First off, most of that Gear will inlcude an Image Link to allow a Smart Link. so if your lenses are hacked, they can be turned opaque and you won't see anything until taking them off.

Additionally, advanced cyberware grades have quite better device ratings and allow for better defenses. Given Strong Encryption, fixed DNI admin and internal routing, having your control of your cyberware subverted is pretty much never going to happen.

Yeah, but you can get along without your lens. You can't get along without your cybereyes.

And I thought we were talking about basic grade cybereyes. No one has mentioned this as being deltaware eyes, or even alphaware. Doubling the cost takes alot of the glamor out of 'it's a cheap piece of cyberware' argument.

Basic cyberware is what? A rating 4 device? Not all that hard to hack into. Of course most people will just have it linked directly to their Pan, so if someone grabs your commlink, then they can just shut off your eyes with no difference between if it is basic or delta grade.

But yeah, they'll need to take your commlink. But then again, this is the same level of defense your contacts will have, so we're once again in the situation where if one fails the other fails, but if the contacts fail you can take them out and still see, but if your cybereyes fail you are blind.

I guess it's sort of a game specific thing. In my games, there's a lot more subdual and non-lethal (or simply overwhelming) force where capture is a major concern if you botch a run. In those situations, the options are usually: flip sides, wait for help or escape. If someone shuts off your eyes, that can really limit your options and put you in a bad bargaining position.

And, the threat of imminent death is a pretty good means of subverting control of your cyberware. The old "you have six seconds to comply..5...4..." works wonders on people who like to keep living.


Maybe I'm just prejudiced against cybereyes since I can't imagine a techno-future where goggles are not HOT and FASHION. Besides that, the air is probably toxic enough to burn your eyes without them, so walking down the street wearing wicked tech googlies is more likely the rule than the exception.

Actually, I'd say that reaction is a great stat if you want a false sense of security. Wide bursts are great for knocking dodge monkeys down a peg, and unless you're going all in on being a combatant (which, contrary to popular belief, isn't necessary for every character at every table), you're unlikely to be good at dodging AND soaking damage. I've gotten away with playing characters with completely mediocre 3-5 Reaction scores plenty of times. Ideally, you keep your nose out of the samurai's business. And when that's not possible? Use Edge to get the drop and take 'em out with your nice Agility score. Ultimately, high Reaction is a luxury stat for all but drivers whereas agility is a prerequisite for meat combatants and infiltrators.

Boy, lots of replies...



True, cybereyes is more useful for mages than lenses. If you have racial darkvision of some sort, it's not that much of a problem. Your smartlink and vision enchancement will still work, even if you can't zoom in with the lenses and still hit with spells. You could always bring some binocs tho.
But many mages abhors cyberware and simply will not take it, in which case they have at least 1 better magic and lenses/glasses.

For other characters it's mostly about what you can afford. Adepts are probably better off with lenses as well.




You still have hands with average agility. Infiltration is a valid point, but then again invisibility spells can make up for that alot.




And then they can take your meat eyes as already mentioned. Point is, most people are more likely to take off glasses or goggles than ripping out eyes, cyber or not.
Also, for fluff reasons, cybereyes is probably more comfortable than lenses. And then it's the capacity thing.




You'd naturally want BOTH good agility and reaction. And armor as well. A good sammie probably has all three. For a mage however I'd rather have Reaction 5(augmented) Agility 3 than the other way around. You can use edge on infiltration as well so that's a moot point. But when the time comes for mr random mook you overlooked to shoot you, having those extra few dice can make a world of difference - quite frankly life or death.

Again though, not everyone is a mage. Mages are honestly the only archetype that can genuinely hope to get away with a craptacular agility score and even mages benefit from having enough to consistently score a hit or three on an Infiltration, Palming or Gymnastics test. Further, the Edge issue is not actually a moot point since Edge can guarantee you go first unless the grunts start using up their rather limited pools of group Edge in response. Meanwhile, you can still use Edge and fail an Infiltration test. The only way to minimize that possibility is to be a Mr. Lucky, burn Edge or have a decent Agility or Infiltration score to back up your Edge roll to begin with.

Or have Masking/Improved Masking, a couple Physical Camouflage spells active, ruthenium polymer coating on whatever you're wearing, and a spirit's Concealment power. Nothing like having a -20+ to Perception Tests to see you.

A well-built mage can sleaze through a lot of things, its true, but they have to sustain spells and use services to do so and still have to contend with wards. It's certainly manageable, of course, but mages are frankly stupidly powerful in whatever niche they decide to put their minds to-- to be honest, they don't really need Reaction either, since Possession cheese can take care of a lot of things if tanking is what you have in mind and even the materialization traditions can make themselves very hard to hit even before you factor in Reaction.

But again, as I have implied earlier, there's more to the game than Mages. If I was forced to choose I'd rather take great Agility and average Reaction on a Face, Infiltrator or Adept than vice versa.

I thought of one maybe decent use for modular limbs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Modular limbs sketch

What meta wouldn't want to carry around a set of human hands?

Don't get me wrong, modular limbs themselves rock. Being able to take of an obvious limb loaded with all sorts of illegal / combat oriented stuff and pop on a nice legal syntetic limb is great. Its the stuff that is designed to go in them that sucks. Cyber-Skates? Really? Your telling me no atheletic gear compnay makes inline skates with boots any more? Or better, ones with boots and nice wide smart-wheels, so that the wheels can re-configure as "smart soles" when you want to walk?

As for the Muscle replacement vs wired reflexes debate; Muscle Repalcement 3 is less than half the cost in Nuyen. Of course its not as good. But if you have a 20K cap, used Muscle Replacement plus some other stuff could be the way to go. Not a common situation for a PC, but entirely reasonable for an NPC. Like some weapons, some implants are mostly intended for NPC use.
I always thought it would be fun to make a "redneck cyberzombie"- somebody who somehow had access to cybermancy, but no cash. Something like 10 essence worth of cyber for under 20K¥... what's the best options there???

Do they really have to list every piece of cyber gear as a normal gear as well? Of course skates are out there, your GM just says $100 and you move on.

The real irony behind that is the amount of overhead required to make a cyberzombie in the first place to strap such a small value of cyber into.

So, human hands. . . is that the 2070's version of Jazz Hands? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Yes, it was there, I took it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

And an implanted commlink is still a favorite piece of gear, just from coolness value. Now, the pro/con argument for it for shadowrunning is long, but for everyday use, what else would be as cool?

If you're refining your rituals to push the lower limit of essence a further notch down, it makes sense to skimp on the hardware budget of a likely-to-die test subject. If he croaks off, you haven't wasted hundreds of thousand nuyens of deltaware.

It would make much more sense to describe such things as normal gear items, and then have rules for adapting gear in general as cyber-limb accessories. You buy the gear, and want it in a limb, so you "pay" X capacity plus a 100% markup in cost, and move on. It both makes more sense, and it would convey the impression that such things are custom / limited production items.

Plus, listing anything as a cyber item implies it somehow draws functionality from the fact that it is cyberware; that's great when the item is wired reflexes, but silly when its a pair of rollerblades.

You might wanna take look at Arsenal page 62 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Darn, beat me to it.

Now I have to make a Barrens cyber-roller-derby team, if for no other reason than to take the "silly" out of that sentence...

Team?

Don't you mean Gang?

And I'll see you a Roler-derby squad and raise you a Barren's Style Blood Brawl Street Hockey squad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I didn't stutter.

And why would they be? The Core states that any vision enhancement paid for with Essence can be used for targeting - why should IR or Lowlight be different?

As for hacking - minding that cybereyes obviously use DNI (unlike the goggles/glasses/contacts most likely), being so close to the brain and said brain already possessing whole nerve clusters dedicated to vision only, I can't imagine cybereyes being that easy to hack. Even if you use wireless, why would you need high Signal rating for them? And by the rules in Unwired, in most cases, you have to be in the implant's Signal range to hack it - that is, up close enough for you to be able to shoot the target instead.

I was talking about external visual aids. Those only work if they are purely optical. IR and Low-Light Vision cannot be achieved like that AFAIK.

The rules say very little. Binoculars and vision mag say they can be optical or electronic. The optical devices like magesight goggles are optical but can't take any mods. Every other device and enhancement says nothing about whether it is optical, electronic, or both. I guess since they specified you could say everything else is electronic, but that means not even goggles with just vision mag can be optical, and I think we have those today.

But yes, I'd stick with IR and low light being electronic, unless someone can show me low light optical of today.

Low Light Vision is, by definition, electronic. The proper term instead of night vision goggles or low light vision goggles is Light Amplification goggles.

They operate by using very sensitive visible light detectors - so sensitive that they can pick up light we can't normally see. The data produced by these sensors is used to create an amplified digital image of the low light conditions, which is then displayed on a small screen in front of the user's eye. This amplified digital image is essentially a digital feed of the ambient conditions with the brightness levels notched up so that the user can actually see the surrounding area in proper contrast. Such an image is fairly bright, which is why current LAMP screens are enclosed in goggles - the brightly lit screen would give away a user's position if the light were not contained.

In the world of SR, they may have found ways to miniaturize the system enough to make it fit in contact lenses, but the very fact that the light is being read electronically and translated into a new digital image ruins its usage for magi. The same is true of Theromgraphic and Ultrasound vision - they electronically produce digital images of what they detect.

~Umidori

You could do low light with purely optical. All it is is collecting more ambient light and focusing it towards the lens. Plenty of animals have this vision naturally, so I'm sure an optical equivalent could be made. Magnification can also be done optically (In fact usually is IRL).

As for IR... hmmm, no, don't think it is possible to do optically. It might be possible to... no, you couldn't even get UV light to work.