That's what a teamwork test is. Besides, what if the software is wrong, and you're not? How do you model that with the dice we have?

That would be a critical glitch and thus why it gives you a deduction in dice.

No hits would be a simple "I don't know" from the program, and thus no bonus, and a glitch might be that it fritz out afterwards and you can't use it any more until you reboot.

Yes, exactly.

My PC's were listening in on a drug deal where a dirty undercover cop they were trying to dig up dirt on was selling some coke to a bunch of gangers. The gang had a clown emotoy they called The Bobo making most of their negotiation decisions for them.

--commlink ringing in the background, a muttered conversation, and then footsteps entering the room--
"Word on the street is, you a cop, man."
"Word on the street is I'm your momma's donor, dickhead. I've been selling volume to you guys for months, cops don't do that."
"Oh, you're trying to trick me! You're so silly!"
"The Bobo says you're a lying sack of shit, man."
"What the... that's a fucking toy clown! Are you crazy?!"
"The Bobo don't lie, man, The Bobo never lies. And The Bo-"
--heavy gunfire, petering out to a few stray shots and some moaning after about ten seconds--

When they got into the house, the surviving gangers had fled, and nobody left inside was recoverable. A few meters away from their target, a blood-spattered animatronic clown was singing quietly to itself on the kitchen counter. Creeped out, they torched the clown before they left.

Clowns are creepy! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Bye
Thanee

In my game, I have ruled that the emotitoy is a separate entity and rolls its rating in a Teamwork test to the PC's roll. The real problem is the Empathy SOFTWARE that a PC can buy for his drones, which is also cheap at 3000 nuyen for Rating 6. I had no choice but to equip NPC's similarly, which has worked to re-balance the pools.

Which is about the same as removing the item from the game (which seems preferable to me, really).

Bye
Thanee

Hey all.

Decided to try out this houserule and my group brought up an interesting question.

Is sensor software considered programs? Are the ratings limited by the commlink's system? Do they add to the processor limit? My inclination is yes they do but there seems to be a little confusion so I figured I'd ask.

I would recommend to simply drop the last line of the empathy software entry (Arsenal, p.60) and all problems are solved.

btw: I am SO stealing the Bobo scene!

Would it be reasonable to have two identical toys come up with the same response to a specific situation? Given that the data sets are probably near identical, toys of identical ratings might even give the same responses.

Not really, as it depends on the dice roll.

Basically, advanced decision-making isn't deterministic anymore.

So, is there anything stopping me from ripping apart the emotoy, hiding the actual processor in my cyberware, routing the feeds so it see out my cybereyes and relays it's results in my image link, so nobody's the wiser that I'm actually using it?



-np

It's available as a sensor software package, anyway. No need for the toy in the first place.

Except the toy is like 10 times cheaper.

And can run as a level 6 program out of chargen.

Both can be bought during chargen. However, they should fix the price for emotitoys; they are too cheap. I'd say rating*600¥ sounds reasonable to me.

Precisely. Simple & effective, I have been using this for quite some time now. Even suggested it on the forums a few times (although people may not have noticed as it was included with numerous other House Rules).

Software has been kinda confusing me about SR4 in general, as there's no dedicated "computers" anymore, aside from possibly commlinks, apparently.

Do I just buy it and declare it's running in my cybereye?



-np

You would buy it and it would run on your commlink (Or directly on your eyes if you want, but the eyes have a much lower system and response rating, so can't run a very high grade program) and have your eyes provide a feed to your commlink which would then use the software to interpret the emotions, then feed the responses back to the HUD on your eyes.

Keep in mind that the problem with buying the software separate from the toy is that you have to have a response 6 system 6 commlink to be able to run it at max rating. This also seems to indicate that the emotitoy comes equiped with a response 6 and system 6.

It depends on the "type" of software.

Regular software (like autosofts, pilot programs, firewalls, common use programs, ect.) need a Node to run in, usually that would be your complink, but it can be a drone with a built in pilot, or a local just just as well. "Sensor Software" is special in that regard, as it runs directly in the sensor it is installed in.

I hope that helped clarify it, even though I am not 100% certain all of the above is completely correct, so if anyone finds an error, please do point it out.

I s'pose I could buy another commlink with ratings 6 and the wireless turned off, to run software - stick it in the cyberarm.

My standard commlink isn't connected to anything but my glasses. The character is paranoid about getting hacked.



-karma

No reason to be. With the slaving rules from SR you just have to set your commlink to only accept commands from your datajack (Or manually input commands or whatever) and it is hack-proof. You then slave all of your other things to your commlink and they are now also hack-proof. Basically the slaving rule means that personal commlinks and devices of anyone with any sort of thought for security are completely impossible to hack.

Corp/Public/House nodes will still generally be hackable because those generally need to be able to be accessed by multiple users and so won't be able to be slaved to anything.

I did say "paranoid".

He's a grumpy 65 year old ex-black ops guy. He's not always rational about these things.



-karma