions? First, somewhere on Reddit you stated that Gridguide, like Skyguide, provides Maneuvering and Navigation autosofts to the vehicles using it. You also stated that there are different levels of service to Gridguide, so they're not always going to be R6 autosofts. Could you clarify those levels of service? Are they based on what area you're currently in, what level of lifestyle you're living, or something else?

It'd be keyed to lifestyle. Low and Middle give you the basic program (Rating 4 autosofts) which are better than what your native Pilot program has, while high and Luxury give you the premium package (R6). Note that Luxury lifestyle people often get metahuman drivers to operate their vehicles as an example of opulence … these drivers get special permission to drive in GrideGuide(tm) required areas. Money! It gives you special rights.


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Second, I noticed that Rigger 1, 2 and 3 state that Gridlink physically cannot provide power to vehicles exceeding the speed limit (this is by design) and that sometimes during rush hour the Gridlink power grid overloads and crashes; is this still true in 2080?

Yeah, GridLink (different than GrideGuide!) … man. Lots about this one. I'd planned on having killed it off due to a whole host of things, but that didn't come to pass. It's a silly thing, IMHO, and undercuts a few things that would take a while to explain. BUT! I didn't get to pull that trigger.

Power issues in 2080 aren't a matter of generation so much as access. The corps *could* generate enough power to keep Seattle brightly lit up 24.7 if they really wanted, but, they don't. Access to juice is like access to real food, a way of marking privledge over your 'lessers'. As such, middle class and up get power, but the low and under get rationed levels. Streets are similar … main areas, like downtown, never have shortages. Once you move away from there, it comes down to how wealthy the area is. if you have money, you have power. if you're poor, it cuts off. If you're quite poor, you still have a gas-burner because there's never any juice in the road.


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Third, what is difference between driving off-grid and driving with a Gridlink Override? Obviously the Override lets you keep several benefits of Gridguide, but how do the vehicles around you react? Does a Gridlink Override provide the priorities and privileges granted to first responders, or at least some of them?

For that, you'd have a status chart:

1) First Responders
2) Priority vehicles (tow trucks, school buses, etc)
3) GrideGuide (tm) vehicles
4) Piloted vehicles
5) Operated vehicles

Over the past five years, forces have aligned to gradually make driving a worse and worse experience unless you submit to corporate control, so you wind up waiting longer for traffic lights, police officers pull you over more often, your insurance rates go up … there's just a constant string of minor nuisances that lead to people giving up freedom for a better experience. You're also seeing more cars being made without manual controls at all... why waste money on something you'll never use? Get a car with no pedals or a steering wheel, get a great deal on your insurance! You can just hop in the car, tell it where to go, then sit back, relax, and futz around on your commlink until you get dropped off at work.

There's a LOT of car stuff I want to talk about, but, I have to save something for (Future Product), right? :D I think that you can see the general goal, however. I have a lot to say about the psychology and sociology behind the change, why it wasn't earlier, when it progressed, when it fell back, some market forces … there's a lot of factors in this mix.

I love this stuff. :D
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-17-19/1338:52>
You would have to account for Manual drivers because there will be some vehicles that aren't equipped for Grid Guide.

In 5th edition, actually, I don't think that's true. I don't have my Rigger 5.0 book handy at this moment but I'm positive there's a rule in there governing what it takes to remove GridGuide.  And like drones never saying they're rigger adapted (because they all are), vehicles never say they're GG compatible because they all are.

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Or for security reasons won't be linked to Grid Guide, like competing corporate interests.  Would make extraction damn easy if the target handed over the controls to the car...  Rerouting... Rerouting... Rerouting... Welcome to your new home.   8)

Nothing ever says hacking GG allows remote control of a vehicle.  In fact pg 202 says the opposite... cars guided by GG are under the control of the vehicle's autopilot.  You'll still need to hack the vehicle and get the 3 marks to exercise remote control, GG or no GG.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-17-19/1343:55>
Only privileged users can do privileged things on Gridguide:
You're missing my point.  My point isn't that anyone can be the one making the U turn into oncoming traffic, my point is anyone can be part of the oncoming traffic that has a U turn appear right in front of them.  If you're on Gridguide, there's no crash test necessary. GG received the intention to U-turn via the Matrix, and it accommodates that intention immediately by diverting oncoming traffic "like magic".  If you're not on GG it can't warn you
I'm going to stop you right there, because you're thinking about this backwards. If Gridguide can't warn you about a tow truck making a U-turn, then it considers you an obstacle and warns the tow truck driver about you. The U-turn will be delayed, and no one will crash.

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Seatbelt analogy: I'm not sure what your point is.  I don't know about where you're from, but I've lived in 8 states and 5 foreign countries. Seatbelt usage is pretty well commonly mandated, and in many places I've lived it was a stopworthy offense (it's not just an added offense when stopped for some other reason, you can be pulled over simply because the seatbelt wasn't on).  As far as I'm concerned, comparing GG to seatbelts is making an argument that GG participation can in fact be legally mandated.
When was the last time you heard of someone being pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt and no other offense? I'm going to guess it was decades ago, and if more recently it was in one of the poorer, less developed of those 5 other countries you've been to. My point is that due to the popularity of Gridguide, the police don't really look for off-grid vehicles, they look for vehicles being driven dangerously, almost all of which will be off-grid.

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Do we disagree that the paradigm carries over to GG?
Yes. As I said, the difference between turning with and without blinkers is how much time the driver behind you has to react to your turn. In Shadowrun terms, that difference in reaction time is the difference between having to make a vehicle test to not crash and not needing to make a vehicle test. Does driving off-grid force the vehicle behind you to make a vehicle test to not crash? No. Gridguide MUST have been engineered to accommodate off-grid vehicles to some degree: government and corps have their reasons to put off-grid vehicles on the streets, rigging overrules remote control and what if a vehicle suddenly loses its connection to Gridguide? To handle the first two cases, Gridguide must be able to handle a skilled driver (probably a rigger) using his signals and driving reasonably as a member of regular traffic. To handle the latter case, Gridguide must be able to handle a probably unskilled driver, but they only need to get themselves out of the stream of traffic so that they are not endangering anyone.

I'm not arguing that Gridguide isn't mandated in some areas, I'm arguing that off-grid driving isn't inherently dangerous and doing so won't immediately attract police attention. I must concede that most people are not skilled enough to drive off-grid safely and without getting pulled over, and that most of those who can do so are riggers.

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The context of Downtown GG raises another interesting thought: SR5 establishes the average speed of vehicles going thru densely urban areas on GG as 80kph.  That's like 50mph to "normal people"! :D  That's... awful fast in comparison to foot traffic potentially only a meter or two away over on the sidewalk. It sure sounds to me like Jaywalking is a MUCH bigger deal in GG areas than it is IRL.  So how DO they keep people from wandering into traffic causing crashes (again, Pilot ratings of most vehicles aren't up to the challenge of a probable crash test treshhold...)

Again, Gridguide increases that dicepool by providing a Maneuvering autosoft. But yeah, jaywalking is that much more dangerous now.

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A) Are GG roadways constructed similarly to Interstates in that there just ARE no roadside pedestrians (barriers, elevated roadways, etc?)  B) Is Jaywalking aggressively, even draconianally enforced? (Police drones swoop in to warn pedestrians if they so much as get close to the curb?)  C) do downtown GG roads reserve 80kph average speeds to the centermost lanes, and the curbside lanes require much slower speeds for exiting from/merging into the faster speeds in the center of the road?   I think C is the most probable answer.
This we can agree on. I think there would be places where A is the appropriate solution and having a few anti-jaywalking drones around certainly wouldn't hurt, but C is the most sensible option from an in-universe perspective, and it matches the literature and artwork of the setting.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ajax on <02-17-19/1346:06>
I kinda like the idea of tiered GrideGuide service levels. GridGuide Basic™️ gets you from Point A to Point B, but you have to listen to fifteen seconds of curated and targeted advertising at every red light; GridGuide Green Lite™️ will automatically design a priority route to three destinations within your service area that will avoid all* red lights, construction zones, and other delays. “Never be late for work again!©️” GrideGuide Fast Lane™️ offers priority lane access and red light/delay avoidance to all destinations within your service area... and then there’s GridGuide Gran Tourismo™️, if you have to ask you can’t afford it.

* Well, most. See Terms & Conditions, sec. 45, paragraphs I through XLI.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-17-19/1348:11>
I'm not arguing that Gridguide isn't mandated in some areas, I'm arguing that off-grid driving isn't inherently dangerous and doing so won't immediately attract police attention.

Ok. We agree it's (probably) mandated in some areas. 

We also agree that noncompliance is not the sort of thing that probably attracts immediate corrective action from traffic enforcement.

Can we agree then, in contexts where its use is mandated, that noncompliance with that requirement CAN result in a stop from traffic enforcement?
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Michael Chandra on <02-17-19/1350:12>
Too many quotes. O_O Can one of you poke me once you reach consensus? My head hurts...
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-17-19/1352:19>
Given how little info is out there about GG, I don't think either of us is willing to adopt the other's headcanon.

I'm more concerned with the root of the argument being my claim that it's plausible you could get into hot water with police attention for having a wireless-off vehicle on a road where GG participation is mandatory.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-17-19/1429:15>
It'd be keyed to lifestyle. Low and Middle give you the basic program (Rating 4 autosofts) which are better than what your native Pilot program has, while high and Luxury give you the premium package (R6). Note that Luxury lifestyle people often get metahuman drivers to operate their vehicles as an example of opulence … these drivers get special permission to drive in GrideGuide(tm) required areas. Money! It gives you special rights.
Good to know. My rigger isn't the best at navigation, so I'll probably get some use out of the Navigation autosoft.

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Yeah, GridLink (different than GrideGuide!) … man. Lots about this one. I'd planned on having killed it off due to a whole host of things, but that didn't come to pass. It's a silly thing, IMHO, and undercuts a few things that would take a while to explain. BUT! I didn't get to pull that trigger.

Power issues in 2080 aren't a matter of generation so much as access. The corps *could* generate enough power to keep Seattle brightly lit up 24.7 if they really wanted, but, they don't. Access to juice is like access to real food, a way of marking privledge over your 'lessers'. As such, middle class and up get power, but the low and under get rationed levels. Streets are similar … main areas, like downtown, never have shortages. Once you move away from there, it comes down to how wealthy the area is. if you have money, you have power. if you're poor, it cuts off. If you're quite poor, you still have a gas-burner because there's never any juice in the road.
Kill Gridlink? Really? Well, I think it makes more sense to keep it around. Early Gridlink was a carrot to encourage people to obey the speed limit: you still had to pay for the power you got, buuuuut it was nice to not have to worry about recharging. Now that Gridlink power is free but you can't get it without submitting to Gridguide, that ups the carrot factor.

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For that, you'd have a status chart:

1) First Responders
2) Priority vehicles (tow trucks, school buses, etc)
3) GrideGuide (tm) vehicles
4) Piloted vehicles
5) Operated vehicles
Okay, so where on that chart is a vehicle with Gridlink Override? And just to settle the matter: can anyone on Grideguide make a U-turn on the 502, or is that sort of thing reserved for first responders and priority vehicles?

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Over the past five years, forces have aligned to gradually make driving a worse and worse experience unless you submit to corporate control, so you wind up waiting longer for traffic lights, police officers pull you over more often, your insurance rates go up … there's just a constant string of minor nuisances that lead to people giving up freedom for a better experience. You're also seeing more cars being made without manual controls at all... why waste money on something you'll never use? Get a car with no pedals or a steering wheel, get a great deal on your insurance! You can just hop in the car, tell it where to go, then sit back, relax, and futz around on your commlink until you get dropped off at work.

There's a LOT of car stuff I want to talk about, but, I have to save something for (Future Product), right? :D I think that you can see the general goal, however. I have a lot to say about the psychology and sociology behind the change, why it wasn't earlier, when it progressed, when it fell back, some market forces … there's a lot of factors in this mix.

I love this stuff. :D
I really would've liked to have seen this in Rigger 5.0, because it's important information for any riggers that focus on vehicles over drones. I really hope that future product comes out, though I don't know what sort of book it would be appropriate to discuss this in.

In 5th edition, actually, I don't think that's true. I don't have my Rigger 5.0 book handy at this moment but I'm positive there's a rule in there governing what it takes to remove GridGuide.  And like drones never saying they're rigger adapted (because they all are), vehicles never say they're GG compatible because they all are.
Rigger 5.0 doesn't explain how to remove your Gridlink, but it does state that it can be removed while presenting Gridlink Override as another option.

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Nothing ever says hacking GG allows remote control of a vehicle.  In fact pg 202 says the opposite... cars guided by GG are under the control of the vehicle's autopilot.  You'll still need to hack the vehicle and get the 3 marks to exercise remote control, GG or no GG.
Ah, but you forget: Gridguide is basically a very high powered RCC. The autopilot is in charge when it comes to things like 'don't hit that moose that just ran out onto the road', but Gridguide controls everything else.

Ok. We agree it's (probably) mandated in some areas. 

We also agree that noncompliance is not the sort of thing that probably attracts immediate corrective action from traffic enforcement.

Can we agree then, in contexts where its use is mandated, that noncompliance with that requirement CAN result in a stop from traffic enforcement?
Agreed.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: RiggerBob on <02-17-19/1508:02>
When was the last time you heard of someone being pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt and no other offense? I'm going to guess it was decades ago, and if more recently it was in one of the poorer, less developed [...] countries.
As i was just pulled over last week for not wearing a seatbelt, i now feel sad for living in a poor and less developed country (Germany). Same thing happened to me a year ago on vacation (California; and it was much more expensive there  :-\ ).

Yes, not wearing a seatbelt without any other offense is sufficient to get pulled over in most countries (and in 2/3 of the states in the U.S.; i actually checked....). And checking for a seatbelt isn't that hard. Drive by, turn your head, done.

How much more difficult might checking for GridGuide be with all the AugmentedReality?
If there is a fine (and additional fees) involved and they can pull you over, they will  ;)
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Hobbes on <02-17-19/1543:36>
You would have to account for Manual drivers because there will be some vehicles that aren't equipped for Grid Guide.

In 5th edition, actually, I don't think that's true. I don't have my Rigger 5.0 book handy at this moment but I'm positive there's a rule in there governing what it takes to remove GridGuide.  And like drones never saying they're rigger adapted (because they all are), vehicles never say they're GG compatible because they all are.

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Or for security reasons won't be linked to Grid Guide, like competing corporate interests.  Would make extraction damn easy if the target handed over the controls to the car...  Rerouting... Rerouting... Rerouting... Welcome to your new home.   8)

Nothing ever says hacking GG allows remote control of a vehicle.  In fact pg 202 says the opposite... cars guided by GG are under the control of the vehicle's autopilot.  You'll still need to hack the vehicle and get the 3 marks to exercise remote control, GG or no GG.

Either Grid Guide is driving or it isn't.  I mean... either you're letting Grid Guide get you from point A to point B, or you're not.  I have trouble seeing how you'd be able to skip traffic lights and all that cool stuff if you're driving.  The difference between the Autopilot driving to where Grid Guide sends it, and Grid Guide driving is pretty academic.  Ultimately Grid Guide decides where you're winding up.  And there are certainly going to be those who don't (and shouldn't) want that to happen.

And there are throw back vehicles without Grid Guide in production.  Thundercloud Morgan p. 52 Rigger 5.0 for example.  They may be oddities but they need to be accounted for. 
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-17-19/1632:20>
Either Grid Guide is driving or it isn't.

You might be excused for thinking that's logical.. but the way the relevant rule is worded it's not a binary either/or.

Quote from: SR5 pg 202
Vehicles being controlled by
GridGuide or an autonav system are considered under
the control of their Pilot program.

Since a formal control hierarchy is a thing in 5th edition, it is important to note that in a formal/technical sense, gridguide does NOT assume Remote Control of a vehicle, and therefore local/Manual control is still in control.  (under the Pilot's Manual Control, to be precise)  Of course, the way GridGuide is described, the metahuman control works essentially the same was as with a taxi.  You give a destination, and GridGuide works with your car's Pilot program to figure out the best/fastest/safest way to get to your desired destination.  Until such time you grab the wheel and decide to make decisions for yourself about which lane to be in, which turn to make, etc.

Quote from: Ghost Rigger
I'm going to stop you right there, because you're thinking about this backwards. If Gridguide can't warn you about a tow truck making a U-turn, then it considers you an obstacle and warns the tow truck driver about you. The U-turn will be delayed, and no one will crash.

Since we've agreed to agree on the big picture, now we can try to find common ground on the smaller details.  You make an interesting claim here: that in the case of "dark" vehicles, gridguide knows what it doesn't know!  So, sure, it is plausible that GG might be able to detect non-participating vehicles via pressure sensors in the roadway and/or indirectly reasoning its existence from analyzing other, participating vehicles' cameras.  But is there any statement supporting that idea?  I'm not sure there is.  Can you find one?


OTOH, when I suppose that vehicles on GG blow through intersections without stopping, it's coming from more than just applying Rule of Cool or from other Sci-Fi franchises.  It comes from the very explicit statement that in dense urban environments, GG vehicles average 80kph/50ish MPH.  If they're NOT blowing through intersections at 50MPH, then in order for that to be the average their sustained speeds on straightaways have to be even higher.  For every second spent waiting at a red light/stop sign, that's a second of travel at 100MPH to sustain the average!  On crowded, urban streets!  So, yeah... it makes a ton more sense to me that the average speed isn't in the middle of swingy extremes, but that the average speed is actually more or less consistently sustained, intersections and all! 
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ajax on <02-17-19/1716:09>
Wouldn’t it be easy to assume there is a tiered system in place for drivers’ licenses? Low level and easiest to get “restricted driver” requires you to always use GridGuide (unless it’s wholly unavailable, like for pulling into your own garage); a mid-tier “skilled driver” that let’s you drive in areas without the system (like rural areas or the barrens) but still requires you to use the system when it is available; and, lastly, a much harder to obtain “professional driver” license that lets you disconnect from the system at your own discretion (and then flags your account for possible review).

Your average salaryman who commutes from his home in the suburbs to an office in another suburb (but is too important to take mass transit) just needs the restricted license. GridGuide does 98% all the driving he’ll ever do in his life. He’s not allowed to drive on public roads anywhere there’s no GridGuide... He probably doesn’t even park his own car. 

A courier, traveling salesman, or other person that needs to travel between cities or into the rural areas a lot may opt to take a special exam (and pay a modest fee. Taxman gots to get his cut.) would be allowed to drive in areas where their is no Guide, but must use it where it is available. So if Salaryelf McWageslave a middle manager with BigAgri, Inc. needs to leave his office in Portland to visit a kelp processing plant in Coos Bay, he can drive there all by himself.

The aforementioned “I’m so rich I can hire a driver” types would hire people that have the highest tier of license (and probably pay the high fee and pay for the expensive insurance bond on behalf of their employee). This would be something akin to the “CDL” or “Class A” that a long-haul trucker needs.

All of which, of course, a Shadowrun GM could use to bleed some extra nuyen from their players.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Hobbes on <02-17-19/1746:01>

You might be excused for thinking that's logical.. but the way the relevant rule is worded it's not a binary either/or.


If I understand it correctly, User/Driver plugs the destination into the Autopilot.  Gridguide gives you the route.  User/Driver/Autopilot can overide at any point.  I mean people literally drive into buildings following their phone directions.  If GG sends you on an Alternate route you can either relax and let it do its thing or manually overide it.  You either let GG do it's thing, or you don't.  Either the Driver is driving, or GG is telling the Autopilot how to get to where the Driver said to go.  Could be I'm not understanding something.

If GG is owned by someone who wants you dead and/or kidnapped, seems to me that you'd likely just stay unplugged.  Or at least your security detail would handle the driving.  Otherwise a high profile extraction target would just get routed into a convenient pick up spot.  If they take the wheel before they get there, no worries, try again next Tuesday.

Its a total side note, but, you'll always have some manual drivers for a variety of reasons.  Presidential Motorcades or other security concerns, throwback vehicles, obstinate irrational humans. 
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-19-19/1044:38>
OTOH, when I suppose that vehicles on GG blow through intersections without stopping, it's coming from more than just applying Rule of Cool or from other Sci-Fi franchises.  It comes from the very explicit statement that in dense urban environments, GG vehicles average 80kph/50ish MPH.  If they're NOT blowing through intersections at 50MPH, then in order for that to be the average their sustained speeds on straightaways have to be even higher.  For every second spent waiting at a red light/stop sign, that's a second of travel at 100MPH to sustain the average!  On crowded, urban streets!  So, yeah... it makes a ton more sense to me that the average speed isn't in the middle of swingy extremes, but that the average speed is actually more or less consistently sustained, intersections and all!

Here we go... finally found a .gif that illustrates what I'm trying to describe:

(https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*yE3gF2CeRxkmRPWmQyj8gw.gif)

That's how I imagine GridGuide roadways, and that's why I can easily imagine it being such a hazard for someone to NOT be on GG.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-19-19/1115:49>
Yeah, avoiding the "Traffic snake" is a huge deal. That ripple when cars slow down, stop, then move again, but it cascades back through the line? Killing that changes the road game massively. Do I have the video still? I think I have the video. Let's see... YES!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE


Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ixal on <02-19-19/1227:40>

You might be excused for thinking that's logical.. but the way the relevant rule is worded it's not a binary either/or.


If I understand it correctly, User/Driver plugs the destination into the Autopilot.  Gridguide gives you the route.  User/Driver/Autopilot can overide at any point.  I mean people literally drive into buildings following their phone directions.  If GG sends you on an Alternate route you can either relax and let it do its thing or manually overide it.  You either let GG do it's thing, or you don't.  Either the Driver is driving, or GG is telling the Autopilot how to get to where the Driver said to go.  Could be I'm not understanding something.

If GG is owned by someone who wants you dead and/or kidnapped, seems to me that you'd likely just stay unplugged.  Or at least your security detail would handle the driving.  Otherwise a high profile extraction target would just get routed into a convenient pick up spot.  If they take the wheel before they get there, no worries, try again next Tuesday.

Its a total side note, but, you'll always have some manual drivers for a variety of reasons.  Presidential Motorcades or other security concerns, throwback vehicles, obstinate irrational humans.

If the autopilot could take over at any time then there wouldn't be a need for a GG override.
Imo GG is always active and controls the vehicle. The on board pilot only takes over when GG fails or is not available because wireless is off. Manual control is possible but GG still tracks the car and can take over if desired without the drivers permission
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-19-19/1345:15>
As it stands now, the default is manual control, with Autopilot and GridGuide (tm) asking you to transfer control (in that order), which you can refuse. That might change in the future tho.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wenlocke on <02-19-19/1504:00>
Is there actually a list anywhere of which road vehicles specifically don't include gridlink? Some of them hint at it (the Morgan, for example, with its manual control) but there's no explicit "so if i want gridlink override, which vehicles would it be redundant on?" list.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-19-19/1545:32>
Gridlink Override, R5.0 pg 167:
Quote
When activated, the vehicle appears to be interacting with the system normally but cannot be shut down, can exceed the posted speed limit, and randomly rotates its identifier so it cannot be tracked for an extended period

This is in turn an implicit statement that while ON Gridlink you CAN be remotely shut down, governed, and tracked.

That in turn poses the question of what the frag is the difference between Gridlink and Gridguide.  GL is defined on pgs 166-167, and near as I can tell appears to be just another name for Gridguide.  (Kind of like how R5 calls Autosofts "Skillsets" at one point, but no other book has ever used that term for them AFAIK.  Even R5 calls them Autosofts in the rest of the book aside from that one instance...)  Or, at best, GL is the "half" of the interface mounted on your car that connects you to the rest of GG.

According to R5 while connected to Gridguide the system has 3 marks on your vehicle (R5 pg 167), which renders it rules-mechanically possible for the system to assume Remote Control of your vehicle in the Control Override hierarchy (SR5 pg 265).  I.E. Jumped In trumps Remote Control, which trumps Manual Control, which trumps Autopilot control.  Since vehicles under "Gridguide control" are in fact under Autopilot control (SR5 pg 202) it sure sounds to me that vehicles tooling around on GG are under the lowest level of the Control Override hierarchy, where even you grabbing the wheel or brake pedal (and assuming Manual Control) will override routine GG commands.  Only in emergencies (like you fleeing from the Police) would GG capitalize on its 3 marks on your vehicle and execute Remote Control and override both Autopilot and Manual Control.

Is there actually a list anywhere of which road vehicles specifically don't include gridlink? Some of them hint at it (the Morgan, for example, with its manual control) but there's no explicit "so if i want gridlink override, which vehicles would it be redundant on?" list.

Honestly, unless the vehicle is a throwback I'd presume it's assumed it has Gridlink.  There's no option to put it on, and to me that's support for the picture painted elsewhere that "everyone has it".  Same reason why Drones don't ever list Rigger Adaptation; it's a waste of ink to specify since they all already have it.

The Thundercloud Morgan is a curious example.  It doesn't exactly say it has no Gridlink, but it does say it has "all manual controls".  Honestly I read that to mean you can't use remote operations on its heavy weapon mount, but I suppose it could also mean it has no means of driving other than manual controls.  Again it just doesn't say.  So, looking at the stat bar: Yep, the heavy weapon must be physically manipulated, but curiously the vehicle also appears to have "Manual Operation" as standard equipment.  That's a feature that applies to weapon mounts, so it's IMO probably an editing mistake.  The closest thing you could apply to the vehicle as a whole is "Manual Control Override" which is very much not the same thing as having no Gridlink at all.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Beta on <02-19-19/1740:22>
@Wakshaani Please don't make GridGuide too pervasive or mandatory.  A lot of people like being hot-shot drivers, and/or buffing up their vehicles, and chase scenes can be a lot of fun when they work well.  Too much GridGuide means having to really stretch willing suspension of disbelief in order to have some good pink mohawk fun.  And honestly, in a dystopian setting nothing should work that well, part of the point of the whole world is that pettiness and greed and fear and so forth taint everything.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-20-19/0020:48>
@Wakshaani Please don't make GridGuide too pervasive or mandatory.  A lot of people like being hot-shot drivers, and/or buffing up their vehicles, and chase scenes can be a lot of fun when they work well.  Too much GridGuide means having to really stretch willing suspension of disbelief in order to have some good pink mohawk fun.  And honestly, in a dystopian setting nothing should work that well, part of the point of the whole world is that pettiness and greed and fear and so forth taint everything.

I'll be addressing that in (Future Product) if it gets greenlit. There's a big difference between what Joe Salaryman has and Sarah Shadowrunner. Your local Shadowmechanic will be all about, "Alright, step one..." *reaches under the hood, yanks out a giant chunk of wires and sparks, "...this has got to go."

Don't worry on that front.

As for GridGuide(tm) and GridLink, here's the difference (and why I was gonna kill Link off)

GridGuide(tm) is a way to control your vehicle, folding it effortless into the citywide traffic flow.

GridLink is a metal connector from your car that connects to the city's power grid, charging your car while you drive. It does not, ina ny way, shape, or form, control your car.

(This is how they worked back when they were invented. It's gone a bit off the, uh … rails … since then, but this would be getting it back to those roots.)

Needless to say, having live power coursing through the city streets for a moving vehicle to tap into is … well, "Dangerous" is too soft a word. Better, by far, to have charging stations. There's a HUGE host of reasons why to do this and nearly as many why live power feed from the stretes is a bad, bad idea.

As for all cars havng GridGuide(tm)? It'll be standard issue at some point for all but certain cars. When that happens, they'll be a big ol' fluff note about it and talk about how to buy cars from before the changeover. Again, Shadowrunners look for options that normal people don't. Ways to cut the feature off/remove it and similar adjustments (cough) would be in the same area.

I'm a huge proponent of the Rule of Cool and, while today, we have electric cars that can match speed and acceleration with gas cars, in Shadowrun, gas-burners always go faster. Why? Because they're loud and belch smoke and so on. So a crook with a big loud obnoxious engine with pipes sticking out? Always faster than an electric car. (They also jump over creeks better. Yeee-haw!)
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ixal on <02-20-19/0444:32>
Sounds like another Rigger book to complement FA and KC?

Not sure if killing GridLink is needed. With induction it should not be that dangerous and it could also explain why you dont need to charge your comlink etc.

But maybe I just dont see the problem(s).
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-20-19/0833:39>
Since we've agreed to agree on the big picture, now we can try to find common ground on the smaller details.  You make an interesting claim here: that in the case of "dark" vehicles, gridguide knows what it doesn't know!  So, sure, it is plausible that GG might be able to detect non-participating vehicles via pressure sensors in the roadway and/or indirectly reasoning its existence from analyzing other, participating vehicles' cameras.  But is there any statement supporting that idea?  I'm not sure there is. Can you find one?
I can't find anything about how modern Gridguide works. It hasn't been described in detail since Rigger 3 (unless there's something about it in a 4e book I'm missing), so until that Future Product comes out I can't say anything for it and you can't say anything against it. However, as I and others have said, Gridguide does need to be able to accommodate off-grid drivers to some degree. There must be some way for it to be aware of off-grid drivers, even if we can only speculate on the specific mechanics of how. (@Wakshaani, I hope you're taking notes on this)

@Wakshaani Please don't make GridGuide too pervasive or mandatory.  A lot of people like being hot-shot drivers, and/or buffing up their vehicles, and chase scenes can be a lot of fun when they work well.  Too much GridGuide means having to really stretch willing suspension of disbelief in order to have some good pink mohawk fun.  And honestly, in a dystopian setting nothing should work that well, part of the point of the whole world is that pettiness and greed and fear and so forth taint everything.
Gridlink Override isn't very difficult to get though.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-22-19/1201:44>
SkyGuide (R5, pg 126) offers some lore and crunch that may be relevant to GridGuide.  Or maybe not.

Drones manufactured since 2078 automatically have it.  Older drones may have it added for the listed price.
-- This certainly seems to be circumstantial evidence that GridLink is considered automatically included on Vehicles (and Drones with a G movement code), since SkyGuide is unlike Gridguide in that it is "relatively new" as of the in-universe publication of R5.

Skyguide "takes priority" over the controller's commands. This means your drone can be controlled by the Skyguide system, or Riggers working within that system, against the controller's wishes. (Note- this doesn't appear to me to be an exception to the existing Control Override hierarchy, just an elaboration on what an unstated 3 marks on your drone implies. I.E. if you're Jumped In to your flying drone on Skyguide I'd argue it doesn't get to overrule your trump-proof control)
-- This may or may not have any relevance to GridGuide.  Opinion is in the eye of the beholder.

Skyguide gives a mechanical benefit: While on Skyguide your drone gets benefit of a free array of autosofts consisting of Maneuver 6 and Navigation 6.  It's unclear as to whether this array stacks with drone-loaded or RCC-loaded arrays of autosofts or overrides them.
-- Again, may or may not have any relevance to GridGuide, depending on your perspective.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-22-19/1257:04>
Another wrinkle comes from SRM:

Quote from: SRM FAQ pg 78 as of v.1.3
What is the default sensor array for a vehicle or drone? If there is no factory stock sensor array, what are the
guidelines for standard sensor arrays?


For Shadowrun Missions, each vehicle’s sensor rating is the equivalent of a sensor housing of the same rating.
Customization is a big selling point for the corps, so you may choose whatever combination of sensors and rating you
wish when purchasing a vehicle/drone as long as it does not exceed the capacity of the sensor housing. Some
enterprising runners like to “acquire” vehicles from other sources and want to know what these “stock” vehicles have
for sensors. Stock vehicles (any vehicle without the sensors specifically described) come with the following sensors
at Rating 1 (or listed device rating):

- Sensor Rating 1: atmosphere sensor (DR2) (capacity 1)
- Sensor Rating 2: above + rear-facing camera (capacity 2)
- Sensor Rating 3: above + front-facing camera (capacity 3)
- Sensor Rating 4: above + front-facing laser range finder (DR2) (capacity 4)
- Sensor Rating 5: above + rear-facing laser range finder (DR2) (capacity 5)
- Sensor Rating 6: above + front-facing motion sensor (DR2) (capacity 6)

NOTE: The cameras are just regular cameras (rating 1) and do not have any modifications. These may be
purchased separately. This is also a very basic list, GMs may decide NPC vehicles or drones have different options
than those listed above to suit the situation. Also, though cameras and laser range finders say front or rear facing, some
vehicles or drones may have them pointing a different direction, e.g. a floating drone may have a front and bottom
mounted camera.

NOTE 2: The types of sensors on the vehicle will not impact sensor tests. This is meant to be a guide for
those who wonder what type of sensors come with a vehicle.


Consider that under this assumption the vast majority of ground vehicles don't even have so much as a front facing camera. (not present on Sensor ratings 1 and 2). This paradigm has significant problems supporting the view that sensors built in to the vehicles are routinely aiding in GridGuide's operation. If only in SRM.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-22-19/1355:31>
So according to SRM, the average ground vehicle does not have the capacity to detect a small child that has run out in front of it chasing a wayward soccer ball? Yeah, no. That's a step backward from even the most basic autonavs described in Rigger 3. Any ground vehicle is going have ultrasonic proximity detectors as a standard feature.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-22-19/1414:48>
So according to SRM, the average ground vehicle does not have the capacity to detect a small child that has run out in front of it chasing a wayward soccer ball? Yeah, no. That's a step backward from even the most basic autonavs described in Rigger 3. Any ground vehicle is going have ultrasonic proximity detectors as a standard feature.

Well Note 2 explains that no, the sensors can still (somehow) detect the kid chasing the soccer ball.  Since Sensor tests are "not impacted" by this list giving the presence/absence of sensors and their fields of view.

My point in bringing it up is (arguably) it's kind of shaky to assume GridGuide is routinely relying upon a vehicle's own sensors. But I think it's well established that we don't see eye to eye on that, so maybe it's for the best if I recant the example and say "never mind" since that'll only inevitably result in "Well that's SRM, not my home game" anyway.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Wakshaani on <02-22-19/1424:46>
Adds "Discussion about sensors for modern books" to the note list.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-22-19/1952:10>
Upon reviewing the core rulebook, it appears that every vehicle is equipped with a sensor array. If you would allow me to humbly suggest what sensors would come standard on a vehicle, given that the corps are selecting them for safety concerns:
4 Cameras (1 on the front bumper, 1 on the rear bumper, and 2 on the sides/side mirrors)
2 Laser Range Finders (1 on the front, 1 on the back)
Ultrasound
Omnidirectional Microphone (this one is for the safety of riggers)
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-22-19/1956:10>
Upon reviewing the core rulebook, it appears that every vehicle is equipped with a sensor array. If you would allow me to humbly suggest what sensors would come standard on a vehicle, given that the corps are selecting them for safety concerns:
4 Cameras (1 on the front bumper, 1 on the rear bumper, and 2 on the sides/side mirrors)
2 Laser Range Finders (1 on the front, 1 on the back)
Ultrasound
Omnidirectional Microphone (this one is for the safety of riggers)

I'd quibble a bit with Ultrasound.

I can see why Runners and Security Drones would want it... but factory standard?  IMO only on purpose built security drones.  An Atmospheric sensor would be of greater interest to the civilian market, and correspondingly more plausible as a standard feature.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-22-19/2009:17>
You need a means of detecting obstacles in a low visibility environment, so you need ultrasound. Mind you, on a ground vehicle the corps would probably cheap out and only give you a version with a maximum range of a few meters, but for basic crash prevention? A few meters is all you need.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-22-19/2028:11>
A few meters range won't do a thing for crash prevention.  (and I'm arguing that the cameras with infinite LOS aren't doing much either, due to not being able to see THROUGH things as GridGuide can!)

Aside from detecting invisible shadowrunners the only call for ultrasound would be in environments where the camera doesn't work.  If darkness/fog is presumed to be an issue, addons for the cameras can address that.

A typical civilian car should have an Atmospheric sensor... hell real life cars at least have thermometers.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-22-19/2036:44>
You can say that, but Rigger 3 says that in the 2060s, autonavs with ultrasound and basic radar sensors were standard on most vehicles. Hell, you can find ultrasound sensors as part of the safety systems of some modern vehicles.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <02-22-19/2039:44>
You can say that, but Rigger 3 says that in the 2060s, autonavs with ultrasound and basic radar sensors were standard on most vehicles. Hell, you can find ultrasound sensors as part of the safety systems of some modern vehicles.

I had something else to say, but partway through I had an epiphany.

It doesn't matter if we don't agree on what's "factory standard". The paradigm of unspecific sensor functions actually works better if it's not codified.
Title: Re: A Guide to Gridguide
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <02-22-19/2047:39>
To be fair, if you could get both your sides with one camera, that'll let you have an atmosphere sensor too. Or just sacrifice the microphone, if you think the vehicle will never be rigged.