Skill wires and wireless matrix, Give me a pilot program Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Edward]

Skill wires and wireless matrix
Give me a pilot program


Last night being quite bored at work I ran a rather silty matrix/SR crossover threw my head. It occurred to me that in SR4 using matrix to the on demand downloading of skill softs was well within the grasp of the technology. Even more so than it is in SR3.

A provider of this servus would on receiving a matrix transfer and order for a skill soft immediately send the skill soft to your COM link headwear then to be stored in your headwear memory, given listed data transfer speeds and program sizes in SR3 it would take a matter of minutes to access a high rating skill soft.

Provider’s would be able to ether sell skill softs over the matrix or provide access to skill softs up to a maximum rating (or program size if there are still to be programming options) for a monthly fee. These skill softs would be protected from piracy in a similar way to OCCs you can copy it into your headwear (when you get it) but any future copies would be useless forcing a user to think carefully about witch are available to him at any given time.

What I would like to see in eth SR4 rules (BBB or M&M) is defiant rules for this type of system. The technology will support it and it is a real way for a business to make money but without access times, prises and probability of finding an esoteric skill (specific martial art, knowledge skills and similar) on a server there will be arguments about what you can get and what it should cost.

Edward

[hobgoblin]

uploading "slow and painful death" btl to your skillwires as we speak :evil:

[Edward]

[hobgoblin]

sorry but maybe i should have used :vegm: instead :P

i like the idea, alltho be it a bit matrix, but i wonder if not it will fuel the fire on those people that fear SR4 will turn the SR world into a gits copy (skillwire hacking being one step removed from "ghost" hacking).

[Edward]

Psycotropic IC, BTLs and attack programs or playing with an engram manipulator are already farley close to ghost hacking and they all exist in SR3, the only change in SR4 is that people spend more time connected to the matrix and thus vulnerable to the remote forms of psychotropic manipulation, and this has nothing to do with skill wires, to be honest I don’t think it will make you much more vulnerable than having a comlink without the skill wires.

What dose concern me is the balance implications of the wired skill user archetype I can see possibly emerging, with almost no need for actual skills karma is all but useless to them and they have all conmen skills (and most uncommon skills) available to them at a the value of there skill wires and skill soft contract, without having to spend build points on magic or skills (beyond the minimum) they should be able to afford to start with exceptional attributes and enough nuyen to afford a farley good set of skill wires and access contract, along with light samy level combat cyber wear.

As the technology clearly supports the existence of such a character I would like to see it possible in eth game but without being unbalanced so I hope that it will be given consideration buy the designers.

Edward

[hobgoblin]

i understand the fear. the question is how to best balance it. like maybe have the price or size of the stuff to allmost vertical just below the avarage traning point so that you may well be jack of all trades but you will be master of none. sure you can fly that copter on a nice day but come combat or bad weather and you better have the real skills and some long time experience (to me thats what high level skills realy represent, long time experience so that you know 101 ways for every situation or problem and the ability to use them at the drop of a helmet).

and yes the tech for ghost hacks are in there but outside of psycotropic ice (having to run on hosts) and btl (unlimited simsense) you need heavy equipment and nice skills to pull of a brain rewrite (alltho you could allways do it the oldfashion brainwash way ;) ).

hmm, hacker held at gunpoint by sammie with wireless matrix link. hacker uploads btl that makes sammie see pretty colors. sammie pass out, hacker walks away...

[Wireknight]

Something like this has already been given (albeit unique-because-it's-really-badass) statistics in SR3. Ushida, the former Arcology administrator and highest-ranked banded in Deus' green caste, had a Skillwire system that, while it had a static rating (rating 6; I believe), had an infinite megapulse capacity due to it being wirelessly linked to a massive server of online skillsofts. The only real limitation to his access to skills via the system, as-listed, was the fact that he could only have 6 points worth of them operating at any given point.

It was specifically mentioned as being unsalvageable when he is killed, due to the cutter nanite dead-man's switch that all Banded possess, but that if the runners are ghoulish enough to extract its destroyed remains and sell them, they're worth quite a bit to cybernetics researchers. It's not the first time I've seen something like that done, however. I could be mistaken, but if I recall correctly, the decker/rigger infowarfare/overwatch character that a friend of mine plays, who uses the street name Telnet, employs a wireless link to access a server full of high-rating knowsofts (not activesofts) that he's set up, and loads/swaps them from his headware memory without actually using any chips whatsoever.

Rask, can you add anything? Did my mind invent this, or does Telnet have a setup like the one I described?

[Quix]

To keep this from being the annoying no skills just skillwires set up I see 3 ways off the top of my head to restrict it.
1) Make it hideously expensive. Not an option I like as it probably won't fit in well or be explained why its cost is so much more then the old skill wires that you went out and bought.

2)Make the rating on the system you buy be the maximum rating on the summ of all the skills you are running. Like the system mentioned by Wireknight. But this lies very close to the money fix I mentioned above. It just requires really high rating skill wire systems in order to replace ALL of a runners common skills.

3) Make the download times for skills be significant. Make them slow enough that no character can go....3, 2, 1, "I know kung-fu". If it means that the player has to do without for 6 combat rounds or so then you would want to make sure you wouldn't be needing to download a new skill in the middle of a run. Because that is the option that really frightens me.

4) Just thought of one to help prevent downloading a skill whenver you need it. Jamming. ECm already exist in SR if the rules for them can be simplified/streamlined a bit then a low radius jamming unit will messs over anyone lacking the real skills.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Or you could give the opfor the same tech with a high level chipjack expert driver.
... hmm... reminds me of something... can't put my finger on it, but a duel between two of these characters would be interesting.

[Raskolnikov]

Wire, that's correct. Additionally when it would be unwise to connect wirelessly to such things he also has a fairly extensive repository contained in his wearable computer. Telnet, although he has a list of over 20 knowledge skills already, maintains a vast external memory and it has been very useful.

[RangerJoe]

This gives me pause to think about the nature of skillsofts in SR4. Given the limitations already imposed on skillsoft usage, it makes me wonder how 'softs will fit into the attribute+skill test system. Afterall, if the 'soft is, say, manipulating my body to shoot the pistol, how does it know about my natural quickness?

[hobgoblin]

ouch, just thinking about it hurts...

[Nikoli]

I see the rating of the skill wires being separated from maximum program value. rating acts as the attribute to be used and the program rating acts as the skill.

[Edward]

[Taki]

Those wired skills are not realistic.

Just imagine some kung fu which is not embodied ?
When you normally learn to block, for example, you have to associate
- one movement (brain signal)
- one rhythm (brain signal)
- speed and strength (muscle can be very specialized, doing the same movement a lot of time make the muscle a lot much more efficient in speed and strength for that particular movement
- hardness of your limb in contact

Movement and rhythm need to be used according to your body shape, muscles and toughness otherwise virtual kung fu fighter will block as Bruce Lee, but not fast enough and get the punch - or will block but have the wrist broken.

Even for easier software - say driving a car, the soft need to adapt to the body, but the muscle will not respond as for a well trained guy.

So TMO softskills should be hardly efficient - easy to create for low level, but not possible to overcome in anyway the real training.

Softskills could easily be one of the best way to learn a skill.

[hobgoblin]

cyberpunk 2020 had a good explanation for all that taki. basicly for physical skills the user would have to spend time practicing with the chip, what the chip did was adapt itself to the body of the user...

[Taki]

You are saying the ship has training on the body ?
Maybe the body (and the will/mind) should train with the ship as well, otherwise the whole combat decision will be made by the software, and the poor skillwired samy will be completely guided with for only choice to stay in the combatsoft solution or switch it off ??

[Taki]

By the way ... I don't see why you should download the soft ???
Can't it be executed on a distant server ? Has the technologie of distributed application been lost in the early 21th century ?

[hobgoblin]

a skillsoft is after all a collection of programmed reactions. ie, for martial arts its a set of kata's and triggers for when best to use them. for mechanics it may be a set of symptoms and a list of likely faults and so on.

just think about it, when your thought something like say first aid, your being drilled in a set of steps that should be taken in a set order. all the chip does is take the steps and remove the need for training. this is why you could not access combat pool while chiping a combat skill. combat pool is a representation for the ability to come up with addhoc solutions and adapt to the changing conditions of combat. a skillsoft cant do that.

[Tal]

What about the skillwires? Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that they have a built-in set of statistics on how the user's body functions; range of motion, physical strength, etc. Whic coul also be an explanation of why lower rated skillwires perform worse: they don't read the body as well, and cause te user to over/under-compensate on actions, for example.

As for running a 'soft over the Matrix as opposed to locally, there's the question of bandwidth and server response time to take into account with that. No matter how fast these systems get, you'd still be sending uge masses of data across the network, wit a very real possibiliyt of the transmisions being corrupted, misdirected, or een stopped entirely by those mischievous hackers.

[Taki]

Ok for the time lag of signal ...

Now imagine a realistic assistance software for military driver/trooper.

Surely you need to download all the basics stuff, now if you want to have any chance against a normal pilot/trooper, you will need to enrich the practical information given by the software, let say for a jet pilot a connection between your skillsoft and the geographical map given by the real time satellite vision (including atmospheric situation).
In that case the sat vision is input for the jet-driving soft, the pilot won't need to now the wind speed as the soft will correct the trajectory for him.

Same with troopers that invest a city (no it isn't science fiction).
Do you now that nowadays, some RPG games on a PC can preload the environment so the player don't see any "Downloading, please wait" ?

Imagine an online skillsoft that analyse your opponent combat style, send it to a server for it to charge the data on same technics, to configure the best adapted reaction ?

Imagine the HUGE amount of data induced in electronic skills. Do you really think the soft will provide information on all the existing system, without need to use the matrix to get manufacturer information ?

If you forget the environemment brain capacity, I see why you don't think skillsoft doesn't need to realtime download data.

[Tal]

I wasn't saying that skillsofts shouldn't be unable to access more data to improve service, I was saying that skillsofts as a purely online medium would be inefficient, at best.

The reality assistance software sounds more like a tac-comp than skillsofts, to my mind.

[Edward]

The skill wires system will have the information on muscle strength and reaction speed, allowing the program to do the best that the body can manage, explaining again why your physical stats will still matter in SR4.

Skill wires exist in the world, I don’t think they will be taken out and if they are not this delivery system will be the logical extension.

Having the skill soft run on a distributed server would be a good idea on the surface, the question is wether or not the bandwidth is available, I think it should be as sim sense wet record is only 1MP/second (baseline recording, the skill soft shouldn’t need an emotion track) and transfer rates of 100MP/3sec is considered quite slow in SR3 and this would solve the piracy issue entirely. This removes the time delay to access a new skill entirely and the requirement to have headwear memory to store the skill soft is gone, presumably the prise of the service would be higher (now providing processing as well as program code) and the user would be more susceptible to jamming (if you had downloaded id it before jamming started you would still have it.

Edward

[Eldritch]

Then you could have SkillSoft rental on line!

"Yeah, BlockBuster? I need Kung Fu. Right now please!"

14.95 per month gets you all the skill softs you need - but you can't have more than 3 at a time.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I thought it was interesting in older books (I think it was specifically Shadowtech), or maybe I'm just making it up, some IC posts would suggest or say outright that Skillwires didn't really take account of the actual user's (hence, CP was unavailable and the creation of the Chipjack Expert Driver), well let's just say attributes or their skills or coordination, so if you have Skillwires 6 and loaded a Rating 6 Kung-Fu Activesoft, the Skillwires were going to act regardless of whether you hyperextended something when trying to take out three people with a flying somersault roundhouse kick.