skillsofts & threading, why cant you?? Options

[Pat]

So I have noticed it mentioned a few times on the forum that you can't thread skillsofts, but I'm having trouble understanding where that opinion. Comes from.
So let me share what I have gleaned from my research and hopefully someone can point out the flaw in my understanding.

You pick yourself up the nifty biowire echo. Then you go out a and get a copy of the "mundane" skillsoft. Then you use a specialized version of threading called emulation to copy the skillsoft. Successes on the roll determine how high the rating of the emulation is, up to the actual level of the skillsoft you are copying.
You then have a choice. You can sustain the current threading with the associated penalty, or choose to spend karma to create a CF version.
Now, while emulating, you can't thread higher on the fly for two reasons. One, you are already threading to create the emulation. Two, your emulation is an attempt to copy, you can only copy it so well, until it is exactly the same.
Once you spend karma however, by RAW it is no longer an emulation, it is now a full blooded complex form. So by RAW any complex form can be threaded on the fly to a higher level. The two reasons for not allowing threading are no longer there. You have your own CF version and as such you can now thread it on the fly.
Granted, you can thread it to a million, but its use is limited by your submersion level, as per the biowire echo.
Have I missed an entry somewhere? Have I misread something?

[LurkerOutThere]

1) Game Balance

2) Part of threading is your technomancer innate ability to understand computers and their functioning. However skill wires arn't inherantly a process of exchanging information which is in my mind sort of technomancers theme, they are about performing a skill with your meat body (also a skill) outside of your normal limits.

Basically normally you can thread CF's higher because you have an intrinsic understanding of how all things matrix related work, that doesn't apply to all knowledge which is what skillwires and softs represent access to.

Edit: I need to point out that 1 is an educated guess and two is my own personal theory with no books anywhere near me.

[Jaid]

it's still an emulation, it's just a permanent emulation.

[Jaid]

it's still an emulation, it's just a permanent emulation.

[bernardo]

I just opened another thread about the same subject. While I was typing this one came up... am I a technomancer? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Dumori]

Oddly enought the stance last time I heard it was yes you can. Limited by your biowires/skillwires. When was this changed?

[Pat]

it's still an emulation, it's just a permanent emulation.

No, it is not a "permanent emulation" it is explicitly stated in unwired that when you spend karma it becomes a Complex Form.

[Pat]

Oddly enought the stance last time I heard it was yes you can. Limited by your biowires/skillwires. When was this changed?

As far as I am aware, this is how it works. At least ny RAW. But I saw quite a few people expressing other opinions otherwise, so I thought I'd put this out there and try to find the reason behind it. And maybe o missed something.

[Pat]

1) Game Balance

2) Part of threading is your technomancer innate ability to understand computers and their functioning. However skill wires arn't inherantly a process of exchanging information which is in my mind sort of technomancers theme, they are about performing a skill with your meat body (also a skill) outside of your normal limits.

Basically normally you can thread CF's higher because you have an intrinsic understanding of how all things matrix related work, that doesn't apply to all knowledge which is what skillwires and softs represent access to.

Edit: I need to point out that 1 is an educated guess and two is my own personal theory with no books anywhere near me.

I welcome the well explained opinion, even if not book supported. It helps us explore more fully how things work.

As to game balance, I don't see the danger, since the effective level is limited to your submersion level, so it isn't likely to get out of hand.

As to your second point, while it is affecting your meat, when it all boils down, it is still just code being send, received and interpreted. As such, once it is a CF I would think as far as your TM powers are concerned, its just like any program for controlling machines or rigging.

[Mongoose]

The justification I could see for it is that skillwires aren't just "code". They are essentially databases of specialized simsense recordings played back in a context sensitive manner to provide the "memories" (muscle or otherwise) that make up a skill. At least, that's how I tried to explain it when I wrote the Skillsoft section in Cannon Companion. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That being the case, threading would be able to optimize database server performance etc, but seems unlikely to supply any new simsense info, so wouldn't improve skill soft performance much.
On the other hand, I could buy that in the process of compiling a complex form, the TM subconsciously greps a bunch of new simsense info from the matrix, and slaps it into the DB is part of threading, so if the books allow it, have at, I say!

[Valashar]

You pick yourself up the nifty biowire echo. Then you go out a and get a copy of the "mundane" skillsoft. Then you use a specialized version of threading called emulation to copy the skillsoft. Successes on the roll determine how high the rating of the emulation is, up to the actual level of the skillsoft you are copying.

Only thing that you seem to have misread is this part. Hits on the initial threading roll do not determine the emulated skillsoft's rating. The skillsoft's rating (plus extra for any options) sets the required minimum threshold needed for the threading success test.

Beyond that, I'll stay out of the core discussion of the possibility of threading it further once you've spent karma on it.

[Pat]

Only thing that you seem to have misread is this part. Hits on the initial threading roll do not determine the emulated skillsoft's rating. The skillsoft's rating (plus extra for any options) sets the required minimum threshold needed for the threading success test.

Beyond that, I'll stay out of the core discussion of the possibility of threading it further once you've spent karma on it.

Good catch, I was actually writing that off the top of my head I got it confuzzled.

[Pat]

Double post

[Udoshi]

The unwired errata has this to say about Biowires:

p. 149 Emulation
Add the following sentence to the end of this section:
“Memorized Complex Forms emulating skillsofs are
limited to the rating of the original skillsoft and cannot be
improved either by Treading or Karma-expenditure.”

Those are for memorized complex forms though(and sprite assist operation is OK still), doesn't say anything else about Threading CF's from scratch. Thought it might be relevant to the discussion, though.

[Neowulf]

You can't thread a skillsoft CF from scratch, you thread an emulation of it. You must have a copy of the skillsoft program in the first place to thread it for biowire use.

The reason you can't thread an emulated skillsoft higher is because skillsofts aren't normal programs. They're collections of memories and reflexive motor responses, recorded from people actually using the skill.
Threading a skillsoft either from scratch or to a higher rating would require the TM to create memories of a skill use from literally nothing. Somehow coalescing, from the cavernous aether of their backsides all the little tells that inform a champion boxer whether their opponent is actually going punch left or us faking for an uppercut, plus all the little reflexive motor responses said champion boxer's body does to prepare for the incoming punch.

[Harbin]

Which in comparison to making from nothing, a program that tells you how to defuse a data bomb, makes no sense whatsoever?

[LurkerOutThere]

It makes more sense in the context of TM's people who have an intrinsic understanding of matrix operations bordering on a magical/instinctual level.

[Harbin]

Wouldn't they be able to construct an algorithm that reduced the number of variables and/or helped them aim or something? Well, I suppose that's already done with emulating a smartlink, but still.

(I still plan to use my Biowires for completely useless purposes like learning a lot of knowledge skills)

[Valashar]

That's what I use my biowire for in many cases. There are a lot of raw data academic knowledges, history-type knowledges, and such that just beg to be taken as a quick knowsoft emulation and there's the end to it.