Some things I've been rattling around in my head:
Most commlinks have a base phone#/web address/LTG#/whatever. If I want to call Joe the Bartender, I either connect to the address associated with his personal commlink, or maybe bar's main commlink. I would tend to think that technomancers don't have any sort of 'inherent phone number,' or anything similar. Do they need to carry around a commlink in order to receive calls?
Skinlinks are listed under 'accessories.' It's a bit unclear if you need to buy a skinlink for every device that's going to be sending information via the electrical field on your skin, or just one skinlink for your commlink. They're cheap enough that it wouldn't really be too expensive for a character needed to buy one for every smartlinked weapon he had, but it'd be more bookkeeping.
While technomancers have built-in wireless transmission, they still need a skinlink in order to use devices without fear of interception. In order to use a skinlink, a technomancer should just need to keep it on his person somewhere, right?
Full Version: Matrix musings and questions
| QUOTE |
| Most commlinks have a base phone#/web address/LTG#/whatever. If I want to call Joe the Bartender, I either connect to the address associated with his personal commlink, or maybe bar's main commlink. I would tend to think that technomancers don't have any sort of 'inherent phone number,' or anything similar. Do they need to carry around a commlink in order to receive calls? |
Bear in mind the following is my own feelings/interperatations of the rules and setting.
Well, to interact with the Matrix, a living persona needs an access ID, and if you have an access ID, then you can link it to a commcode. So, yes they can receive calls, but the call will be received as a simsense feed, as if it were being sent to a hacker in full VR mode. By the same token, given that they don't physically have a commcode, they won't be sending their actual voice and image back to the caller, but rather the living persona VR equivalents, again as if you were calling a hacker in full VR mode.
| QUOTE |
| Skinlinks are listed under 'accessories.' It's a bit unclear if you need to buy a skinlink for every device that's going to be sending information via the electrical field on your skin, or just one skinlink for your commlink. They're cheap enough that it wouldn't really be too expensive for a character needed to buy one for every smartlinked weapon he had, but it'd be more bookkeeping. |
I would have said the latter until I read the rules, which indicates you're probably correct with the former. That being said, the latter makes more sense from a "common sense" perspective
| QUOTE |
| While technomancers have built-in wireless transmission, they still need a skinlink in order to use devices without fear of interception. In order to use a skinlink, a technomancer should just need to keep it on his person somewhere, right? |
If you are reading the rules as saying the skinlink is a mod for the commlink itself, then they probably can't have a skinlink, as there is nothing to mod unless they develop some kind of customer cyberware or gear? alterantively, you could rule that they have a built in skinlink, though this isn't suggested by the rules anywhere?
If you are going with the reading that each item needs a skinlink mod, then I'd say that the technomancer doesn't need anything else
| QUOTE (Orient) |
| Most commlinks have a base phone#/web address/LTG#/whatever. If I want to call Joe the Bartender, I either connect to the address associated with his personal commlink, or maybe bar's main commlink. I would tend to think that technomancers don't have any sort of 'inherent phone number,' or anything similar. |
I imagine they'd use the complex form version of the spoof program to generate an access ID for the purposes of receiving incoming voice&text messaging.
| QUOTE |
| It's a bit unclear if you need to buy a skinlink for every device that's going to be sending information via the electrical field on your skin, or just one skinlink for your commlink. |
Since the description of skinlink uses the wording "a device" I believe that it's per-device.
| QUOTE |
| While technomancers have built-in wireless transmission, they still need a skinlink in order to use devices without fear of interception. In order to use a skinlink, a technomancer should just need to keep it on his person somewhere, right? |
Being a technomancer doesn't grant any special ability to skinlink at a distance. If you want the non-interceptablity of a skinlink connection, you have to have the skinlinked device on your person like any other mere mortal.
| QUOTE (NightRain) |
| as if it were being sent to a hacker in full VR mode. |
A technomancer has the organic equivalent of a commlink with sim module in their heads. A commlink with sim module is just as capable of generating AR Overlay as it is full VR (p.209, final paragraph under the Augmented Reality heading).
I see no reason to insist that a technomancer go full VR just to take an incomming call.
I agree - nothing prevents a technomancer from using AR.
I completely forgot about using Spoof to generate an ID. Heh.
And .. I wasn't implying that technomancers have any ability to use skinlinks beyond normal commlink users - I was just wondering about the logistics of using them, or even if they could at all.
I completely forgot about using Spoof to generate an ID. Heh.
And .. I wasn't implying that technomancers have any ability to use skinlinks beyond normal commlink users - I was just wondering about the logistics of using them, or even if they could at all.
| QUOTE (Orient @ Nov 6 2005, 11:16 PM) |
| I wasn't implying that technomancers have any ability to use skinlinks beyond normal commlink users - I was just wondering about the logistics of using them, or even if they could at all. |
As for skinlinking, it comes down to the question of wether or not their organic commlink can access the body's electrical field. I figure that since they're already generating radio waves with their brain, it'd be even easier to modify an field that's closer to home. In a game where skinlinking is an option you buy per device, they would just use the skinlinked device as normal, it's just that the data's going into their organic commlink instead of a manufactured one.
| QUOTE |
| Most technomancers will still have a Commlink, as that still contains their ID, "credstick", phone, etc. And any onboard memory for that can be used as storage space. Bull |
I'm not positive, but the way it's phrased seems to indicate (at least to me) that a technomancer can access AR, VR, & his commlink without any skinlinks or other external devices.
Am I close?
| QUOTE (Orient) |
| Most commlinks have a base phone#/web address/LTG#/whatever. If I want to call Joe the Bartender, I either connect to the address associated with his personal commlink, or maybe bar's main commlink. I would tend to think that technomancers don't have any sort of 'inherent phone number,' or anything similar. Do they need to carry around a commlink in order to receive calls? |
I seriously doubt that technos have some sort of "inherent Access #" for their brains; they just spoof one whenever they need one. They may have a particular number or two that they favor, though, and that number could be linked to a commcode or something I guess.
Of course there's also this really silly idea that there is some mythical "code that is not code" that lets Resonance-driven entities assense each other's auras-sorry, "read each other's Signatures."
| QUOTE (RunnerPaul) |
| A technomancer has the organic equivalent of a commlink with sim module in their heads. A commlink with sim module is just as capable of generating AR Overlay as it is full VR (p.209, final paragraph under the Augmented Reality heading). I see no reason to insist that a technomancer go full VR just to take an incomming call. |
I'm aware of that. I wasn't trying to say that they could only receive commlinks in full VR mode, I was just trying to say that without a physical microphone/speaker/camera setup that one can assume comes on a commlink, they have no way of sending such physical data, thus they would have to be generating the data virtually, the person on the other end would feel like they were talking to the technomancers VR persona/icon, not the body of the physical technomancer
If you're using only your commlink to make a call, I'm pretty sure that there's no trid picture. I don't think commlinks come with a camera, since you usually carry it in your pocket or implanted in your brain or your clothes... So if they were looking at a picture, it'd be your Matrix person anyway.
| QUOTE (NightRain) |
| I was just trying to say that without a physical microphone/speaker/camera setup that one can assume comes on a commlink, they have no way of sending such physical data, thus they would have to be generating the data virtually, the person on the other end would feel like they were talking to the technomancers VR persona/icon, not the body of the physical technomancer |
Oh, I agree. If they're running on just their brain, it is going to be simulated voice and persona images. However, microphones and cameras are dirt cheap.
| QUOTE (NightRain) | ||
I would have said the latter until I read the rules, which indicates you're probably correct with the former. That being said, the latter makes more sense from a "common sense" perspective |
To be honest the former would make sense to me, because skin link is not described as a standard function of devices, so they would need some kind of accessory to be able to use it, and your commlink would need some kind of accessory to be able to receive it.
A technomancer may well have one hooked up to trodes if they want to avoid using wireless (or just have a skin link accessory linked up to a wireless transmitter, but that seems kind of pointless) as well as avoiding using a commlink.
The only perspective it would make sense to have skinlink being a single accessory for everything would be from a book keeping perspective.
Sorry Ranneko, I got my formers and latters confused. I meant to say that the rules seem to support only needing it on the commlink, but common sense would suggest to me that it's needed on each device
This is the way I see it. In modern terms, the techno still needs a cellular service provider, however they invent the phone on the fly. The techno connects to the matrix with a certain ip address (again, just using modern lingo). He can change or invent that address on the fly. However, his friend across the city, just has a phone number for him. He calls that number, it hits the service provider, the provider then routes the call to the techno. The techno can open the call window, and talk, and even transfer files if he wants, all without needing any tech...but the original call still needed to hit a service provider of some kind.
dynamic dns in all its glory 
| QUOTE (Xeros) |
| The techno can open the call window, and talk, and even transfer files if he wants, all without needing any tech...but the original call still needed to hit a service provider of some kind. |
What's he transferring those files to or from without tech? The one thing technos explicitly don't have is built in memory space
Well they'd have to be able to transfer files--that's what it means to communicate using computers--they just don't have any native organic storage for the files. They can always shunt a file into any bit of 'ware or electronic gear they have.
Technos don't have any data storage, but since you can store information in your friggin' panties now I don't see a problem. Just keep their SIN(s) and associated comm numbers stashed away in nebulous Personal Memory Space.
In other words, they do need some tech, which is different than Xeros' statement that they can do it "without needing any tech".
Yeah. They don't need a commlink, but they do need something.
Ok yes, sending files was a flawed example. The file itself still needs to be in memory, but they get throw it your way, or simply talk, check email, etc... without actually needing the commlink.
Hrm. Upon a rethink, I wonder if each commlink (including a techno's brain) has a number more analogous to a MAC address rather than an IP address. So they don't get onto the Matrix by subscribing to a service that assigns a designator -- which would explain why a Street lifestyle person could have a commlink -- it's just that the free WiFi network recognizes them by their hardware and routes data accordingly.
| QUOTE (Azralon) |
| Hrm. Upon a rethink, I wonder if each commlink (including a techno's brain) has a number more analogous to a MAC address rather than an IP address. So they don't get onto the Matrix by subscribing to a service that assigns a designator -- which would explain why a Street lifestyle person could have a commlink -- it's just that the free WiFi network recognizes them by their hardware and routes data accordingly. |
I think concepts of MAC address and IP address are all rolled up into the concept of access ID, which is what you spoof when you redirect your datatrail, or you have to detect and mimic, if you want to issue orders to someone else's agents/drones.
The next higher level of identifier would be Commcode, which is like an email address / text messaging screen name / phone number.
I would think that they could store the message and contact list in the 2070 version of hotmail
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