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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Broken Cyberware—too bad

Posted by: Eyeless Blond Jan 27 2008, 06:58 AM

What do you think are the most useless pieces of cyberware/bioware/nanoware in the SR3 books? In this case, "too bad" means that it is insufficiently useful in some manner (for example by providing negligible benefits (or detriments outweighing benefits), by having a cost in nuyen or Essence that is too high to justify the benefits it provides, or by being too narrowly applicable), or is rendered worthless by one or more pieces of gear (cyber or non-cyber) being strictly or almost strictly better than it.

Canonical examples include:

Move-By-Wire, which is fantastically expensive in cash and Essence while also being a one-way ticket to the grave
Cyberhorns and Cyberfangs (for being almost strictly worse than the bare fist)
Math SPU ratings other than 3, for being so close to the SPU 3 in costs but meaningfully less in benefits
The Adrenal Pump, for having a bad trigger and also for the punishing "drain"
Pain Editor, for having no effect whatsoever on Physical damage while having penalties other anti-wound-penalty gear doesn't get. Additional penalty points for not working on injuries that High Pain Tolerance will work on.

Others?

(Note: This thread is an offshoot of the http://www.sr3r.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=114 project. The project is being hosted elsewhere, to divorce concerns over copyright from Dumpshock, but topics like this I feel are perfectly fine on these boards, and may help garner more responses. If you prefer, you are more than welcome to register on the SR3R forum and post there; we would love to have more fresh bodies working on this project.)

Posted by: Grinder Jan 27 2008, 02:55 PM

Cyberlimbs. Too expensive (both in money and essence) and completly useless apart of style-reasons.

Posted by: Fix-it Jan 27 2008, 03:55 PM

QUOTE (Grinder)

Cyberlimbs. Too expensive (both in money and essence) and completly useless apart of style-reasons.

needs repeating.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jan 27 2008, 04:46 PM

needed fixing, done in SR4 . . just bribe your GM to let you convert the SR4 Rules to SR3 *g*

Posted by: Snow_Fox Jan 27 2008, 05:21 PM

Isn't there a similar thread about bads cyber where here?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 27 2008, 05:32 PM

It's only similar in the most tenuous of ways. You were looking for the worst piece of cyberware. This thread is looking for all cyberware that is in its current incarnation not good enough to justify taking in nearly any circumstance.

~J

Posted by: Fortune Jan 28 2008, 02:41 AM

QUOTE (Snow_Fox)

Isn't there a similar thread about bads cyber where here?

There's a thread about pretty much anything here somewhere. Since when has that ever stopped us?

Posted by: Eyeless Blond Jan 29 2008, 03:28 AM

Headware radio/phone?

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 29 2008, 04:07 AM

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Headware radio/phone?

Actually, headware radios have a purpose. Just not the purpose you'd expect.

They're utter crap of course, for any constructive use, but they're dirt-cheap and have a huge Essense cost. Ergo, you use these things when you want to burn a Magician's Essence below 1, so he can't use magic anymore.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 29 2008, 04:22 AM

"So why do they call you Mr. Signal?"

"Well, it's because I've got these seven radios in my head…"

"What the hell? Why do you have seven radios in your head?"

"I use to be a mage…"

~J

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 29 2008, 04:25 AM

Hey, it could be worse.

They might have sabotaged the radios so they were all set to different frequences and coulden't be re-tuned.

Posted by: Ravor Jan 29 2008, 04:34 PM

I seem to recall reading a story once where a runner was hurt serious enough that he couldn't speak, and his implanted radio was stuck on a god-awful station at full volume throughout the entire recovery time.

He was never quite the same afterward...

Posted by: Siege Jan 30 2008, 12:27 AM

Which reminds me of one of the funnier jokes to come out of my former group:

Q: "What do you get from interrogating a mage with stim patches?"
A: "A very pissed off Samurai."

-Siege

Posted by: mfb Jan 30 2008, 01:12 AM

VCR, at least in its current form. it's too multi-purpose and too expensive; it's hugely expensive and provides a wide array of large bonuses. i think it should be broken down into less expensive pieces of 'ware which each provide lesser, narrower bonuses. if you get all the VCR-related 'ware, you end up with what is now a full VCR, but you don't have to dedicate a giant chunk of resources and essence to getting a full VCR if you only want certain abilities/bonuses. seems like someone wrote up some rules for that, once...

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 30 2008, 01:42 AM

Duh buh wha?

You sure you didn't mean to post the VCR in "too good"?

~J

Posted by: Mercer Jan 30 2008, 01:51 AM

Sometimes "bad" means "good".

Posted by: mfb Jan 30 2008, 01:59 AM

the VCR is not too good, in terms of what it can do compared to how much it costs. it costs the right amount, relative to the bonuses and abilities it provides. the bad part is that you have to buy all of the bonuses and abilities, rather than picking and choosing. for instance, i don't see why one should have to pay for the initiative bonus and the control pool bonus, if all one wants is the control pool.

Posted by: Link Jan 30 2008, 03:30 AM

The VCR's power has gradually crept up throughout the years. The VCR originally only gave reaction/initiative bonuses.

QUOTE

Vehicle Control Rig: These are neuro-enhancers and muscular signal
transference (MST) Interfaces. Each level adds +2 to the user's Reaction while rigging. Each level also allows an additional + 1D6 Initiative die when the user is controlling a vehicle through a datajack that is equipped with vehicle control gear.

The RBB expanded this to include the Control Pool while R2 gave the driving TN adjustments.
You could remove these additions and instead provide a control pool to all drivers based on skill with perhaps the VCR's rating added to the pool. The TN adjustments could be disposed of altogether.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 30 2008, 03:56 AM

Well, that brings up another problem, which is that a number of vehicles are effectively undrivable without either modification or VCR TN adjustments, with the Lockheed C-260 Transport dropping below two nines (~93.5%) in terms of success probability on fifteen dice without TN mods, but that's not a matter of the cyber itself.

~J

Posted by: Link Jan 31 2008, 02:27 AM

The rules for driving tests say that they are only used in extreme situations so you could consider that taking a vehicle with 6 handling out of it's comfort zone is a recipe for disaster.
Actually, the C-260 has a 6 handling rating so shouldn't 6 dice be enough to make a single success probable?

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 31 2008, 04:49 AM

Link, I'm fairly certain the problem is that although the introduction says the rules are only to be used in extreme circumstances, the Rules As Written clearly seem to indicate otherwise - which is why there tend to be modifiers (hostile ones) for things like combat damage to the vehicle (which I would consider an extreme situation), but the base check seems to come into play any time you want to do something - like land an aircraft.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 31 2008, 06:03 AM

QUOTE (Link)

The rules for driving tests say that they are only used in extreme situations so you could consider that taking a vehicle with 6 handling out of it's comfort zone is a recipe for disaster.

Like taking off or landing in adverse weather, for example—see the example with Whiz Kid at the end of the modifier list.

QUOTE

Actually, the C-260 has a 6 handling rating so shouldn't 6 dice be enough to make a single success probable?

Slightly over 66% of the time, yeah. I don't really think that counts as acceptable for something like flying a transport or passenger aeroplane, though.

~J

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 31 2008, 09:09 AM

No, it really dosen't. That would mean one out of three would fall out of the sky, and that's if the pilot is as good a stunt pilot as Richard Petty is a racecar driver.

Posted by: Eyeless Blond Jan 31 2008, 12:47 PM

And don't you have to make the check every three seconds as well? Yikes.

Posted by: Herald of Verjigorm Jan 31 2008, 11:28 PM

It means one out of three would not be a clean and proper take off/landing in adverse conditions. A critical failure would cover planes dropping out of the sky.

Hypothetically, failed pilot test, followed by a crash test (if at an airport, usually wide oper terrain making that TN easier) and then potentially a body test to see if there is any sort of damage.

I imagine it's harder to flip a C-260 than a jeep, and usually there's enough runway to give the pilot a few chances at takeoff and some extra space to slow down during a landing.

Posted by: Link Feb 1 2008, 02:49 AM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

Slightly over 66% of the time, yeah. I don't really think that counts as acceptable for something like flying a transport or passenger aeroplane, though.

I need some maths tutoring. When I'm working out rough probabilities in SR I reckon that 6 dice at a TN6 gives a 6 in 6 chance so a probability of 1. 3 dice at TN6 gives 50% and so on. Is this correct?

As for the tests, autonav usually gives 2-3 dice so a proficient driver (skill 3) can get 6 dice easily enough. Some of the driving test modifiers seem off too. +1 to 3 for stressful situations, the rules say only tests in extreme situations which inevitably would be stressful. Large vehicle of type gets a penalty which it seems is covered by handling being worse for larger vehicles etc.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Feb 1 2008, 03:14 AM

QUOTE (Link)

Not quite. Think about it this way: by that reasoning, 9 dice gives you a 150% chance of success

What you're calculating is expected successes, which is much faster to calculate but can be deceptive. You do expect one success from six dice, but the actual probability of it is only in the mid-60s. It's still expected—more than 50% chance of at least that, and (more importantly) about a 40% chance of exactly that many successes (more than any other number of successes), but it's not overwhelmingly (or even highly, for some definitions) likely.

Expected with low certainty.

~J

Posted by: mmu1 Feb 1 2008, 04:05 AM

QUOTE (Link @ Jan 31 2008, 10:49 PM)

QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jan 31 2008, 06:03 AM)

Slightly over 66% of the time, yeah. I don't really think that counts as acceptable for something like flying a transport or passenger aeroplane, though.

The chance of getting at least one success on a given number of dice is 1 - (the chance that you'll roll a failure on all the dice).

In this case, it's 1 - (the chance that you'll roll 5 or less on all 6 dice) which is 1 - (5/6*5/6*/5/6*5/6*5/6*5/6), or ~ .66. (The chance of not getting a 6 on 1d6 is 5/6 - the chance of rolling again and also not getting a 6 is still 5/6, so the chance of failing to get a 6 twice in a row is 5/6*5/6 - 25/36... same idea with six in a row, you just keep on multiplying)

Posted by: Stahlseele Feb 1 2008, 10:06 AM

and i still stand by my decision that the probability to roll a success is 50% . . either a success comes up or no success comes up <.< . .
you can probably guess that i am not too fond of too much math *g*