I'm Sorry, but that is just dumb. On a whole bunch of levels. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Who do you think makes more money if anything with those after-market mods installed needs an expensive certification process to be legal? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


@DeathStrobe

I'm not saying it's nanotech, but...

See, that's the icing on the cake - they can't even use "because nanites" as an excuse, because they decided to slag them all for zero reason for 5E.

I mean seriously - even if we buy that that all extant nanites went bonkers and imploded somehow (as well as magically slagging things that were nanite-forged but which contained zero actual nanites themselves after the manufacturing process), why the hell can't people just make new nanites?

If it was some one-time thing like a "virus", shouldn't newly crafted and unexposed nanites be fine? Shouldn't isolated nanites likewise be fine? And if it's not just a one-time thing, surely that means it's some new quirk of reality and physics akin to magic and technomancy that's causing the nanites to fail? But even then, why can't they go back to older versions of nanites? If your Nanobot 3.0 keeps crashing, why not dust off and boot up Nanobot 1.7 instead?

I guess we're lucky we even got any rationale at all? I mean, they flat out retconned skinlinks into never having existed without a word of mention.

~Umi

Clearly people forgot how, just like they forgot that attaching literally everything to the Matrix was a bad idea despite Deus giving them a several week long and inventively bloody clinic on exactly why.

Admittedly "nanites" was the magical cure-all excuse in 4th and got got nuked with the edition change (which I'm damn happy about).

So, the official 5th Edition mem: http://i.imgur.com/JANwGDS.jpg

- Making new nanites when something causes nanites to go haywire obviously would be as useful as making new children in the face of a deadly plague
- Nanoforged stuff was not supposed to contain any live nanites after manufacture, but if the nanites went haywire...
- I haven't read anything indicating that "fresh" nanites in hermetically sealed environment don't work

Could you provide me with a page number for the optional rule to ignore limits? I can't find it...

Well if they did work, nanoforging would be back in business.

~Umi

That's not dumb. That's awesome. What's dumb is the idea that the Matrix is so invasive to everyday life in the Sixth World and yet it can't do anything worth wild, because apparently no one should run with wireless on, and everything should be unhackable and skinlinked.



I don't think the problem is that new nanites can't be made, but that no one would trust them. Horizon had a marketing campaign that literally reprogrammed people using nanites and on top of that there is some kind of mysterious Matrix threat that is able to steal your body with seemingly any nanotech.

Skinlinks aren't retconned out - they just haven't been reprinted yet, per various commentary. I get the impression that they're not sure how they want them to work yet.

And I'm gonna guess that the nanopocalypse had SOMETHING to do with Dissonance.

i'm gonna go ahead and take a guess as to how skinlinks will work.

regular use: blah blah blah blah blah, we didn't really bother putting anything here because we're still trying to go all passive-aggressive on you and force you to agree with us that connecting your spinal cord and eyeballs to the matrix so that people can start fires in them is a great idea.

wireless bonus: your skinlink actually works the way it should work, except through the matrix because reasons.

there you go, the summary of what i expect the official version of skinlink to look like. you saw it here first.

Regular use: As per 4th but tasers your genitals for 12s every minute.

Wireless: Reduces damage to 4s.

12P and 8P. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Evo has working nanoforges, per R&G. And manufacture processes are always background info, not something which needs to be mentioned explicitly...

They slag nanites in 5E, then bring them back in the first splat book. What.

~Umi

Evo, the guys with the Mars base, the guys where this whole nanotech problem started, you don't think that's at all suspicious that they're the ones with working nanoforges?

So... Took an actual look at Runa and Gun. Let me get this straight. Out of all the Martial arts in the world, not ONE mention of Kung Fu (with its hundred variations of martial training) makes it into the book? NOT ONE? Are you kidding me? I am speechless once again. *sigh* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Not really, no. It is just another example of the design team not having a coherent idea on the matter. *shrug*

It is, Wushu is listed as a variant of Karate. Game mechanically, there wouldn't be much of a difference between them.


Why do you assume that the writers are idiots and don't know their own metaplot?

No, they are saying that a triple-A is able to operate undefined "nanoforges" (which may just mean manufacture at nanometer scales) in a hermetically sealed environment that's literally not of this world. That's about as far removed from cure-all drexlerian nanobots as having working nuclear power plants is removed from a 50$ wristwatch drawing energy from quantum fluctuations.

Before you get too fussy, there is technically a Kung Fu in the book: Wudang Sword (part of the Wudang Quan style) is the basis for a lot of internal martial arts. For example: Tai chi.

Also as far as martial arts styles go a lot of the martial arts styles are named one thing, but can be used to refer to any number of abilities (Which is the fluff way of simplifying the crunch as it were.) Under "Karate" (japanese) it indicates that similar styles would be Hwarangdo (korean), Wushu (chinese, also can be termed as kung fu) and Zen do kai (australian, derived from karate)

Now should they have done a better job of illustrating the more major martial arts styles and giving them more specific rules? Sure! But from a setting that uses the japanese term "omae" to mean "friend," well, you can only expect so much.

It's not so much that the writers are idiots, but that managment is.

Most of the writers are freelancers who essentially work in vacuums. They aren't all on one big team, they don't work together, they get bits and pieces farmed out to them individually with rough guidelines, and then CGL "edits" their individual contributions together. (And we all know how stellar their editing is, neh?)

If there does happen to be some grand unified vision of the Shadowrun metaplot floating around somewhere at CGL, it's clearly not being properly conveyed to the people who actually write the books. It's kind of like a page out of the George Lucas book of directing.

~Umi

Thank god it didn't - now no one can say "I know kung fu".

Oooh... An honorable mention for an art that is much more influential than something like Carromoleg, Gun Fu, or even Karate. So not impressed.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) What? And completely ignore a defining moment of Skillwires? The Shame. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sadly, skillwires can't teach an MA style.