Can they program duplicable code using their Resonance skills? Most of their skills seem to be beyond the scope of normal hacking and programming; their complex forms are really dendritic branches, and sprites are spirits that are completely untouchable by hackers and other pieces of code. Do they have a place in the corporate world outside of system security?

But their technomancy has no place outside of security and rigging?

Technomancy is sort of a third world: just as magic interacts with the material world through nature (considering it dislikes technology as much as it seems to suggest) Technomancy is the opposite tier to it. A Technomancer could (if I'm recalling the rules right) do dozens of things faster (or at least a lot more) than a regular once-decker can. They can't sneak off with data on their person (internally speaking) unless they have no qualms of sticking cyberware in themselves, so they're 'safer' than some employees when it comes to securing them as liabilities. They can pretty much always sense where there is technology without actually showing up to it, etc, etc.

Technomancers don't do code the same way either; anything a technomancer makes is probably going to be a little more complicated. It's impossible to hack the technomancer himself, but if he makes a program, another person could, in theory, study it and remake it. They probably couldn't copy it unless they were a fellow mancer.

...something like that. it's really just another option. In a side theory, you could also have a couple sprites write codes for you....I think. How many other techofreaks do you know that can do that? Agents? Pfft! You got to program those first, and who's to say another program can reliably make a program?

At least the Oracle knew how to bake.

or am I not understanding? lol

So they can code with the help of their resonance?

So that's always linked to Logic even if they do it using Technomancy rather than a datajack? What's the point of relearning those skills if they use the same basic stat?

As the book says, a Technomancer's training and understanding of a given computer-related skill is fundamentally different than a normal person's. They can acheive the same basic end result, but the process is completely different and non-transferrable. So knowing how to Resonance up a complex form that functions like an Edit program doesn't equal being able to write an actual Edit program in HoloLISP or whatever. It's all well and good that Joe Techno can do the former, but that Edit form is basically useless to anyone but Joe Techno - if he wants to make something that normal people can use, he's gonna have to learn how to do it the "hard way." And because the approaches are inherently incompatible, his Resonance on its own won't do him a bit of good at the project.

When he cracks and codes using the great comlink in his head, does he use Logic or Resonance?

I think any program made by a technomancer is useable by anyone - you just can't edit it unless you're also a Technomancer. That'd be like saying it's a different style system althogether - I don't want to get into compatibility issues between Technomancer and some wired nuts mainframe.

remember, the program is already made and functions. you tell it to do something, and it does it. ANyone that has a rating 6 program and a system that has a rating of 6 will get all 6 dice in use - they just can't expect to ever tweak that program to a 7 if they upgrade.

oh, and he uses whatever a normal person would use to do those things. Resonance for a technomancer is focused more on emulating the commlink stats and I believe with sprites.

Can sprites be attacked by hacker programs and IC? I think they're completely beyond the understanding of traditional programing and more like spirits around the circuitry than actual data in the circuitry itself, but I may be wrong. If they're invincible to normal data attacks, they're so imbalanced.

well, then, it's a good thing they're not.

Oh, they're not. So hackers can break into registered sprites guarding data files?

well, they can attack them, hide from them, maybe even spoof them (though i'm not 100% positive on that last one). i'm not sure what you mean by "break into".

I think the question of how to handle sprites is very slippery. They are something other, but that otherness isn't described in much quantifiable detail. For example, let us say we've got a plain vanilla commlink. Let's take a snapshot of the commlink's entire electronic state at the time. An image if you will.

Now let's say we turn it on and have a technomancer move his sprite onto that commlink. Now let's shut the wireless off. We have one sprite inside the commlink. Now let us take another snapshot of the entire electronic state of the commlink. So, now we have two images. One image is of the original vanilla commlink. One image is of a commlink with a specific instance of a sprite that owes X many services to technomancer Y. Why can't we isolate the differences between those two commlink states, and use it to essentially create duplicates of the same sprite? Just reactivate the wireless, and call out your sprite. Turn the wireless off, reload the 2nd saved image with the sprite, and then you've got another buddy in your pocket ready to go.

In 3rd edition I handled this kind of Matrix stuff by reminding myself that the only way to reconcile SR computers with RL one was to take a power screwdriver, and aim for the frontal lobes. Now, in 4th edition this is, ironically, more difficult because the 4th ed computers now actually make some kind of realistic sense. I can't just chalk it up to an irregularly high concentration of handwavium in the atmosphere.

So if you have an enterprising technomancer for a player, I'd recommend the following rationale for denying this tactic with resorting to pure game balance. There is something special about Sprites. There is something about them that is not digital. Something about them exists outside the memory storage, and electronic communication mediums used by that commlink.

Now, we can't necessarily say that this otherness exists as distributed metadata out in the rest of the Matrix, because in that case all you need to make the Sprite copying trick work is a dead zone. (Well, a deadzone could be any place that is isolated from the matrix as a whole and where you have total control of all digital memory.)

But there is another possibility. Perhaps this external metadata is stored in the technomancer that created the sprite? Well in that case we can bypass this restriction by using a sprite that is told to follow orders giving by another non-technomancer user in a deadzone. We can easily remove the technomancer from the picture if he is the source of the metadata that says, "Hey, I've used you before and you don't owe me any services."

I can't blame anyone for thinking that there is something magical about Sprites. Not at all.

you can't just destroy the sprite?

And, since you can't spoof sprites unless you are a technomancer, too...

ah. interesting.

What are the statistics for the percentage of the population that is technomancers?

Edit:Sorry, I re-posted. I have no idea how.

Well, if you go by the fact that many were just regs who were on the matrix when the crash happened, and the rest are raised in a style probably similiar to the otaku, their is no set percentage.


Also, many corps wouldn't have techno's in their ranks, unless they hid it, or were test/research/experiment subjects. Again, much like the otaku were.