[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

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.

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.

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! 

[Ajax]

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.

[Hobbes]

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. 

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

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:



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.

[Wakshaani]

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

[Ixal]

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

[Wakshaani]

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.

[Wenlocke]

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.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Gridlink Override, R5.0 pg 167:

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.

[Beta]

@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.

[Wakshaani]

@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!)

[Ixal]

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).

[Ghost Rigger]

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.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

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.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Another wrinkle comes from SRM:

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.