Deckmiesters and firmware? Options

[Pendaric]

I have a simple problem with Deckmiesters being unable to realistically do their job.

With the introduction of cyber terminal/deck construction rules making a high end deck requires high end programming skills, as well as hardware skills, to make the firmware.
The Deckmiest archtype was BBB and reads computer 6 hardware 9.
But to make a rateing 8 reality filter/hot asist/MPCP component plus some more requires software at rating 8, needing computer/programming 8.
So every true deckmiester is now a world class programmer as well! I think not.

Now they could buy the code from a software pirate (programinng 9) or from Hacker House. Initial out lay versus multiple components almost works but falls down on reality filters which have to be made specifically for an individual.
Now according to the rules a Deckmiester can sell a rating 8 RF for just over 50K :nuyen: but the soft ware cost the best part of 200 k :nuyen:

This paradox from shoddy economics and mishandled game balance is making things difficult as I have a combat decker that want to get the skills to retire as a deckmiester.
I don't know how to answer his questions without destroying game reality.

As such I opening this up to the DS combined rule fu.

[Backgammon]

Price of Decker equipement was (sorry, is) a huge WTF in SR3. I mean, what GM hasn't had the problem of dealing with a team of runners looting a deck off a slain decker and becoming instantly rich?

No solution, sorry.

[Pendaric]

I have been talking this over with, well, to many people. However it has provided two choices.
One: increase the price of reality filters.

Quick, simple, minor change to the rules.

Down side, Deckmiester still have to pay some one else for the firmware code to do their job and it's breaking cannon prices.

Two: Make firmware code (and only firmware code) programable with the hardware specialization.

Deckmiesters can now do their job across the board realistically both skill wise and economically. They still need the necessary knowledge skills but exploits the grey area of firmware between software and hardware. This can be controlled by the length of time it requires to program and build the deck component.

Down side, major change to the game rules concept of specializations. Also would allow a PC to save between 6-21+ karma to build high end decks as they now need only one specialization. This disregards the careful game balancing done by the dev's in their Matrix rules release.

Have I missed anything?

[Link]

[Pendaric]

Matrix: p66 custom built cyberdecks
And your right it does take into account the soft ware but the mutiplier is no where as big as for utilities.
The reality filter at rating 8 workes out at about 58 K:nuyen:
The software is rating 8 multiplier 10
or (640x500) x2 street index = 320 k :nuyen: x2

[Backgammon]

[Pendaric]

You can have magicain's without foci you can not have deckers without decks.
You carn't password or booby trap every deck to explode/burn out/electricute/auto delete/activate location tracker or finally be infected with dataworms.
Though if you have run out of this list you have been playing a long time or get to many decks. :P :D

As to problem at hand:
Option three: House rule the price of firm ware code in line with the custom deck building rules prices.

Solves the economics.

Downside, does not explain how deckmiesters get said code in the first place. Also as the programming takes the same duration as a decking utility why is it cheaper?

[mfb]

i like the firmware rules. i think 'true' deckmeisters should be pretty rare. it makes both in-game sense (it takes a lot of work to get a big reward) and out-of-game sense (if deckmeistering were easy, nobody'd buy stock cyberdecks). most deckmeisters shouldn't be designing new parts every time anyway; they should, at best, make one good design every few years as the SOTA advances, and then churn out copies of it for every deck they put together. if the rules don't allow for that, then that's a problem, but as i recall it's easily possible.

but, really, there's a reason even the hardcore computer geeks don't design their own motherboards, processors, video cards, etcetera.

[Pendaric]

[mfb]

yeah, but you're describing someone who can single-handedly outperform the best that the biggest, badassest megacorps in the world sell. guys who can do all of it themselves should be ridiculously rare. most deckmeisters should be working with two or three other guys to build decks.

intentionally or not, the rules mirror reality. you've got hardware guys who write the firmware for the stuff they create, but that firmware can almost always be replaced with something better. part of that's SOTA, but part of it is that building a component and writing firmware for it are two very, very different things.

if the rules don't allow it, here's the change i'd make: allow hardware to run with lower-rated firmware, at the level of the firmware. allow hardware to run with higher-rated firmware, at the level of the firmware, by making a hardware test with a TN equal to the rating of the firmware. maybe make the firmware automatically act like it's buggy unless you get a bunch of successes.

[Pendaric]

No not really. The custom deck rules state that deckmiesters can do this, if they can not how can they sell for such low prices?
It would take nearly six months to built a deck from scratch, if you had the firmware. It would take a year and a half to program from scratch and build a rating 8 deck. (Presuming that there was world class programer) Also even if they had a programming team how does a Reality filter get retailed in the shadows for less than 320 K :nuyen:

Also the Mega's both mass produce and produce better with R&D. There are rating 9-10-11 and 12 decks. Even a deckmiester does not out perform them.

[Link]

[TonkaTuff]

I think another way to looking at the problem is that the deckbuilding rules, as presented, are there for shadowrunning deckers who also want to make their own hardware on the side. The higher prices and skill requirements probably represent the efforts of someone who simply *can't* spend all day, every day working on program designs, coding, and building complex technological devices. They've got to regularly take time to face off against corporate IC, help murder people, and get involved in messy gun battles with the police. The method by which merchant-type NPCs get their hands on the stuff they're selling isn't really explained because it has little-to-no impact on how a PC gets ahold of it (they hit up their NPC contacts who handle that sort of thing and try to convince them to go through the trouble). You might as well ask how a street doc gets ahold of that brand new VCR3 your rigger ordered (assuming, of course, that all of your players aren't stuck with used implants). It's handwaved away because it doesn't really matter to the PCs how they do it, as long as it gets done.

Just as a Fixer makes a living selling stuff to PCs with a significant markup (when the PCs themselves can only get a fraction of an item's worth when they try to sell their own ill-gotten loot) because that's all he does, it stands to reason that Deckmeisters - who's sole (or at least primary) occupation is to offload software and decks - are simply able to do it better, faster, and cheaper than your guy hunkering down in his basement for three months with third-hand knowledge and second-hand tools. Also, it's entirely possible that, again like a fixer, deckmeister's don't actually do all of this work from scratch. With hardware 9, they can easily construct high-end "custom" hardware out of parts that fell off the back of a truck, were put together by their autistic-savant half-cousin from Jersey, or are Korean knock-offs of a Chinese copy of a Pueblo design eerily-similar to last years' Novatech MPCP module.

As for the reality filters (which, admittedly, do present a bit of a sticking point), seeing as the rules don't explicitly state what's involved in customizing them to their individual users - it's entirely possible that all that's really needed is, say, a Full-X Simsense recording of the user in question. Or that like Persona icons, "customized" may mean nothing more than setting up the VR motif they request and constructing the rest from a collection of pre-coded modules that work for 99.99% of the metahuman population. Rather than requiring that they sit around in someone's back room for the days or weeks it takes to design the program.

[Eyeless Blond]

[Slump]

Reality Filters are described as basically putting a new skin on the matrix. As such, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that reality filters are largely stock code, and only the last little bit needs to be customized to the user. You tell the deckmeister what you want the matrix to look like (or hand him a copy of your current reality filter), and he uploads the right files and tweaks some settings to make the new one look and feel just like the old one.

[Pendaric]

I would like to hand wave the whole deckmiester function but as ref I need to know how it works to explain it to my players.
Hence the problem with the economics and basic game mechanics.
The stock reality filter does not sit well as not only does the neurological structure has to be programmed for but also the entire metaphor structure.
Eg, you can change the skins on Doom easily but cannot change Doom to be Starcraft.
There are rules for a RF being used by someone that it's not designed for, so for me I need to explain why these two things exist, as is, in the game world.

Link my apologies I was doing this from memory and confusing the technician and the DM. Sadly just giving the DM programming 10 is what I was hoping to avoid.

It would seem from what has been posted that I need to change more than one thing. So give the Deckmiester solid programming and black market computer ware contacts, go for mass produced components, change the price of the reality filter to represent the increased coding cost and change computer 5 hardware 7 to computer 7. I make that an increase of 3 karma.
I think this balances the realism equation.???
A Deckmiester now can make up to rating 7 components and can get their hands on higher components or firmware code as needs be.