Question about TMs and dead zones Options

[Penta]

Okay, trying to piece together something.

My reading of SR4/SR4A and associated books seemed to say a few things:

1. Technomancers are really uncomofrtable in dead zones, IE areas without wifi coverage.
2. Wifi coverage isn't everywhere. Particularly, it seems to be an urban/suburban thing. Rural areas, the backcountry, and the open sea don't have wifi coverage, they get their matrix hookups through other means.
3. 1 and 2 taken together means that TMs are, at best, very uncomfortable in the environments posited in point 2. At worst, they're "curled up in a fetal position" uncomfortable.

The thing is that I can't figure out whether I'm right or wrong, or where it's stated either way.

[Dumori]

They'll be uncofmertable how much so depends on there persnoalitys also if at see ect setting up ship bord wifi would be easy and useful.

[Error]

In the SR4 20th Ani Edition on page 220, under the Zones heading (3rd paragraph) it states:

"Technomancers find static or dead zones to be very uncomfortable. The absence of the constant background hum of data traffic makes them itchy. Technomancers may get depressed, irritated, or otherwise upset in the physical world."

Also just above that column is a sidebar that mentions the penalties that trying to use the matrix in an area of patchy wifi or high-volume spam. A TM in a static or dead zone suffers a -1 dice penalty in the meat world whenever in an area like this.

Basically, I take this to mean that they are so attuned to the AR environment around them that excess spam or static causes some degree of sensory overload (resulting in the die penalty) and dead zones make them so edgy and uncomfortable that it results in a similar penalty.

[Saint Sithney]

Well, with satlinks on vehicles, there's pretty much always trix to be had. So, if the TM gets more than 1 km from the car, he might start getting weirded out, but how often is that going to happen?

[PaulK]

Heh, try in the middle of Lagos in an area that has been dead (literally) for almost 60 years. Though my group's TM wasn't nearly as freaked out as the 3 awakened that walked into a Rating 5 toxic aspected area. Nothing like going from pimp to bitch in a matter of minutes. They were all praying to the great and almighty god of Firepower for the duration of the encounter.

The party is 2 mages, 1 PhysAd, 1 TM. Not a single piece of cyber in the group.

In all truthfulness, though, I went pretty light on them. I only had them fight 5 devil rats in the area. What can I say, I enjoyed playing up the death scare and pitching them a soft encounter. One day the tables will turn... "Oh, this should be easy..." followed by "Medic!!!!"

/Paul

[Valashar]

Yeah feral cities like Lagos, or DEEP wilderness like Interior Africa (Congo) or the deep Amazon aren't places where a technomancer will feel comfortable at all unless they carry some way of keeping connected to the wider world with them. Another way that's mentioned in a few places are technomancers that set up roving mesh networks in such places. Heavy wireless traffic over a limited area gives them a place where they can 'stand in the sunlight' between forays into the Great Silent Nowhere.