Full Version: Technos away from the Matrix
Why even have a comlink? They could just have something with a plug on one end and a radio transciever on the other.
hmm, like a rfid?
| QUOTE (Valentinew) |
| I don't see why they'd need a datajack. Maybe I'm being thick, but why couldn't they plug their commlink into the wired system & use that as an entry? |
Because I'm still not used to thinking in SR4 terms when it comes to matrix oriented stuff?
Correct me if I'm wrong but TMs don't need a commlink or trodes, they are a commlink and trodes all in one. The only time they would need extra equipment to access the matrix is when it is totally wired connection (then you can get away with a datajack).
You're right, which is what everyone is saying.
I just got confused because people are saying plug a line into your commlink. Where are they going to plug it into? 
Into the wired system they're trying to hack. Then they'll use the commlink's wireless access to bridge to the wired system.
TM talks to TM's commlink via wireless, TM's commlink is physically plugged into the system.
Yes, another way to do this is a datajack. That involves cyber, however.
Trodes would work too, if you don't mind carrying a tube of paste around in your pack and smearing it on your head every once in a while. Personally, I think washing that crap outta your hair would get old.
Yes, another way to do this is a datajack. That involves cyber, however.
Trodes would work too, if you don't mind carrying a tube of paste around in your pack and smearing it on your head every once in a while. Personally, I think washing that crap outta your hair would get old.
| QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Apr 28 2006, 01:29 PM) |
| Trodes would work too, if you don't mind carrying a tube of paste around in your pack and smearing it on your head every once in a while. Personally, I think washing that crap outta your hair would get old. |
In theory, you could use the cosmedic replacement rules to make your hair a trodenet - and even have it look like normal hair (or not normal hair). After all, one can have fiberoptic mutli-colored hair installed. Or what about a nanotattoo trodenet? [e] I'm not sure about the hairnet (ha!), but I'd think you could turn it off - who'd want the hair glowing all the time? However, I know nanotattoos could be switched off; you'd just have an off pattern. Best off all, make them DNI and skinlink - then you can shut it off with a thought and use the commlink to turn it back on.
Hair is much more runner friendly in SR4. You can control its color, its style (supersaiyan!) and it can also be a masked trodenet. Plus fake hair with nanoenchancements are so prevalent in the 2070 culture, that it won't draw attention.
OK thanks, that's what I thought, that a technomancer would have to have a datajack to connect to non wireless network. so for being able to deal with all types of networks you would have lower your resonance?
| QUOTE (Bryce963) |
| OK thanks, that's what I thought, that a technomancer would have to have a datajack to connect to non wireless network. so for being able to deal with all types of networks you would have lower your resonance? |
No, a technomancer does NOT need a datajack, because one can physically attach a wireless device to a wired system, thus opening up the system - or just use a trodenet if RF silence is important. Any port that accepts a datajack will allow a person to attach a commlink or similar.
From the descritption of complex forms, it looks like you would have to use normal programs to use a commlink, and it seems that you cant use complex forms through the commlink, so you would have to have the programs on the commlink and and the complex forms as well as good commlink in addition to all your technomancer abilites, so it would seem that the only reason to be a technomancer then would be to get sprites, which are just better agents, if you would have to carry around a hacking commlink anyway, I mean im sorry if there is something im missing but im new to this
Why couldn't they use the complex form once they're on the host? There is no real difference between a wired host and a wireless one besides an access point. If it comes down to it, then the technomancer just has to install a wifi connection on the wired host. The only reason to consider the commlink as limiting would be bandwidth, IMO - and that's more of a cheese to make hackers better at something. But with the cost of Res, it's not needed.
Keep in mind that the way techomancers see the Matrix is completely different from how Joe the Hacker sees it. To a technomancer, the Matrix is litterally another world, one which they exist in. To a hacker, it may seem like a home, but it can never reach the level of a technomancer. Hmm, hah, then I guess it's ironic that technomancers are called "Otaku" (a form of saying 'house' in Japanese - though there are conditions, but we'll just leave it as meaning house)
I point this out because it would simply be bizzare for a technomancer to use a commlink while developing their forms. It would be kind of like looking through a window and telling someone inside to do stuff for you vs just going inside. Especially when it's your home that you are ordering someone to do stuff for you in.
Now keep two things in mind with this statement: 1) It is not impossible, thus making the concept unique, 2) When otaku began fading, other otaku would begin teaching them the skills that they would need in order to use an ordinary deck system, so maybe your character is preparing for the future?
As it says in the book, essentially you have to buy their skills separatly:
I point this out because it would simply be bizzare for a technomancer to use a commlink while developing their forms. It would be kind of like looking through a window and telling someone inside to do stuff for you vs just going inside. Especially when it's your home that you are ordering someone to do stuff for you in.
Now keep two things in mind with this statement: 1) It is not impossible, thus making the concept unique, 2) When otaku began fading, other otaku would begin teaching them the skills that they would need in order to use an ordinary deck system, so maybe your character is preparing for the future?
As it says in the book, essentially you have to buy their skills separatly:
| QUOTE |
| technomancers use the same skills (. . .) the way technomancers use these skills, however, is vastly different (. . .) they don't learn to use electronics so much as they learn to make devices do what they want (. . .) technomancers may learn the normal versions of these skills separately (or use normal skillsofts) (Page 233 SR4) |
Sorry for the huge paraphrasing.
Also, Bryce963, technomancers can use complex forms through a commlink just as how they can use complex forms while jumping nodes. A node is just an easy way of saying "Matrix representation of a physical data-storage/transfer point"
| QUOTE |
| It just seems a little implausible that such a hacker, who presumably spends much of his time in the Matrix, hasn't come into contact with a single TM in the five to six years since the Crash |
From what I've read, while otaku were rare, they at least used to form into tribes with one another, so obviously finding each other wasn't all that difficult. Also, keep in mind that not only did the second crash create more otaku, it also reawakened the connection that many of those who were faded lost, so in a way there are more.
One final note on all the critisizm against Emo and RP (actually I think it may have just been one person on second glance) within the context of this thread, I'd like to point out that making a character 'work' on paper can be just as important as making the character 'work' in character. I see that many times people will gimp their character out (like playing a bind/deaf mage in Dungeons and Dragons or a level 1 commoner) and take a 'hollier than thou' attitude towards anyone who would dare suggest they play something more viable.
To this I say: try listening to their advice and consider it before you bash it as 'powergaming trash.' If it doesn't fit your character concept, that doesn't make their advice wrong. After all, they were just trying to help.
I know a powergamer, and while his characters are vastly superior to those around him, because he puts so much work into building the character he in turn puts just as much work into making the character a real person. Being a powergamer and being a roleplayer are not mutually exclusive.
((This is like my 5th edit
))In terms of the origional question, the best example given would be like how a mage would feel if they were suddenly cut off from magic (though sometimes if that happens it can have more dire consequences). I would think it would be more dissorienting than anything else, I'm not sure why it would impose penalties however, though I can see it from a certain perspective.
Becoming a technomancer alters the very structure of your brain and how it works, so if you lose the stimulation that the input your recieve from the Matrix provides, it can have all sorts of effects depending on interpretation.
Take ADD for example, the reason for the short attention span is due to lack of stimulation in the brain. I would think that technomancers isolated from the Matrix for even a single day would start suffering from depression and a shorter attention span. They would be more prone to daydreaming because the things that used to occupy their mind would turn to other tasks.
There are many other responces that the brain can exibit when a stimulis is taken away, especially depending on the stimulus. Not only that, but as mentioned before, much of this stimulus is happening at sub-consious levels, so who knows what that would do to a person's psyche.
As Monnock pointed out.. (I love your spiel btw, thumbs up) I think that some people mistake the term Powergamer with Munchkin or twink. - which are more more appropriate terms if you're talking about people who abuse rules.
Munchkin: Min/Max player who needs to have the best of the best and gets the most bang of the rules - even if it means exagerating/bending the rules a little. The munchkin typically has the most gear, the most ware or the most magic you can possibly put in the metahuman body. The munchkin is more of a roll-player than a role-player typically favoring combat in which they can show themselves off as a one-man army.
Twink: Someone who purposefully bends rules to suit their own means. Finding every loophole possible to make more out of their character than is/should be possible; pointing at holes and flaws in the rules to justify their means. The twink is most likely to use Out of Character knowledge to forward their characters means, whether it's plausible the character would know such information or not. One-upmanship is not uncommon as is the need to steal the show and be the pivitol point of the campaign whether warranted or not.
Powergamer: Role-player who uses the rules system to make the most realistic kick-ass character within the rules possible while trying not to steal the limelight from the rest of the party. Powergamers typically like to be essential in any campaign gathering whatever gear/resources/contacts necessary to get the job done while still maintaining a sense of teamwork.
As a side note: As the Technomancer has no form of physical memory, their only real use for a commlink is as an offline storage device, or a means as a wired hub to access non-wireless devices. A technomancer should find programs odd and clunky or at least crude compared to the abilities they possess. (part of the reason why they feel they are superior to most hackers)
One technomancer I play does have a datajack instead of a commlink, but that's cause she used to be Otaku, her history made it a requirement to adhere to how Otaku accessed the Matrix before the Crash. Yes it means that I'm down to a max of 5 Resonance, but for role-play purposes it fits well.
Munchkin: Min/Max player who needs to have the best of the best and gets the most bang of the rules - even if it means exagerating/bending the rules a little. The munchkin typically has the most gear, the most ware or the most magic you can possibly put in the metahuman body. The munchkin is more of a roll-player than a role-player typically favoring combat in which they can show themselves off as a one-man army.
Twink: Someone who purposefully bends rules to suit their own means. Finding every loophole possible to make more out of their character than is/should be possible; pointing at holes and flaws in the rules to justify their means. The twink is most likely to use Out of Character knowledge to forward their characters means, whether it's plausible the character would know such information or not. One-upmanship is not uncommon as is the need to steal the show and be the pivitol point of the campaign whether warranted or not.
Powergamer: Role-player who uses the rules system to make the most realistic kick-ass character within the rules possible while trying not to steal the limelight from the rest of the party. Powergamers typically like to be essential in any campaign gathering whatever gear/resources/contacts necessary to get the job done while still maintaining a sense of teamwork.
As a side note: As the Technomancer has no form of physical memory, their only real use for a commlink is as an offline storage device, or a means as a wired hub to access non-wireless devices. A technomancer should find programs odd and clunky or at least crude compared to the abilities they possess. (part of the reason why they feel they are superior to most hackers)
One technomancer I play does have a datajack instead of a commlink, but that's cause she used to be Otaku, her history made it a requirement to adhere to how Otaku accessed the Matrix before the Crash. Yes it means that I'm down to a max of 5 Resonance, but for role-play purposes it fits well.
Ok, sorry, but I'm just trying to get this straight in my head, so a TM would have to have the commlink to get into a wired network, and can then use thier complex forms after they hack into it through the commlink but would have to use the normal programs and skills to get in in the first place, or they could just get a datajack, which would be simpler but would limit resonance, but for hacking into a wired network they would be limted by having to have the normal skills and not useing thier boosted uberVR, so 6 of one half dozen of the other, either a -1 dice for everything, or several less for hacking into a very few, but probably very important networks, as well as spending the points for getting the seperate skills
Frankly, I wouldn't care what programs are on the commlink, cause all I'm using it for is to connect the wired network to a wireless device I can tap into.. Basically I'm using the commlink to create a node to access AR or VR much as I would any other wireless node. I'm not so much using the commlink as a hacker would with programs and such. To me the commlink is just a bridge for me to cross from wireless into the wired network.
I would say the only thing that would truely be limmiting by using the commlink is that you are bottlenecking yourself by going through the Signal/Response ratio of your makeshift node, so if you have a drekky commlink, hacking's not going to be to great.
As my Technomancer with a Datajack, I would just direct connect the datajack to the fibre port and go full VR into the host system. Using my active persona's stats as I would normally in any foreign host.
I would say the only thing that would truely be limmiting by using the commlink is that you are bottlenecking yourself by going through the Signal/Response ratio of your makeshift node, so if you have a drekky commlink, hacking's not going to be to great.
As my Technomancer with a Datajack, I would just direct connect the datajack to the fibre port and go full VR into the host system. Using my active persona's stats as I would normally in any foreign host.
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