Drone Operation

The Basics Starting out, there are two modes of operation for a Rigger. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and is fully up to you as the rigger to decide which mode would be best for you to use in your current situation. That are as follows: Captains Chair Mode: In this mode, it is just like it sounds. You are sitting back, watching the multiple screens of any vehicles or drones in your network. From here you can give commands to a single drone, or a single command to multiple drones depending on your needs. The chart below will list the action cost for each type of action. This mode does not require a VCR, allowing anyone with a RC Deck and a datajack to control their drones. Jumped into a drone: Same thing here, if you are 'jumped in', you are literally seeing and hearing exactly what the drone can. You are the Drone, directly controlling it, running it's sensors and shooting at targets. While in this mode, the drones on-board drone brain is dormant and is not usable until you jump out of the drone. The actions you can do while jumped in are also in the chart below. Cost Type of action Description of action Captains Chair? Jumped In? Free Activate/Deactivate Sensors A rigger may activate or deactivate sensors for a single drone. Activated sensors come online at the start of the next combat turn. Yes Yes Free Activate/Deactivate EW system A rigger may activate or deactivate a Electronic Warfare system for a single drone. Activated EW systems come online at the start of the next turn. Yes Yes Free Arm/Disarm Weapons A rigger may order a single drone to arm or disarm one of its weapon systems. A drone may have only one weapon system armed at any one time. However, switching weapon systems requires only one free action Yes Yes Free Delay Action Riggers can delay actions per standard combat rules Yes Yes Free Call up a status report A rigger may monitor the position, heading and speed, damage report and/or current orders of a single drone. Yes No Free Observe A rigger may casually observe through one drone. If in captain's chair mode, he may do this through any drone on his subscriber list. If 'jumped' into a drone, he may observer through that drone only. Yes Yes Free Speak a word Riggers may take this action per standard combat rules Yes Yes Simple Affiliate/Disafillate Drone A rigger may add or drop a drone from the decks active management. The drone will be available on the next combat turn when Affiliated. Yes No Simple Observe in Detail A rigger may observe in detail through any single drone while in captain's chair mode. While jumped into a drone, a rigger can do this with the drone only. Yes Yes Simple Perform the same Free action on Multiple Drones A rigger may perform one Free Action with two or more drones simultaneously while in captian's chair mode. However, he cannot perform two or more seperate free actions. Yes No Simple Jump Into a Primary Drone A rigger takes Direct control of one drone Yes No Simple Return To captain's chair A rigger stops maintaining direct control of one drone and returns to monitoring the over-all status of all drones. No Yes Complex Fire a Weapon System A rigger may fire an armed weapon on any single drone. If the rigger is directly controlling a primary drone, he cannot perform this action with a secondary drone. Riggers operating through a cybernetic link can use their Combat Pool dice only with the primary drone. Yes Yes Complex Issue a Command A rigger may issue a command to a drone or group of drones. Yes Yes Complex Observe through a Secondary Drone When directly controlling one drone, a rigger may casually observe (as in the Free Action Observe) through a secondary drone. No Yes Complex Operate a Drone While Jumped into a drone, the rigger may operate it as if driving it. He can perform any of the five standard vehicle actions - Accelerating, bracking, positioning, ramming and hiding - with the drone, and can use his Combat Pool dice and rigger bonuses. No Yes Subscriber lists The Subscriber list is a file that allows the Remote Control Deck(RCD) to identify all the drones under its control. An RCD can contain a number of drones equal to twice the RCD's rating. However, a deck can actively control only a number of drones equal to its rating. A Drone that is currently under active control of the deck is Affiliated, and the rigger has full access to it on the network. A drone that is on the list, but not part of the active listing is disaffiliated. These drones can not be accessed from the network and can not communicate with any other drone on the network. It requires a simple action to disaffiliate a drone, then another simple action (for a complex action in total) to Affiliate another drone into the active network. Issuing Commands A rigger can issue a drone one-sentence commands such as "circle this area," "shoot anyone who comes through this door," "follow that car," and the like. The more specific and detailed the command, the greater the chance the drone's pilot will become confused, however. The game-master should rate the commands complexity (using the table below), set the target number for the test and give the rigger the option to downgrade the complexity before issuing the command. The player then makes a comprehension Test for the drone, rolling a number of dice equal to the drone's Pilot Rating against the TN. If the test generates at least 1 success, the drone comprehends the command and executes it. However, the more successes the test generates, the more leeway the drone has in "interpreting" the command (to the rigger's benefit). When making Success Test, drones not directly controlled by the rigger use their Pilot Ratings in place of the rigger's Skill or Attribute Ratings. Drones do not benefit from dice pools. Also, if directly connected to a drone, all other drones get a +2 TN to follow commands. All drones in a remote-control network act during the same Combat Phase as the rigger acts, whether or not a rigger is directly controlling them. The rigger acts first, then all drones follow. Command Difficulty TN Simple 2 Routine 3 Average 4 Challenging 5 Difficult 6-7 Strenuous 8 Extreme 9 Nearly Impossible 10+