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Aza
Did a forum search and couldnt see anything that addressed my particular questions.

Skillwires and activesofts are pretty straightforward:
QUOTE
Skillwires: Skillwires are a system of neuromuscular controllers placed alongside the body’s natural nervous system to override muscular movement. Skillwire systems allow the use of activesofts (see p. 320) with a rating up to the skillwire rating. A skillwire system can handle a number of skillsofts with a total rating equal to its own rating x 2. Changing the current selection of skillsofts takes one Simple Action.


But knowsoft explanation is a little vague.
QUOTE
Knowsoft: Knowsofts replicate Knowledge skills, actively overwriting the user’s knowledge with their own data. Knowsofts must be accessed with a direct neural link (either a sim module or datajack).


In SR3 the amount of knowsofts you could have active were limited by your headware memory.
QUOTE
Storage memory has become so large and efficient that, for the most part, gamemasters and players can assume that characters have enough storage memory on any particular device to meet their needs, so there is no need to micromanage file sizes and available memory.


So how do knowsofts work?
Do i buy the chip, stick it in my datajack and download them to my PAN, or do i have to leave it plugged into the datajack socket to use it?

If i am able to download them and not leave the chip in:-
*Can i have as many knowsofts as i want?
*Are they all active at once or can i only have 1 at a time active, switching to a different knowsoft with a simple action? (same as skillsofts)
*Is there some limit to what ratings a person can use, or if they have enough cash can anyone with a datajack get every possible knowledge skill at level 5? (handy for people like paris hilton nyahnyah.gif) Which would mean that unless you want to stay totally cyberware free, theres no point in taking any knowledge skills above your free ones at char creation.

Chances are im missing something really basic, or its covered somewhere in the manual but i havent been able to find it nyahnyah.gif

Anyone able to help me out here?
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Aza)
*Can i have as many knowsofts as i want?
*Are they all active at once

Bingo.
Grinder
That's SOTA, baby! wink.gif
Aza
The manual says a knowledge skill of 5 is equal to a masters degree...so someone like paris hilton could overnight have a masters degree on damn near every subject??

Thats scary nyahnyah.gif
Grinder
Yes, it is. But surpisingly few players ever found skillwired worth their essence and money. I don't know why, i love that piece of cyber and have it installed in most of the chars i play.
Rotbart van Dainig
You don't need Skillwires for Knowsofts - just a Datajack or a Simmodule.

On the other hand, at a cost of 5K¥, you'll run out of money pretty fast in SR4 if you want to know everything. grinbig.gif
Grinder
Oh sorry, mixed them up.
Aza
I had both skillwires and head memory for knowsofts in SR3, but i always had to decide which knowsofts i had loaded at any time, and head memory was pretty expensive both essence and cashwise.

In SR4 the only limitations are your wallet size it seems nyahnyah.gif
Rotbart van Dainig
Yeah, Skillwires 4 in SR4 is about the Jack-of-all-Trades... 5 is nice, but only for heavy multitasking.
Aza
Yeah i have skillwires3 on the sr4 char im still putting together as thats the highest avail. at char creation, but they definitely make like easier smile.gif
Gothic Rose
Wow. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but that means that you need nothing, not even any cyberware, to use them, right? Just the Sim-Module on your Commlink, correct?
Rotbart van Dainig
With trodes, indeed.
Gothic Rose
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
With trodes, indeed.

The trodes would need to always be worn to gain the benefits, though, right? You can't just download the information into your head.
Teulisch
dont forget linguasofts. being able to speak the language is priceless. especialy after going through all that trouble to incercept the signal and decrypt it wink.gif

in SR3, you could get an external memory unit, and jack in. now in SR4, you have as much memory as you need. the only limit is how many actives your skillwires can run at the same time.

whats interesting, is that skillwires are rather inexpensive now. 20k for alphaware rating 5. its the programs that are incredibly expensive. doing a run to steal a bunch of skillsofts sounds like a good idea.
Aza
QUOTE
doing a run to steal a bunch of skillsofts sounds like a good idea.


Of course that opens the door to sadistic GM's to give the players some "modified" skillsofts...i can imagine suddenly turning into remote controlled puppet after some hidden code in my skillsofts activate nyahnyah.gif this is just the sort of thing my GM would love to do to me lol
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Teulisch)
dont forget linguasofts. being able to speak the language is priceless.

Being able to speak it is priceless. Linguasofts however are five hundred nuyen per rating point. biggrin.gif
Aza
Level 5 Linguasoft nuyen.gif 2500
Datajack nuyen.gif 500
The look on that smarmy elf's face as your troll merc tells him what he thinks of "dandelion eaters" in fluent sperethiel.....priceless...
RunnerPaul
While SR4 doesn't really say much about linguasofts being less effective than actually knowing the language, I still don't know how well I'd trust a machine translation, especially in situations where slang comes into play.
Taki
You could have a level 6 Linguasoft and not be able to speak ... depending of the accent needed, because you finally speak with the 9 muscles of the tongue ...
Aza
I remember seeing a list of modifiers in SR3 (im guessing SR4 would still have them) about language skill levels, things like for common everyday words 0, for more obscure stuff -2, for very localised or specialist terms -4 etc.

A level 1 linguasoft i would expect to have most of the words loaded and basic translation (ie about as good as someone reading from a english->japanese phrasebook) whereas level 2 would have some basic extras like "chummer" and "drek", you'd expect level 5 to be such a complete reference of the language that you would understand and translate perfectly all but the most obscure words/phrases.

At least thats how i see it smile.gif
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Aza)
I remember seeing a list of modifiers in SR3 (im guessing SR4 would still have them) about language skill levels, things like for common everyday words 0, for more obscure stuff -2, for very localised or specialist terms -4 etc.

p. 129 in SR4. The chart is expressed in thresholds that range from 1 to 4.
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