So, you cannot slave the toaster in your house in Belvue to your comm link, drive to Tacoma, connect through the matrix and give the toaster instructions?
Or, you can't issue orders to your slaved drone hrough the re-trans unit in your Cyberspace Designs Nexus?

Or, I can't use a VPN to connect to my customers network, even though I go through at least 4 routers on the way?

edit> I guess I always pictured it as using Tunneling to create a virtually private connection, and that tunneling goes through routing just fine.

Sorry, Redjack, but that says absolutely nothing about Mutual Signal Range. All it says is that it will reject any other matrix connections other than the Master Node. But since the Mesh does not actually forge a connection, they only pass through, the Master Node is the only Subscription.

Improved Sensor upgrade in Arsenal, page 138 should give it a sensor bay capacity of 3. Its fairly cheap, too.




Jumped in: your drones response. Also it's Sensor. 4A Page 245 for details.

The mesh routes the connection. You must be in mutual signal range to slave a node.

Edit: Please read "Routing", UnWired pg 54

Edit-2: To follow up from my quote above, please note the difference in the terms "connect" and "log onto"

Point Taken! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Routing is less safe because other nodes can analyze the routed traffic. Ok. I´m pretty sure that "mutual signal range" is not "direct connection without routing". Any subscription requires mutual signal range, so as long as you can access a node you can slave it.

Actually, that is EXACTLY what it is.

EDIT: Adding reference:

Found my English Unwired, looked up pg. 55 on Subscriptions. Those need a "fast, two-way, maintained connection", not "mutual signal range". Master-slave connections are on the list of things requiring subscriptions.

Further evidence is pg. 54 on Routing, describing how a connection is achieved. As long as both master and slave are able to connect to the same network (matrix), the connection is automatically maintained.

Where do I find special rules for mutual signal range? There are disadvantages listed for routing, but I can´t find info on "not routing".

You made that up: pg54 does not say anything about slaved nodes. Pg55 does, as I quoted above.

Yes, they also require a subscription. That does not negate the additional need for mutual signal range.

If you wish to contradict my quotes, please provide direct quotes that do so. The quotes I have provided are VERY clear and vague generalities will not invalidate them.


The advantages of mutual signal range, beyond the obvious, are the ability to slave a device, as noted in quotes above.

Routing is able to establish connections, a connection allows a subscription, a slave forwards all other connection attempts to the master. That is as far as I can follow.

All those quotes are valid as far as I know, none of them demands mutual signal range for master-slave connections.

pg. 53-54 Unwired
"If a node wants to go online, it just connects to the next available node around it, which in turn is connected to other nodes, and so on, through to the destination.  These connection processes are hidden to Matrix users; a persona never “sees” the nodes through which it is routed, nor is there any possibility to log onto the nodes through which a connection is routed"

This talks about connections between routing devices. The routing section talks about the whole route as connection ("The destination then follows the route request trails back, and a connection is established"). Regarding intent I can´t tell you which interpretation of the term is correct, I only just found out where you are coming from; yet we have not had trouble with worldwide slaving, at all. There is certainly a stronger incentive for being local if your interpretation is correct, so I´ll talk to the group anyway.

I don't know how to say it any clearer than with my quotes above; you are simply wrong. Let me state this one more time, both quotes in the same post:
If the slave will not connect to ANY other node, it cannot connect to ANY other node... routing included, as routing requires a connection (even if seamless to the end user, it is still a connection.)


I really am not seeing what about this concept you are not getting?

Well, unless the user has thought to lock out certain commands in the slaved device.

"Do not accept any new user accounts established over wireless connections" is a popular one.



-k

That doesn't stop me from spoofing commands. It only stops me from creating new accounts... and remember, I can hack around that as well.

So really, tunneling. That's what tunneling does. It creates a direct connection between two computers over the air and through routers, making as if they were directly wired together.

"When slaving a node to a master, the slaved node does not accept any Matrix connections from any other node but the master" does not mean what you think it means. The idea that it needs direct communications between the two devices with no routing of any kind in between them is contrary to the way networking works. My reading, and I think everyone else's reading, is that any connection that would support a subscription would support a slave connection.

edit> I was referring to post #36, and should have quoted it so it would be clear.

I agree with this completely (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Actually, a slaved device tunnels all its matrix connections via its master. In a way, you are partially right about tunneling, just not fully understanding how it works.
It means exactly what it says. A few of you wanting it to mean something else so you can exploit it simply does not make it so.
I disagree that it is everyone else's reading. In every game I've played where we've discussed this (quite a few), we have agreed on the mutual signal range.

The support for your way to read the rules from the quotes: A device goes online by connecting to other devices. Therefore slaves don´t accept routing, as routing needs connecting.


The support for the other way: "Routing" tells us a connection can be relayed via routing. We check the originating node of the full connection attempt, you check the last part of the chain. Both are valid ways to interpret "from the master".


I´m a GM, player of mages when I´m not, and have run games with TM/hacker/rigger as individual PCs (at the same time). Quite blatantly: No exploits, not even attempts on this front. I´ll ask the group if they want to follow your interpretation, as I said. IMO this discussion should end in its own thread.

Then I'm sorry. You've missed a basic of how it works.

There really isn't anything else to discuss. I'm not going to try to argue or browbeat you into understanding something this basic. Either you do or you don't. As long as we don't play at the same table, it doesn't matter.

Just as an outsider (mostly playing mages ) trying to follow some of this and without a book to boot yet, (July 11th can not get here soon enough!) will there be a glossary of sorts for all of this or will it be scattered through the matrix section?

Just asking as you are saying this is the basics so it seems pretty important to understand this going in...

This is SR4

I think he might be hoping for there to be an explanation of all terms that would be considered "basic". You keep insisting that what you are saying is what the book is saying, but it's not. It's assuming things that the book doesn't say.

If slaving required mutual signal range without repeating or routing, there should be a line that read something like this: "Slaving requires devices to be in mutual signal range."

And the retrans unit explanation would say something like "drones cannot be slaved through a retrans unit".

I really don't understand why you need an additional line that says 1+2+3=6 when you know that 1+2=3 and you know that 3+3=6...?

Because, even if it is Logical, many see it as ambiguous?

I know both of those are true.
What I don't know is true is "When slaving a node to a master, the slaved node does not accept any Matrix connections from any other node but the master" = you cannot use a retransmitter to connect to your slaved device, or you cannot use matrix connections to connect to your slaved device, or you cannot use a satellite connection to connect to your slaved device.
All of those are still only accepting connections from the master, but through different routes. If there were some magical way for a device to know which physical device it was connected to, you couldn't spoof.

For me, the quote above that clarified connecting and logging onto as different cleared up the ambiguity... but here we are. It's laid out in logical steps, but not in the symmetrization as some might want. As you have said, mutual signal range is a logical conclusion. From a game balance perspective, it is also a good balance on slaving nodes.