4th Ed A Active Soft Costs, Why does Anniversary increase Active Softs so much? Options

[Nexushound]

Oi Chums,

Was looking to pick up some Activesofts for my Street Sammie and was talking to another party member when he mentioned how much more it was going to cost me. I GM three weekends out of four so I had not noticed the change till I looked at the two books side by side. Did any one else notice the huge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) spike? Whats the deal?

Here is a break down of the costs.

BBB pg. 321
Activesofts (Rating 1-4) Avail:8 Rating x 3,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)
Knowsofts (Rating 1-5) Avail: 4 Rating x 1,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

4th Ed. A pg. 331
Activesofts (Rating 1-4) Avail: 8 Rating x 10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)
Knowsofts (Rating 1-5) Avail: 4 Rating x 2,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

*Note: Linguasofts cost remained the same

[Jaid]

yes, that change was noticed.

in general, the change is considered to have been pretty much necessary. activesofts were just way too inexpensive for what they did. even now, you're looking at 2 BP per skill point, whereas getting the actual skill costs 4 BP. that's still a really good deal, it just isn't as good as the 0.6 BP it used to be.

also, if you really want, you can get them cheaper pirated (and *technically*, there is open source software of up to rating 4 available... but for obvious reasons, i can't recommend handing out max rating activesofts for free)

[Jericho Alar]

change didn't go far enough in my opinion (but that's been discussed to death in other threads so I'll leave it alone here.)

[Ol' Scratch]

It'd have been better if they simply changed how Skillwires worked rather than make them financially unavailable for their intended goal. The whole point of getting Skillwires is to have a wide array of backup skills available for an emergency or to cover areas not covered by your character's background and training, not as a means of cheating the system because you don't want to buy the skills as actual Skills.

A completely different mechanic than "just treat it like an actual skill" would have been far more useful and interesting. I'd have started off with an idea where the rating of the Activesoft was unlimited by the Skillwires' rating, but instead the Skillwires functioned as your Physical Attributes when using it. I'd then incorporate an Encephelon with similar functionality for 'softs that required Mental Attributes (and probably Knowsofts as well; it's stupid that one mental skill can't be done without skillwires like Hacking, but not Knowledge Skills). I'd then see how that turned out and balance it from there.

That way it becomes less of an obvious choice for any character with Attributes over 4, but a very viable choice for characters who aren't combat junkies while still allowing them to at least defend themselves. So combat fanatics can choose between being average through Activesofts or excel through natural skill, whereas more pacificist characters can choose between being unable to defend themselves and being average.

[Mercer]

That's an interesting way of handling that. If I ever go to prison (pretty much the only situation in which I'll be able to run a regular SR game) I'm going to nick that.

I never thought Skillwires are that great (even though they are great), because I am incapable of making a character without thinking about the run where all my gear gets stolen, blown up, eaten by an awakened aardvark or dropped down a well onto a switch that triggers an EMP blast.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Whats the deal?

Piracy - 10% of the original software cost.

I'd have started off with an idea where the rating of the Activesoft was unlimited by the Skillwires' rating, but instead the Skillwires functioned as your Physical Attributes when using it. I'd then incorporate an Encephelon with similar functionality for 'softs that required Mental Attributes (and probably Knowsofts as well; it's stupid that one mental skill can't be done without skillwires like Hacking, but not Knowledge Skills). I'd then see how that turned out and balance it from there.

Way too complicated, IMHO.

Just restrict Attribute Dice to Skillwire Rating.

[Jericho Alar]

It'd have been better if they simply changed how Skillwires worked rather than make them financially unavailable for their intended goal. The whole point of getting Skillwires is to have a wide array of backup skills available for an emergency or to cover areas not covered by your character's background and training, not as a means of cheating the system because you don't want to buy the skills as actual Skills.

the issue is in slotting: you can have two equal rating skillsofts slotted simultaneously: with certain exceptions (notably hackers) how many people are using more than two skills within two simple actions of each other regularly? one way to help this is to drop it to one equal level skill slotted - now it's a significant sacrifice to be a 'wire ninja.

one way around this is to find ways to require everyone to use more skills more often, but outside of combat it's very hard to cause 1 simple action of delay to actually be meaningful when switching skills.

A completely different mechanic than "just treat it like an actual skill" would have been far more useful and interesting. I'd have started off with an idea where the rating of the Activesoft was unlimited by the Skillwires' rating, but instead the Skillwires functioned as your Physical Attributes when using it. I'd then incorporate an Encephelon with similar functionality for 'softs that required Mental Attributes (and probably Knowsofts as well; it's stupid that one mental skill can't be done without skillwires like Hacking, but not Knowledge Skills). I'd then see how that turned out and balance it from there.

Encephelons are absurdly expensive for proposed use - you'd need to drop the cost and/or create a version for just the skillwire substitute without its other bonuses; it feels like you could break it in the other direction (notably, it would allow certain types of characters to buy less attribute points or min/max more) but it wouldn't be an across the board edict like skillwires are atm.

Just restrict Attribute Dice to Skillwire Rating.

doesn't do anything. rating 4 skillwires are already giving you 8 dice in that situation, and the likelihood of having more than 2 attributes over 4 are relatively low (rating 5 'wires are also available at character creation but necessarily I don't suggest them as an across the board edict because mages can't fit them easily with the other things they should be buying with 1 essence of cyber/bio.)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

doesn't do anything.

Uhm... it does, compared to RAW. Any hey - it's just a suggestion for a houserule.

Personally, I'm running skillsofts by RAW.

rating 4 skillwires are already giving you 8 dice in that situation, and the likelihood of having more than 2 attributes over 4 are relatively low

Given implants, that likelihood is actually pretty big.

The biggest drawback, of course, is that you can only try to negate failure with Edge reroll (an even that needs software option), and thus, normal glitches will stay for good, only critical ones can be averted.

[Falconer]

It'd have been better if they simply changed how Skillwires worked rather than make them financially unavailable for their intended goal. The whole point of getting Skillwires is to have a wide array of backup skills available for an emergency or to cover areas not covered by your character's background and training, not as a means of cheating the system because you don't want to buy the skills as actual Skills.

I strongly disagree. Not every piece of equipment in the book is made for runners or you. (look at the text on cyberware suites)

Financially, if you can afford to program your own skillwires and issue them to a lot of your own workers then they're quite viable. Given the low cost of the cyber, and the obvious benefits of large-scale use. Or if licensed somehow, and I have 10 active seats and 100 workers... 10 of them at any given time can use them greatly decreasing my capital cost per drone.

The point of skillwires is for corp drones who need access to specialty skills and have access to the corporate software repository (especially with any kind of a check-in check-out license system if the software is licensed, or issued by in house programmers). The fact that it's also usefull to runners is secondary.


They were too cheap before, and too effective. And I don't see your solution as an improvement at all. Now I have even more reason to dump stat agility on a decker... why bother when skill wires will pick up the slack. Rating 5 skillwires are only 10k base (100k delta, making them one of the few affordable delta implants). For an automatic rating 5 in attribute... w/o the skill cap on the software... hell yeah that's broken.

[Ol' Scratch]

They were too cheap before, and too effective. And I don't see your solution as an improvement at all. Now I have even more reason to dump stat agility on a decker... why bother when skill wires will pick up the slack. Rating 5 skillwires are only 10k base (100k delta, making them one of the few affordable delta implants). For an automatic rating 5 in attribute... w/o the skill cap on the software... hell yeah that's broken.

Yes, because when I suggest something like that -- despite specifically stating that it's where I'd start and then balance it from there after testing it some -- it clearly means that it's a final solution and perfect in all conceivable ways.

[Jericho Alar]

Uhm... it does, compared to RAW. Any hey - it's just a suggestion for a houserule.

Personally, I'm running skillsofts by RAW.

Given implants, that likelihood is actually pretty big.

The biggest drawback, of course, is that you can only try to negate failure with Edge reroll (an even that needs software option), and thus, normal glitches will stay for good, only critical ones can be averted.

These are all good points; I'd also point out that no one would be taking skillsofts for their actual area of expertise (since with the exception of hackers, again) everyone wants more than 4 skill in the area of expertise - under the houserule anyway. (I could see characters taking skillsofts for areas of expertise in games where a pool of 8 is pretty good otherwise, since you're still buying up the attributes)

the likelihood of someone having a secondary attribute over 4 is relatively low - even with implants. (most characters won't be boosting misc. stats) so it becomes the cost of 1 Agility (0) versus 4 Agility (30BP) in addition to the discount on all those nice agility linked skills.

even then, non-magical characters can easily drop in skillwires 5 if they're not using MBW2.

thinking about it more a limitation is a good houserule, I just think it might be better to go with the lower of attribute or skill rating. (capping it at instead of setting it to.) [edit]now that I reread what you suggested this is what you originally proposed. mea culpa that's what I get for reading too fast sometimes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Mongoose]

It'd have been better if they simply changed how Skillwires worked rather than make them financially unavailable for their intended goal. The whole point of getting Skillwires is to have a wide array of backup skills available for an emergency or to cover areas not covered by your character's background and training, not as a means of cheating the system because you don't want to buy the skills as actual Skills.

A completely different mechanic than "just treat it like an actual skill" would have been far more useful and interesting. I'd have started off with an idea where the rating of the Activesoft was unlimited by the Skillwires' rating, but instead the Skillwires functioned as your Physical Attributes when using it. I'd then incorporate an Encephelon with similar functionality for 'softs that required Mental Attributes (and probably Knowsofts as well; it's stupid that one mental skill can't be done without skillwires like Hacking, but not Knowledge Skills). I'd then see how that turned out and balance it from there.

That way it becomes less of an obvious choice for any character with Attributes over 4, but a very viable choice for characters who aren't combat junkies while still allowing them to at least defend themselves. So combat fanatics can choose between being average through Activesofts or excel through natural skill, whereas more pacificist characters can choose between being unable to defend themselves and being average.

A more obvious solution if you want to force activesofts into a support / limited combat utility role is to introduce a load / adjustment time penalty. Say the activesoft causes disorientation for rating minutes after you switch to it (fairly realistic, if the mind needs to accomodate synthetic memories) and voila, people aren't jumping between skill softs in combat. IIRC, sr2 had such a load lag, though it was quite brief and could be circumvented by using a multi-slot chipjack. (Damn, how oldschool.)
Still leaves the problem that all you really need is ONE combat skillsoft (and can easily run two), of course. A penalty to using all other skills besides the ones running on your skillwires might do that.

[Nexushound]

Oi Chums,

Piracy- 10% of the original software cost.
Woot!! I like the sound of that. Great idea I should have thought of that myself but since I did not, Thanks.

[Ascalaphus]

What about capping regular skillwires at 3, and regular activesofts too? It's easy enough to justify fluffwise, and it gives you balance. You can make the low-rating wires fairly cheap, and the softs too - they only give you limited ratings anyway.

The rating 4+ skillwires meanwhile are obscenely expensive, and the software to use them very rare. They might be very hard to program, and the demand isn't nearly as high (any facility needs only a few 4+ skilled workers). Lots of companies consider rating 4+ activesofts to be company trade secrets, and labor unions for the high-classed workers aren't enthusiastic about selling them either (only top-employees might have any credible labor unions left).

The military will have high-grade skillsofts, but possession of those is illegal.

In fact, a rating 5 activesoft might be a valid target for a Run.

[Whipstitch]

The quality of ActiveSofts isn't really the issue; they've never been as good as skills, they just happened to be cheaper, and the BP->Karma transition encouraged min-maxers to avoid low point skills in favor of rating 4 skill groups and a pair of rating 5 skills or a single rating 6. So really, the original SR4 SkillWires were so potent in part because in the long term they were the most cost effective way of being just good enough to avoid defaulting-- if you just wanted 1 point of Hardware and Pilot Ground Vehicle, they were a no brainer. Hell, by the RAW truly high rating ActiveSofts don't really exist (or at least they don't have a standard street price) already; the listed prices cuts off at 4. Rating 5 SkillWires actually just afford you the ability to have more 'softs slotted at once, so a rating 5 ActiveSoft that actually requires a rating 5 SkillWire system would definitely be a valid run target, considering that it'd represent the industry cutting edge.

[Jericho Alar]

piling on to this, many sammies are already taking restricted gear to get MBW2 which functions as Skillwires 4 so the real issue is the accessibility of many low value skillsofts; I just point out the two skills at 4 thing because it's where it's easiest to see the discounts (since DP8 is a significant DP value)

-> contrariwise skillwires are the reason my gm rarely has npcs with DPs under 7, even when they're 'grunts'. unless there's a reason for them not to have skillwires installed, we've kind of concluded that every wage slave would have them.

[Glyph]

I think, like most all of the changes in SR4A, the change in skillsoft prices was ill-considered and unnecessary. Skillsofts were always a way to cheaply get secondary/peripheral skills - kind of like how muscle toner is a cheap way to boost all of your Agility-related skills. Augmentations are supposed to be a shortcut to power! That's the whole friggin' point of them!

Making an activesoft cost so much means no one will start with them at char-gen. Why pay 4 BP for a skill of 2, taking irreplaceable resources from your starting allocation of cash (which is capped at 250,000), when you can pay 4 BP for a skill of 1? Now everyone will just get Move-by-Wire to start with, and pick up pirated skillsofts after the game has started.

[Jericho Alar]

they're still ultimately half-off skills; why pay 4 BP for a skill of 2 when you can pay 4 BP for 2 skills at 1 instead of 4 BP for one skill at 1?

and single skills you want at 4? you'd be 'crazy' to buy them as skills and not skillsofts (16BP vs. 8 BP; 8BP buys *alot*).

[Glyph]

they're still ultimately half-off skills; why pay 4 BP for a skill of 2 when you can pay 4 BP for 2 skills at 1 instead of 4 BP for one skill at 1?

and single skills you want at 4? you'd be 'crazy' to buy them as skills and not skillsofts (16BP vs. 8 BP; 8BP buys *alot*).

Two reasons:

First, you can't spend Edge for more successes with skillsofts, and they only go up to 4, and they don't have specializations. So they aren't something you want for one of your main skills - they are for secondary or peripheral skills.

Second, you only have 250,000 to spend, and sammies already have to make some hard choices in order to get a good combination of 'ware. Heck, even if you take born rich, in debt, and genetic heritage, you still need to do that. So 10,000? That's a reflex recorder, or a tricked-out set of cybereyes, or a cerebral booster, that you can't get because you've bought one piddling point of skill.

Now, a lot of that may be my personal play style. Someone with lower dice pools and less 'ware might indeed see skillsofts as "half price skills", since there won't be the same trade offs involved for them.

[Jericho Alar]

Two reasons:

First, you can't spend Edge for more successes with skillsofts, and they only go up to 4, and they don't have specializations. So they aren't something you want for one of your main skills - they are for secondary or peripheral skills.

Second, you only have 250,000 to spend, and sammies already have to make some hard choices in order to get a good combination of 'ware. Heck, even if you take born rich, in debt, and genetic heritage, you still need to do that. So 10,000? That's a reflex recorder, or a tricked-out set of cybereyes, or a cerebral booster, that you can't get because you've bought one piddling point of skill.

Now, a lot of that may be my personal play style. Someone with lower dice pools and less 'ware might indeed see skillsofts as "half price skills", since there won't be the same trade offs involved for them.

well, if you're taking them at 1 rank, they're obviously for peripheral skills (stuff you'd take at 1 rank with skills anyway); I know they're expensive, I also argue (in another thread) that every archetype should spend the points and cash and eat the essence loss on a set of skillwires (and take 250k regardless of character) - I think the one possible exception *might* be technos because of biowires; I haven't really looked into that case in depth.

I agree that samurai are eating alot of cash but they're also fairly unintensive skill-wise; many samurai will want to take MBW2 and then buy skillsofts later (they're still generally a bargain, especially pirated, unless your GM does something weird with cash and karma amounts). so you take the stuff you figure you'll need for that first few runs and then buy everything else later.

In the case of characters that can already spend 250k skillsofts are less of a bargain*, for characters that normally wouldn't spend 250k, it's BP optimal to take 250k anyway, buy 'wires and go to town on auxiliary skills that way. -> this is counterintuitive and a flaw of the system, imo.



*at chargen; 4k for rating 4 skill once ingame is still obscene and hard as hell to beat for those random minor skills like lockpick you'll almost never consider edging.

[JoelHalpern]

A couple of observations about skill-wires, and rules changes in general.
From my point of view, and I will readily admit that this is a personal judgment, not rules, and not provable, a number of the shifts from SR4 to SR4A end up feeling like they produce a different game. Not a wrong game. But a different game. The shift in skillwire prices is one of those changes. It changes the conceptual role of skillwires in the characters and the world. It is not that there is no role left, but it is a different role, in most cases, than before.

Note that if we use the 2,500nuyen==1karma equivalence that is suggested by karmagen, then a skill 4 is 22 karma straight up, and 16 karma for the somewhat less useful skillsoft, if you have the skillwires already. (In fact, since you probably want the optimization that makes it take up less of the skillwire, it is more like 17 karma.

Obviously it is less if you assume you can get pirated activesofts. By the book, you can get activesofts, and for some reasons, they decay. Since I can not figure out why they decay, I am very comfortable with the GM ruling that no, they are not available pirated because they have to be fitted to the person. That personal fitting is even more appropriate if you want personalized activesofts (and +1 die for 3,000 nuyen seems like a very good deal to me.)
In fact, the assumption that activesofts have to be personalized, and that higher skill ones take more personalizing, makes more sense of why the base cost is so high.

Yours,
Joel

PS: It took me a bit to realize that my reaction to changing the karmagen system (to 5*karma, and races cost bp in karma) is the same thing. It is not wrong to change it. But it does produce very different characters. I.e. it chnage sthe baseline definition for a karmagen game.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

By the book, you can get activesofts, and for some reasons, they decay.

Of course, the book also suggests that they should decay much slower, or that only Computer & Hacking Programs should decay.

In fact, the assumption that activesofts have to be personalized, and that higher skill ones take more personalizing, makes more sense of why the base cost is so high.

Just that would be a house rule, as only skillsoft with said option are personalized and only usable by the person.

[Neraph]

also, if you really want, you can get them cheaper pirated (and *technically*, there is open source software of up to rating 4 available... but for obvious reasons, i can't recommend handing out max rating activesofts for free)

I totally can... with enough bugs in them.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

EDIT: It should be mentioned that you guys (I only glazed over the thread) haven't even brought up Skillwire Clusters... It definately helps cut the cost of ActiveSofts.

[cndblank]

I strongly disagree. Not every piece of equipment in the book is made for runners or you. (look at the text on cyberware suites)

Financially, if you can afford to program your own skillwires and issue them to a lot of your own workers then they're quite viable. Given the low cost of the cyber, and the obvious benefits of large-scale use. Or if licensed somehow, and I have 10 active seats and 100 workers... 10 of them at any given time can use them greatly decreasing my capital cost per drone.

The point of skillwires is for corp drones who need access to specialty skills and have access to the corporate software repository (especially with any kind of a check-in check-out license system if the software is licensed, or issued by in house programmers). The fact that it's also usefull to runners is secondary.


They were too cheap before, and too effective. And I don't see your solution as an improvement at all. Now I have even more reason to dump stat agility on a decker... why bother when skill wires will pick up the slack. Rating 5 skillwires are only 10k base (100k delta, making them one of the few affordable delta implants). For an automatic rating 5 in attribute... w/o the skill cap on the software... hell yeah that's broken.

IMHO Skillwires would have most likely been developed for the military first. They have the need and the budget.


As to the expense, I know they are trying to balance them, but this is a bad way to do it.

There were balance issues, but skill chips were one of the things that balanced out the Magically active PCs.

I mean with Street samurai throw 15 dice plus in a gunfight what does someone being able to do 7 or 8 dice matter?



It also goes against every thing we have learn about software since SR first came out.

The best way to make money on software is to sell a lot of it. All the expense is in the development. Once you recoup your development costs, if it costs you nothing to create another copy then no matter how low the price you are still making a profit.


Most active skills have not changed that much in any two three year period to demand constant updates. For all we know they have a master recordings for a particular skill set and every time they upgrade or change the skillwires, they recompile it to work with the new hardware. So development cost on the skill chips for a lot of skills is going to be dirt cheap.

So I'm looking to where the expense is, and not finding any reason for them to be that expensive.

And having an expensive price on a cheap to produced product is begging someone to come in with a cheap knock off and under cut you.

There has never been a copy protection program that can not be beat. And I expect using a proprietary format for a particular brand of skillwires wouldn't work too well either.

I could see if you had to actually physically jack a chip that there might be some serious expense and the chip could act to prevent copying, but they got rid of the skill chip.

The older skill softs should be dirt cheap. Software always gets cheaper as it gets older and where is the public domain software? Where are the cheap knockoffs of better software. So what if it is a year behind SOTA.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

and *technically*, there is open source software of up to rating 4 available...

The general rating 4 cap is for freeware, not open source software. The latter and self-written programs don't degrade, too, as per errata.

Of course, there isn't much point in open source skillsofts, as there it's not the souce code that matters, but the simsense recordings.