[X] My Assistant

[Dizzman]

I was wondering if there were any rules for upgrading cyberware/bioware in
Augmentation or if we will going by house rules for the foreseeable future?

If not, what house rules do you go by? Do you just pay the cost/essence difference in levels of cyberware? Or do you make the PCs pay for everything all over again?

[Strobe]

Pay for everything over again but remember you can sell the second hand cyber that gets pulled out of you.

-Strobe

[Edit for spelling]

[Ancient History]

If you're upgrading - Rating 1 to Rating 2, etc. - players can pretty much just pay the difference in costs (Essence and nuyen), provided the upgrade is available.

If you're doing a replacement, however - trading out cyberarms, filling an Essence hole, etc. - you would have to pay full price.

[Cursedsoul]

If you're keeping it within the same grade, IE basic wired 1 to basic wired 2 I think I'd just make them pay a bit more on top of the cost/essence difference because in my mind they're upgrading systems already in place or adding more to them.

If you're keeping it outside of the same grade, IE basic wired 1 to alpha wired 1, I'd make them pay for everything over again because there's a world of difference in how the two are constructed. The end result is the same, but the approach is different.

With bioware and the like I'm inclined to say they'd have to pay for it all over again no matter what because they have to grow an entirely new set of skin, organs, or whatever.

[Trigger]

Well, I would argue that some bioware just needs the upgrade cost (ie, difference in cost between the grades) for the increase, such as Bone Density. Others I would say that you have to get the previous bit replaced with the new stuff, such as with Muscle Toner and Augmentation, since they are things that are added to your muscles and can't simply be strengthened or tightened inside your body.

[Cursedsoul]

I agree, hence "inclined" because honestly I haven't looked over all the bioware but while typing my response I was thinking just that, that some bioware just needs the upgrade cost like bone density since it's pretty much adding to an already present procedure whereas toner and aug are physically replacing stuff, but that can swing the other way too. Muscle aug especially could simply be adding MORE fibers as opposed to flat out replacing the existing ones. Toner I think is a bit more stringent, but still not outside the realm of possibility.

Probably a case-by-case basis is what I'd use since I generally like that approach. Still, it can be tricky.

[pestulens]

Take a look at the Shadowrun Mishouns ruling, It is kind of like an 'official house rule'.
I believe there ruling is that, when removed, ciber or bio ware leaves 'essence holes' witch are filled before any new essence is lost. as to :nuyen:, if you are upgrading an existing package I believe you may just pay the difference but if you are installing a seprat unit you must pay the full price and may resell the old ware according to the normal rules in the street gear section. I do not recall exactly what guidelines they give for when you are aloud to upgrade. (Cyber eyes for example may have to be replaced while a wired reflexes system may only need to be expanded).

[Ol' Scratch]

Yes, here's how it works in the simplest terms that I can conjure up (though I'm sure someone'll have something to bitch about -- wouldn't be Dumpshock otherwise):

1. Remove whatever implants you want to change or upgrade.
2. Buy your new implant.
2a. If it is an upgrade (say Wired Reflexes 1 to Wired Reflexes 2 or alpha Wired Reflexes 1 -- whatever), pay the difference between them. Otherwise, just pay the normal price for the implant.
2b. If it wasn't an upgrade, sell your old implant before buying the new one so that the net total is still cheaper.
3. Have the new implant installed.
4. Recalculate the Essence loss as per the standard rules in the SR4 sourcebook.
5. If your new Essence score is lower than your current Essence, it becomes your new Essence. Otherwise, it remains the same and you effectively have a "hole" that you can fill up with other implants in the future if you decide to. Just use this same process to figure it all out.

That's about it. There's some debate about how the "Essence holes" work, but trust me -- it's way more complicated than it needs to be. The above process works just fine and has the same end effect. :)

Hope that helps.

[Dizzman]

Docter Funk and pestulens - thanks for the rules. They seem easy to use and fair. I am running a game where three of us share GMing duties. Characters will be updating cyberware soon, and I wanted to get a rule ironed out before it happened. This will work well, and since it is on Missions, it has some rules authority behind it (important for multiple GMs). It would be nice if it was in the FAQ or even one of the books: Augmentation or the main book. But don't get me started on leaving out an important part of character development completely out of the rule books....

[Ol' Scratch]

They are in Augmentation. It's just obfuscated and written in an overly complicated way. :)

[Jaid]

[Dizzman]

Essence holes don't make a lot of sense from a description standpoint - but they are definitely required for Sams. Otherwise, you'd never be able to upgrade. I can see why they separated bio and cyber, since you get a half discount on essence on one or the other - depending on which you have more of.

I like th upgrading part - no reason to repay for what you already have. Any little thing to up the balance for cyber and bio sams over adepts is a good thing IMO.

[Moon-Hawk]

My desired end result is to have people upgrade often. An undesireable result would be to have people hoarding their money for 15 sessions to save up for the ultimate gear. Therefore, I have to use a system that favors incremental upgrades.
Improving rating: Just pay the difference.
Removing completely/replacing with completely different: I can't wrap my head around letting them just pay the difference (so they do the regular sell used and pay for the full new stuff.
Improving grade: This is the tricky one. In my head it makes sense that they should have to sell the old stuff and buy the new grade. But that results in them wanting to save up to get a higher grade and not "waste" money on standard grade that they're going to replace later. So in order to encourage my desired behavior (lots of upgrades) I should make it a simple pay-the-difference to upgrade from, say, standard wired 2 to alpha wired 2, but I can't come up with a halfway plausible rationalization for that.

[Cursedsoul]

Well, if you want to rationalize paying the cost difference between standard wired 1 to alpha wired 1, you could rule that the core systems are basically unchanged and that the way it interacts with your system, gets hooked up in the first place, and stresses your body via use are all changed.

I imagine that standard ware stresses your body more than alpha ware because it's not streamlined and optimized. Alpha's far from highly compatible but it's still a huge step up in compatibility and invasiveness so part of upgrading from standard to alpha could simply be removing some connections that are no longer necessary, which wouldn't require much more than pulling out those wires and replacing them with something natural or synthetic. You don't need to go through some fancy shmancy surgery to hook it up because it was already done.

I'm sure there's a lot of ways you can think of it to justify reducing the cost. Besides which if you can't come up with something rational, just claim that science in 2070 is so far more advanced than ours that they've probably got all sorts of doohickeys and gizmos and theories that all make perfect sense and that we back in 2007 just don't know about/have conceived yet.

I don't think you're players are gonna scrutinize you TOO hard when you just saved them money on their car insurance by switching to Geico...err saved them 11k or better to go from wired 1 to alpha 1. ;)

In my mind the construction is radically different so I'm leaning towards making them pay for it all over again but I'm not dead-set on that because both ways make sense.

I imagine the process is akin to upgrading a car engine from something standard to something supercharged. A lot of the parts are probably interchangeable, you're probably just adding more, modifying others, and removing yet other parts.

You can ALSO rule that part of the cost of getting ware in the first place is learning how to use the damn stuff. A guy with wired reflexes is gonna have to go through therapy or some sorta program to not go haywire all the time (I'd like to think so anyways) so if you're upgrading to a different grade, you've already DONE that so you don't need to pay for it again.

[Jaid]

i would tend to think you couldn't just upgrade to beta or delta though (by which i mean, integrate the existing 'ware that you have)... from what i recall, those require that the 'ware be specifically tailored to you (that's the 3rd edition explanation as i recall, at least) and so you couldn't take off-the-shelf stuff and change it into beta, imo.

alpha and standard, however, are both off-the-shelf...

[Moon-Hawk]

[Ol' Scratch]

Eh?

Why couldn't you upgrade "grade?" That's... that's pretty much the point of higher grades beyond alpha. Upgrading is as much improving existing infrastructure as it is ripping out the old and shoving in the new. I upgraded my PC just a few months ago. It's a completely different computer, but according to the thought process in this thread, it's not an upgrade. Even though I assure you it was. It was even custom designed to my specifications, while my previous one was pretty much "off the shelf."

Really have no idea where you're coming up with this "can't upgrade to better stuff" malarkey. That's the entire point of an upgrade, whether it's customizing something so that it's more attuned to you or boosting its power. And particularly in the case of implants, upgrading the grade simply means you're getting an Essence Hole to fill up with other goodies, which is more than enough of a reason to upgrade.

[Moon-Hawk]

By "upgrade", we're specifically talking about paying only the difference between the old and the new. I hope that's been clear.

Obviously you can rip out the old stuff and pay full price for the new.

[Ol' Scratch]

That's how "upgrading" works in both reality and the game. Replacing = upgrading just as much as adding new stuff = upgrading. In the end it doesn't really matter which way you're going. Upgrading from a Meta Link to a Fairlight Caliban commlink is still an upgrade as much as using the rules to boost the Meta Link's ratings. But, again, according to some of you guys, only one is an actual upgrade. And the sad thing is, I don't know which one it would be...

[Moon-Hawk]

I see what you're saying, and over the course of a few posts we've all (especially me) gotten lazier with our nomenclature, but for example:
If someone has standard Wired Reflexes 2 and wants Beta grade WR2, do you make them pay full price for the Beta WR2 and maybe sell the standard WR2, or do you simply allow them to pay the price difference between the two and call it good?

[Ol' Scratch]

[Moon-Hawk]

[Redjack]

[Ol' Scratch]