Has anyone tried Skillsofts much in SR5? Options

[Wakshaani]

Just curious what people's opinions were on them. I don't see them mentioned very often around here.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Because they suck... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
They were potentially decent in SR4A, but SR5 killed the concept.

[Critias]

Nope. Can't afford 'em.

[Jack VII]

Honestly, they're really pricey for what they provide, considering you need both wires and a jack at the appropriate level to get the full benefit. Additionally, Activesoft is rather expensive. From my experience playing a concept character built around skillwires, I wouldn't suggest doing so as they are presently conceived. It's also not exactly helpful that they doubled the maximum level of skills but didn't also double the maximum level of skillwires/jacks.

With that said, a high-grade skilljack (without skillwires) with a lot of interesting knowsoft and linguasoft could be good for a face.

[Wakshaani]

Because they suck... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
They were potentially decent in SR4A, but SR5 killed the concept.

Killed the concept in what way? Just too expensive, or ... ?

[Jaid]

Killed the concept in what way? Just too expensive, or ... ?

pretty much.

40k nuyen just to be able to use rating 1 activesofts (not that you'll have any) is a large cost. it's actually also the only purchase i would even remotely consider making when it comes to skillsofts, because buying them at high ratings gets really really stupid expensive, so basically the only reason i would *ever* consider it at rating 1 even is that for rating 1 you lose the defaulting cost and at least gain access to the skills that require training.

otherwise? simple fact is for 40k i can almost buy an always-on +2 boost for most of the skills i care most about and use regularly (plus some spillover onto other useful skills). 40k to be able to use niche skills on the rare occasion that the niche becomes relevant and i actually have the skillsoft for it? that could be almost +2 to like 90% of the tests that i make all the time and actually cared enough to invest in a skill for it, depending on archetype.

why would i spend so many resources on something that, by design, will never be used for my area(s) of specialty?

when skillwires were cheap, they made pretty good sense as a backup plan. priced as they are, they almost have to be the central concept of the character. if, you know, spending 1/3 or more of your starting resources into mediocrity is the central concept for your character. for most people, it isn't.

[Medicineman]

Killed the concept in what way? Just too expensive, or ... ?

not only for Chars
CGL also killed the concept of unskilled labor Slaves that have Skillwires implanted with preloaded Skills at the start of their Shift /Erased at the end of the Day that march (like in the first Sci Fi Movie Metropolis ) into the Labor/Factories
because even Megacorps can't afford to pay 80.000-120.000 ¥ per unskilled Laborer if its a few 100 per Factory
(Even if we assume only 25% cost for a Megacorps or 1/2 Price of Used 'ware or some similar Discount its way to much for an unskilled Laborer)
So the Megacorps have to teach their Workers the corresponding Skills and don't have a hold on them (in that perspective)
Workers aren't as dependant on Megacorps as they would be if they where untrained
so ImO CGL killed not only a decent Character Concept, they also killed part of the Dystopian
Image of Shadowrun

Bad Idea ImO

He who dances to the Music of Metropolis
Medicineman

[cndblank]

Skillwires were one of the few things that helped balanced the awakened and the mundane PCs and they totally killed it in SR5.
For just the price of the skill chip you could hire someone to do the job for a year.

Not to mention that their should be open source available at least for the low rating skills.
Certainly a lot of physical skills don't change much.
I mean hitting someone with a stick hasn't changed that much in the last 10,000 years so why wouldn't a Clubs skillchip from 20 years be nearly as good as the latest version.

Personally I house rule that the skillchips cost is 1/4 for rating level 1-3 and 1/2 for rating 4+.

[Stahlseele]

Skillwires were nigh unuseable for most of SR History.
SR4 made them decent enough, because you could simply pump up Attributes and get loads of good enough pools for not too much money.
Especially if you ignored skillwires and went for move by wire which had skillwires included in them already . .

[DeathStrobe]

I don't see how 5th killed Skillsofts.

Assuming we are a mega corp that wants cheap skilled labor, we spend 120,000¥ for a rating 6 skilljack and 120,000 for a rating 6 skillwire. We make them run wireless on, and buy them three rating 6 active softs for 30,000¥ a pop. We'd effectively made an indentured servant who owes the corporation 330,000¥. We pay them a low life style of 2,000¥ a month, which mean it'll take the employee 165 months (13.75 years) to pay back the corp. Probably longer, since the wageslave will also need to pay back the corporation food and housing, which effectively means they'll never be able to pay back the corp. And after a few years the wageslave will crack, run away, and join a neo anarchist commune and thus a shadowrunner is born.

Still seems to fit the cyberpunk dystopia to me.

[cndblank]

I don't see how 5th killed Skillsofts.

Assuming we are a mega corp that wants cheap skilled labor, we spend 120,000¥ for a rating 6 skilljack and 120,000 for a rating 6 skillwire. We make them run wireless on, and buy them three rating 6 active softs for 30,000¥ a pop. We'd effectively made an indentured servant who owes the corporation 330,000¥. We pay them a low life style of 2,000¥ a month, which mean it'll take the employee 165 months (13.75 years) to pay back the corp. Probably longer, since the wageslave will also need to pay back the corporation food and housing, which effectively means they'll never be able to pay back the corp. And after a few years the wageslave will crack, run away, and join a neo anarchist commune and thus a shadowrunner is born.

Still seems to fit the cyberpunk dystopia to me.

Why are you investing a third of a million on some wageslave who could have a heart attack tomorrow, when you could buy a couple of robots to do it at a quarter the price with no coffee breaks?

[Medicineman]

if its only 1 Worker ist Ok (Not really OK, because if a Megacorps pays 1/3 Mio ¥ on someone it'll be on a Streetsam,Bodyguard or Decker or Rigger and not for one lousy skilled Laborer)
but if its 100 or Thousands of Workers ? Which Megacorp is going to pay for all of them ?

And what if the Worker dies (By Accident or Suicide, because he can't pay his bills )
than the company now has Level 6 used 'ware and lost 165.000 ¥ (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
For ONE ! Worker

He who dances with Hundreds or Thousand others
Medicineman

[DeathStrobe]

Why are you investing a third of a million on some wageslave who could have a heart attack tomorrow, when you could buy a couple of robots to do it at a quarter the price with no coffee breaks?

In theory you'll need the wageslave to handle things that would be harder for a drone's dog brain to handle.

Most manual labor probably has been replaced with drones. But its also possible the corp is trying to spin how many employees they've hired, and wanting to make sure that those employees are actually going to be useful they fit them with skillwires. Or maybe the corp did a cost analysis benefit and thinks it'd be easier to use their janitors, accountants, managers, etc to act as instant security guards instead of hiring dedicated guards. While 330,000¥ per person seems like a lot. That's only a one time upfront cost. Hiring, training, and cybering up normal guards will end up costing you more, and be a recurring charge for only one dedicated task.

While the specialist (a guard specifically hired to do guard work) will of course be more effective at his job, but the utility of equipping your staff with skillsofts also makes sense.

But say we have a AA mega corp, Brackhaven Investments. You have a lot of financial data, and possible ties to the Humanis Policlub, and a few reasons for Shadowrunners to hit your downtown corporate office. But you clearly don't have runs against your office all the time. So you hire 2 guards for every 5 floors to watch over the place. 100 stories tall, that's only 40 guards to protect the whole building. That's a lot, but spread pretty thin. But say that there is a Shadowrun against Brackhaven Investments, you'll need time to stall the runners. And while you may not have any guards on the floor, when the runners are discovered, you do have a few accountants. Well, give all your accountants a Ares Predator, slot them some skills, and now you can at least slow the runners down while the guards mobilize and home in on the runners locations. And also giving time for the HTR team to suit up and show up.

And what if the Worker dies (By Accident or Suicide, because he can't pay his bills )
than the company now has Level 6 used 'ware and lost 165.000 ¥ (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
For ONE ! Worker

He who dances with Hundreds or Thousand others
Medicineman

Well, good thing there is used ware. And with skillwires, you can actually afford to have an unskilled labor force since they'll instantly be a skilled labor force.

[Temperance]

One thing you're overlooking is the cost of training employees per year. (Between initial training, training updates, training to accommodate changes in business structure or software or what-have-you, etc.)

Lets look at numbers. According to one study, in 2011 it cost global fortune 500 companies $1034* per hour of training, with an average of 35.2 hours per year to train an employee. Or $39,396, per year. In the 4 years previous to said study, each year the cost had been increasing about $10 per hour, per year. Lets assume it continues at that rate until 2075. Assuming the same training hours, the cost would be $58,943.80 the company spends in training per year. The average time an employee remains with a company today is 4.4 years, or $259,352.72 for his entire stay with the company. Lets assume this remains true in 2075. (Though with SR's dystopia, employment duration is much longer.)

Lets assume that the difference in retail to wholesale is only about 20% discount from retail. Rating 6 skillwires & skilljack would cost the company 240k retail, and 200k wholesale. The activesoft is 30k, or 24k wholesale. Total is 224k. Skillwires pay for themselves in less than 4 years. And that assumes the company is buying them externally at wholesale.

If skillwires, skilljack, and activesoft is manufactured internally, the price drops significantly. At that point the costs are manufacturing, shipping, installation (medical, et al), and sicktime for the wageslave. (Of course said wageslave will need to make that time up, so nothing actually spent there.) All three costs they would be spent anyway for installation in an external party. They just have to produce more, which means cost per unit (wageslave) drops anyway due to economies of scale. The profit margin is theoretically less in the short term, but it still pays for itself and is easily less costly in the long term. (Depending on how often the corp needs to upgrade the hardware or software.)

So yeah, for the individual user? Yes, the cost sucks. It still holds as an economical way to deal with a corp's employee training process. (With a side benefit of just swapping skillsofts as necessary for job changes, instead of fresh training, and more costs, every time.)

* Yes, I know the UCAS dollar is less value than the nuyen. But the current US dollar in not the UCAS dollar and still has relative validity. (According to Google, 1 yen is $0.96 US.)

And what if the Worker dies (By Accident or Suicide, because he can't pay his bills )
than the company now has Level 6 used 'ware and lost 165.000 ¥ (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
For ONE ! Worker

Actually that sounds like a winning situation for the corp. Assuming they aren't completely destroyed or rendered completely non-functional (which I am not assuming because you mention used 'ware) the corp just spent 165k between 2 workers, instead of 330k. All they need to do is refurbish them, and install them into a new worker.

Edited to add:

Well, good thing there is used ware. And with skillwires, you can actually afford to have an unskilled labor force since they'll instantly be a skilled labor force.

What he said.

-Temperance

[apple]

You dont train slave labor (as megacorps in 2075). You want to keep it cheap.

SYL

[Wakshaani]

Note that most workers have a skill of 4, not 6. (And an attribute of 3, for what that's worth.)

You can get by with a skill of 2 for most menial jobs, like janitorial, or repeatedly doing the same task on a production line. Fleshy robots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(Note to self: Look into bringing back SKill Hardwires.)

[Stahlseele]

No. Hardwires were a Trap-Option.
Worse than Skillwires were then.
And they probably will be again too.

[Temperance]

You dont train slave labor (as megacorps in 2075). You want to keep it cheap.

SYL

That would be true if we were talking unskilled labor for unskilled jobs. You always pay for skilled labor; whether in salaries, training, and/or education. Yes, they want to get skilled labor as cheaply as possible. Their options are salaries, training, and/or education, or skillwires. If my numbers hold true, skillwires are the cheaper option.

Note that most workers have a skill of 4, not 6. (And an attribute of 3, for what that's worth.)

K, lets run the numbers at skill 4: Skilljacks and wires at 160k and 20k for the 'soft; 180k total, 150k at wholesale. So it pays for itself in less than 3 years.

You can get by with a skill of 2 for most menial jobs, like janitorial, or repeatedly doing the same task on a production line. Fleshy robots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And many of those jobs would be unskilled labor, so wouldn't require skillwires anyway.

I don't see how 5th killed Skillsofts.

Assuming we are a mega corp that wants cheap skilled labor.. <snip>

I'm going back to build on DeathStrobe's earlier post.

For low skill, the skillwires pay for themselves and save the company money in 3 years. For moderate skill, the skillwires pay for themselves in 4 years. Now, since they are technically unskilled labor, you don't pay them a living wage as they otherwise have the value of a janitor. Call it that low lifestyle DeathStrobe mentioned. Assuming you pay your normal skilled labor a middle lifestyle wage, that grunt with skillwires is saving you 36k a year on salary costs. That means you actually break even at year 2 and 3, respectively. Since you know it's going to pay you back in the long term, you can call it money saved and move on if you are a "nice" corp.

If you're a cheap-ass corp, you make the wageslave pay back the investment. A number of skilled and unskilled jobs in the real world require you pay for your own tools, uniforms, etc, so it's not a stretch. That's pure profit.

If you're a dystopian corp, you make the wageslave pay it back with interest. You now have a wageslave indebted to you for life. Now it becomes profit with interest!

Lets take a look at that. Assuming the rating 6 skillwires, using a mortgage calculator (since the cost is similar in scope), and assuming the calculator's default of a 30 year fixed rate at 5.5% (cause the corps isn't that evil), the loan will cost it's 1,271.85 per month or 457,865.05 paid back. For the rating 4 'wires under the same terms, it's 851.68 per month or 306,606.06 paid back.

Lifetime of crushing debt to the corp's pure profit seems very dystopian to me.

-Temperance

[apple]

That would be true if we were talking unskilled labor for unskilled jobs.

We are exactly talking about that if we are talking about chipslaves.

SYL

[hermit]

One thing you're overlooking is the cost of training employees per year. (Between initial training, training updates, training to accommodate changes in business structure or software or what-have-you, etc.)

(...)

K, lets run the numbers at skill 4: Skilljacks and wires at 160k and 20k for the 'soft; 180k total, 150k at wholesale. So it pays for itself in less than 3 years.

The money you spend on training or on an update infrastructure, including the necessary testing and safety precautions to make sure your update doesn't destroy your entire labor pool probably evens out in the end, all expenses considered. Updates do not grow on the update tree, after all.

Also, where do you get your "wholesale" numbers from? Prices in the core rules are not defined as retail, wholesale or street prices anymore - and for many things, street prices - for contraband - can be as much as 10% of retail (iphones, for instance). Skillwires in the core book can just as well be defined as prices for contraband cyberware that 'fell of a truck' - and is 1/10 of the actual retail price of 1.80.000 nuyen. We just don't know, so that assumption is shaky at best.

Just curious what people's opinions were on them. I don't see them mentioned very often around here.

That may be because you nerfed them too hard. They're not a viable concept by any means anymore.

[apple]

I suppose its right now only a ware for some very special jobs, perhaps special forces who need a mission specialist ad hoc ("go defuse this nuclear bomb"). So perhaps one skillwire guy in a SEAL unit or something like that.

SYL

[hermit]

If even that, yes. Are the SR4 wireless download-on-demand services still viable in SR5? That would make them useful at least for law enforcement specialists (be your own CSI unit). No need to buy a license for the software, just pay as you use. Handy for corp orces who probably do not maintain their own crime lab, but do not want Knight Errant CSI snooping around Black Lab 13 that has been hit by runners again.

[Wakshaani]

That may be because you nerfed them too hard. They're not a viable concept by any means anymore.

I'm innocent on this one. But that doesn't mean I'm not invested. *nebulous hand gesture*

[Jack VII]

@Wakshaani: If you want to see an example of a skillwire focused character in play, I'm playing one (cliche mass-produced solider prototype story) named Jack in Lobo's Nothings Free in the Free Zone PBP. One of the few positives about skillwires/skilljacks is that they are pretty clear-cut in how they work, so there is little room for "playing them wrong." If you go through the thread, I think one thing that stands out is that the skillwires don't really do too much for the character besides providing him with basic competency to professional training in some military related skills. Even then, his dice pools aren't particularly spectacular given the chargen cap of 4. While I did go out of my way to avoid min-maxing the character (I specifically assigned two points to each of his attributes in chargen as part of his backstory), Jack's contributions largely come from RP and planning contributions and I don't think that would change all that much even if I had min-maxed the attributes. While skillwires might be nice for someone to have an "on demand" back-up set of skills, the price tag is really high for that kind of contingency.

[Wakshaani]

@Wakshaani: If you want to see an example of a skillwire focused character in play, I'm playing one (cliche mass-produced solider prototype story) named Jack in Lobo's Nothings Free in the Free Zone PBP. One of the few positives about skillwires/skilljacks is that they are pretty clear-cut in how they work, so there is little room for "playing them wrong." If you go through the thread, I think one thing that stands out is that the skillwires don't really do too much for the character besides providing him with basic competency to professional training in some military related skills. Even then, his dice pools aren't particularly spectacular given the chargen cap of 4. While I did go out of my way to avoid min-maxing the character (I specifically assigned three points to each of his attributes in chargen as part of his backstory), Jack's contributions largely come from RP and planning contributions and I don't think that would change all that much even if I had min-maxed the attributes. While skillwires might be nice for someone to have an "on demand" back-up set of skills, the price tag is really high for that kind of contingency.

Interesting, and I'd like to see a link to a whole character sheet, if you could.

(I've always been fond of tossing them on to Faces, personally. It fits in well with teh pseudo-corp nature of most Faces, and gives them some nice skill backup for the rest of the team.)