[hayek]

Obviously, if you're jumping into your drones, Noise (and Noise Reduction) is very important. But if you're just a 'command center' Rigger that only sends out orders to an army of drones on Autopilot, isn't Noise pretty irrelevant, or am I missing something? Noise does not give a penalty to a Drone doing anything on Autopilot.

The one thing that might matter is the rule that says Wireless doesn't function for a device if the Noise in the area (excluding distance) is greater than the Device Rating, so if someone was doing some serious jamming to you (greater than your RCC's Device Rating) you might actually care about Noise. But, I think there was a FAQ response that clarified that rule only applied to the 'Wireless Benefits' of a device, not its basic Wireless functionality...

[Michael Chandra]

Under the ruling that Noise only blocks Wireless Bonuses, which I personally quite disagree with, it only matters for Remote Control and Jumping In, yes. In fact, you're better off letting the Drones carry Rating 6 Jammers so they're less easily hacked.

[firebug]

Under the ruling that Noise only blocks Wireless Bonuses, which I personally quite disagree with, it only matters for Remote Control and Jumping In, yes. In fact, you're better off letting the Drones carry Rating 6 Jammers so they're less easily hacked.

Ugh, god that ruling makes no sense.  The drone with its Rating 6 Jammer can wirelessly show you everything it sees, everything it's sensors pick up, it could even browse the matrix and download music to blast (in AR only) in the surrounding area.  But the moment you try to do something with a roll, then suddenly the matrix is all wonky.

My opinion stands, that the Rigging portion (and all the Matrix rules it interacts with) seem to be only like 1/3rd done in the core book.

[Kincaid]

Under the ruling that Noise only blocks Wireless Bonuses, which I personally quite disagree with, it only matters for Remote Control and Jumping In, yes. In fact, you're better off letting the Drones carry Rating 6 Jammers so they're less easily hacked.

Ugh, god that ruling makes no sense.  The drone with its Rating 6 Jammer can wirelessly show you everything it sees, everything it's sensors pick up, it could even browse the matrix and download music to blast (in AR only) in the surrounding area.  But the moment you try to do something with a roll, then suddenly the matrix is all wonky.

My opinion stands, that the Rigging portion (and all the Matrix rules it interacts with) seem to be only like 1/3rd done in the core book.

I feel badly for Full Deck, who was foolishly trying to throw a jammer at a guard shack on page 176, when that jammer will, apparently, do nothing.

[Michael Chandra]

And Head Jammers, intended to block internal commlinks, doing no such thing.

[martinchaen]

Even a Jumped In rigger doesn't need to worry much about Noise, to be fair. Between a Device Rating of 4 or 5, plus a Data Jack's Wireless Bonus of 1 NR, plus Signal Scrubber of 2, you're up to 7-8 Noise Reduction. The only times you need to worry about noise in that case is if you're trying to rig a drone halfway across the world from downtown Neo-Tokyo during an "Technomancers are people; stop the violence!" rally (and even then, all it takes is a sattelite link to eliminate most of the noise due to the distance)...

I second Firebug's comment on Aaron's wireless reading; it makes absolutely no sense to me. At my table, jamming is jamming; no matrix connectivity = no wireless functionality at all, including wireless grenades (good reason to carry a R3 jammer all on it's own), team comms (potentially excepting microtranceivers), and things like RFID tags are no longer traceable, to name a few.

[EDIT]
And if we're going by the book where a wired connection cannot grant Wireless Access, a Faraday Cage will completely negate a decker; even if he ran a wire through the mesh to another device, he wouldn't be able to connect his deck to the matrix... Yeah...

[SlowDeck]

Nah. They got around the problem with wireless communication back in the 1960s. Some military and science facilities have Faraday Cages built into them, but still need access to satellite uplinks. You need a wired connection to a wireless transceiver of some sort, like a satellite dish. with the transceiver being outside the Faraday Cage.

It actually isn't that difficult to set up a wireless network inside a Faraday Cage and have a wired connection to a wireless transceiver for purposes of wifi internet. The cage would just limit communications between the two to the wired connection. In fact, when the Matrix book comes out, I won't be surprised if that's not the standard for how a lot of megacorp research facilities are set up.

This would benefit a spider rigger a lot; they wouldn't have to worry about noise at all, would still have wireless connection to their drones, and any disruption of communication would be a dead giveaway of intruders.

[martinchaen]

SlowDeck
You might want to check the rules as they're written, which is what I was hinting at when I said "if we're going by the book"... Can't get wireless from a wired connection unless you house rule it.

[SlowDeck]

Sure you can! It mentions under the entry of wired security that if the wire is breached and tapped, it can be rebroadcast wirelessly.

Data taps, which exist just to establish a direct connection to a wired network, are on page 440. Cyberdecks are on the previous page, along with satellite links. A single decker with just those three items could use the data tap to connect to the wired network, plug their cyberdeck into the data tap, and retransmit the data wirelessly no matter how far they are from an established network using the satellite uplink. A corporation could use a data tap just for the fact it can be blown up; then, if an intrusion is detected, they just dump the hacker from their network by cutting the connection without harming their network.

If you want more fun using just the core rulebook, use a series of data taps with cyberdecks plugged into them to act as wireless transceivers. Instant wireless network inside the wired network, and completely rules legal.

[martinchaen]

*queue Xenon, cause I'm too lazy to quote the last umpteen pages of discussion and rule book quotes*

[hayek]

Under the ruling that Noise only blocks Wireless Bonuses, which I personally quite disagree with, it only matters for Remote Control and Jumping In, yes. In fact, you're better off letting the Drones carry Rating 6 Jammers so they're less easily hacked.

Ugh, god that ruling makes no sense.  The drone with its Rating 6 Jammer can wirelessly show you everything it sees, everything it's sensors pick up, it could even browse the matrix and download music to blast (in AR only) in the surrounding area.  But the moment you try to do something with a roll, then suddenly the matrix is all wonky.

My opinion stands, that the Rigging portion (and all the Matrix rules it interacts with) seem to be only like 1/3rd done in the core book.

I feel badly for Full Deck, who was foolishly trying to throw a jammer at a guard shack on page 176, when that jammer will, apparently, do nothing.

I second Firebug's comment on Aaron's wireless reading; it makes absolutely no sense to me. At my table, jamming is jamming; no matrix connectivity = no wireless functionality at all, including wireless grenades (good reason to carry a R3 jammer all on it's own), team comms (potentially excepting microtranceivers), and things like RFID tags are no longer traceable, to name a few.

Had to quote everyone for truth. I agree absolutely - actually just had this issue come up in my game on Saturday when the party heard a security guard coming around the corner and they didn't have time to hide. The Rigger flipped on his Jammer so the guard couldn't report them, and I thought "That technically won't work, 'cause jammers only stop Wireless benefits, not basic wireless communication." I then thought about that fact for about .01 seconds before concluding, "well, that makes absolutely no sense... then a jammer couldn't jam communications... seems like that's pretty much the whole idea of a jammer"... some of these rules interpretations... it's like they're not actually playing the game when they come up with them. where did they playtest this idea, where an actual player was sitting at a table and was told "sorry, jammers don't actually jam communications in anyway", and the player responded "cool, that makes total sense"?...

[SlowDeck]

I suspect I have misread what Martin was hinting at.

Hayek, want even more ridiculousness? Apparently, stone doesn't block radio signals. Even if you're well beneath the Earth's surface. As long as it's not metal-laced stone in your way, under RAW you can transmit to Seattle from deep inside the Earth's crust and only suffer range penalties and possibly a static zone penalty. Or even transmit from near the Earth's core.

[Xenon]

*queue Xenon, cause I'm too lazy to quote the last umpteen pages of discussion and rule book quotes*

Real life analogy:
Noise is basically a few ms of extra latency.
It affect your actions on the net, it does not prevent access to the net.
It will affect you when you play a First Person Shooter.
You will not really notice it when you browse the web.
^This is the design intent Aaron had in his mind when talking about noise and wireless bonuses.

And to quote some fluff from the book so you don't think I am making this stuff up.
SR5 p. 230 Noise
...It may seem as if traffic in the Matrix is instantaneous, but ask anyone who has played an online game with someone a few continents away—there is a noticeable delay compared to playing someone next door. When decisions are being made in the blink of an eye, every speed difference matters. The farther you are away from an icon in real life, the harder it is to communicate with it...


Having said that, back to SR5:
Noise affect all your actions when rigging (unless you use a direct connection).
Noise will not affect you at all when you take actions that are not matrix actions.
Auto pilots does not use matrix actions, so noise will probably not affect autopilots.


Now...

What the real issue is here is if the total noise level from other sources than distance exceed device rating only stop wireless bonuses or if it stop wireless communication period. And it all boils down to WIRELESS FUNCTIONALLITY - Wireless Bonuses on p. 421 and it's use of the phrase "wireless functionality".

On one side.
Back to the FPS analogy one would think that noise due to distance would make my game experience bad while a local Jammer would down right kill my wi-fi connection all together. The book support this idea at p. 421 - If there is a Noise Rating from a situation that is greater than the item’s Device Rating, not including distance, the item temporarily loses its wireless functionality and later on the same page, but not under Wireless Bonuses, Toggling an individual device’s wireless functionality off is a Free Action, as is toggling all of your wireless devices to “wireless off.” You lose wireless bonuses, but the items can no longer be wirelessly hacked.

On the other side.
The quote about device rating and losing wireless functionality is not located in the wireless functionality section. It is located in the Wireless Bonus section. The book is notorious of using different names for the same thing. "wireless functionality" here can very well be read as "wireless bonuses", it all depend on your reading... However, Aaron -which have access to behind the scenes information that all the rest of us lack-, ruled that the "wireless functionality" reference in the Wireless Bonus section is indeed talking about wireless bonuses and nothing else.

Also, if you have a low life style (noise 2 due to Public Grid) then you can't experience augmented reality or even make a phone call while you are in Seattle downtown (noise 2 due to Sprawl Downtown) with a Meta Link, Erika MCD-1, Scratch-Built Junk, Radio Shack Remote Controller, Microdeck Summit, Microtrónica Azteca 200, Hermes Chariot, Essy Motors DroneMaster, Sony Emperor, Novatech Navigator or Renraku Tsurugi (the last 4 will get a connection to the matrix if you have a datajack).
Edit: Public Grid does not provide 2 points of noise. It only provide a negative dice pool modifier of 2 dice. You can use all except the very low end communication device to make a call in Seattle Downtown... and even with rating 1 devices you can still communicate just fine even in a Sprawl Downtown as long as you have a datajack...

...it could even browse the matrix and download music to blast (in AR only) in the surrounding area...

Since when can drones form a persona of their own and download music from the Matrix...?
(and if they can, why only AR)

Sure you can! It mentions under the entry of wired security that if the wire is breached and tapped, it can be rebroadcast wirelessly.

Are you saying that the device that don't even realize that that the wire is being breached and tapped will get matrix connectivity and wireless bonuses...?

...Between a Device Rating of 4 or 5...you're up to 7-8 Noise Reduction... rig a drone halfway across the world...

Are you saying that Device Rating provide noise reduction...?
(or are you converting all RCC sharing power to noise reduction)

[SlowDeck]

Sure you can! It mentions under the entry of wired security that if the wire is breached and tapped, it can be rebroadcast wirelessly.

Are you saying that the device that don't even realize that that the wire is being breached and tapped will get matrix connectivity and wireless bonuses...?

Nope! I'm counting on the idea the devices suddenly getting Matrix access would set off a lot of alarm bells in the heads of spiders... and, shortly afterwards, they would probably set off existing alarms.

I do think it is possible to get wireless bonuses... but only if the people the device actually belongs to turns them on. Which, given the wireless nature of the Matrix, probably means that even if the decker succeeds in not setting off any alarms the alarms will go off anyway when the spiders get pop-ups about turning on wireless bonuses. Especially if the system itself is entirely wired and not connected to the Matrix.

[martinchaen]

*queue Xenon, cause I'm too lazy to quote the last umpteen pages of discussion and rule book quotes*

Thanks for picking up on that, and for saying what I was thinking but was too lazy to do; good answer

...Between a Device Rating of 4 or 5...you're up to 7-8 Noise Reduction... rig a drone halfway across the world...

Are you saying that Device Rating provide noise reduction...?
(or are you converting all RCC sharing power to noise reduction)

No, merely that the Noise Rating has to exceed the Device Rating for it to cancel out the matrix connectivity / Wireless Functionality of the device.

Unless of course I'm reading that wrong; checking now.

[EDIT]
Ah, I think I see what you're saying; I misspoke. In the above example that I used, I should have said "Effective Device Rating" for the purposes of losing Wireless Functionality, not "Noise Reduction" (though that is a possibility using the RCC for Noise Reduction, as you pointed out).

Thanks for pointing that out, my bad.