Cyberware & Bioware Scientist, Making Your Own Ware Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Ramaloke]

I have some questions:

What kind of cost reductions could one expect to receive on Bioware and Cyberware if I had the appropriate facilities to produce their my own ware?

What kind of expenses would I have to expend to acquire the appropriate facilities and resources to produce my own ware?

[Ascalaphus]

There aren't any rules about this that I'm aware of. SR is about running the shadows, not business, and as a result, rules for the business side of things tend to be scarce and not always well-made.


In this case, I think that the investments to set up 'ware production are huge. We're talking double-triple digit millions just to start. Then to run at a profit, you need to achieve economies of scale which mean you need a large customer base. Deal with the competition, stay abreast of technological and economic trends, and so forth.

If you've got that kind of money, why go shadowrunning?

If you're dealing with all those business issues, do you even have time to go shadowrunning?

[Irion]

This is quite outside the range of the rulls for good reasons.
Dicepools in SR are cheap.
So to get some realism in the mix, you would need insane requirements to create your own ware.
This would be beyond any SC so you could screw it.
Every time the rules tried to make something in the reach of PCs it screwed the game balance.
Spoofing the lifestyle rules? Right.
Writing your own programs? Military here I come.
And of course creating radical materials etc.

[Yerameyahu]

People always ask this. No cost reductions at all. Instead, massive cost increases as you try to replicate the work of megacorps. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's the same reason people don't make their own computer chips at home, instead of buying Intel or AMD, whoever.

[Neraph]

I have some questions:

What kind of cost reductions could one expect to receive on Bioware and Cyberware if I had the appropriate facilities to produce their my own ware?

What kind of expenses would I have to expend to acquire the appropriate facilities and resources to produce my own ware?

1) There is no mention of cost, although I could see only having to pay 1/2 up to 3/4 cost. I can not base that in any rule or regulation, simply on personal advice.

2) Procuring Cyberware and Procuring Bioware, page 127, Augmentation.

Everyone else assumes you're building your own from scratch or trying to make brand-new stuff, not ordering parts and assembling yourself. It's like Orange County Chopper, or buying your PC parts on Newegg or Ebay and then assembling your PC instead of buying a premade.

[Yerameyahu]

He said 'produce my own ware'. There aren't rules for assembly from parts *either*, but I'll admit that's not what were were talking about.

[Neraph]

He said 'produce my own ware'. There aren't rules for assembly from parts *either*, but I'll admit that's not what were were talking about.

"Produce my own ware" does not neccessarily mean "fabricate my own ware without schematics from base parts" - it can simply mean "buy parts from X, Y, and Z factories and put them together from schematics I bought from Q company."

There aren't exactly rules to do that either, but between B/R rules and the ones I listed from Augmentation we can get close enough for a GM to call the rest.

[Seerow]

He said 'produce my own ware'. There aren't rules for assembly from parts *either*, but I'll admit that's not what were were talking about.

Question: Are the rules for assembling a vehicle or firearm from scratch (using a desktop forge/facility to turn raw materials into parts that you assemble)? If so, you should be able to do the same sort of thing with cyberware at least, since it's just chrome. Bioware I'd say no to, because there you're looking at needing access to cloning facilities and the like which Id imagine are harder to find/more expensive than something that makes bits of metal into other bits of metal.


However if there's no rules for creating anything from scratch then yeah, no.

[Yerameyahu]

There really aren't rules for making things from scratch *nor* assembling from parts. There are a couple specific bits about upgrading device hardware, and about fabrication industrial chemicals (and even those are heavily disclaimer'd). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Neraph, 'produce my own' does easily mean 'create my own'. It might also mean 'assemble', but I'd bet that's a secondary interpretation for the majority of people. In any case, it wasn't mine. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Irion]

There are some rules for Bioware, on cyberware there is even less.

Crafting a bioware implant first requires that a tissue base be
created with the desired blend of traits and protein matched. This
requires a tissue sample from the prospective patient (or some type
O tissue for basic bioware). Once the cell-line is established, the
new organ must be vat-grown using a collection of viral modification
agents, surgical nanoprobes, and a medical facility and takes
2–4 weeks, double that for anything above basic type O grade.
The process of forced-growth cloning has come a long way, but
growing a standard piece of bioware to spec takes as long as the
equivalent (or similar) organ. Growing a bioware organ is more
difficult than a normal organ because it is a genetic chimera using
a non-naturally occurring bio-template.

And you got the growing time. Well, I guess you need the genetic informations.

[Shortstraw]

I tend to use the technical skills as an alternate method of buying gear. As you have to buy parts your costs are the same but you are rolling a technical roll rather than an availability roll to see how long it takes.

[Yerameyahu]

Sort of. The availability of the components is generally about the same as the finished product, IIRC.

[Mayhem_2006]

Generally a bad idea, I would say.

If you have craft skills in a game that allow you to make stuff from scratch, you either find:

You get no benefit, and so it is pointless, may as well spend the points elsewhere

or

Its such a good source of income you would be crazy to keep shadowrunning/adventuring.

I've never seen the craft rules in a game system manage to walk the line of being worth having but not being a lucrative career in their own right.

[Yerameyahu]

The same goes for game balance, yeah. Either it's too weak, or too strong. *Repair* and modify are okay in SR, but Building is always a mess.

[Ascalaphus]

Generally a bad idea, I would say.

If you have craft skills in a game that allow you to make stuff from scratch, you either find:

You get no benefit, and so it is pointless, may as well spend the points elsewhere

or

Its such a good source of income you would be crazy to keep shadowrunning/adventuring.

I've never seen the craft rules in a game system manage to walk the line of being worth having but not being a lucrative career in their own right.

Ars Magica has an elaborate crafting system that might be interesting. But it is elaborate.

[HentaiZonga]

And of course creating radical materials etc.

Ah, good times.

[Irion]

As a matter of fact, there are no rules for crafting stuff, anyway.
The only rules, which are without GM fiat in working condition are the rules for writing your own progs. (And even here it is not obvious if it is only from 1-6 or 1-12, or evem 1-4)

The rules for creating foci a very long, but say nothing. Get something, craft a foki out of it, the rest is up to the GM.
(And Ochtalium gives not enough of a boni so it does not matter)
So the price for creating a foci is nowhere near the price buying one. On the other hand it cost one Karmapoint. So it is only a great Idea if you may exchange money for karma...

And the line from Raw to radical, well theprices are fucked up.
Raw copper to radical copper: 300 profit per unit.
Raw gold to radical gold: 30.000 profit per unit.
For the same work.

[Yerameyahu]

There are some short, pretty bad rules for Chemicals as well, in Arsenal.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And the line from Raw to radical, well theprices are fucked up.
Raw copper to radical copper: 300 profit per unit.
Raw gold to radical gold: 30.000 profit per unit.
For the same work.

Not really...
It may be the same Work, but it is not the Same Material.
Gold is worth a LOT more than Copper is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Rubic]

On the other hand, even if you manage to break even, this gives the enterprising shadowrunner access to a powerful degree of security. Provided you have access to an adequately trained and reliable cyberdoc, you can now potentially access alpha-grade cyberware, or at least one of the lesser grades (custom tailored to each runner's body) with a security the Megas would be generally displeased about if done on a large scale, and might be minorly tiffed about if and when they realize you're doing it. If you added attached medical facilities, then you could potentially reach delta-grade, tailored cyberware. Even at cost or slightly above, this is a strong advantage. When you check the price of some of the most powerful delta-grade ware, you've already reached the "why are you still running?" phase.

85,000 spent on move-by-wire that you'll eventually replace for better? 10k-40k on cyberlimbs with all the bells and whistles that you're still going to upgrade when you have the chance? That's a few years decent living, why the hell are you running to begin with?

[Draco18s]

Not really...
It may be the same Work, but it is not the Same Material.
Gold is worth a LOT more than Copper is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Point was, it takes "roughly" the same effort to acquire* 1 unit of gold as it does to acquire 1 unit of copper.

The question is, is it as easy to acquire 10 units of gold as it is to acquire 1000 units of copper? Probably. That's a LOT of copper.

*Why does this word look funny, now?

[HentaiZonga]

Regarding the original topic, here are the house rules I use for players who want to design their own cyberware packages:

A Logic + Cybertechnology Skill Test may be used to design Cyberware Packages. This is an Extended Test with a base time of 1 week and a threshold equal to the combined Availability of all Cyberware (at normal Grade) to be used in the Package. Once the package has been designed, a prototype model must be built at a nuyen cost of 10 x the base cost of the package (without the 10% discount). After the prototype has been successfully built and implanted (with a 10% Essence cost reduction as normal), the designing character may make a new Logic + Cybertechnology roll to review the design, with each hit reducing the next prototype’s nuyen cost by 10%, to a minimum of the package's base cost (which equals 90% of the total component cost, as per Augmentation).

So to answer your questions, "10% nuyen and essence cost reduction for cyberware, as per the Augmentation rules for packages." But that's my personal ruling and not necessarily official, since the package rules seem to assume that they're being made by the Big Boys.

Also note this doesn't address bioware at all, which is reasonable - it's a LOT harder to make a grow-your-own-mutant-organ kit than to just build a robot arm in 2070.

[Makki]

for growing Bioware, all you need is a Medicine Facility or a Cloning Shop, the Medicine Skill and a tissue sample of the piece you want to grow/clone.
That's what Augmentation says. Of course inventing new stuff is totally GM fiat and much harder, obviously.

by RAW it's so easy, everybody should learn Medicine and buy a shop. The only thing you need to do is steal some tissue samples.

[Yerameyahu]

Which is why we know it can't be true. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Even if that were just the basic Type-O stuff, it clearly doesn't make sense for the setting.

[Irion]

@Makki
Yes, that is true. And as a side not to Yerameyahu it is also that easy for cultured ware, if I am not mistaken.
(What grades you get is not listed, anyway)
Yes it is RAW and there is not even a point in saying there would be another RAI.
But it is a stupid and incomplete ruling. (There are no costs or test mentioned. Actually there is nothing mentioned on how to handle it.)