Sorry for formatting. On phone.
Control Rig is super powerful when it comes to controlling a vehicle and its mounted weapons. Piloting or Gunnery without one does not even compare.
RCC is very useful when controlling swarm of drones. Use of a commlink or cyberdeck does not compare.
Manual Piloting: Disadvantage, Rigger
... That means that any Initiative based character (typically Street Sams and Adepts, though Mages can be as well) can out pilot a Rigger when only comparing meatspace abilities.
Riggers generally have maxed out Reaction and great Piloting skills. But yes, others might have better physical initiative.
Remote Piloting: Wash
The Rigger doesn’t gain anything in Remote Piloting that others do not.
On the fly noise reduction using Electronic Warfare.
Noise reduction by reducing sharing.
Riggers generally have maxed out Reaction and great Piloting skills.
... But yes, others might have higher physical initiative, but remote control can also be done via VR (this give you situational modifiers) and VR will also use your VR imitative rather than your physical initiative.
Jumped In: Sole Advantage, Rigger
In 5e, the primary benefit of being Jumped In is reduced Thresholds for Piloting tests.
This is where they shine and totally outclass other drivers or gunners in anything vehicle related.
Control Rig also increase Speed, Handing, Accuracy and Sensor(!)
In 5e, there are no opposed Piloting rolls (other than whatever the GM makes up), and you are only rolling against the environment.
Using your vehicle to stalk/follow someone.
Using vehicle mounted weapons to fire at someone.
Using your vehicle to ram someone.
Using your vehicle to catch up or break away from someone.
Etc.
slip into some building/facility, and do your nefarious deed, and slip out unnoticed.
By that point of view you don't need muscle, either.
Combat happens (otherwise known as 'The Shit Hits The Fan"-phase)
As a result you will have an exfil phase under time pressure (because HTR team is entering the facility or whatever)
Which is followed by the car chase scene (unless maybe the team don't have a dedicated wheelman, same as if the team don't have a way to deal with magical threats then they will probably not run into magical threats...)
Watch any random action movie. Car chasing happens.
Manual Piloting: Disadvantage, Rigger
Manual piloting is not a thing for drones. But you can instruct the autopilot to take an action on its own, using its own ratings.
With an RCC you get to instruct multiple drones with one simple action.
With RCC you get to share autosofts that have higher rating than the drone can run
If you use a rigger 5 then:
With RCC you can run drone swarms
Remote Piloting: Wash
Just like in the wheelman role, there is no advantage to a Rigger remote piloting over any other character...
On the fly noise reduction using Electronic Warfare.
Noise reduction by reducing sharing.
Riggers generally have maxed out Reaction and great Piloting skills.
... But yes, others might have higher physical initiative, but remote control can also be done via VR (this give you situational modifiers) and VR will also use your VR imitative rather than your physical initiative.
Jumped In: Sole Advantage, Rigger
Also like the wheelman role, Riggers are the only ones...
In addition to all the advantages that wheelman enjoyed (reduced thresholds, increased dice pool, increase Speed, Handing, Accuracy and Sensor) you also get to:
Jump between drones as a simple action
Reduce noise on the fly
Reduce noise by reducing sharing
If you use a rigger 5 then:
While jumped in you can take the swarm action (which is different from the swarm program)
Typical roles in Shadowrun :
* Muscle (Combat and physical infiltration)
* Face (Contact networking, negotiating, social infiltration)
* Hacker (Matrix legwork & stealing blueprints, control cameras, elevators, sensors & alarms during infiltration and exfiltration, electrician)
* Rigger (Wheelman, transportation, physical surveillance & physical overwatch, combat support, mechanic, get-away-driver)
* Magician (Utility spells, astral surveillance & astral overwatch, deal with astral threats such as spirits, combat support)
Edit. Making my way through the thread...
Riggers should drive donuts around others in vehicle chases / combat.
That is the lie of someone who hasn't grasped the rules for vehicle chases / combats. Lets take one Bad Ass Rigger (BAR for short) with a dice pool of...
You almost never have a speed environment. Not even during a street race. In my experience it will be handing and higher thresholds that will be the limiting factor. Prevent crashing, performing impossible stunts and racing in tight terrain. This is something a jumped in driver excel at.
1) Other than weakening other roles (such as a mage), where do you think a Rigger needs improvement the most?
They need cheaper infiltration / surveillance drones and it need to be cheaper to repair their more expansive combat drones and vehicles.
IMO this is what a rigger do: Wheelman, transportation, physical surveillance & physical overwatch, combat support, mechanic, get-away-driver.
2) Roughly how often do you use vehicle chases? Would them being more common help or be a hassle?
Quite often if we have a wheelman.
Not very often if we don't
Same as if we quite often have Astral threats (or matrix threats) if have someone that can deal with them
Not often if we don't.
3) Where are drones strong? Where are drones weak?
Strong at long range support. Long range sniper shots at unaware targets. 600-800m layered suppressive fire from machine guns. Surveillance. Jumped in infiltration.
Drones are fragile and expensive. Can't handle direct combat that well. But it is also important that they don't take spotlight from muscle....
4) Would you prefer a rigger focus be on vehicles or drones?
Driven vehicles.
5) Would you rather a rigger be better in meatspace or in the Matrix?
They should impact the physical world, but also anything signal related (ECM, ECCM, lock on, jamming, bug scanning, intercept signals)
Also [temporary] stealing cars (!)
But not really hacking or cybercombat.
6) What do you like about being a Rigger?
In theory? The gone in 60 seconds or the fast n the furious feeling. Also Top Gun or that crazy pilot in the A Team.
Currently hard to translate that into actual Shadowrun game play :/
7) What are the worst aspects of being a Rigger?
The disconnect from the rest of the team.
Remote hackers have a similar issue, although AR hacking and direct connection backdoor is a step in the right direction.
Also many drones in combat slow down the flow of combat. Swarm rules is a step in the right direction (saw there are similar rules for mooks in SR6, which is good).
Would you prefer drones to be cheap and disposable or expensive and durable?
Both.
Cheap and disposable surveillance and infiltration drones.
Expansive and durable rigger alter ego that will represent the rigger on site and in combat (exoskeleton or some sort of light battle mech that you ride inside??)
9) Are vehicle prices appropriate for the times when the Rigger gets to show off their toys or do they cost too much vs how often they are used?
Riggers are pretty resource intensive, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Repair cost and upkeep are bigger issues I think.