I have a Street Samurai, as you can all probably guess. I also have 250000:nuyen:, courtesy of character creation. (standard rules apply.) What would you recommend?

Some starting points:

I have Automatics and Heavy Weapons at 5, Longarms and Pistols at 4. Also, Unarmed Combat 3. Clubs and Blades are 0. I'm not interested in an exotic melee weapon.

I need a way of getting multiple IPs. A Synthcardium 3, for 30000:nuyen: is pretty much mandatory. Also, probably a smartlink.

I'd prefer two awesome guns to ten stock guns. I don't want the entire post to be about the Ares Alpha, though I'll probably have one. We all know it's awesome.
Hardliner Gloves... I've got a Strength of 6. These give me a base unarmed combat damage of 4P, before any cyber/bioware.
I'd like to have a pile of armour. I've got a body of 9, and soaking the damage would be nice.
I do need to outfit myself with things other than just weapons, ware and... warmour. Things like a Lifestyle

I'm not too worried about having less humanity than the borg. As long as I've got more than say... 0.22. Go nuts.

If I need to clarify my character further, just ask. This is the only section I still need to do.

OH! Houserules, currently, as far as I know, are only thus, as far as gear goes.

Armor degradation and the personally fitted armor rules from Arsenal. Form Fitting Body Armour is considered to already have benefitted.

I cracked out a very short list of cyberware, there's a couple pieces of low hanging fruit still available (mostly in bioware - damage compensators etc.) but I didn't want to spend all 250,000$ at once =P

you will need to take one instance of the restricted gear positive quality (runner's companion); so if you take this package you'll either need to peel 5 BP out of something else or spend only 225,000¥ (it's worth it) I marked the item it was taken for below.



the total package costs 168,250¥ and 5extra BP, for a total of 4.5 essence (leaving 1.5 ess) there is alot of cyber and very little bio so if you wanted to spend more on bio go ahead. if you pull the 5 BP for the restricted gear from your cash you'll have ~56,750¥ left to buy armor, B&E gear, lifestyle, etc.

I'd prefer to avoid Move-by-Wire. My GM has warned me that there might be unforeseen consequences to deal with, unless it is alphaware or better. Probably like how it was in SR3. A ticket to doom.

Smartlink, Flare Compensation and Thermographic Vision are all good. Cybereyes... not so much. I want to keep my natural Low-Light vision.

I've already taken the restricted gear quality once. I was looking at getting Muscle toner 4... Its 32000 for that.

+the Synthcardium and Wired Reflexes 2 (64000 for Alpha) is currently 124000. For +2 IP, +2 Reaction, +3 to physical skills and +4 to agility...

Also, with a Body of 9, don't worry about armour stacking penalties. If any reasonable combo of armour can actually get over 18 armour, I'd be surprised. (I'm not looking for a form fitting body armour and military body armour. I need something I can walk around in.)

If armor is what you want, go full body replacement. Get restricted gear for the armor, pack on 4 armor per part and you got 20 armor nekkid. You can have decent stats, with that, but probably can't fit much else in essence wise.

Nah. I don't want armour to the exclusion of everything else. I was just bringing up another thing that had crossed my mind while I posted.

Armor, at chargen: Riot Control Armor (3k), full FFBA (1600), full PPP (1k), RCA helmet (1k), Gel Packs (1500), Ruthenium Polymer Coating (Just in case, 7500)
For a grand total of 16/19 armor, at 15600; sure it's expensive, but if you need to cyber up for your job, you *should* be paranoid enough to finish gearing up for WW3(4?5?)

Hrmm...

I'd go with FFFBA (6/2) and a Mortimer of London Greatcoat. Thats a good 12/7, without relying on PPP (which interacts badly with called shots...)

For situations where I don't have to worry about looking illegal, I can probably go with Riot control. (although, that's only like +3 impact armour...)

I'd question his reason for doing this unless he finds it munchy; but even then I'd get it alpha before I would install WRII instead - it's *so much* more essence efficient and the costs are fine compared to how much you get out of them.

although if you did drop those, I'd still recommend pulling in the enhanced articulation, attention co-processor and orientation system, essence permitting.

as for armor, thanks to the 4e rules concerning stacking about the best you can do is:

Form-Fitting Full Suit
Helmet
*some armor suit/piece of armor*

and the only way to push *that* over 18 encumbering ballistic is to go with 'some armor suit' being swat armor or better, which would require another instance of restricted gear.

otherwise your best gear set is probably form-fitting + helmet + riot gear for zero-zone situations where what you wear doesn't matter, and form fitting + helmet + armor jacket when looking like 'just' a cop is probably ok.

in discreet situations it'd be FFBA + clothes or just armor clothing ofc.

obviously if you wanted to get over 18 actual armor that's relatively easy, just start stacking the cyberware armor enhancements (dermal plating, bone lacing, etc.) and then wear the FFBA + helmet + riot gear...

Actually, I could add a ballistic Shield for some extra. +6/+4, if I really wanted...

I'm gonna go with a FFBA (Full Body) for +6/+2, or +3/+1 when not all of it is in use, and a MoL Greatcoat. It gives -2 conceal to all my guns and stuff.

I might be able to sneak a deal with the Move-by-Wire. We'll see how it turns out. Right now, it looks like 65 karma for the quality (Restricted Gear) and Move-by-wire 2 aplhaware. Normally, MBWA is 170000 by itself, and priced at 55 karma, I'm getting it at 137500. Thats about a 20% discount.

So, MBW is in. I've got 112500 nuyen left. 12000 of that is going to a Middle Lifestyle (3 months).

I also have 50 extra karma, which I can trade in at 2500 a point. Thats another possible 125000.

• Enhanced Senses
  Cybereyes 3, Cyberears 1, Attention Coprocessor, Orientation System, Data Jack
• Enhanced Physical Performance
  Muscle Toner 2, Muscle Augmentation 1, Synthacardium 3
• For Combat
  Trauma Damper, Synaptic 1

I arrive at a cost of 190.250¥ / 2.4 essence (1.6+1.6).

Out of curiosity, why do so many of you seem to add an Orientation System as a must have? Is there something magical about it that I'm just completely obtuse to?

Why do you have 4 individual gun skills? Even taking heavy weapons to 6 and picking up the firearms group is better than what you've done.

Armor w/ Body 9??.. Full Body Armor w/helmet (12/10) + FFBA (full body) (6/2)(counted as 3/1)
PPP Vitals protection (1/1),PPP shin guards (0/1), and PPP Forearm guards (0/1), PPP leg & arm casings (1/1)
Ballictic armor 20 (counted as 17 when looking penalties) Impact 16 (counted as 15 when looking penalties)

Wired reflexes + Reaction Enchanters are VERY good combination..

it depends heavily on the GM. generally I give *large* bonuses to players who do map related activities who have one (since it basically gives you a hud overlay of your map against whatever you're actually looking at at the time - like, think your favorite gps map, rotated to match your actual field of view with virtual buildings rising up out of it etc.) it's a good way to avoid getting lost and fits rather smoothly into the eye capacity to boot.

generally I count it as an extra sense input for the tac soft too (gps information as the sense... )

I'm really not worried about cyber/bioware anymore. I've sorted it out with my GM, and gotten an awesome deal as far as the MBW system goes. What I'm looking at now is weapons, especially heavy weapons, and assorted other stuff. I've got about 40000:nuyen:.

NOTES: The FN HAR has been changed to 7P/-2, rather than 6P/-1. This is at no change in cost or availibility, so it might actually be worth looking at.

Also, the P93 has changed to 4P/-2, rather than 5P/-1. Again, no change to the rest of the weapon.

@Cthulu: The GM has heavily houseruled character creation. I took firearms at 4, then raised automatics to 5, for a total 65K. It was a pretty good deal, as far as I'm concerned. I know it's unoptimal to buy all gun skills, but I'd prefer to slave my character to the backstory I set down, especially when it doesn't matter too much.

Oh, also, my dude is a brick. I've got 9 Body, +3 on Damage Resistance, and 4/4 Armour, which is probably stacked onto a FFBA halfbody (8/5) and a Mortimer of London Greatcoat (14/10). I've got a lot of dice to soak rolls. I shouldn't need any more right now.

I'm really not worried about cyber/bioware anymore. I've sorted it out with my GM, and gotten an awesome deal as far as the MBW system goes. What I'm looking at now is weapons, especially heavy weapons, and assorted other stuff. I've got about 40000:nuyen:.

NOTES: The FN HAR has been changed to 7P/-2, rather than 6P/-1. This is at no change in cost or availibility, so it might actually be worth looking at.

Also, the P93 has changed to 4P/-2, rather than 5P/-1. Again, no change to the rest of the weapon.

@Cthulu: The GM has heavily houseruled character creation. I took firearms at 4, then raised automatics to 5, for a total 65K. It was a pretty good deal, as far as I'm concerned. I know it's unoptimal to buy all gun skills, but I'd prefer to slave my character to the backstory I set down, especially when it doesn't matter too much.

Oh, also, my dude is a brick. I've got 9 Body, +3 on Damage Resistance, and 4/4 Armour, which is probably stacked onto a FFBA halfbody (8/5) and a Mortimer of London Greatcoat (14/10). I've got a lot of dice to soak rolls. I shouldn't need any more right now.

Yes, almost perfect orientation. It is a must-have feature for any really cool AR-HUD. Plus Navigation tests can come up, and not many of my chars have that skill.

Or you could just buy a GPS that doesn't cost essence?

Seriously if it costs actual essence it better be seriously badass.

it's not [edit]*just*[/edit] a gps. it does a rotate-translate in real time so the overlay matches (in 3d) what you're actually looking at, in the orientation you're currently viewing. if you played CoD4:MW campaign mode at all, you remember the zoom ins with the wire frame that fills in and then rotates to first person from overhead? just before they fade out the wireframe that would be what this does. this would let you look at a mountain or hilltop and go 'that's 300' above our current elevation' at a glance, among other cool tricks (like knowing immediately by glancing around how far away something is...)

it's also free for many many players because it's unusual to end up with all 8 slots in rating 2 eyes used, but be over the 4 slots rating 1 eyes gives. (it's also only 1 slot.) even then I'd give more dice for this than I would for a hand held or commlink operated GPS; and only this interacts directly with mapsofts. (I happen to count this as a sense input for your unit for tacsofts too but that's a discretionary choice as GM, I don't think there's any rule for it.)

Sure, it's a fun but of flavor. But it's hardly a "must-have." People are listing it in this thread above things like Trauma Dampers, Damage Compensators, or all the other myriad things that actually make you a better Street Samurai. Especially in a thread asking for help in that department. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) And +2 to an Outdoors skill that rarely comes up isn't exactly a "must-have." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

So why do you think I can not do that with a commlink, AR and a GPS? Hell, today I know how far away stuff is at a glance because my GPS knows where I am and I can read a map.

In the future my GPS is wired directly to my brain, via my commlink, and my eyes are wired to actual computers and can with GPS assistance know where the mountain that I am looking at is.

And yeah, how is this in any way better than a trauma damper

Ultimately, it's a non-issue. I've got... 0.68 essence. Thus, not really enough for anything at all. Unless I START by upgrading something to alphaware. Or better, preferably. Unfortunately, the only thing that'll give me a big hole is Titanium Lacing. However, I gotta say, I'd prefer a trauma damper to a map overlaid on my vision.

Anyway: How does the new FN HAR (7P/-2) compare to the Alpha? Is it still worse? (Keep in mind: restricted vs. forbidden...)

Would you recommend the Ingram Smartgun X or the FN P93 Praetor (4P/-2)? Alternately, a totally seperate sidearm.

And... lastly, a heavy weapon. I'm currently looking at the Ingram White Knight, but I have little experience with heavy weapons.

IF I still have money at the end, I'd be getting a sniper rifle, then a pistol. Factor in ammo costs too.

If you're walking around with an assault rifle and get caught with it, you're screwed anyway. So it doesn't really matter if a weapon like that is technically Restricted versus Forbidden. Both'll get your ass capped by the cops if you don't drop it, and they're going to take it off you and charge you if you do get caught with it. License or not.

And yes, 7P/-2 AP makes it ungodly better than an Ares Alpha. That's better than medium machine guns (completely negating your need for a Heavy Weapon unless you want to somehow get a HMG or Rocket Launcher or something), and they don't get to use a sound suppresser whereas an assault rifle does. Throw on the Extended Clip: Drum design option and it is completely and utterly better than one except for mildly shorter range (which doesn't matter much in urban combat, especially with Vision Magnification). Except for the lack of a grenade launcher, yeah, I'd say that's better than an Ares Alpha. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But that's just looking at a single house rule while ignoring any others that may be in play. Even the 2 free points of recoil compensation that the Alpha has (but you give up by using a suppresser instead of the default gas-vent) can be negated by taking an Auto-Adjusting Underbarrel Weight, which you can easily do since you don't have a grenade launcher to worry about.

If you're carrying one of those around with you on a regular basis, for a sidearm I'd go with something highly concealable. The Ares Light Fire 70 is really nice. It has the advantages of a Light Pistol (-2 Concealability) plus its custom silencer gives you a total -5 dice pool modifier on Perception Tests to detect its firing. Give it the Electronic Firing modification. Combine that with a Concealable Holser under your Mortimer coat and that's a total of -6 Concealability and -6 dice pool on the Perception Tests for firing. Load it up with Stick-and-Shock rounds and you're pretty set. Heck, you could give up the extra -1 dice pool modifier by switching to a Sound Suppresser and instead give it BF capabilities with the Firing Selection Change option if you really wanted that extra punch. Toss on an Underbarrel Weight as an accessory and it has 2 points of recoil compensation... which is a pretty nice compensation for that loss on the Perception Test. Especially if you want to switch to EX Explosive or AV/APDS ammo for whatever reason.

Even without the house rules, all of the design options in the game make Automatics a far superior skill to Heavy Weapons as far as actual firearms go. Especially as far as recoil compensation goes. Heavy Weapons is only good for grenade launchers and that sort of thing. And, personally, I think lobbing grenades manually is a lot cooler and more flavorable than using an underbarrel (or separate) grenade launcher.

The one advantage is you can have it at home or in your car boot and it's not a crime if you get pulled over in a random traffic stop. Sure the cop is going to think you are shady and run your stuff through the scanner, so make sure it's a GOOD licence, but yeah.

I agree with doc funk that it is massively better though 7P/-2 is awesome tastic.

I only need a single permit (A gun owner Permit) for the Assault Rifle. If I get pulled over, I can just say I'm headed to the range. Admittedly, I don't won't be able to afford a car, but...

I need a second license if I plan on concealing an SMG or a pistol. (Concealed Carry)

I also need a license for explosives. You know, since those are good for... stuff. (Probably a construction license. I've been IMing the GM.)

How do SMGs do for concealability?