Smartlinks: Is the bonus just too good? Options

[toturi]

I always thought of the module as a seperate processor, and since it costs only 0.1 Essense, it is pretty small.

If you are the GM, it is your call whether to ignore the Errata or not. Personally I think it makes both IC sense and game balance sense.

[Canid13]

I'm with toturi on this one, the mod for the smartlink is an additional processor to interpret the range data and the weapon mod is the laser and stuff. It makes sense, and it also makes getting that addidional TN modifiers at long and extreme range a little more costly than a 150 nuyen weapon mod which any self respecting sam can fit himself.

It doesn't quite make the base 4's for extreme range, but it does help when you look at the TN 7 you'd normally have. 2, 3, 3 and 5 is always good, and if you have a grenade launcher, it makes Grenade Links useful too :o)

[Kagetenshi]

Whether it makes sense or not, it's a trivial addition and changes his original point not in the least.

~J

[mmu1]

[Kagetenshi]

Presumably the cyberware rangefinder calculates the drop given a specific range and soforth rather than just the range.

Note that I still think it's silly. Before that errata I'd come up with plenty of uses of the rangefinder without even using a smartlink, while now it's like the ASIST converter; useless for nearly all other applications.

~J

[Jason Farlander]

No. Wrong. Just displaying range to target *is* easy, and you can do that with a rangefinder accessory for your gun even without the extra SL2 accessory. Hell, I bet most electronic scopes will do that for you as well. The part that requires additional processing is where the SL2 system adjusts the position of the targeting reticle AND provides limited simsense feedback to improve your aim based on range data, thus providing additional TN reductions. As you said, the standard SL2 processor is rather impressive in its own right, and I guess they figured that only a subset of SL2 customers would want to shell out the extra cash and brainspace for rangefinder integration processing, so they made it an add-on rather than standard. It really does make perfect sense.

Put another way: If the SL2 had *originally* had its essence cost listed as 0.6 and included range processing, you would not be complaining that the device was too essence-expensive. It is, simply put, a much better piece of ware than the original smartlink, and in pretty much all other cases where there is a standard version and a better version of a piece of ware, the better version costs more essence.

I dont see why you care so much that they made one nice feature of the system optional, especially considering its trivial cost.

[Stumps]

I'm just playing around with the ideas floating around here.

I liked the idea that was proposed about the adding 2 dice to the roll as opposed to -2 from TN, but I wanted to know it's actual effect.

So I went to Scott's Shadowrun Target Number Home Page and plugged in some simple numbers to see what the difference was.

::TEST ONE::
(As per normal)
4 dice aiming to succeed a TN of 10 with one pair and receiving a -2TN (TN=8) has a 9.54235968221308% chance of success.

(Proposed Revision)
4 dice aiming to succed a TN of 10 with one pair and receiving 2 extra dice to the roll (6 dice) has a 8.309388128000684% chance of success.
---------------------------------------
The Proposed Revision indeed is a harder test to succeed at. (by 1.2%)


::TEST TWO::
(As per normal)
4 dice aiming to succeed a TN of 10 with two pairs and receiving a -2TN (TN=8) has a 0.03721088629782046% chance of success.

(Proposed Revision)
4 dice aiming to succed a TN of 10 with two pairs and receiving 2 extra dice to the roll (6 dice) has a 0.06302779921124826% chance of success.
---------------------------------------
The Proposed Revision is an easier test to succeed at. (by 0.03%)


::TEST THREE::
(As per normal)
6 dice aiming to succeed a TN of 13 with one pair and receiving a -2TN (TN=11) has a 3.985370083414715% chance of success.

(Proposed Revision)
6 dice aiming to succed a TN of 13 with one pair and receiving 2 extra dice to the roll (8 dice) has a 1.9325777307331062% chance of success.
---------------------------------------
The Proposed Revision is a harder test to succeed at. (by 2%)


::TEST FOUR::
(As per normal)
6 dice aiming to succeed a TN of 13 with two pairs and receiving a -2TN (TN=11) has a 0.013048249946842637% chance of success.

(Proposed Revision)
6 dice aiming to succed a TN of 13 with two pairs and receiving 2 extra dice to the roll (8 dice) has a 0.0038098243076577585% chance of success.
---------------------------------------
The Proposed Revision is a harder test to succeed at. (by .01%)

::END TEST::

So it appears already that if you are looking to make it more difficult to get one pair of successful dice, then indeed giving two dice instead of a -TN of 2 would be a good idea.
If you are however, looking to make things harder past that, it looks as though there isn't really too much of a curved advantage between the ideas.

AVERAGE HIT TEST
::% Chance For 6 Dice To Hit TN's 2 - 13 On Average With One Pair Of Dice Succeeding::
-2TN
50.027166512534298769230769230769%

::% Chance For 8 Dice To Hit TN's 2 - 13 On Average With One Pair Of Dice Succeeding::
+2D6 to Roll
41.019444523722528338461538461538%

Final
The Proposed Idea is 9.00772198881177043076923076923% more difficult to succeed at than the -2TN that stands in effect at present.

All in all...looks like a pretty sound idea with out any real downsides forseeable in doing so. You simply have made the game 9% harder accross the board (basically).

....
You know...you really are talking about bringing back the third level of concentration that was called specialization and simply getting rid of SL's all together. (funny how that works)

[mmu1]

I wouldn't care if you either had to slap a rangefinder on a SL-equipped gun and be able to use it, or you were able to get an eye-mod rangefinder that connected internally to your SL, but having to do both strikes me as pointless, not the least because compared to all the math a SL processor has to do already, incorporating range data into it is completely trivial. It's like requiring a Pentium IV to have an auxilliar processor to run a program emulating a scientific calculator.

A rangefinder is also the first thing anyone designing a real-life "smartlink" would have included, but that's a whole another rant...

[Kremlin KOA]

especially when a electronic mag 3 eye mod negates thew need for rangefinder mods and gives with SL! 2/3/4/4 which is comparable to 2/3/3/5 it is pointless

[Raygun]

[Johnny Reb]

And a big thank you for doing the math for me, up there. :)

Yes, the goal was to make shooting a tad harder but still keep the feel of things. A Smartgun helps you make better shots, but not as dramaticly as the target number drop would imply.

It was just an off-the-top-of-my-head fix.

A bit of a surprise that it'd get that close, tho.

-- Reb

[Kagetenshi]

Twelve dice, TN 2, expecting ten successes. Fourteen dice, TN 4, expecting 7 successes.

Twelve dice, TN 4, expecting 6 successes. Fourteen dice, TN 6, expecting 2.333 successes.

Twelve dice, TN 6, expecting 2wo successes. Fourteen dice, TN 8, expecting 1.9444.

Twelve dice, TN 8, expecting 1.666. Fourteen dice, TN 10, expecting 0.777.

Twelve dice, TN 10, expecting 1 success. Fourteen dice, TN 12, expecting 0.3888.



Twelve dice, TN 2, expecting ten successes. Fourteen dice, TN 2, expecting 11.666.

~J

[Jason Farlander]

[mmu1]

[Jason Farlander]

[Kagetenshi]

Sword

~J

[Raygun]

[Ol' Scratch]

Well, except for the rules for smartlinks and rangefinders.

[Raygun]

Then I guess he's right. It's idiotic and should probably be ignored. That could be why I don't remember it.

[tjn]

[Raygun]

Edit: Page 2. Duh. It's shitty piece of errata that should be completely ignored, IMO. There's no reason why the gun-mounted module shouldn't be able to interface with the smartlink hardware all on its own and I don't think there's any reason why rangefinder cyberware should be able to do the same thing. One or the other, not both, should be sufficient.

[lacemaker]

On topic:
I think there's a legitimate argument that the smart link is a little overpowered from a game balance point of view, and I completely buy the "if it is an automatic addition to a starting character then it is unbalanced" rule of thumb. The response that "it was intended to be ubiquitous" is just circular - the only items I but that kind of argument for are ones that will have so little influence that they are priced for realism rather than game balance - everyone taking a pocket-sec is fine, everyone automatically starting their cyberware package with a smartlink isn't IMO.

And has been pointed out, the low essence cost means that the sammy's single biggest advantage is incredibly available to awakened characters.

I think a lot of good could be done by fiddling with the smartlink and making it both more fully-realised (rather than a balck box with a game effect, which is what it currently does most of the time) and slightly less tempting - given that it's a key peice of a sammy's loadout very little has been done to explore its full functionality.

[toturi]

EDIT: Stewpitt post

[Kagetenshi]

[Fortune]

Of course, nobody is taking into account the Smartlink's legality.