Broken Rules., Or where RAW just fails. Options

[The Jopp]

They can do that part just fine.

Well, yes - but they are still limited to use a pilot program to do things for them unless they have a pilot origin and even drones they command cannot use empathy software as that isnt autosofts.

Not to mention that the AI itself is a pilot program taking up space on a node apart from the OTHER pilot program that is the drone brain - thats a lot of program space just to control things.

[Neraph]

Let's say you have a High lifestyle, that's a DR 5. With a R4 AI (quite easy) you're Home Node is rocking hardware stats at 7. That is 7 Ergonomic programs and 6 regular ones - enough for just about everything you need to be doing.

[Aerospider]

Well it shouldn't be more difficult than any other touch range spell. Making contact is the same but the actual casting is only one opposed roll, except for indirect combat spells.

I don't see the issue around it being more difficult than for any other type of touch ranged spell, since all types of touch range spell applied to an unwilling target are given the same treatment – i.e. an added to-hit roll.

What I do see as an issue is that the target is essentially rolling to dodge twice, which can't be right.
E.g. Magician wins the Agility+Unarmed vs Reaction+Unarmed contest and makes contact
Magician loses the Magic+Spellcasting vs Reaction roll and the target dodges ...??

I agree that the usual Reaction roll should instead be superceded by the melee to-hit roll (assuming that's where you were going) and would propose that any applicable Counterspelling be added to the melee defence roll.

I wonder, why would anyone learn a spell that is only useful in a few situations, if they could get one that is useful in many more.

Because those many more situations may already be covered by the rest of the team.
Throughout your career you will probably want to hurt many more people than you will want to heal, but mundane healing is much more limited than mundane hurting so Stunbolt is not strictly better than Heal.

[Dakka Dakka]

What I do see as an issue is that the target is essentially rolling to dodge twice, which can't be right.
E.g. Magician wins the Agility+Unarmed vs Reaction+Unarmed contest and makes contact
Magician loses the Magic+Spellcasting vs Reaction roll and the target dodges ...??

My point exactly. But RAW is clear that if the target succeeds at either roll, the spell will not affect him. If he completely soaks the damage he is not affected either.

Because those many more situations may already be covered by the rest of the team.
Throughout your career you will probably want to hurt many more people than you will want to heal, but mundane healing is much more limited than mundane hurting so Stunbolt is not strictly better than Heal.

I'm not talking about choosing between stunbolt and heal, but stunbolt, punch or clout.

Since dealing damage probably will not be the main field of expertise of the mage, he would try to limit expending resources on that. So he would take one maybe two such spells. Then he should take the most versatile and or most effective one. Punch (or any other indirect combat spell with touch range) is neither

[KarmaInferno]

Or 4 and 5 . . both Hackers and Technos can get one more IP than anybody else, but only for full VR stuff.

This does, notably, include being "jumped in" a drone.





-k

[almost normal]

AI's can only use SOME programs (They should be able to use ALL software)

AI's are slower on the matrix than a good tricked out hacker.

AI's are also immune to Black IC, can hide their entire body in an RFID tag, and can jump into drones while leaving no wireless signal to be detected.

It's a mixed bag, that mostly comes out on top for AIs.

[Falconer]

Well, yes - but they are still limited to use a pilot program to do things for them unless they have a pilot origin and even drones they command cannot use empathy software as that isnt autosofts.

Not to mention that the AI itself is a pilot program taking up space on a node apart from the OTHER pilot program that is the drone brain - thats a lot of program space just to control things.

This strikes me as wrong in a way... as the 'pilot' program for drones is unique in that it also serves as the drone's OS/System.

IF an AI installs it's home node in a drone and it has the pilot origins it effectively IS the drones operating system.

That's my admittedly shaky understanding of the rules there.

Similarly, IIRC: if an agent is attached to a persona... (even an AI) it's possible for it to be logged in and present in multiple systems (it's actually running on the home system... and it's outside presence is a remote icon, not itself moved into a new node). So no the pilot program, plus the AI doesn't necessarily need to be present as you seem to hint at.

[Cain]

Not to mention that the AI itself is a pilot program taking up space on a node apart from the OTHER pilot program that is the drone brain - thats a lot of program space just to control things.

From my [admittedly limited] understanding of these things, it's because the AI's persona, outside of its home system, is no different than any other persona. Like any persona, it's not the actual person, it's the representation of them. Like how a decker's persona represents them in the matrix, but really their brain is in their body, sitting in a cyber cafe in Abu Dhabi.

So, if an AI with Pilot Origin jumps into a drone, it does indeed suppress the native drone brain. But it doesn't take up any more "space" than any other persona, such as a controlling rigger.

[Yerameyahu]

AFAIK, the AI can either project a persona (as hackers do), *or* just 'move' to the system (as a program, like agents do). So it depends.

[Falconer]

Not quite right is my understanding. Devices like have persona's... desktops if you like (commlink only 1... nexus more). It's possible for a device to have multiple persona's... but a hacker can only interact with one at a time. Agents attached to a persona run in that node and have access to whatever that persona has icons present in.

I've intentionally used clustered commlinks or a nexus to attach an agent to extra personas specifically so they don't need to load themselves into remote nodes.

[Yerameyahu]

No. You're talking about the persona limit, which is the (almost totally unused) feature that allows people to use that device as the origination point for their persona. That is, a commlink has a Persona Limit = 1, because it has one user; nexi have higher limits, because (theoretically, though I can't imagine why) multiple users can all hook their trodes to the same machine and go online.

Agents can be 'carried' along in a hacker's persona (and by extension, maybe an AIs?), but that's not the same as 'having a persona'.

You mentioned something like this: if a hacker connects to multiple nodes at once, he's somehow 'sharing' his *one* persona (Condition Monitor, attributes). No, it doesn't make that much sense.

[Neraph]

A nexus is like a small server, allowing multiple users to all use the same programs.

The clustering rules, however, seem to be confused.

The processor limit is determined by adding the respective limits of the nodes composing them and halving them. Persona limit is determined by adding the respective limits of the devices together.

The persona limit is the sum of all the devices used, but the processor load is only the median of the devices used. By the way they are described, I would have thought those would be reversed, with a limited amount of personas allowed but a greater processor load. This is, two clustered R4 commlinks can only run 3 programs without suffering Response degradation but can allow two different users to log on.

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah, we'll have to assume there's some crazy inefficiency in clustering. The Persona Limit does have one actual use (IIRC?): you can use it to extend the Processor Limit/Subscription Limit (same thing, eventually). I just can't imagine two people using the same machine to get online, though. :/ Even if you were borrowing programs, you can do that *after* getting online.

[Falconer]

Agents can be attached to a persona... which is one of the nice uses of a nexus/cluster. Agents attached to a persona (not necessarily the hacker's persona)... don't need to load themselves into a remote node (and suffer it's response/system limits), only need to get an icon into the node as it's still running on the device and is present wherever the persona's icon is present.


One big thing which a lot of people missed though is that the rules are very clear. Programs are loaded INTO THE PERSONA. Not into the node... so if you have a single copy of say encrypt in the node... you can load it into your persona, the other persona can load it into it's persona... however you end up with *two* copies of encrypt running at the same time and both counting against proc limit when they're each run.

"A running program is executed by the device on which your persona is running and belongs to your persona; only you may use the program".


So this then gets into a bit of nastiness... lets say you're encrypting your node on the fly. This means the node itself is running encrypt?! Or you have it loaded into any persona present on the device? Similarly goes for analyze when someone is trying to probe the node. If you have multiple personas on a node each with their own copy of analyze... what happens when the node is probed! (do they each start running their own firewall + analyze tallies... a scary thought to the conventional wisdom that it's easy to sneak into nodes undetected if the detection can be parallelized).

[almost normal]

Programs are loaded INTO THE PERSONA. Not into the node

So why bother to list separately how many Persona and Programs a node can handle?

[Yerameyahu]

For anything but nexi, there's always 1 persona. For nexi, there's a separate, persona-based calculation.

[KarmaInferno]

Nexi can get pretty damn small. There's even one that's also a medium drone.

Is there any good reason a field hacker shouldn't have one installed in his ride or even following him around on an op, as a primary Matrix attack platform? Aside from the odd looks and extra attention from security he'd get, I mean.





-k

[Yerameyahu]

No. Is there any reason there should be a reason? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Depending on your game, they're not really necessary, but they're also not really 'breaking' either. So that's nice.

[Neraph]

A Hermes Ikon with Response 5 running in Hot Sim (6 Response) can run 11 programs total, between Ergonomic and regular. Try to find more programs that would be necessary. Useful, maybe, but not necessary. For example, while Blackout and Black Hammer are nice(ish, I don't like them) all you really need is Attack.

EDIT: That setup is 7k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for the machine, not including programs (with R6 custom OS it would be 13,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) total). It can run R6 Programs and is available at chargen. A nexus that could compare is slightly cheaper (actually, in trying to build one I found many problems: for example, on page 50 of Unwired it states "..their persona limit equals System x 3," but on page 198 the chart to create your own lets you choose your own persona limit and does not have costs for a Wireless Signal [I bet you just use prices from page 222, SR4A, but Unwired doesn't say that), but you would end up having to get Optimized programs, resulting in a more expensive system overall.

[Neraph]

Oh yeah. Inhabitation, Possession, and Materialization are all Physical powers.

[Dakka Dakka]

Old news.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Oh yeah. Inhabitation, Possession, and Materialization are all Physical powers.

Which only means that you cannot have them active and stay in the Astral Plane. You cannot be Inhabiting, Possessing or Materialized and be Astral.
The fact that they have to be activated in Astral Space is irrelevant (and yes, they technically cannot be activated), because their activation forces the spirit to become physical. We all know what it means. So it is not broken. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Neraph]

Which only means that you cannot have them active and stay in the Astral Plane. You cannot be Inhabiting, Possessing or Materialized and be Astral.
The fact that they have to be activated in Astral Space is irrelevant (and yes, they technically cannot be activated), because their activation forces the spirit to become physical. We all know what it means. So it is not broken. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No, you cannot use physical powers while on the Astral plane, which means you can never leave it since those powers are physical ones. You even agree with me on this technicality, which is what this thread is all about.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

No, you cannot use physical powers while on the Astral plane, which means you can never leave it since those powers are physical ones.

Again, I acknowledged that, but YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEIR INTENDED MEANING/PURPOSE IS, so your arguments are only semantic, at best. The rules are not broken, they are just described a bit oddly in this circumstance. Since you know what their intention is, you are just causing problems. I would not classify them as Physical, personally, but as Special. Either way, though, they are only functional when the Spirit is on the Physical Plane. I say that their activation makes them physical, which is obviously their intended purpose. And you really cannot argue that point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Neraph]

This is not a thread about RAI - it is titled Broken Rules. or where RAW just fails. What I posted is exactly that, as are submersible aircraft carriers and super-tankers. Of course we know what they meant or intended, but that's not what was written, which is the point of this thread.