Character Concepts: Hackers/Technomancers

Also, Living Personas can't be hacked except by other mancers, sprites, AIs, and "anomalies" Hackers can't hack you. I need to read up on the Slave option. From what I understand, if a device is slaved to a master PAN (not just subscribed) a hacker has to hack the PAN before he can hit the device. He could still crash it via Cybercombat though. But if that's true, then we slave all the Drones to her, and they can't be hacked! How sweet is that?

I'm sure that there is a downside somewhere, but like I said, I need to read further to find it.

personally, this is my pick for our technowitch

lets look at races, the only real thing we are looking for here is a race to help out our stats, cheaply at that.

For our needs, human or elf is the best, you just can't get these kind of stats with an ork or a troll.

Elf and human on the other hand can get these kind of stats for the same total price, using lightning reflexes (we aren't going to use cyber gear, hopefully) because its five points cheaper than adding 2 raw points to reaction, we save 5bp. the total price for both elf and human with these attributes is 195 for the attributes and lightning reflexes.

We could consider elf because it gives us room to amp up our charisma and it gives us low-light vision. Human although just as expensive gives us a single point of edge, so it's a toss up, my vote is Elf, we get too many bonuses compared to human, and we can afford the loss of a point of edge. The funny thing is this price includes racial cost as well. so thats my choice on that front.

Mind you we already have an elf (my boy) so remember that.

Metatype :human or elf
Technomancer

Attributes (150)
Body: 1
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2 (4)
Strength: 1
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 5
Logic: 5
Willpower: 5

Edge: 1
Resonance: 5
Initiative: 9
Essence: 6

including technomancer adds 5 bp, which brings us up to 200, and a five in resonance brings us to 240 bp, with our attributes this gives us a living persona of.

Living Persona
Firewall 5
Response 5 (6 in VR)
Signal 3
System 5

Biofeedback filter 5
VR Matrix Initiative 11
VR Matrix Initiative passes 3

The rest as they say is history, now on to the stats.

attack CF: crash programs/icons, but not other hackers,mancers,etc.
Black Hammer CF: nukes Users, but not programs.

If anything were to attack our girl in the trix, than i would predict she would go for the throat and not try to prance around with the blackout program.

The reason it says (cybercombat/hacking) is because you can use either skill if you want to.

Think of it this way Wreck, each program is to attack a different kind of thing on the trix, you use attack for programs, and black hammer for users. just like you would use regular ammo on people, but silver bullets on werewolves.

as for skills and programs, besides maybe thinning out the CF's we have, and reading a bit more on threading, i'd say we are fairly good, and if we have to buy 2 pilots for 4 drones, oh well, its still cheaper than having to buy 4.

I really can't think of anything else at the moment, besides maybe finetuning our CF's to be more specific in what we want.

Personas are living icon/nodes. So Attack works on users too, it just doesn't do any damage to the person's body. That's what the Black IC is for. So, yes, we are more likely to use Black Hammer/out on a user, unless that user is in AR, then it won't do us any good.

I'm thinking Cybercombat is the skill we use when we are attacking a reactive object in the trix, and Hacking is when it can't do anything other than sound an alarm (combat-wise).

I was just trying to make sure that's what it read as, because it's not very clear.

I see your point on dropping the Body from 2 to 1, it's only 1 die difference in a damage resistance test, she gets the same number of boxes. but Mirikron is right that 3 is better than 2 it's an additional box and +1 die pool. So, if we can pull it off, I say we boost her to 3, but if we can't then no biggie.

I see what you mean about elf vs dwarf... 35BP difference! sheesh... dwarves get the shaft point-wise! At least, when you take into account all the alternative Streams/Traditions there are. Maybe as combat mages or hacker/riggers? But that's it.

so if i got this right, attack would just kick the persona off of the trix, so in effect, we don't actually need Black out, right?

Yes, Attack would boot them, and BICs do damage. If Attack is used on us in cybercombat we "crash" meaning we get dumped from the trix, meaning Dump Shock. But that's still better than BICs. Those go for the throat.

alright, assuming we have agreed on the elf, do to cost effectiveness, where are we at stat wise? and how would you guys feel if we had 2 roto-drones built like i have up top, with the ares alpha's, and a tank style vehicle for her to ride around in, then if we have room we could fit in Wreck's doberman with the chaingun.

I'd actually been thinking about designing a spider drone - about the size of her hand, that she could use to snoop around things on-site. I've been looking at the rules in arsenal to determine exactly what would be needed to design one from scratch. I'm not through yet, so all this is just conjecture right now.
I thought it would have a mini-cam and audio recorders, so all that you would need to do is deliver it to a site, it would crawl around (maybe go into the air ducts). You could map a floor plan, spy on meetings, etc. I also wanted to give it some sort of fangs (maybe a narcojet?) that could be filled with poison, lethal or otherwise. Imagine, someone jumps in on her, pulls a gun. He see she's frail and can't really put up a fight, so he levels the gun, takes aim.... and Ouch! he's just bit by a spider-drone and now he's poisoned!
Anyway, like I said, I'm just trying to find out if I even *can* make something like that, but I thought I'd let you guys know what I was working on.

Attributes: 210BP
Body: 3
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2 (4)
Strength: 1
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 5
Logic: 5
Willpower: 5
Edge: 1
Resonance: 5
Initiative: 9
Essence: 6

Active Skills 100BP
Cracking SG : 3
Electronics SG : 3
Compiling : 3
Decompiling : 3
Perception : 2
Dodge : 2

Qualities -15BP
Positive
Lightning Reflexes (10?)
Paragon (5)
Technomancer (5)
Negative
Sensitive System (15)
Vindictive (10)
Virtual Personality (5)
Nano Intolerance (5)

Complex forms 40BP
Stealth (5)
Decrypt (3)
Attack (5)
Armor (5)
Command (5)
Exploit (5)
Browse (3)
Analyze (3)
Edit (3)
Spoof (3)

Contacts 6BP
Armorer (L:3 C:3)

Total BP 371


I gave her the Body 3 Just in case. If we desperately need those points, we can take them, but if she get's hit with a BIC, that one Condition Box could save her life.

I cut back on most of the CFs that she's got. Stealth and Armor should always be max. She's going to be making lots of Command Tests during combat situations, so I left that at 5 to save her from having to thread. Remember, threading is like sustaining, -2 to all tests. So you have to thread at +3 or more to even make it worth it. Anything over your Resonance changes the Fade damage from Stun to Physical. So, we don't want to thread too often.

Actually, have either of you been looking at the drones in Arsenal? There is a really cool roto-drone that comes with a fixed weapon mount (usually taser, but doesn't have to be), a camera, facial recognition software, and there is room on it for a flexable external weapon mount too!

Also there is a micro drone very similar to what you are talking about Hawk, it's a beetle, not a spider, but I don't see why it couldn't be a spider instead. Just so long as you don't want it to fly.

remember Wreck, medium sized drones are about the size of a large dog, human, or motorcycle sized, kinda hard to get into a club with one of those.

Which roto-drone are you talking about, is it the LEBD-1?
Where is the beetle drone you're talking about?

i'm currently looking at the Ferret RPD-1x drone (arsenal p118), it comes equipped with a small weapon, so no lmg (i was bummed to). it also has a maximum of eight slots, so it can be heavily modified, and it is also fairly cheap for what it can do, at 3k for a minidrone (size of a large insect or small rat) this thing could be lethal in numbers, remember although firing drones is a complex action, you can subscribe and fire multiples of them with one command.

Now because the book says small weapon, i'm under the assumption that means Heavy pistol or smaller, which considering our slightly small habit of heavily customizing our weapons, it could be worse ;cough: full-auto predator :cough;

anyone else have the image of a rat with a desert eagle duct-taped to its back?

how about we modify the weapon mount rules, it can mount a heavy pistol, but no extra ammo, we have to load the clip ourselves, but it is smartgun so it can auto-eject it. That would sound pretty fair to me

i've got the math for something like what we would need, it comes out just under ¥5,000 for one little drone, but it is really sweet for what it can do, imagine three of these little buggers wandering around with a doberman drone that can deploy these things. currently i have it listed:

the drone ¥4910
Ferret RPD-1x (comes with an improved sensor array)
small weapon mount(fixed) (ares pred 4, 30 bullets, 2 clips)

give me your opinion and get back to me with any improvements or changes.

stat wise for shooting, 5p -1ap not including the attack roll and all of that times 3, thats only with three of these little evil minions, not to mention if we get anything bigger.

Wow. I like them. 3 blind mice ftw.

alrighty then, you figure with the stats that we have shown above, probably three of the little drones, one decent sized one, and an mobile command center, that plus the rest of our gear should bring us fairly close to our limit.

I like the ferret drones a lot! These ferrets, they are mostly to protect her up close, right? They can't move very fast, and without a repeater signal, she can't have them go too far. But talk about some NICE body guards.

One question, how are we getting 8 slots from a body 1 mini drone? Shouldn't we only have 4? (SLOTS, SLOT MAXIMUM, AND OVER MODIFICATION: Arsenal P129; VEHICLE MOD NOTES - DRONES: Arsenal P131) I could be missing something though, but those rules say vehicles get 4 Slots or their Body - whichever is higher; and that drones are treated as vehicles.


Yes, the rotodrone I was talking about was the LEBD-1 in arsenal.

Sorry about the mix up. The beetle-looking drone I was thinking of was in Unwired, P198. It's a Micro-Tapper Bug drone. There is an artistic rendition on P197. But I don't think we need it.

this little drone in particular gets 8 slots, (Arsenal, pg 118, last paragraph about this drone, Ferret RPD-1x)

but before we go and customize the whole thing, i would suggest we figure out where we are BP and nuyen wise before we end up way over our heads, assuming we are agreed that the elf route is cheaper is at the moment, our best option.

elf technomancer

Attributes: 210BP
Body: 3
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2 (4)
Strength: 1
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 5
Logic: 5
Willpower: 5

Edge: 1
Resonance: 5
Initiative: 9
Essence: 6

Living Persona
Firewall 5
Response 5 (6 in VR)
Signal 3
System 5

Biofeedback filter 5
VR Matrix Initiative 11
VR Matrix Initiative passes 3

Active Skills 96BP
Cracking SG : 3
Electronics SG : 3
Compiling : 3
Decompiling : 3
Perception (Visual) : 1
Dodge (Ranged Combat) : 1

Qualities -15BP
Positive
Lightning Reflexes (15)
Paragon (5)
Technomancer (5)

Negative
Sensitive System (15)
Vindictive (10)
Virtual Personality (5)
Nano Intolerance (5)

Complex forms 40BP
Stealth (5)
Decrypt (3)
Attack (5)
Armor (5)
Command (5)
Exploit (5)
Browse (3)
Analyze (3)
Edit (3)
Spoof (3)

Contacts 6BP
Armorer (L:3 C:3)

Programs (5bp)
Agent/IC/Pilot (Rating 4)
Targeting (pistols) Autosoft (Rating 6)
Targeting (automatics) Autosoft (Rating 6)
Defense Autosoft (Rating 6)
Clearsight Autosoft (Rating 6)
Firewall (Rating 6)

Equipments
Fake License (Rating 4)
Fake Sin (Rating 4)
Earbud
+ Audio Enhancement (Rating 2)
+ Spatial Recognizer
Glasses
+Flare Compensation
+Image Link
+Smartlink
+Thermographic Vision

Armors
Armor Vest
Securetech PPP forearm
Securetech PPP shin guards

Commlink
OS : Vector Xim
Commlink : Meta Link
Subvocal Microphone

374 points

This list has EVERYTHING WE NEED, armor, programs,etc. The only thing i haven't covered in this list is the drones, and we can still drop a few things down a peg or so if we need points. I just wanted to state where we were on points just to make sure we were all on the same page when we start to look at what our character is going to be using. I figured drone wise, 3 of our little Ferrets, 1 doberman, and i wouldn't mind something that we upgrade to near tank status.

The rules in Unwired say that Autosofts are tailored for specific drones/vehicles. So while we can get away with copying for the plethora of ferret drones (which p118 says 4 additional for a max of 10? Not sure how they did that math... your 8 is what it probably should be.) But each additional type of drone will need it's own targeting/defense/clearsight autosofts.

The firewall can be copied straight across the board no problem.

We'll probably also want a Maneuver Autosoft for the tank.

Last thing, we only have -10 Qualities, so before any of the additional software was added, that would have been a BP total of 379.

With all of the software I've mentioned above (Including maneuver autosoft for a vehicle) comes to 386BP.

The break down is:
Gear: 14 BP with NY290 remaining.

Commlinks
Commlink : Meta Link
OS : Vector Xim
Subvocal Microphone

Programs
3x Agent/IC/Pilot (Rating 4) -ferret, doberman, tank-
Firewall (Rating 6) -All-
2x Targeting (Weapon) Autosoft (Rating 6)-Pistol: ferret, Automatics: doberman-
2x Defense Autosoft (Rating 6) -ferret, doberman-
3x Clearsight Autosoft (Rating 6) -ferret, doberman, tank-
Maneuver Autosoft (Rating 6) -tank-

Armors
Armor Vest
Secure Tech PPP System (Forearm Guards)
Secure Tech PPP System (Shin Guards)

Equipments
Fake License (Rating 4)
Fake Sin (Rating 4)
Earbud
+ Audio Enhancement (Rating 2)
+ Spatial Recognizer
Glasses
+Flare Compensation
+Image Link
+Smartlink
+Thermographic Vision

that sounds good to me, we just need to finish the ferrets, design the doberman, and design the tank, any ideas?

for a "tank" I'd choose one of these two vehicles.

GMC Bulldog Step-Van (Van): Accel: 5/10; Speed: 90 B16; A8; Sensor 1 (That needs a serious upgrade) NY35,000 - SR4 P341~2 -

Rover Model 2068 (SUV): Accel: 20/35; Speed: 140; B13; A10; Sensor 2 (Still needs an upgrade) NY25,000 -Arsenal P109

Again, my books are old and I haven't dnled the errata for Arsenal. I'll do that as soon as I can, probably in about an hour or two. I say this because I find it hard to believe that such a much better vehicle would be so much cheaper. Even the Paragraph text says that it's expensive, but 25k is pretty cheap for most of the bigger ground vehicles. So I'm thinking that they bumped the price there. Phantom, just got Arsenal, so maybe you've got the second printing? can you check the price for me? But if it really is that cheap, I say that's our tank!

Okay, I found the errata, you must have the new printing because the errata says ferret is 4 additional for a max of 8... and according to my errata sheet... there is no change to the Rover! That makes it super awesome! It might not have as much internal room as the bulldog or the Hermes delivery van (which is also pretty sweet) or the Ares Roadmaster. But, the modification rules are based on Body, not actual size! Mwahahahaha! I love loop-holes!

Man... it looks like the Rover is superior in just about every way. Am I reading that right?

no wonder why the roadmaster is more expensive, it has rating 6 armor. However, that is nowhere near a saving grace considering armor is not that expensive, and the Rover is mathematically the better choice, both for stats and for cash. the only thing that the roadmaster has better is a slightly better armor rating, and that's it. So i'm gonna list what the drones i have for us are now. thus far i have the:

Ferrets ¥14,730 total
3x Ferret RPD-1X
3x Weapon Mounts
3x Ares Predator IV
9x EX-Explosive Rounds (10 shots)(2 full clips per drone)

Doberman ¥5,300 total
GM-Nissan Doberman (Medium)
Ares MP-LMG (arsenal,p29, much better than the ingram white knight)
external smartgun
20x Regular Ammo (10 shots)(4 clips of 50 or 2 belts of 100, your pick)

APC/Tank
Rover 2068 (arsenal, p109) 25,000 + ¥6000 + ¥3600
armor rating of 18
Ultrawideband Radar - Rating 4 sensor. Uses Ultrasound visibility mods, makes 3D map of area. Can penetrate up to 20 cumulative barrier Structure ratings. Can detect cyberware and weapons in same manner as millimeter-wave radar. Signal 2, vulnerable to jamming.
Camera
+Smartlink - Allows use of Smartgun System
+Low-Light - Can see in low-light
+Vision Enhancement - Rating 3. Adds Rating to Perception.
+Camera Neutralizer - Rating 4. Uses laser to detect cameras and then blind them.

weapons wise, i'm thinking maybe 2 lmg's or possibly 2 assualt rifles with grenade launchers for extra fun.

total ¥54630

thus far this puts us at 390bp

That 390 is from where you said we had 374? or from when I said we had 386?

oops, might want to make that 397 bp with ¥3,915 left over.

Do we want drone racks? We can't get the multilaunch rack because the availability is too high, but we can get a couple mini drone racks and a small drone rack (arsenal 134). We should also probably get a rigger cocoon (arsenal 141~2). Are all those upgrades to the camera from the built in sensor package?

Sensor info can be found in arsenal 105 or SR4 325. The vehicle comes with two sensors, but it can be upgraded all the way to 12. SR4 claims that standard sensors are cameras. So it probably comes with two free cameras, we just have to pay for upgrades?

Not sure where you go the ultrasound sensor, but how many sensor slots does it take up? Just 1?

What about internal cameras, so she can see what's happening inside the suv when she's in the cocoon?

How about you build our sensor, i really didn't know what i grabbed, i just built it.

The drone rack would be kinda cool.

The rigger cocoon would also be neat, especially if we are planning on going full VR often.