Shadowrun 5 & a lot more in 2013! Options

[Fatum]

Shannon's Law applies to a single radio link between a receiver and a transmitter; create multiple radio links across more frequencies simultaneously, each link itself is limited by Shannon's law, but taken collectively they exceed the limitations.

You still only have so much frequency spectrum to work with. Suppose all your devices are active at once. Each gets a fair share of the spectrum, and the transmission speed is limited by its width. You can optimize spectrum usage with multiplexing for the devices that are not active constantly, but you can't fit more traffic than this optimal case into it.

Wireless Negating Paint and/or wallpaper.

They still have doors, windows, service openings and so on. Pierce the wireless negating shell and place a transponder at the border - and there you go, the inside network is accessible from the outside.

[All4BigGuns]

And if your world works as you say it does, how do you cover your trips to the Stuffer Shack again? I seem to recall an overly complicated series of remote hacks that eliminated your trail form any camera, anywhere, just so you could go buy a Growlie Bar. You are contradicting yourself. Might want to look into that. Of course, I could be mistaking you for someone else, and if so, I apologize.

You're definitely thinking of someone else. A trip to the convenience store (unless someone is running Food Fight) isn't of any importance, so such things are just 'glossed over' in our games.

[Sengir]

Shannon's Law applies to a single radio link between a receiver and a transmitter; create multiple radio links across more frequencies simultaneously, each link itself is limited by Shannon's law, but taken collectively they exceed the limitations.

Five links with bandwidth B or one link with bandwidth 5*B, the effect is the same.

[Draco18s]

Five links with bandwidth B or one link with bandwidth 5*B, the effect is the same.

Otherwise, my wireless telephone (for the landline) wouldn't have to be specially marked on which frequencies it uses, in order to not conflict with my TV-remote, cell phone, wireless modem, etc. etc.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

You're definitely thinking of someone else. A trip to the convenience store (unless someone is running Food Fight) isn't of any importance, so such things are just 'glossed over' in our games.

Could have sworn that was you, but no worries. I happen to agree with you on that one. Ah Well... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[phlapjack77]

It's not just a bad idea. It's a horrible idea. Utterly-you-know. You're basically suggesting removing one of the staples of the genre.

This old chestnut again - I thought I had listed many parts of the genre that were already changed / removed. Do you disagree that SR has a long history of this already?

I'm suggesting changing the idea of what a "hacker" is in SR. People already make combat-hackers, face-hackers, etc. The "Hacker" archetype is already slowly being subsumed. It seems like a natural progression for the next edition, to where every PC can usefully hack in one way or another. Think Aliens, where Hudson is a marine, AND he's the guy who gets the doors open and the computer systems online.

If anything, this doesn't remove a staple of the genre, it hugely increases it. The world in 2090 or whenever is going to be even more networked and online than 2070. So everyone is (or must be) a hacker to some extent, but the true "wizards of the matrix" are the TMs.

[All4BigGuns]

Might be better to figure out some way for the Resonance Realms to collapse somehow, effectively removing Technomancers from the equation. After all, they're the new guys and less 'staple' than the normal Hacker.

[Fatum]

This old chestnut again - I thought I had listed many parts of the genre that were already changed / removed. Do you disagree that SR has a long history of this already?

There is a difference between "changed" and "removed".

I'm suggesting changing the idea of what a "hacker" is in SR. People already make combat-hackers, face-hackers, etc. The "Hacker" archetype is already slowly being subsumed. It seems like a natural progression for the next edition, to where every PC can usefully hack in one way or another.

Let's remove sammies, while we're at it, then. Everyone has some combat ability, anyway, after all.

[phlapjack77]

There is a difference between "changed" and "removed".

Let's remove sammies, while we're at it, then. Everyone has some combat ability, anyway, after all.

Yes, and one person's change is another person's remove. One says the shamanic/hermetic divide was removed, another says no, it was just the understanding of magic that changed. One says cyberdecks were removed, another says no, it was just changed to commlinks. And so on. I'd argue that I'm more for changing hacking so that it's available in some form for every PC, and that the specialist mundane hacker gets removed as a concept. Combat hacker? Yes. Medic hacker? Yes. Shaman hacker? Yes. Hacker...? No.

Even though I think you meant it as an outrageous statement, what do you consider "sammie-like" that could go away? If you mean a character that only has combat abilities and nothing else, then I agree with you.

Maybe I'm lurking and reading too much over at TGD...

[Falconer]

Guys speaking as someone who actually works day to day with Shannon and similar stuff. There's a lot of gross negligence I'm seeing in these forums as to how it actually applies to communications. In this case, you're referring to Shannon-Hartley (shannon has his name on a LOT of different topics in this field...). He built upon Nyquists earlier work which dealt with single bit symbols... this theorem expands it out to multi-bit symbols.

Shannon actually encompasses far more than simply using more bandwidth (and bandwidth is not infinite... so it very well is not a given that you can just use more bandwidth). It also involves POWER.. you can send multiple bits per symbol... you can also send data when the SNR is NEGATIVE and the signal is less than the ambient noise.

The equation is actually Capacity = bandwidth * log2(1 + SNR). Please note that signal power plays a huge role in this... and simply doubling the bandwidth doesn't do much good if you're still limited to spitting out the same amount of power... all you'll end up doing in most cases of this is increasing your data rate marginally but substantially reducing your usable transmission range.


For game purposes... really just stick with Signal... it's a great abstraction which works well. Even better would be if they'd re-introduce bandwidth to limit how fast you could upload/download files. Especially over wireless! (I'd be fine if wired was almost unlimited.. but to put bandwidth limits on wireless links based on mutual signal strength).

[ShadowDragon8685]

Yes, and one person's change is another person's remove. One says the shamanic/hermetic divide was removed, another says no, it was just the understanding of magic that changed. One says cyberdecks were removed, another says no, it was just changed to commlinks. And so on. I'd argue that I'm more for changing hacking so that it's available in some form for every PC, and that the specialist mundane hacker gets removed as a concept. Combat hacker? Yes. Medic hacker? Yes. Shaman hacker? Yes. Hacker...? No.

Even though I think you meant it as an outrageous statement, what do you consider "sammie-like" that could go away? If you mean a character that only has combat abilities and nothing else, then I agree with you.

You don't get it, do you? You just don't fucking "get" it. As was said above, we might as well remove sammies because you can have a combat hacker, a kombatmage, a combat technomancer.

"Hacker" is the guy who does the job and does it well. Do you know what happens when an asshole with mediocre hacking stats - we'll be generous and say he has Hacking at 4 and his program at 4. That's not even average, that's above average. This guy can only reliably attack Rating 2 systems. If he attacks a Rating 3 system, he has the dice advantage, but not so much so that the system is unlikely to hit his Stealth of 4 before he hits the 9 hits required to get an admin account. If he attacks an R4 system, he's in deep shit, and he'd be insane to even try attacking a higher-rated system.

You see, the problem with hacking is that there's no teamwork bonuses, and if one person gets spotted. Everyone pays the price. Hacking is not a "team activity" the way gunfights are. In a gunfight, everyone who hasn't built to be an idiot can contribute: the Samurai and Mage are the stars of the show, but the hacker with a set of Wired Reflexes 1 and 6-7 dice can still contribute. They can lay down cover fire, they can attack someone as a prelude to the Samurai's attack, depressing his dice rolls. They can attempt to subvert the enemy security systems, or they can haul out a grenade launcher and start being very dangerous to everyone generally downrange.


Hacking does not play out like that. Hacking is a game where only superstars get to play. If you bring the mediocre teammates with you, they get spotted, the resulting security increase hikes the system's resistance to you, then you get spotted. Everybody gets fucked up.


Are you starting to understand now? "Hacker" is a required role on the team, and it is not a rule that should be handed exclusively to technomancers. Hell, if anything, technos need a nerf! I built a pretty damn good hacker for the game I'm in, with a dice pool of 10 for most of my hacking purposes. The technomancers are routinely throwing 20+ dice . The GM builds systems to challenge the technos and I can't compete, despite having put a very large amount of my karmagen karma towards hacking.

[All4BigGuns]

"Hacker" is a required role on the team

I don't get this, this is generally the role most often missing--second only to pure Face, or at least Face with the kind of focus seen on this forum and the other forum--when we play (we have a small group), and we do just fine usually.

[Tashiro]

For game purposes... really just stick with Signal... it's a great abstraction which works well. Even better would be if they'd re-introduce bandwidth to limit how fast you could upload/download files. Especially over wireless! (I'd be fine if wired was almost unlimited.. but to put bandwidth limits on wireless links based on mutual signal strength).

Though one thing coming to mind now is the quantum computer theories bouncing around in real life, and how this will drastically increase processing speed - and probably be able to increase the amount of data that can be sent without having to increase bandwidth. It's one reason I think that AR is viable in Shadowrun, and that computers can be so much smaller, while doing so much more.

[Tashiro]

I actually think it would be good to break down hackers by type - and yes, I do think the 'street samurai' is somewhat going the way of the dodo. I've not seen a proper street samurai in any Shadowrun game I've been in since ... err, 2nd edition, perhaps?

Usually, we have someone who blends combat capability with a secondary roll. Usually, the character is an adept of some kind -- we had a driver / gunner adept, a swordsman adept, a face adept, a technomancer, and a possession-mage in our last group. Before that, we had a fox shaman face/special ops, a raven shaman healer/rifleman, a physical adept/archer, and an ex-military merc-for-hire. He was in our 3rd edition game, had been with us since 1st edition, and was the closest we'd ever had to a street samurai. And he didn't even really fit the genre.

Really, 'Street Samurai' is an interesting concept, but it seems most well-rounded characters will have a second role to fill when they're not shooting and hacking people to bits.

[phlapjack77]

You don't get it, do you? You just don't fucking "get" it.

I guess having a reasonable discussion isn't an option with you after all.

Do you know what happens when an asshole with mediocre hacking stats - we'll be generous and say he has Hacking at 4 and his program at 4. That's not even average, that's above average....

Good thing this thread is about 5th edition, and I'm not talking about changing hackers or hacking in 4th edition. Did you miss that part? Your whole post is talking about 4th edition and utterly worthless to this discussion.

[phlapjack77]

For game purposes... really just stick with Signal... it's a great abstraction which works well. Even better would be if they'd re-introduce bandwidth to limit how fast you could upload/download files. Especially over wireless! (I'd be fine if wired was almost unlimited.. but to put bandwidth limits on wireless links based on mutual signal strength).

Yeah, I think that would definitely be more interesting to reintroduce bandwidth in some way, as you sweat waiting for your download to complete before the guard comes back (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Along with bandwidth limits, what about re-introducing something like storage capacity on datachips and commlinks and whatever? Give more thought to how you store the paydata, rather than just abstracting that part away.

I think 4th abstracted too much in some areas of the matrix(see above), and didn't abstract enough in other areas (hacking a door lock or camera feed, etc).

[Tashiro]

I could see the security rating of the node determining how many IPs it takes to do something, and then having the ability of your commlink allow you to get done faster by giving you more IPs.

Actually, the idea that hacking is a solo job? I could see that not being true. If one hacker gets to the middle of the network and gets sysop level of authority, he can sit there and ensure that security isn't triggered by anyone else as they head through the network and do different jobs at once. Having more hackers means getting more done, faster.

[phlapjack77]

I could see the security rating of the node determining how many IPs it takes to do something, and then having the ability of your commlink allow you to get done faster by giving you more IPs.

Actually, the idea that hacking is a solo job? I could see that not being true. If one hacker gets to the middle of the network and gets sysop level of authority, he can sit there and ensure that security isn't triggered by anyone else as they head through the network and do different jobs at once. Having more hackers means getting more done, faster.

Hmmm, this is an interesting idea. I was worried that the bandwidth thing might be too details-oriented and not simple enough, but this scaling-IP-commlink thing seems like it would serve nicely.

Yeah, a hacking change would mean more players get to participate in the so-called hacking minigame, which seems like a win for everyone...

[Tashiro]

"Hacker" is the guy who does the job and does it well. Do you know what happens when an asshole with mediocre hacking stats - we'll be generous and say he has Hacking at 4 and his program at 4. That's not even average, that's above average. This guy can only reliably attack Rating 2 systems. If he attacks a Rating 3 system, he has the dice advantage, but not so much so that the system is unlikely to hit his Stealth of 4 before he hits the 9 hits required to get an admin account. If he attacks an R4 system, he's in deep shit, and he'd be insane to even try attacking a higher-rated system.

This actually makes sense to me. People shouldn't be hacking places willy nilly, and the 'good' hackers should be scared to take on a reasonably secure network. The 'very good' hackers should pause before considering taking on the network of a megacorp. If this wasn't the case, there's something seriously wrong.

On top of that, going into a network half-cocked, without having had the time to study the network, or doing a few scouting runs (not trying anything, just slipping in a little), is stupid. When I play Shadowrun, I don't take jobs which involve just rushing in with a short time limit. I want time to case the location, learn the security's patterns, and figure out what's going on with my target. This could take a week, or a month, depending on how complex the job is. Hacking, I feel, is the same thing. You want an idea of the IC you'll face, how difficult the network is, and perhaps set up some back doors and get some passwords so you can hit some areas semi-legitimately without worrying about tripping IC. Just going in and expecting to be able to 'hack' a network is... short-sighted.

[Falconer]

Tashiro... no, quantum only enables people to achieve better compression and forward error correct efficiencies. It doesn't change the physics of the comm channel and how much you can transmit over the channel. All quantum does is change the workability of some kinds of processing algorithms.

For example... longer chips in DSSS might become usable if quantum were usable in the correlators.

[All4BigGuns]

That may work for you, Tashiro, but the rules should support not only your "careful study and probing" style, but also the play-style of "kick in the door, kick arse and don't worry about names".

[Tashiro]

Hmmm, this is an interesting idea. I was worried that the bandwidth thing might be too details-oriented and not simple enough, but this scaling-IP-commlink thing seems like it would serve nicely. Yeah, a hacking change would mean more players get to participate in the so-called hacking minigame, which seems like a win for everyone...

Now the question that comes to mind: Is it, 'the higher the node, the more IPs it takes' (greater level of security) or 'the lower the node, the more IPs it takes' (less bandwidth)? Either could apply, in theory. Mind, this could be combined with other factors: The old blue, green, yellow, red, black nodes, with the ratings 1-6. So one could represent IPs needed, and the other represent Hits needed, perhaps.

So a Red 6 node might require 6 hits, and require 4 IPs per roll, for example.

[Tashiro]

That may work for you, Tashiro, but the rules should support not only your "careful study and probing" style, but also the play-style of "kick in the door, kick arse and don't worry about names".

Perhaps so, but people who use that style shouldn't be surprised at how fast things go south, and they suddenly need to shoot everything to get away with their hides intact while tripping every security team the place has to offer. Mind, some people enjoy that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) As per my tagline... I prefer to ghost. The best runs are the ones where nobody knows you were ever there (IMHO).

[Tashiro]

Tashiro... no, quantum only enables people to achieve better compression and forward error correct efficiencies. It doesn't change the physics of the comm channel and how much you can transmit over the channel. All quantum does is change the workability of some kinds of processing algorithms.

For example... longer chips in DSSS might become usable if quantum were usable in the correlators.

Ah, I thought quantum computers allowed more data compression. Hmm, I'll need to look back at the article I read earlier today.

[All4BigGuns]

Perhaps so, but people who use that style shouldn't be surprised at how fast things go south, and they suddenly need to shoot everything to get away with their hides intact while tripping every security team the place has to offer. Mind, some people enjoy that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) As per my tagline... I prefer to ghost. The best runs are the ones where nobody knows you were ever there (IMHO).

No, if that's their play style, it shouldn't "go south" that much, or else it's the GM being an arse and trying to force a so-called "right" way down their throats.

And before you start pulling anything, note the "that much". Meaning that some times is okay, but there is a limit to what is acceptable before it becomes being an arse.