Unwired Questions, Now with Merge-y Goodness Options

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Your groups mage is using Edit and Command on corporate hosts? You call that a non-hacking char???

The only non-'hacking' runners in the augmented world are dead runners.

The base threshold for trace is 10. That buys at least the first IP, regardless of bonus dice.

Registered programs reduce the Threshold. So no, not even the first IP anymore.

About the book-keeping: Use an agent, buy successes.

Buying successes might keep you from rolling, but you still need to check every piece of equipment for all its programms

It´s not about you in particular, but I don´t get how rather constant SOTA costs are worse than the religious counting of ammo most groups have going

First off, most of the pure hate stems from the fact that a really ugly change to the hackers mechanics was shoved in through the back door in Unwired.
Second, it's easier to count a handfull of pieces of equipment than to account for every piece of equiment.

[Tycho]

@Lebo77:

If you don't want to check the SIN in your group, just don't do it. I don't care how you play the game and I never forced you to play it the way i think it is right.

I said, I would do it that way, not that it is the only thruth out there and you are damned if you don't accept it...

If you lack a SIN, many activities that normal citizens take for granted become impossible for you. For example, you need a SIN to get a legal job, open a bank account, own property, go to school, rent an apartment, establish utility services, and so forth. Most importantly, a SIN is now required for any form of legal travel—including just buying a bus ticket.

In a world where you have to have a SIN for a bus ticket (which will be cheaper than 10 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ), it just seems right for me, that every corp will run an ID check every time you log on their matrix side for an update. Still, the ID Check rules are crappy.

cya
Tycho

[PlatonicPimp]

Tacnet:

As I read the rules on my first pass, a drone counts as sensor channels for the person who is using the commlink they are slaved to, assuming they are so slaved. If the drone is running the tacnet on it's own hardware, then it gets bonuses and it's sensors act as as sensor channels for itself.

Also, if you have fewer senses for the tacnet, you can still participate in a tacnet with a rating higher than yours, it just operates at a lower level for you.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

When many of my other players would be spending every dollar of their cash on new ware, bullets, materials, spells, etc., hackers were often sitting pretty on quite a bit of cash because they had bought rating 6 programs at character gen and after a few thousand dollars, had a 6/6/6/6 commlink to use them on.

And we all know that in SR4 it's completly forbidden for the hacker to invest in drones, implants or other equipment because the Hacker class probits it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

[Sma]

I wasn't really thinking unmodified, iBalls have 8 modification slots.

The way I was reading the text it had not even occurred to me that drones could be members of a TacNet. I suppose their Pilots could benefit when operating autonomously. In that case I wouldn't count it's sensor rating as it's number of streams I would count it's number of sensors instead, up to 5 in the case of the iBall.

Gotcha.

It´s probably cheaper to just grab one or two handheld sensor packages sporting the chosen sensors in that case.

camera 100
-ll 100
-thermo 100
-vision mag 100
microphone 100
- select sound filter 100
- spatial recognizer 100
Motion Sensor 50

Sma

[apple]

Your groups mage is using Edit and Command on corporate hosts? You call that a non-hacking char???

Of course. Do you really play SR4 without any basic hacking abilities besides your group hacker?

About the book-keeping:

Thank you for something I wrote one page earlier. But this does not change the fact that you have to specify the availability treshold at least for every category of software you are using. And it certainly doesn´t help that the official rules contradict itself when if comes to the category of degenerating software.

And of course, if we are talking about such simple solutions like "be member of a cracking group" why do the rules exist at all? Why not a flat increase in lifestyle? Why not a mandatory connection and ONE roll per month to see if you can provide the neccessary contribution to the warez grou? Why not a simple +10% in lifestyle? Or 1% of the buying price? Or some similiar elegant, yes simple solution without bookeeping for a dozen+ programs (and a lot of questions regarding which kind of software is degenerating). And please, before you start flaming my examples: they are just that: examples. I am quite sure that you are familiar enough with the SR4 rules that you can decide for yourself if there are other possible rule solutions other than "roll or buy successes one or two dozen times each month".

, but I don´t get how rather constant SOTA costs are worse than the religious counting of ammo most groups have going

1) There are no rules for constant ammo degeneration (only if you use ammo), but there are rules for the degeneration of linguasofts. And yes, compared to the ammo resupply the SOTA system feels much more cumbersome, time-consuming and roll-intensive without giving any kind of fun/roleplay/interesting interaction back. It is just ... bookeeping. If you want to compare it, either your equipment looses one point every month (so your heavy pistol does 4k after one month and 1k after 4 month) or your software is damaged in combat and must be repaired/resupplied after combat (like reloading a weapon)

2) Basic rules vs advanced rules. Yes, it makes a small difference if you have to pay 100% or 10% for programs.

3) As you said: you are using a flat payment. Now, we are talking about 1000¥ to estimated 5000¥ for a normal user to an advanced hacker, and these are more or less static costs after a certain game point. So, using hundreds of bullets on runs is handled with a flat payment, but using common and not so common programs is so special that there must be specific rules on how to calculate the exakt ¥ for each specific program? For me, SOTA costs sounds just like "Please have a connection, make a software test each month or pay (rating x 10¥) each month".

(We abandoned it quite some time ago, a flat payment that takes individual training into account is way better. Funny parallels...).

Yes, especially considering that your houserule has nothing to do with the official SOTA rules besides "Your GM decides your roleplaying success in getting into a cracker group, otherwise you are threatened with rolling 20+ tests." The funny thing is, your houserule is the same in my group.

SYL

[Ryu]

The only non-'hacking' runners in the augmented world are dead runners.

Registered programs reduce the Threshold. So no, not even the first IP anymore.

Buying successes might keep you from rolling, but you still need to check every piece of equipment for all its programms

1) Non-hacking runners need a subscription to their hacker-buddy. Repeat matrix signal, take care of your own job.

2) A reduced threshold is better in most cases, as your Stealth program reduces the opponents dice pool.

3) Yes, I do. Fortunately only once, hacked autosofts are quite affordable.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Non-hacking runners need a subscription to their hacker-buddy.

..wich best is a NPC and the matrix belongs only to Hackers, Technomancers and AI, anyway - suuure. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

A reduced threshold is better in most cases, as your Stealth program reduces the opponents dice pool.

A reduced threshold is never better, as it equals 4 bonus dice.

Fortunately only once, hacked autosofts are quite affordable.

No, you need to go through the entire euqipment list every two months ingame. Idle chores, no fun.

[Fuchs]

I don't get how in one area, making the game less fun for hackers is not ok (encryption), and in another area (SOTA) it's ok.

Also, as others pointed out - hackers were not prohibited from branching out, and going rigger or samurai - quite the contrary for rigging, actually.

The whole still looks like a senseless rule to me that does nothing to make the game fun.

[PlatonicPimp]

all right, nothing new has been added to the discussion for pages now. Agree to disagree folks. House rule it if you don't like it.

[Fuchs]

It's not about agreeing to disagree, I'd just like to know who thinks this is a fun rule. What exactly does it add to the game? To your game?

[PlatonicPimp]

MY game?

It gives my hacker a reason to have programming skills. It marks the difference between a real hacker(maintains at least some of his own programs) and a script kiddie. It suggests what a social network for hackers looks like and does. It gives FOSS a place in the SR world. It does these things better than fluff because it actually effects the character.

YOUR game? I have no idea. House rule it if you don't like it.

[TheGothfather]

It's not about agreeing to disagree, I'd just like to know who thinks this is a fun rule. What exactly does it add to the game? To your game?

What it does is prevent the hacker from giving free shit to everyone else in the team. Because software can be cracked and copied, as soon as there is enough accumulated downtime, everybody gets every program at rating 6. For free. Software degradation means the hacker has to spend time and money keeping his warez up to date, which means that, assuming there's some shadowrunning going on, he probably won't have the time to start kicking out copies of all of his software to his buddies.

[apple]

Ah ... no. If he has the cracked patches (either bought from a warez group or programmed it himself) it is just a simple action done in less than 1 second to distribute it in the TacNet of his group. Cracked software does not have any copy protection.

SYL

[TheGothfather]

Ah ... no. If he has the cracked patches (either bought from a warez group or programmed it himself) it is just a simple action done in less than 1 second to distribute it in the TacNet of his group. Cracked software does not have any copy protection.

SYL

Right. No copy protection, it's cracked. And now it degrades. So he has to spend time and money to keep it from degrading. That's kinda my point.

I actually agree that the additional bookkeeping is ridiculous, but I really think that SOTA rules are there to discourage the player from powergaming. The fluff is just there to explain why it has to be done in game.

[Nightwalker450]

Few questions... (Completely unrelated to degradation, but completely related to this topic...)

Complex Forms and Program Options: 2 Karma per option is per option, not per option per complex form correct... Meaning I buy it once and can apply it to any complex form I wish.

Submersion: Reassembling. Am I correct in reading only Entropic Sprites can be reassembled to provide a discount to Submersion? So we have to deal with a "anti-resonance" sprite, we can't assist a good sprite and gain a benefit? Also regarding the absorption, it says some technomancers see it as sacrificing a sprite, others see it as crossbreeding of the code... How do the sprites feel about this?

Echos: Biowires. Emulation takes a skillsoft and then you threading test (still no action I assume), threshold of the rating. Then you can sustain it, or learn it as a complex form paying karma equal to rating. So this makes it easier for me to learn Pistols, then it does for me to learn a computer program. Since Rating 4 Pistols, is only 4 karma, and learning rating 4 Browse will take 11 karma. Can I emulate computer programs to save cost? Though I guess it has been said you can't thread a skillsoft to a higher rating. Biowires also apply the same limits as to the number of skillsofts you can run?

Echos: Defragmentation. I'm reading this to say that only damage caused by an Attack program can be defragmented. Even though damage wise its just like Blackout (except using Armor vs. Biofeedback filter)

[JoelHalpern]

Reading this whole thread (it will likely be a few months before I get Unwired) the software decay rules look like the result of a series of individually reasonable decisions.
However, as the decisions interacted, the result is a system that has unlikely implications (autosofts and knowsofts degrading) and results in mechanics which either require a bunch of calculation, the use of the rule of 4, and then end up not actually swolving the initial problems, or else you have an immense number of rolls to be taken every 1 to 2 months.

so in solving some probably reasonable concerns (including trying to answer the question as to whether hackers can reasonably earn money just hacking) a construction that sounds akin to one built by Rube Goldberg has resulted.

(As a caveat, it is possible when I see the rules I will conclude that they are cleaner than this discussion indicates. But it seems unlikely.)

The main reason for posting this is to suggest that this does matter.
I try to check out each book before buying it, to decide whether it is going to be useful / interesting / etc.
From what I can tell, this is actually a small part of Unwired, and I will buy it anyway.
But having a rule that is, from a game-play perspective, as awkward as this one appears to be is a serious disincentive for buying the book.
(It also makes me wonder whether I cam going to conclude that other aspects of this particular volume are as bad. Which would make me an unhappy customer.)

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

[dionysus]

JoeHalpern, having read the PDF, I would argue that degredation is a relatively small part of the book, even thought the rule has far-reaching implications. I wouldn't worry too much about it, there's lots of great crunchy (and some fluff I really like) in it. The topology and security chapters are, IMHO, very satisfying and helpful. The missing EC/ECCM rules are a disappointment, though, I thought there had been some noise that that was going to be addressed in UW.

Can I emulate computer programs to save cost?

That's really interesting, esp given the Adopting Software sidebar on p136. "In theory, a technomancer can adapt any piece of software by mimicking the program with a complex form that he shapes (by threading or learning) based on the original." It doesn't say anything about the mechanics of this "adaptation" process.
FWIW, the description of Emulation on p149 says "Technomancers with the Biowire echo can use threading to convert skillsofts..." so it does seem to be limited to a) those with the echo and b) skillsofts. Nightwalker, I don't have my core book with me, so I can't look it up, but 11 karma for rtg 4 browse seems high to me...could you spell that out for those of us with faulty memories?

[Nightwalker450]

Not a problem... If you don't have the complex form
Rating 1 = 2
Then for every rank after than you pay the new rating so the breakdown is
2 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 11 karma

Hence technomancer never buy any complex forms after creation, because they are just not worth it.

Here's another question:

How large are nexi? I'm thinking I should be able to carry a Renraku Hotspot, or a Renraku Retailer Hub in my backpack.

[apple]

but I really think that SOTA rules are there to discourage the player from powergaming.

Could you please explain how the SOTA rules could discourage the player from powergaming?

You said:

What it does is prevent the hacker from giving free shit to everyone else in the team. [...], he probably won't have the time to start kicking out copies of all of his software to his buddies.

Your point, that the hacker doesnt have the time to distribute his cracked patches/software to other people is not valid.

1) If he is cracking/patching it himself, he needs so much time he cannot run. But if he has cracked/patched it, he can distribute the software in seconds to other players.

2) If he is searching for cracked software/patches, he needs money and the player needs a lot of patience, when the GM is determining the result of 20+ rolls (or bought hits). But if he has the cracked software/patches, he can distribute it in seconds to other player

3) And he *must* search for cracked patches or program the patches for himself, otherwise, after some month, he will not be able to hack anything over a basic commlink without any defense. The problem/limitiation is not the distributation to other characters, it is the constrait to get patches for himself every month.

Either he gets the patches and can continue to hack, or he does not get the patches and is a dead hacker. The distribution of free software to other characters has nothing to do with it and is done in seconds.

SYL

[apple]

How large are nexi? I'm thinking I should be able to carry a Renraku Hotspot, or a Renraku Retailer Hub in my backpack.

Not very large. Unwired has nexi-drones

SYL

[Dashifen]

And we all know that in SR4 it's completly forbidden for the hacker to invest in drones, implants or other equipment because the Hacker class probits it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

They're certainly capable of doing so, however in my three years of running SR4, my hackers haven't done so. YMMV.

It's not about agreeing to disagree, I'd just like to know who thinks this is a fun rule. What exactly does it add to the game? To your game?

I think this is a solid rule. Is it fun, no probably not if you're going to force a person to roll all of that, but I think it does balance the hacker character especially with respect to the spoofing of lifestyles that is now capable. I have perceived an imbalance for hackers as starting characters. Many of them have never purchased a piece of gear after character creation because their gear was as good as they needed them to be right out of the gate. The degradation rules will help combat this.

Personally, I do not intend to have any activesoft, knowsoft, linguasoft, pilot, system, or firewall degrade. Really, I see this as being of solid benefit when hacking and, to a lesser extent, common use programs come into their own.

Also, I agree with the others in the thread that indicate having registered software isn't that bad, especially for things like browse, analyze, and other common use programs. In my games, SIN checks are few and far between because I think they reduce the fun of the game, and so far my players haven't seemed to indicate that this is a problem. 'Course, my players rarely, if ever, purchase anything that they need from legitimate source and, instead, go through black market fences and the like. Thus, having fake SINs or no SIN isn't an issue for them. Perhaps my perception that SIN checks are a largely unnecessary part of the game also colors my point of view with respect to degradation and it's capabilities.

Thus, what this adds to the game is the ability for a character to make a choice: to use registered or unregistered software. If they use registered there is the chance, albeit unlikely, that they may get caught using those registered programs while performing an illegal activity of some kind. If so, then the registration may lead (eventually) back to them. However, to mitigate that danger, someone could choose unregistered software which degrades and must be upkept.

I'm not sure if I'm being clear. Am I?

[Nightwalker450]

Since all wireless devices act as routers for matrix traffic. What is the purpose of the Retrans Unit in Arsenal, and now our Repeater Drone in Unwired? I guess the purpose would be to try and create a secure wireless line between places, but I can do the same thing by hiding commlinks around town operating on hidden mode... Ok that thought made me want to give free comms to the homeless so I can set up a route through them to connect to places (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) .

[Nightwalker450]

Not very large. Unwired has nexi-drones

SYL

But its still a medium drone.. which isn't backpackable... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
So I'm thinking laptop size, for the lower ones (<10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ), the rest are more desktop size. At least for the prebuilts

[dionysus]

Submersion: Reassembling. Am I correct in reading only Entropic Sprites can be reassembled to provide a discount to Submersion? So we have to deal with a "anti-resonance" sprite, we can't assist a good sprite and gain a benefit? Also regarding the absorption, it says some technomancers see it as sacrificing a sprite, others see it as crossbreeding of the code... How do the sprites feel about this?

I went over the sections again, I don't think it is restricted to entropic sprites. The description of reassembling on p158 says "Unlike free spirits, free sprites don’t require Karma to grow in power. They alter their “source code� in a process known as reassembling," so it seems to be free/wild sprites of any type.

I, too, would like to hear about how the sprites take it. Esp. since some sprites (see Independence, p157) see going free as "a separation from their intended purpose," sprites might see helping a free sprite to be making a bad situation worse. OTOH, sprites might see it as a way to re-unify the free sprite with their original programming.