Agreed. Indeed a serious difference. I guess your GM super monsters will be toned down a bit with your house rule.
But if you have players who've already paid for their 14.8 essence worth of deltaware and are sitting on a big pile of cash looking to upgrade, then we're well beyond worrying about the power level of your game, y'know?
I'm not arguing that it's not a big difference, my position is that the difference is not a big deal.

Actually if you look at the Lone Star Swat Cybersuite, the sum of the essence cost of the parts is 2.8, the essence cost of the cybersuite is 2.52 for standard grade and 2.02 for alpha grade. The suite provides a 10% reduction in essence cost, and alphaware provides a 20% reduction. Taking 2.8 * .9 * .8 gives 2.02, where taking 2.8 * .7 (10% + 20% = 30% reduction) gives 1.96. Granted .06 is not a lot of essence, but in this case that would matter a lot to a magically active character. If the character getting the implant had biocompatibility would the essence cost be 2.8 * .9 * .8 * .9 = 1.81 or 2.8 * .6 (10% + 20% + 10% = 40% reduction) = 1.68? This time there's a .13 essence cost difference.

Synner? Frank? Any advice on how to do the essence cost reduction math?

Another question, why is a smartlink an eye modification? If you look back at the older editions a smartlink was composed of a ballistics processor, a limited simsense rig, an image link and an induction pad. It seems to me that only the image link part of that should be an eye implant while the simsense rig and ballistics processor should be headware implants.

When it comes right down to it, there isn't 20 essence of compatible cyber in the game, anyway. But it still makes a difference at lower amounts, too, especially if essence loss equals magic loss. I don't want essence loss to become a non issue at any power level.

The culture-required (which I'll call neural 'ware as per Augmentation from here out) label is really only confusing if you're taking the stance that it doesn't actually mean much of anything, which is essentially what you're arguing. The tissue and blood type matching isn't just "helpful" with neural bioware, it's a minimum requirement, and it would take more than meeting the minimum requirements to get that kind of 'ware up to Delta grade performance. I would guess that basic neural bioware would simply operate correctly and do its job, while higher grade neural bioware has been meticulously DNA matched, mapped out and coaxed to do the same work with less cells. I could be completely wrong, but if I am, then I have no idea why the devs bothered to make a distinction in the first place at all.

In other words, basic bioware can be ripped out and transplanted into someone else. Cultered Bioware cannot be. It's important information for any potential organ leggers out there.

That's another good alternative explanation for why they would make a cultured bioware distinction. Still, I suspect that it's part of the balancing scheme along with exempting cultured bioware from Type O benefits. Used Synaptic Booster 3 for 120k or Delta Synaptic 3 for 240k with Type O hits me as a li'l out of whack balance wise compared to, well, pretty much anything else in the game, really. If I'm wrong though, hell, sign me up for Type O. I'll be quite happy to take multiple loyalty 6 street docs at chargen too, if that's what it takes.

It's not loyalty 6 your need, but rating 6.

I have a house rule that if you have an appropriate contact, you can add their rating to the maximim availability you can have at chargen for equipment they can help you get. Fixers are universal, but they only provide half their rating as a bonus.

I just meant loyalty 6 so the Docs won't sell my valuable Type O meat to the Tamanous the first time I get banged up. 8)

The part about neural bio not being transplantable is indeed present in the books. Nowhere it is stated or implied that neural bioware is extempted from the benefits of alpha-delta grade or Type O, therefore barring full errata or FAQ statement to the contrary, it is a house rule as far as it concerns me.

It is a 30-pts quality. Picking it ensures you have little exceptional talent at anything else, but it also ensures you do have excellent potential to be turned into a full superhuman with relatively little expense. If you do mean to be ubersammie, it's definitely the Quality to take.

You can even put it on your resume at the fertility clinic where you sell little bits of yourself to upgrade other little bits.

Don't be silly. You are far too precious to be wasted as an organ source. They have already done the trick long ago, with the original type Owen cell lines. You are far more profitable if sold to a corporation, government, or policlub, which can brainwash you into loyalty or blackmail you into service (cortex bomb, anyone ?), then turn you into an ubersammie agent chock-full of Delta bio goodness with relatively little expense.

Hell, your genome is quite precious this way, too, so they would do crank out as many of your clones raised to adulthood as possible, to create a super-army.

If you are male, I would also take it into consideration using you to impregnate as many females with compatible genome, as possible.

I never said you can't get higher grades of neural bioware. I said neural bioware is not the same as standard bioware. The quality says it affects "basic, off the rack bioware". By the fluff and the RAW, neural bioware isn't EVER made in a generic model, it's made to order and tailored to an individual. I'm not the developers and I very well could be wrong, but I think it's a bit premature to say that the RAW is crystal clear in regards to neural bioware and Type O compatibility.

Depending on how you read it, the rules for cyberware and bioware grades on SR4 p. 303 implies that Cultured Bioware is, indeed, a grade all its own. This can also be reinforced with the Second-Hand Bioware grade in Augmentation that specifically states Cultured Bioware isn't applicable for the modifiers.

It's pretty vague and my personal reading of said rules is saying that Cultured Bioware does come in various grades, just that it's not "standard 'ware." Which, as an aside, is what the Type O Bioware quality refers to as well.

The easiest way to settle things is to try and find an NPC or Archetype who has stats featuring Cultured Bioware with a grade. :)

Or we settle this with a game of rock paper scissors.

Cultured Bioware has to be grown to match the neural pathways of a specific individual. While a pancreas or a kidney is to large extent a self contained system with in input and output valve, a spinal chord is a complex relay that integrates itself in a unique and evelopmentally assigned fashion to each individual. So if you go get a piece of cultured ware they map out where your neurons go and then then they make a new item for you. There is no "off the rack" possibilty because it has to be grown specifically for you.

So when you pull a cerebral booster out of someone, there isn't anyone on the planet that you can reinstall it into. That's why Dr. Swayne put it down like so expressively:

It doesn't matter if it was produced with Type O tissues or not - it's always going to be built to the specific neural net of the intended recipient. And because of that, cultured ware is always grown from the cells of the intended recipient - there's no advantage to be had in having generic neural ware, there wouldn't be anyone you could install it into. As a result, Type O spinal chords aren't even available - there's no reason to keep them around (see p. 127).

So the long story short is that Type O affects non-cultured Bioware only. Basic Bioware is the specific list of ware on page 338 of the Basic Book, as distinct from the list on page 339 of Cultured Bioware. But hey, getting a delta-grade suprathyroid for 45000 :nuyen: is quality children's television. And in the Bioware section of Augmentation, the Cultured Bioware doesn't start until page 70, so there's still lots of groovy, furry, or weird augmentations you can get the bonus on (Quills? Silk glands? Why not?).

Also note that it doesn't apply to versions that don't come off the rack. So you can't get a delta grade bioware on top of your Type O physiology and have it stack up to a 100% Essence cost reduction. It needs to be Basic Bioware, and of Standard edit: or Alpha Grade for you to get the benefits.

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And yes, if you get a Suite and get it Alpha and have Biocompatibility, the total cost should be 60% (a 10% reduction for the Suite, a 20% reduction for the Grade, and a 10% reduction for Biocompatibility). In general, when you have multiple things reducing the same Essence cost, they all reduce the same cost. You aren't getting a series of multiples, you're getting a discount of 10% (or whatever) of the original cost.

And no, Biocompatibilty does not stack with Type O system - there wasn't normally any need to say that because under normal rules you can't have both anyway.

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And on another note: Cultured is not a grade. The rules are pretty clear on this point:

-Frank

But that's not the way AUG has the essence cost figured out for the Lone Star Swat Suite. The essence cost for the alpha version is 2.02 which is the 2.52 standard grade cost times .8, not the base sum of all of the components (2.8) reduced by 30% (10% for suite and 20% for alpha) which would be 1.96.

I haven't gone through all of the suites to see if the essence costs for the higher grade versions were calculated through multipliers or through summing up the total essence reductions and multiplying them by the sum of all the components. But if the essence costs for the alpha and beta grade suites were all calculated the same way (the way the Lone Star suite was), then they are all incorrect and need to be fixed.

I just quickly added up the essence costs for the Zeiss suite. The essence cost of all the parts is 1.5, the base essence cost for the package is 1.35, the essence cost for the alphaware version of the package is 1.08, and the essence cost for the betaware version is .95. Those totals are calculated by taking the sum of the parts and multiplying by .9 for the base package, then taking that total and multiplying by .8 for alphaware, and taking the sum times .9 and multiplying by .7 for the essence cost of the betaware version. If all of the essence cost modifiers were added up then applied the essence costs of the cybersuite would be 1.35 for the standard grade, 1.05 for the alphaware grade (1.5 * .7), and .9 for the betaware version (1.5 * .6).

Not a big difference, but 2 of the suites essence costs were calculated by "..a series of multiples..." and not by summing up all the reductions and applying them to the base implant cost. So that's something that needs to be corrected.

Those suites are incorrectly stated and need to be fixed in errata, the basic formulas used "a series of multiples" and we simply didn't catch it.

Are you speaking as the writer of the Bioware chapter or the Type O Quality, Frank ? Because your reasoning still leaves me quite unconvinced. It seems to me that since neural bioware can come in A-D grades, too, it means there are extra levels of improved matching that one can have in order for that better grade neural bio to exist. The special nature of neural bioware is stated to be that it must be matched with the host's nervous system, not its immune system. Since the extra grades of neural bioware must represent something, I expect it to be full immune matching. And this is something that Type O can reproduce. Therefore, I expect Type O to make standard grade neural to work as Delta, too.

Of course, it is plain and clear that you cannot stack a non-standard grade with Type O. The latter already makes bioware as fully matched with the individual as it can ever be, so no point in implanting non-standard bio in a Type O guy. The Quality already makes all standard bio work as Delta, as good as it can ever be.

As regards the non-stacking of Biocompatibility and Type O, fine, I was doubtful myself, so this is a nice ruling for me, too.

I'm not sure what's unconvincing about my reasoning or Frank's. A is not B. C gives a discount to A. That doesn't mean B gets a discount from C, even if A and B are closely related and similar in many ways.

Yeah, but if cultured bioware still comes in grades, then obviously, even though it's all gene-matched, it can be more or less compatible. Maybe they still work off of some base stock and then modify it. Maybe it's easier to do that modification work to a type O patient.

Maybe the essence reduction from type O isn't because they bioware is already type O. Maybe it's because the very nature of the type O system (the lack of the protien markers that create bio-rejection) allows it to take new parts better. So no matter the parts, the system won't fight them as much. In other words, it's not that bioware is more compatable with the type O patient. It's that the type O patient is more compatible with Bioware.

The Medtech chapter. But let's look at Type O closely:

OK. So to get the bonus, the ware has to be "off-the-rack". That's a game term. It means Alpha and Standard grade. Heck, it's even specifically noted that Standard and Alpha Grade Bioware qualify as Type O on page 127:

Oh wait, what was that last part where Cultured Ware wasn't included in the Type O but still was allowed to have a grade? Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what it said. But also interestingly, it specifies that it must be "Basic Bioware". That's a game term as well. We turn to page 338 of your hymnal:

Can it get a whole lot clearer than that? There's a list of "basic bioware" in the book. It's not the same list as the list of "cultured bioware". I can go on at length about the in-game reasoning for this distinction, but in straight game mechanics there is a clear distinction between things which you get the Type O benefit from and things which you don't.

-Frank

Frank's analysis above is correct.

Strictly speaking, it's useless to even get alphaware... because it just counts as delta.

Ok, if that analysis is correct, why doesn't every peice of cultured bioware count as delta grade? How, if it's all grown from the patient's tissue and gene matched and everything, can there even BE standard greade cultured bioware?