Broken Cyberware—too bad Options

[Eyeless Blond]

What do you think are the most useless pieces of cyberware/bioware/nanoware in the SR3 books? In this case, "too bad" means that it is insufficiently useful in some manner (for example by providing negligible benefits (or detriments outweighing benefits), by having a cost in nuyen or Essence that is too high to justify the benefits it provides, or by being too narrowly applicable), or is rendered worthless by one or more pieces of gear (cyber or non-cyber) being strictly or almost strictly better than it.

Canonical examples include:

Move-By-Wire, which is fantastically expensive in cash and Essence while also being a one-way ticket to the grave
Cyberhorns and Cyberfangs (for being almost strictly worse than the bare fist)
Math SPU ratings other than 3, for being so close to the SPU 3 in costs but meaningfully less in benefits
The Adrenal Pump, for having a bad trigger and also for the punishing "drain"
Pain Editor, for having no effect whatsoever on Physical damage while having penalties other anti-wound-penalty gear doesn't get. Additional penalty points for not working on injuries that High Pain Tolerance will work on.

Others?

(Note: This thread is an offshoot of the SR3R -- Shadowrun Revised project. The project is being hosted elsewhere, to divorce concerns over copyright from Dumpshock, but topics like this I feel are perfectly fine on these boards, and may help garner more responses. If you prefer, you are more than welcome to register on the SR3R forum and post there; we would love to have more fresh bodies working on this project.)

[Grinder]

Cyberlimbs. Too expensive (both in money and essence) and completly useless apart of style-reasons.

[Fix-it]

[Stahlseele]

needed fixing, done in SR4 . . just bribe your GM to let you convert the SR4 Rules to SR3 *g*

[Snow_Fox]

Isn't there a similar thread about bads cyber where here?

[Kagetenshi]

It's only similar in the most tenuous of ways. You were looking for the worst piece of cyberware. This thread is looking for all cyberware that is in its current incarnation not good enough to justify taking in nearly any circumstance.

~J

[Fortune]

[Eyeless Blond]

Headware radio/phone?

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Kagetenshi]

"So why do they call you Mr. Signal?"

"Well, it's because I've got these seven radios in my head…"

"What the hell? Why do you have seven radios in your head?"

"I use to be a mage…"

~J

[ShadowDragon8685]

Hey, it could be worse.

They might have sabotaged the radios so they were all set to different frequences and coulden't be re-tuned. :)

[Ravor]

I seem to recall reading a story once where a runner was hurt serious enough that he couldn't speak, and his implanted radio was stuck on a god-awful station at full volume throughout the entire recovery time.

He was never quite the same afterward...

[Siege]

Which reminds me of one of the funnier jokes to come out of my former group:

Q: "What do you get from interrogating a mage with stim patches?"
A: "A very pissed off Samurai."

-Siege

[mfb]

VCR, at least in its current form. it's too multi-purpose and too expensive; it's hugely expensive and provides a wide array of large bonuses. i think it should be broken down into less expensive pieces of 'ware which each provide lesser, narrower bonuses. if you get all the VCR-related 'ware, you end up with what is now a full VCR, but you don't have to dedicate a giant chunk of resources and essence to getting a full VCR if you only want certain abilities/bonuses. seems like someone wrote up some rules for that, once...

[Kagetenshi]

Duh buh wha?

You sure you didn't mean to post the VCR in "too good"?

~J

[Mercer]

Sometimes "bad" means "good".

[mfb]

the VCR is not too good, in terms of what it can do compared to how much it costs. it costs the right amount, relative to the bonuses and abilities it provides. the bad part is that you have to buy all of the bonuses and abilities, rather than picking and choosing. for instance, i don't see why one should have to pay for the initiative bonus and the control pool bonus, if all one wants is the control pool.

[Link]

The VCR's power has gradually crept up throughout the years. The VCR originally only gave reaction/initiative bonuses.

[Kagetenshi]

Well, that brings up another problem, which is that a number of vehicles are effectively undrivable without either modification or VCR TN adjustments, with the Lockheed C-260 Transport dropping below two nines (~93.5%) in terms of success probability on fifteen dice without TN mods, but that's not a matter of the cyber itself.

~J

[Link]

The rules for driving tests say that they are only used in extreme situations so you could consider that taking a vehicle with 6 handling out of it's comfort zone is a recipe for disaster.
Actually, the C-260 has a 6 handling rating so shouldn't 6 dice be enough to make a single success probable?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Link, I'm fairly certain the problem is that although the introduction says the rules are only to be used in extreme circumstances, the Rules As Written clearly seem to indicate otherwise - which is why there tend to be modifiers (hostile ones) for things like combat damage to the vehicle (which I would consider an extreme situation), but the base check seems to come into play any time you want to do something - like land an aircraft.

[Kagetenshi]

[ShadowDragon8685]

No, it really dosen't. That would mean one out of three would fall out of the sky, and that's if the pilot is as good a stunt pilot as Richard Petty is a racecar driver.

[Eyeless Blond]

And don't you have to make the check every three seconds as well? Yikes.

[Herald of Verjig...]

It means one out of three would not be a clean and proper take off/landing in adverse conditions. A critical failure would cover planes dropping out of the sky.

Hypothetically, failed pilot test, followed by a crash test (if at an airport, usually wide oper terrain making that TN easier) and then potentially a body test to see if there is any sort of damage.

I imagine it's harder to flip a C-260 than a jeep, and usually there's enough runway to give the pilot a few chances at takeoff and some extra space to slow down during a landing.