Simrigs, Why've they gotta ruin all my fun? Options

[Moon-Hawk]

Let me set up the problem:
So, simrigs. 2 essence, and 300,000 :nuyen: to 500,000 :nuyen: . That's base grade. Oh, plus another 0.6 essence and another 100,000 :nuyen: or so for the simlink transmitter, if you want that.
Compare to an opticam and audio recorder. 0.8 essence (total) and 27,000 :nuyen: (total) That's if you don't have cyber eyes or ears already to help absorb that whopping 0.8 essence cost. Then a little bit more of both if you want a transmitter, but much, much cheaper than the simlink.
So obviously the simrig records more. It records touch and smell and taste, and for the expensive one, an emotive track as well. Super. But I think that audio and video are by far the most useful. So for an extra metric-frag-ton of nuyen and a third of your essence, you can add on a couple of marginally useful senses.

So by now you're asking, "But Moon-Hawk, what's your point?"

You: "But Moon-Hawk, what's your point?"

My point is, strictly in terms of game balance and usefulness, the simrig only somewhat more useful than opticam and recorder, but astronomically more expensive in terms of essence and cash. Game balance aside, we have no other basis for comparison. Whatever they decided simrig technology should cost in terms of essence and nuyen we would all shrug and go with it. So why did they have to make it so darn expensive? Why've they gotta ruin all my fun?

See, here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to make an ex-sim-star. Their gimmick was that they played an adept. They'd have cyberware. Boosted reflexes, reflex recorders, balance augmenters, artwinkulation, all sort of "transparent" cyberware. Just stuff that improves performance but without anything super-obvious to the user like hard metal spots or status displays or drek like that. For a mundane viewer, all they know is they're jumping into the body of someone who can do mad flips and stuff like that, the sim-star is playing the part of an adept, and it's fun for all. Then later when they go on the street they have to hide their identity, but even if people figure out who it is they might mistakenly believe them to be an adept. Even more fun for all. I thought it would be a great character to play; a really fun concept, but the cost (essence and money both) really put a damper on it. Anything I could do to help convince a GM to let me try this and maybe weasel some kind of discount out of them?

[Siege]

It's not like a simrig is going to be massively unbalancing - I suspect your GM would let you take a corp-sponsored discount just because the simrig won't be doing anything particularly useful, except for turning the PC into a walking sensory recording unit.

-Siege

[Moon-Hawk]

Exactly my point.
Which is why I'm tempted to get greedy and, if I have to sell my soul to a corp and be hunter or whatever anyway, try to get it beta-grade.
But even in that extreme case it seems like the esence cost of 1.56 is more than costly enough to make up for the minor bonus I'd get, all money aside. But I wouldn't mind taking a hunted or distinctive style flaw for no points if it got my GM to give me the 'ware for "free."

[GrinderTheTroll]

Yeah that whole field of Cyber hasn't appeard on any PC toon I've ever seen. As you've pointed out, it's costly in both essence and $$ and does little to add to game-play.

If one of my players wanted to do something like your suggesting (and not just to make some $$ selling off combat-sims of Runs... :eek: ) then I would probably let them delta it for free just so they could do something different and probably entertaining.

[Moon-Hawk]

Oh yeah. This wouldn't be for extra money or anything. I mean, sure, it'd be great if it was a cool part of a run or two, but if your M.O. is to record and sell all your runs to the public, that's gonna get you a real bad reputation with the Johnsons.
But it could be a little bit extra useful. You want proof that we killed him? Here's the recording. You could sell your Johnson a full "transcript" of the run for an extra 10,000 :nuyen: . I don't know why he might want it. Memento, trophy, verification; plenty of reasons. They probably wouldn't go for the sale very often, but it'd be a fun way to get a little extra cred occasionally when it's appropriate to the type of run you're doing.

[Kagetenshi]

I think simrigs are one of the places where they let realism interfere with game balance. For balance, I'd say take the price of the opticam+ear recorder, multiply by ~2, and multiply Essence by 1.25 or so. Note that I don't recommend actually doing so, as it (IMO) breaks realism somethin' fierce for something that doesn't necessarily need to be balanced.

~J

[Rev]

Eh, the opticam and ear recorder should be way cheaper too :)

[Black Isis]

What I want is something like what Molly had in Neuromancer, where Case essentially "rode" her through the runs to get Dixie and in Straylight. I've thought about just making a small recorder you wore on your body, with a plug that goes in your datajack and just pulls from your sensorium that way, rather than being built into your skull.

If I make simrigs for my SilCORE conversion, I will probably make them considerably more PSY friendly (read Essence friendly), although I don't know if they will be cheaper. I don't have a problem with them being expensive so much.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[hobgoblin]

there are other senses then sight and sound that can be used, smell/taste can be usefull at times, and touch can be interesting if a person "experienceing" the recording or signal can read braille (or whatever that language is called). being allowed to become a person may enable you to pick up on signales that the person your rideing may overlook, like a brush of air or a smell that you are familiar with but that the person dont know what is...

[mfb]

not to mention the emotive tracks, where you actually feel fear/elation/bliss/whatever.

[Tarantula]

[Adarael]

[Black Isis]

[Kanada Ten]

[CircuitBoyBlue]

I'm not sure the external simrigs ever made all that much sense to me. Unless I'm missing something, simrigs (even the basic ones) record not just external stimuli, but also physiological responses to it. For instance, it would record not just me smelling the monster in the corner, but also my increased heart rate. I don't see how an external rig would do that.

I always took the humongous essence and cash cost of simrigs to mean that it's not something every runner would have, and if you waste someone with a simrig, whoever had to pay for it is going to be VERY upset with you. And since it's out of the price range of most people, that someone will most likely be a corp sponsor. In fact, now that I think about it, the essence cost might be so high because once you've agreed to sell all your experiences AND your reactions to them to a corp, you've pretty much sold a good portion of your soul...

[hyzmarca]

The massive essence cost for a simrig is a matter of game ballance. Imagine the millions of nuyen one could make selling homemade BTL porn.

[Moon-Hawk]

Good point. :eek:

[Kanada Ten]

[CircuitBoyBlue]

Well, ok, heartrate can be done, but my point was that there'd be a lot that couldn't be done because it involves internal responses as much as external simuli. You're right, most of that could be dubbed, but that only makes sense in a situation where you're sending something to post-production.

[Kanada Ten]

[Garland]

Doesn't the SSG cover all this? There is emotive post-production on simsense.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Yes. (SSG, 26)

They also have "sense patches" for people with installed rigs.

But even today, the amount of things added in post-production is unbelievable. ADR is prevalent even in scenes where you'd never really think that the ambient noise was so bad on the set or location that you can't hear anything on the dailies.

[Lucyfersam]

I tend to agree that the price of the simrig in both essence and and price is for the sake of realism, but I don't think that it is necessarily valid realism. Fundamentally, a smirig simply needs to be the opposite of a datajack. It records all of your sensory information, a datajack in capable of supplying full sensory information. In purely technical terms, the simrig is actually significantly easier. Now, the price of a datajack is only so low because it is so fundamental to the nature of the world, rather than out of any sort of realism (as it is probably the single most complicated and massive piece of 'ware, strictly neurologically speaking), but given they've already abandoned realism on the datajack, it seems silly to maintain it on the simrig.