Riggers

Driving a car remotely can be great. A virtual control panel opens before you in AR or VR, the car’s built-in sensors appear as a display, and your every command is relayed to your car and obeyed as though you were physically at the wheel. You could make the car drive with a gesture or a thought and keep most of your attention on something else, like watching Neil the Ork Barbarian split the heads of his enemies like so many ripe melons. That’s how most denizens of 2075 drive their vehicles, when they drive at all.

But what if you could be the car? What if you could tap the same unconscious impulses you use to move your limbs, flick your eyes to focus on different objects, and instinctively keep your balance and avoid obstacles, and use them for your car? What if you could not just make the car drive, but dance? If you did that, you’d be a rigger.

Free as a Bird

Being a rigger isn’t like being any ordinary wheelman. You have the ability to become your vehicles and drones, at least virtually, making you more than just the sum of flesh and metal. Movement uses a lot of different parts of your brain, as do your senses, and the control rig connects to every one of them. That makes it easily the most invasive piece of headware you can buy, and that’s saying something about the people who buy them.

When you jump into a vehicle or drone, your control rig feeds information to your brain to make you feel like the machine you’re jumping into. There’s a bit of a virtual transformation process that takes a second or two, helping ensure that the change doesn’t hit you like a brick to the noggin. After that, your control rig uses signals from your brain to control the machine, so it moves the way you want it to, so seamlessly that you might as well be one being. Acceleration, braking, maneuvering, all as easy wiggling your big toe or shifting your weight in your meat body.

There’s more to a control rig than just movement. It also interprets input from the vehicle and feeds it to your brain as sight, sound, feeling, scents, and other sensations. An empty gas tank feels like hunger. A sensor package becomes your eyes and ears. The rigger interface package comes with an accelerometer so you can feel balance. And of course, damage feels like pain.

The Game is Rigged

Riggers serve in a lot of roles in the Sixth World. They most often serve as drivers (obviously), although only a small percentage of professional drivers—bus and taxi drivers, chauffeurs, delivery drivers, and so on—actually spring for a control rig. Drivers who need to be very precise or very efficient, like high-speed couriers, race drivers, emergency service drivers, etc., have a much higher chance of being riggers.

Riggers can perform a large number of services using drones, controlled remotely from a central location. Traffic monitoring and police beats are often covered by drones, usually flying ones. Riggers use drones for hazardous jobs, like reactor maintenance, firefighting, mining, and demolitions. Drones are often the first forces to arrive at a violent crime scene, partly because they’re faster, but mostly because it’s safer for law enforcement.

Riggers don’t have to stick to vehicles and drones. Other devices can be adapted for rigger control, too. Mounted turrets, especially water cannons on firefighting trucks and anti-aircraft batteries on naval vessels, are often rigged. There’s a specialized rigger interface for musical instruments that only partly overrides the user’s motor function so he can still play to an audience on stage. There are a lot of large and/or secure facilities that have a rigger running and monitoring the entire building.

Riggers in the Shadows

But that’s all just in regular life. You want to hear about riggers in the shadows.

Riggers are great in a fight. A single rigger can put several combat drones into a fight at once and use them as a mobile strike force or for suppressive fire. In larger spaces or on the run, a rigger in a tricked-out vehicle can be as effective as a tank. Even in smaller spaces, don’t underestimate the maneuverability and firepower (and attitude) of a rigger on an armed motorcycle.

Riggers are also good for recon. Microdrones and minidrones can sneak into secure areas and collect information for you. Larger drones can patrol a perimeter

If you’re clever, a rigged car innocently parked in a strategic location can feed information on the entire area.

Of course, you can drive the team around, too. It is, after all, your main thing. Especially when “around” means “at a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour up I-5 while they hang out the windows firing at a go gang/ police squad/corporate gunship/enraged dragon.”

Being the Machine

Rigging starts with the important first step of having a control rig augmentation (p. 452) for your character. That’s only a starting point, though—there’s a lot more to being a rigger than just having a rig. Like everything on the street, it’s also about your skills. And then, the most SOTA rig and the best skills still won’t mean squat without something to take control of, and that means a vehicle or a drone. Or several drones, in which case you’re going to want a rigger command console, or RCC. No one ever said being this cool was gonna be cheap.

More Than Metahuman

A control rig is the place to start, but it’s not the only thing you’ll need as a rigger. Just as every rigger needs a vehicle, every control rig needs a rigger interface. The rigger interface is specialized gear that is fitted to a vehicle and allows you to jump in, rigger-style. Drones are designed for use by riggers, and have been designed with the rigger interface built in. Nearly all vehicles need to have the interface added as an after-factory option, however, except for military and law-enforcement vehicles.

The Control Rig

The control rig implant connects to a lot of different areas of your brain. It uses your motor cortex, of course, along with parts of your cerebrum, brain stem, and the sensorium, with a few tendrils snaking around your pre-frontal and frontal cortices. It has a built-in sim module, so you can use it for DNI with other devices. It also comes with a universal data connector and about a meter of retractable cable (it’s like getting a free datajack).

Complete Control

Vehicles and other devices (like doors, trid-sets, and so on) can be controlled in four ways. Manual control requires actual physical controls, like a steering wheel, throttle, buttons, an AR display, or anything else a person can manipulate to control the device. Remote control is the result of the Control Device action (p. 238), and rigger control is the result of jumping into the device. Autopilot requires that the device have a pilot program, which most vehicles and drones do.

Control Override

A device can only be controlled one way at a time. You can’t, for example, have a person manually firing a turret at the same time you’re firing the same turret to get extra shots. Some control methods can be overridden by other methods, and the highest in this order controls the device. At the top of the order is rigger control, followed by remote control, then manual control, and lastly autopilot. You can override someone else’s control on a device by using a method that comes in higher on that list, so if you issue a command through a control rig, attempts to maneuver at the same time using a remote control or manual control will be overridden. Once a device’s control is overridden, it cannot be controlled by a method equal to or lower than it in the order until the Initiative Pass after the current controller relinquishes control (voluntarily ... or not).

Rigging Skills

The skills you mainly want to look at as a rigger are the Vehicle Active skills. Those are all of the skills that begin with the word “Pilot,” plus the Gunnery skill so you can shoot from your vehicles. Typically, you’ll use Pilot Ground Craft most often, since you’re something of a ground-dwelling creature yourself. If you get drones that are not ground craft (probably flying ones), you might want the Pilot skill(s) for the drones, too. Vehicle Active skills are on p. 146.

Rigging and You

Riggers have a special set of rules when they’re jumped in. This makes them more powerful, but also exposes them to more risks. Here’s the skinny on all of the specialness you’ll have as a rigger in the Sixth World.

Taking the Jump

If you want to jump into a vehicle (or drone, or turret, or articulated six-axis arc welder), there are some prerequisites. You need an implanted control rig (if you don’t have that, you’re in the wrong chapter), you need to be the owner of or have three marks on the vehicle or drone you’re jumping into, and of course you need the vehicle to have rigger interface gear.

Jumping into a vehicle is a Complex Action if you’re in AR, or a Simple Action if you’re already in VR when you make the jump. If you’re using a direct connection and already plugged into the vehicle or RCC, you can jump into a vehicle directly from your meat body by taking a Simple Action.

From the Matrix, your icon and the device icon merge into a single icon. Usually, it’s just your icon there, but you can make it look like something else if you want separate icons indicating “you” and “you jumped into a rigged death machine.”

VR and Rigging

When you’re jumped into a vehicle or other device, you’re in Virtual Reality mode. The control rig allows you to treat Vehicle actions the same way you treat Matrix actions, so any bonus you get to Matrix actions also apply to Vehicle actions when you’re jumped in; this includes Vehicle Control Tests, Gunnery Tests, and Sensor Tests.

Just like in the Matrix, you have the option of using cold-sim or hot-sim while rigging. If you’re using coldsim, you get +2D6 to your Initiative (3D6 total), and any biofeedback damage you take is Stun. If you’re using hot-sim, you get +3D6 (4D6 total) Initiative dice, and a +1 dice pool bonus that applies to all Matrix test (including Vehicle actions), but all biofeedback damage is Physical damage.

Rigging and Limits

When you’re jumped into a vehicle, drone, or other device, the limits of that device are increased by the rating of your control rig. This includes vehicle and drone Sensor, Speed, and Handling, and the Accuracy of mounted weapons when used by the rigger. The control rig also connects more smoothly through an RCC when operating in VR.

Noise and Rigging

If you’re rigging via wireless, all of your actions suffer from a Noise penalty (see p. 230). If you’re using a direct connection, you don’t have to worry about Noise at all. A rigger’s data cable gets a lot of use for this reason.

Physical Damage

Whenever the vehicle or other device you’re jumped into takes Physical damage, the feedback can hurt you. Whenever the vehicle or drone you’re jumped into takes boxes of damage, you must resist half (rounded up) of that damage as Biofeedback damage (p. 229).

Matrix Damage

When you take Matrix damage, it goes to the first device you’re using for your persona, not the device you’re jumped into. If you used your commlink or rigger command console to enter VR before jumping in, your commlink or RCC (respectively) is the target of Matrix damage to your persona. If you’re directly connected to the vehicle you’re jumped into, the vehicle takes the Matrix damage.

Jumping Out

When you want to jump out of a vehicle, drone, or other device, you use the Switch Interface Mode action (see Switch Interface Action Mode, p. 243) to go to VR or AR. If you’re using a rigger command console, you can instead use the Jump into Rigged Device action to jump directly to another device on your PAN.

If the vehicle, drone, or device you’re jumped into is destroyed while you’re jumped in, you suffer dumpshock (6 DV biofeedback damage, p. 229).

Riggers and Deckers

As you’ve probably already guessed from all this talk about Matrix damage, the hacker is the rigger’s natural enemy. While riggers and deckers do have a lot of similarities—sharing a few programs, using gear in the Matrix, lots of time in VR—don’t get the two confused. Deckers and technomancers may rule the Matrix, but riggers have great power in the meat world. So respect the hackers, but don’t fear them. Their software can mess with your hardware, but your headware can mess with their wetware, usually in the form of cranial trauma by gunshot wound. Or tire tracks in sensitive places.

Rigger Command Console (RCC)

A rigger command console, or RCC, is like a deck for controlling drones (or other vehicles and devices). It’s about the size of a briefcase. It can act like a commlink and has all the features of a commlink in addition to the cool drone stuff. The main purpose of the RCC is to create a PAN with your drones. This gives the standard master- slave benefits (see PANs and WANs, p. 233), but the RCC comes with some extra features.

Noise Reduction & Sharing

Along with all the standard features of a commlink, rigger command consoles have Noise Reduction and Sharing ratings that you set when you boot the console. The Noise reduction rating is straight-up Noise Reduction (p. 230), which is cumulative with other forms of Noise Reduction. The Sharing rating is the number of autosofts you can run on the RCC that simultaneously run on all slaved drones at the same time. One caveat: if a drone is running any of its own autosofts, it cannot benefit from the RCC’s autosofts.

The total of both ratings cannot exceed the device rating of the RCC. You can adjust the values of these two special ratings with a Change Device Mode action (p. 163). Yeah, that means if your RCC has a Device Rating of 1 it can only have one or the other feature running at a time.

Data Processing & Firewall

Rigger command consoles have the familiar Data Processing and Firewall ratings from both commlinks and cyberdecks, but they lean toward commlinks in their functionality since they are not designed for versatility and cannot be readjusted on the fly. Data Processing is used to determine Initiative when running in VR and acts as the Limit for all Command tests performed on the RCC. Firewall is used to defend against unwanted wireless intrusion onto the entire slaved drone network.

Group Command and Jumping Around

Your RCC manages several parallel connections at once, so you can give a command to one, all, or some of your slaved drones with the same Simple Action. This multi-connection also lets you jump from one slaved drone to another without first jumping out of the drone you’re leaving. Commands issued from your RCC are acted on during the drone’s Action Phase, not yours.

Drones receiving multiple contradicting commands on the same control levels (see Control Override, p. 265) before they have a chance to enact those commands on their Action Phase fail to perform any of them and instead send an error message back to the users attempting to issue the commands.

PANs & WANs (Rigger Style)

If you want extra protection for your drones and the ability to command them all at once, you can slave them to your RCC. Your RCC can handle up to (Device Rating x 3) slaved drones, becoming the master device on that network. The group of your slaved drones plus your master RCC is called a personal area network, or PAN.

Whenever a slaved device is called on to make a defense test, it uses either its own or its master’s Rating for each Rating in the test. For example, if your slaved rotodrone is the target of a hacker’s Brute Force action, it could use your Willpower in place of its Device Rating, and your RCC’s Firewall in place of its own Rating, assuming that either or both of these Ratings improve on what it already has..

The same rules for marks on slaved devices apply in the RCC-drone relationship as in other Matrix couplings. Most important to you are that if you get a mark on a slave, you also get a mark on the master, and that if an attacker has a direct connection, your drone can’t use you for help. For more details, see PANs and WANs, p. 233.

There are also wide area networks, or WANs, with multiple devices slaved to a host. This is the world of that special kind of rigger, the security spider. They slave their RCC to the building’s host and connect to the entire security system, including all of its slaved drones. When you’re inside a host, your effective “physical distance” to drones slaved to that host becomes zero, even if you’re on the other side of the world. The spider-rigger is often teamed up with a spider-decker to help against hacking intrusions on the security system.

Electronic Warfare for Riggers

No one likes getting jammed out of controlling their own stuff. Yeah, the dog-brain pilot takes over, but who wants that thing running the show?

If you’re using an RCC, you can compensate for noise on the fly. Take a Complex Action and make an Electronic Warfare + Logic [Data Processing] test. The hits from this test act as Noise reduction (cumulative with all other Noise reduction) for the rest of the current Combat Turn.

You can turn the tables on an enemy rigger or hacker by using a jammer (p. 441). Some rigging purists say that using jamming in a rigger duel is dirty pool, but sometimes it’s just what you need to save your keister.

Getting Hacked

Rigger command consoles and vehicles, including drones, are frequent targets of enemy deckers trying to get the upper hand on an opponent. Riggers aren’t deckers, but they aren’t completely inept in the world of electronic warfare. Here are a few important Matrix Actions riggers need to know about.

When you know there’s a Matrix attack coming, you can use the Full Matrix Defense action to bolster your cyberdefenses. This option slows you down a bit, but it’s often better than losing control of your RCC or a precious drone.

Sometimes it’s better to lose a drone for a few seconds than to have it turned against you or sent careening into the nearest dense object. You can use the Reboot Device action to cut off an enemy hack before it gets too far. This take a little time, as your drone won’t come back online until the end of the following Combat Turn, so be aware of the drone’s environment when you perform this trick. A hard reboot won’t automatically result in drone wreckage if you’re careful. An aerial drone that can glide on its wings or on autorotation for a few seconds will be fine when it comes back up, and surface drones should be okay as long as they’re not going too fast. If you’re flying a vectored thrust drone, you should probably land it before you do this trick.

Getting Dumped

No, we don’t mean the “let’s be friends” conversation— we’ve all been there, chummer—we mean getting booted out of something you’ve jumped into. Riggers can be forcefully ejected from their jumped-in vehicles in three nasty ways. First, if the vehicle is destroyed or bricked, you’re dumped. Second, if you’re using a commlink or RCC and it gets destroyed or bricked, dump city. Third, if you’re plugged into something with a universal connector and your cable gets yanked from either end (ouch), you get dumped.

In all three cases, a dumped rigger suffers dumpshock (p. 229) and loses control of the vehicle (natch). Vehicles with a Pilot Rating will return to autopilot control at the beginning of the next Combat Turn. Vehicles are uncontrolled (see Control Vehicle, p. 203) until someone else takes control.

Drones

Drones are unmanned vehicles intended to be used remotely by riggers or run autonomously. Of course, any vehicle or other machine with a rigger interface can be run remotely by riggers or autonomously, but drones tend to be cheaper, more specialized to their function, and don’t need to pay for parking. Still, the rules for drones apply to any remotely controlled or rigged device, but between us chummers let’s just say “drone” because it’s shorter.

Drones in the Matrix

Drones are devices, so they show up in the Matrix. This can make them a target for enemy hackers, but it also means you can reach your drone from anywhere on the planet. If you’re jumped into a drone, the drone’s Matrix icon and your device’s icon merge. When jumped into a drone (or any vehicle for that matter) the attacker can only target you (your persona and the device it’s on) and not your drone. When you’re not jumped in, your drone becomes a valid target once again.

The Device Rating of a drone is the same as its Pilot Rating, meaning all of its Matrix attributes are equal to the Pilot Rating.

Pilot Programs

Pilots (the programs, not the people) are not bright. They’re called “dog-brains” by those who have to work with them, much the same way a particularly thick person might be called a “drone-head” by those who work with him.

A pilot program is specific to the device it’s in. You can’t just copy a program from one device and move it into a different one. After a week or so, the pilot is so adapted to the specific vehicle, drone, or other device that it’s useless in anything else, even other devices of the same model.

Pilots have a Rating indicated by the Device Rating of the vehicle, drone, or other piece of gear they’re in. This rating is used in place of any Mental attribute needed for a test, but it hardly makes up for a metahuman brain. When faced with something novel or unexpected, or a complicated command, a Pilot program must make a Device Rating x 2 Test against a threshold set by the gamemaster based on how confusing the situation is. If it fails this test, it blithely continues doing what it was doing before, or simply stops entirely and asks for instructions.

Autosofts

Autosofts are specialized programs designed to increase the effectiveness of a drone’s performance. In other words, people have skills, drones have autosofts. An autosoft is rated between 1 and 6. A drone has a number of slots to use for autosofts and cyberprograms equal to half its Device Rating, rounded up. Swapping autosofts and programs is a Complex Matrix Action. Here’s a short list of autosoft programs. An autosoft with the term [Model] in it means that each copy is for a specific model of drone or vehicle; for example, a Steel Lynx Maneuvering autosoft only works for Steel Lynx drones and is useless in a Nissan Jackrabbit or a Doberman drone.

If a drone is slaved to a rigger command console and isn’t running any of its own programs, it uses the programs running on the RCC. This can exceed its normal program limit.

Drone Combat

Rules for drone combat are the same as those for regular flesh-and-blood characters and can be found in the Combat chapter (p. 158). Specific rules for using Gunnery and Sensors in combat can be found there as well (p. 202).

Drone Perception

A drone observes its surroundings with a Pilot + Clearsight [Sensor] Test. If you’re jumped into the drone, you make a Perception + Intuition [Sensor] Test. Either way, you get to use the drone’s entire sensor suite, if it has one.

Drone Infiltration

Drones sometimes need to be sneaky. When this occurs, a few things need to be taken into consideration. When operating independently, drones roll Pilot + Stealth [Handling] vs. Perception + Intuition [Mental]. You might want to put your drone into silent running mode, or its Matrix icon would be a dead giveaway of their presence to anyone scanning the scene in the Matrix. When jumped in, the test is Stealth + Intuition [Handling] vs. Perception + Intuition [Mental]; you probably want your persona operating under silent running while you’re at it.

Drone Initiative

Drones acting autonomously have an Initiative attribute of Pilot Rating x 2, and get 3D6 additional Initiative Dice (for a total of 4D6). When jumped in, the drone uses the VR initiative of the rigger.

Repairing Drones

Drones have two damage tracks, Physical and Matrix. Fill up either one and it’s bye-bye birdie as the drone is either irreparably destroyed and joins the spare parts collections, or it gets bricked and it’s time to completely rewire its guts. But up until that final box is filled, damage done to a drone can be repaired.

Repairing Physical damage follows the rules for building and repair on p. 145. To repair Matrix damage, check out Repairing Matrix Damage, p. 228.

If the chassis and the electronics of your drone get trashed, it will probably cost you more to fix it than buy a new one. But if it has sentimental value, ain’t it worth it?