Wired Reflexes- are they worth it? Options

[Mongoose]

I can see the low price of wired 1 and 2 maybe apealing to some folks, but what's the point of wired 3 in the new edition? Its only marginally less expensive than the bioware that has the same effect, but the bioware has a hugely lower essence cost. Wired 3 has avaialability 20, vs 18 for level 3 synaptic accelerators, so neither is avaialble to starting characters. Bioware would be easier to conceal from scans and such.

To recap, the bioware is just as effective (moreso if you consider the space it leaves for other implants / magic), eaiser on the body, AND easier to buy, AND easier to get past security.

So, does anybody have a use for wired 3 these days? The only one I can see is maybe if you want to have an "old school" samurai who got wired a long time ago, before the "new generation" of bioware came along. Which is cool, but that's a HUGE premium (in essence, and cash if you try to get it anywhere near as essence friendly as the bioware) to pay for a flavor piece.

[Teulisch]

consider this- bioware reflexes 3 will always be 1.5 essence.

but if i get deltaware (50%), and have more bioware than cyberware (easy to do), then that 5 essence becomes 1.25e. so there are some cases where it is a good thing, but they are few and far between.

the other consideration, is you can turn wired reflexes OFF.

[ronin3338]

Might make a difference later if they add back the Stress factor for bioware. :-|

Seriously though, I never gave any of my sam's Wired-3. It was never essence friendly, and I didn't like the thought of them being all jittery. 'sides, I got better uses for all that essence loss.

[FrankTrollman]

[Mongoose]

Tuelish- eh? Why is having more bioware going to reduce the essence cost of your cyber? I'm not entirely familiar with the rules yet. If having loads of bioware drops the essence cost of basic wired 3 to 2.5, I can maybe see it being worth it... nah, 1.5 for 40g more is still better.

ronin3338- I did play a sr2 (with bits of 3) character with wired 3, and he was pretty effecitve, in part because he also had some cheap (but effective) bioware to make him even faster, and a bit tougher- besides just being dang hard to hit.
But I'm not saying I want to play such a character in SR4. My point was, wired 3 used to be disticntive and offered some useful edge you couldn't otherwise get. I'm not saying it was the best use of thier essence, but now its both not avaialable to starting characters, and the things that match it are cheaper and have fewer drawbacks. So why's it still in the book?
IMO, turning wired refles off isn't much of an advantage compared to synaptic accelerators, because there doesn't seem to be any drawback to having the bioware active all the time. {Nor is there any drawback to magical reflex enhancement, but that's a seperate issue...}

[hyzmarca]

You can get Essence the cost of Synaptic Boosters 3 down to .3 essence with Deltaware and more cyber than bio. This costs Two Million and Four Hundred Thousand Nuyen for the deltagrading. With Beta you can get it down to .5 essence and Nine Hundred and Sixty Thousand Nuyen.

The thing about Wired Reflexes is that it is nuyen cheap but essence expensive. It costs less than half of what Boosted 3 costs at any grade.

[emo samurai]

In 2XS, the proto-synaptic accellerator technology could be turned off. I'm sure the actual synaptic accelerators could be, too.

[nick012000]

That stuff wasn't "proto synaptic accelerators". It was Kamazazi in a BTL chip.

[neko128]

[Teulisch]

notice the wording on page 306.

'with the exception of cultured bioware'- it an exception to the standard alpha/beta/delta. how exactly is unclear at this time.

[hyzmarca]

Cutting the cost of basic Wired 3 down to 2.5 requires 5.1 points of bioware. Unless you have a good cybermancer it ain't gonna fly.

[Cynic project]

[hyzmarca]

Actually, what it says is that the pricies given for cultured bioware aren't for the standard grade. What that means is really up in the air. I say that it means that the cultured bioware prices listed are for Delta Grade.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Ah, the undead horse rears it's beaten head.
To make it simple: that reverse implication is wrong - cultured bioware can be graded like any other ware:

[emo samurai]

My god... 3 initiative passes for .75 essence, .375 if you have a cyberarm.

[Grinder]

[Grinder]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

He means extra IPs. ;)

Keep in mind that Deltaware may be costy in SR4, but isn't restricted by higher Availability... and there are more than a dozen Delta Clinics in 2064 already.

[Grinder]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Uh, where?

[FrankTrollman]

[Grinder]

Guess it was too easy for me :D or i'm just too stupid after a long day. Anyway, thanks for explaining it :)

[Crusher Bob]

Is there a point to the 'half essence rule', other than to make things more complex? Sure it lets you cram ~8 esence of stuff into you.

At delta grade, this will come close to letting you carm all the cyberwear and bioware in the main book into your body.

[Cray74]

[neko128]