Should This Have A Wireless Bonus?, A Comprehensive Look At Every Extant Piece of 'Ware Options

[Aaron]

And this is the core of why its dumb.
It shits all over how it used to work, and the reasons provided for it aren't good enough to justify such a massive backslide.
A retcon is a retcon.

First off, I think we're talking about a single pair of systems, ne? Wired reflexes and reaction enhancers?

Second, it's not a retcon. It's a retcon of a retcon of a retcon. In SR3, the two systems were compatible. In SR4, they weren't. In SR4A, they were, and in SR5 they sorta aren't but really they are. You lose the safety blanket of non-hackability if you want to stack the two systems, but you also get to go beyond the +4 enhancement cap if you've got the guts to do so. And between you and me, it's actually pretty hard for a hacker to take out a device in a single shot, and you're made aware of an attack when it lands, so unless you're out of your league you'll have plenty of time for that Free Action to switch the wireless off on those occasions when the GM has a hacker behind her screen.

[Mach_Ten]

and you're made aware of an attack when it lands,

at what point are you "made aware" and by what mechanism? or do you mean
" you suddenly become aware you are moving slower than a geriatric paraplegic ... in a vat of treacle... against a force 8 wind!"

[Aaron]

at what point are you "made aware" and by what mechanism? or do you mean
" you suddenly become aware you are moving slower than a geriatric paraplegic ... in a vat of treacle... against a force 8 wind!"

It's been compared to a "Check Engine" light in other threads, and that's a pretty good analogy. The rules say that the owner of a device (and the device itself if it has a pilot program) is aware of a successful Attack action against the device, but not its source. If that successful Attack action doesn't brick the device, you can toggle the wireless.

[Mach_Ten]

It's been compared to a "Check Engine" light in other threads, and that's a pretty good analogy. The rules say that the owner of a device (and the device itself if it has a pilot program) is aware of a successful Attack action against the device, but not its source. If that successful Attack action doesn't brick the device, you can toggle the wireless.

ghotcha thanks,

sooo, what constitutes an attack ?
finding your node,
entering it
or once inside, actively beginning the shutdown sequence and killing your RE/WR

the reason I ask is that every kid on the block has a wireless matrix scanner looking for barely secured nodes, that'd be setting your "check engine" light off all the damn time
compared to once a hacker actually gets in and starts changing your wallpaper and screensaver!

[Sengir]

No you can't. You send a wireless signal and it is part of the matrix.

Sure, and if I connect my Laptop to an AP with no outside access it's the internet...

[Umidori]

I'm finding it frustrating to continue talking about this subject. I'm gonna give myself some more time. Unfortunately, the arguments seem to evolve every time I step away from the forums. More and more, I feel like I'm just going to have to house rule a lot of things in the end, which is rather unfortunate.

I think the reason I keep getting frustrated is that I keep feeling like my intelligence is being insulted. Every reason I've heard for these changes so far has not only failed to convince me, it's actually seemed outright stupid or dumb, to the point that they actually begin to seem like weak excuses for adding a new mechanism, rather than compelling arguments for making the game system and world more immersive and fun.

So I'm gonna bow out here, at least for now. I can't promise I won't come back to this and similar threads, because hey, I'm excited and hopeful and worried about the new game system all at once, but at least for the moment I'm gonna just state that 1) I'm not convinced this is going to work and 2) I'll be trying my hardest to be patient until I have more information.

Signing off.

~Umi

[Aaron]

sooo, what constitutes an attack ?

the reason I ask is that every kid on the block has a wireless matrix scanner looking for barely secured nodes, that'd be setting your "check engine" light off all the damn time
compared to once a hacker actually gets in and starts changing your wallpaper and screensaver!

Every Matrix action is either an Attack, Sleaze, Data Processing, or Firewall action. So the Attack actions (including the Data Spike that is the primary damaging action) are all labeled as such.

[Stahlseele]

@Umi
There is only one reason for this Bulldrek.

"Hackers need to be able to do something in Combat without shelling out for stuff outside of their specialisation!"


The only reason why a focus does not need to be online to do it's thing and so the hacker can do something against it is probably because Magic trumps Matrix trumps Muscle.

[StealthSigma]

Cranial Bomb: Can be remotely triggered, but doesn't have to be, and not the sort of device that should have bonuses, NO.

Personally.... I'd love to see the wireless bonus for your cranial bomb.

Because first of all, who willingly takes a cranial bomb?
Second of all, for all of those who did take a cranial bomb willingly, why would you want to make it matrix accessible.

Mostly it would cement my opinion on the insanity of SR5.

[Seerow]

So I've been thinking.

The whole point of the wireless bonuses is apparently that you're taking advantage of cloud computing, and having random other devices donate their power to help compute stuff for you right?

So theoretically, with more hardware inherent, you could bypass that, just by having the extra processor power inherent in the device.


So what if instead of "Wireless bonuses" you had a Wireless version of the device that took less essence/less upgrade slots/whatever. So your Wired Reflexes costs 2/3/5 essence like normal. But a Wired Reflexes designed to take advantage of Matrix Computing instead takes 1.5/2.25/3.75 essence. Your gun's smartlink might normally take up two upgrade slots, but if you had one made to take advantage of Matrix Computing it instead only takes 1, the same as a laser sight. And so on.

Basically under this model you completely get rid of the bonuses idea, and instead make things that have wireless enabled significantly cheaper/more efficient. No more complaints about "But my gear used to work just fine before!" because that gear will still work just like it did offline, but now gear that has been made to work online is straight up more efficient. A Sammy willing to deal with Wireless Ware will fit a lot more into his body, but if one didn't want to take the risk, that is an option for him too.


Just a thought I had while thinking about this earlier.

[Stahlseele]

Personally.... I'd love to see the wireless bonus for your cranial bomb.

Because first of all, who willingly takes a cranial bomb?
Second of all, for all of those who did take a cranial bomb willingly, why would you want to make it matrix accessible.

Mostly it would cement my opinion on the insanity of SR5.

Wait . . Technically, isn't the worst a Hacker can do to the Cranial Bomb to BRICK it?
Would that not mean that it's there, it's taking up Essence, but it can't ever go boom?

[Mach_Ten]

Wait . . Technically, isn't the worst a Hacker can do to the Cranial Bomb to BRICK it?
Would that not mean that it's there, it's taking up Essence, but it can't ever go boom?

newp, the worst he can do is write an algorithm that pings it wirelessly at random intervals, reminding you that it's there waiting to be "toyed with" for all eternity..

you didn't really enjoy sleeping anyway!

<<@luser[admin] : NODE:CRANIAL BOMB - was {Pinged} 37 times while you were out by {L33T-KIDDEH17} ... delete messages? >>

[StealthSigma]

Wait . . Technically, isn't the worst a Hacker can do to the Cranial Bomb to BRICK it?
Would that not mean that it's there, it's taking up Essence, but it can't ever go boom?

Well, I would assume detonating it would be the worst a hacker could do and if they can't do that then I would say that's disappointing.

[Wired_SR_AEGIS]

First off, I think we're talking about a single pair of systems, ne? Wired reflexes and reaction enhancers?

Second, it's not a retcon. It's a retcon of a retcon of a retcon. In SR3, the two systems were compatible. In SR4, they weren't. In SR4A, they were, and in SR5 they sorta aren't but really they are. You lose the safety blanket of non-hackability if you want to stack the two systems, but you also get to go beyond the +4 enhancement cap if you've got the guts to do so. And between you and me, it's actually pretty hard for a hacker to take out a device in a single shot, and you're made aware of an attack when it lands, so unless you're out of your league you'll have plenty of time for that Free Action to switch the wireless off on those occasions when the GM has a hacker behind her screen.

The Samurai-loving-player in me breathed a heavy sigh of relief upon reading that, by default, this stuff is non-stackable and cannot exceed the maximum augmentation cap of +4... But by enabling matrix access, that limit may be exceeded. That is, by definition, a bonus. Not a penalty.

It means that the system was probably balanced around non-stackable bonuses. And it also likely means that there is some parity of performance between previous stackable editions, and the current non-stackable implementation.

Now, provided there isn't some silly rule where Magic + Technology may still provide some cumulative bonus, a number of my fears have been laid to rest.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

[Irion]

Sure, and if I connect my Laptop to an AP with no outside access it's the internet...

The Internet is NOT the MATRIX.

The point is 80% of Cyberware would have problems working with physics, human biologie, chemistery or even the human anatomie.

Most of the matrix stuff would not work in the "Internet". Or do you think a cyberattack consists of two icons fighting each other with comic weapons?
Even most Basic rules like the rule for sustaining damage has areas where it just goes off the rails...
And do I have to talk about magic.

So the idea to say: Alright, everything which is "wireless" is now part of the matrix, is not that far streatched. The benefit of making the game much easier outweight the nearly non existant loss of realism 10 to 1.
What I am wondering is, that realism gets always an issue if boni are dropped. But you can't hear this point beeing made so vocaly if boni are introduced...

If your position would be to just stick with the non-online boni and ignore the rest, you would be honest and consistant. But you are not.
It is about getting the boni but somehow cheat your way out of the drawbacks. Thats what happend a lot in the 4E. Dumpshock was full of threads "how can I get A without having to suffer B".
And in most of the cases the solution was to just use "common sense" outside the rules. This door was partly closed, and sorry, thats a good thing no matter how silly the boni in particular are.
It is about the game design principle. You can't just introduce a benefit and then handwave the disadventage as it was done in the 4E.
If your gun sends A signal to your eyes there are several possibilities.
Every single one should have drawbacks and adventages. Now a major issue is, that you need to take into account the complexity.
I would love a system where you get a little drawing of the human body with visible muscles and nerves and capacity limits for the chest, the head, the abdomen etc. and you could draw in the the connections between cyberware (of course there are rules how the connections could be running) and if you have to many "connections" your physical limits for example would drop or your agility, because those cable disrupt movement etc. pp. or the elctrical signals interfere with your nervous system, hell I do not care something like that.
That would be a lot of fun for me building and optimizing my cyberware buildout. (If I take the bioware I save on the connection, but it would take up head capacity which I would prefere to spend on the other thing, and I nearly do not need chest capacity or I could go wireless but...)
I would love such a complex building system. But I do understand, that this would be overkill for most. And a lot of people would not even bring up the patience to build a less then avarage samurai.

[Stahlseele]

OK, so, on the german official board somebody asked a pretty interesting question:
What about all those oh so nasty Zero-Zone-Laboratories etc. the Corps have around?
Are they now all lit up to enable Matrix-Access for their Stuff, or is an attacker that uses a Sattelite-Dish gonna walk all over them?

[Shinobi Killfist]

They seem to range from bad(pretty much all of the speed based ones which could be handled with any other link), to okay, too nice solid benefit.

Opening a cyber smuggling compartment? Its freaking DNI and a open command this isn't complex cloud computing.

Some of the okay ones are the things like the Gas Mask. Analyzing the stuff around you sounds good. But the collection data part is in the gas mask. What it really should be doing is deciphering it for you, the difference being if you are a chemist you might be able to make checks to decipher it on your own without matrix connection, but the matric connection would give you either bonus dice or give you a skill level= to the rating of the device.


Things like the taser are similar but come across better MO since its data transmission method is up in the air, they chose not to try the wires for X reason. Where the gas mask there is no question on how it gets to you, the collection source is on you.

GPS and cell phone in your survival knife, um yeah that freaking works and is awesome. Dice pool bonus from first aid again awesome, it is accessing a huge range of medical sources no one person could know by heart,

[StealthSigma]

The Internet is NOT the MATRIX.

Most of the matrix stuff would not work in the "Internet". Or do you think a cyberattack consists of two icons fighting each other with comic weapons?

The Matrix is the Internet insofar as much as that both are a world wide network which connects all devices. As such, it is extremely useful to use real world and Internet based analogies.

[Epicedion]

The Matrix is the Internet insofar as much as that both are a world wide network which connects all devices. As such, it is extremely useful to use real world and Internet based analogies.

No, it really isn't like the internet. It contains the internet, much like the internet contains the web, but it isn't the same thing.

[StealthSigma]

No, it really isn't like the internet. It contains the internet, much like the internet contains the web, but it isn't the same thing.

You'll have to explain that. As far as I can tell, the Matrix is a connection mesh. Everything happens on the nodes connected to it. The only difference I can perceive is that the connection protocols have changed, somewhat by providing full VR interface while on nodes, and that instead of using cable to connect everything together that runs through routers, the entire Matrix is no different than an ad hoc mesh wireless network that nodes can connect to and disconnect from freely that we are quite capable of creating today.

[Epicedion]

You'll have to explain that. As far as I can tell, the Matrix is a connection mesh. Everything happens on the nodes connected to it. The only difference I can perceive is that the connection protocols have changed, somewhat, and that instead of using cable to connect everything together that runs through routers, the entire Matrix is no different than an ad hoc mesh wireless network that we are quite capable of creating today.

The Matrix is the technological astral. The old wired Matrix was internettish.

[StealthSigma]

The Matrix is the technological astral. The old wired Matrix was internettish.

As I said, you need to explain more thoroughly what you mean. Nothing that I'm aware of the Matrix is alien or foreign to the technology of today. The implementation may be different but that's a function of specific technologies and protocols.

In fact, within the text of SR4a it issues the following line when describing its topology.

Technically speaking, the Matrix is a ubiquitous ad-hoc wireless mesh network.

or practically the words I used in my previous post without having looked up the rulebook.

the entire Matrix is no different than an ad hoc mesh wireless network that nodes can connect to and disconnect from freely that we are quite capable of creating today.

If you want to argue that you interact with it differently than we currently do. That's fine but that's the user interface. The user interface doesn't change the topology and underlying mechanisms by which the network works.

[Kruger]

Two things:

First, to address the calculator example, please convert your car's maximum speed into furlongs per fortnight. Without using Google. Doing it with Google gives you an answer as quickly as you can type "120mph to furlongs per fortnight." That's internet access for you.

This doesn't make any sense. Google isn't adding any additional processing power nor providing any unique functionality. It's just an interface that you're familiar with using. If you had an easily accessible conversion application on your phone or computer, you wouldn't need Google at all for that task.

[Wired_SR_AEGIS]

This doesn't make any sense. Google isn't adding any additional processing power nor providing any unique functionality. It's just an interface that you're familiar with using. If you had an easily accessible conversion application on your phone or computer, you wouldn't need Google at all for that task.

And if you had an easily accessible abacus, you wouldn't need your computer.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

[Kruger]

And if you had an easily accessible abacus, you wouldn't need your computer.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Again you people and your ludicrously awful analogies. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)