How much do they cost for spurs and katana, and what do they give?

Dikote hasn't been converted yet.... (I wouldn't mind if they just left it out though, too crazy).

And I am lost on your monofilament question.

Is dikote REALLY good? And I heard that you could have a monofilament edge for a katana.

If they do add it, i'd hope for more AP than power, and remove any difference between dikoted edged weapons and piercing.

What did it do in SR3?

In SR3, dikote added +1 power and +1 DL to edged weapons. In other words, a dikoted katana would do (STR+3)S and a pair of dikoted spurs would cause (STR*2 +1)S base damage.

Wow... dikote is AWESOME!!! Would it also add armor piercing?

I'm betting dikote will add to AP and DV by a small amount, or just AP value.

I'd put my money on just AP, considering today's diamond tipped drilling & cutting tools. They do not add to the actual power of the bit or blade, but do have a higher hardness factor allowing them to cut more efficiently.

I agree. Sharpness does inflict a little more damage due to being able to penetrate/cut deeper, but the real benefit is is getting through that pesky armor. Since SR4 has separate stats for damage and penetration, I feel that they can convert dikote more realistically than ever before.
Monofilament's big thing is that monowire and monowhips have AP -4. Any added damage they do is just a bonus because at least they CAN damage heavilly armored targets.

So monofilament edge would be about -3?

-1 if you go based off of the sword =p

Are you talking about the monosword? Cause it wasn't that cool, actually. It had the same damage code as katana, and debates raged on about wether you could dikote it at all. SR3 assumed that katanas were really long compared to swords (or less concealable, anyway), and SR4 seems to run that way too given the concealability table. Also, the core SR3 book called a katana a two-handed weapon, so i guess the trade off is that the monosword was one handed and more concealable but had the same damage code as the katana. We can assume the a monosword in SR4 would have the same stats as an SR4 katana, and there was no mono-katana.

No, if you want the damage, skip the monosword and wait until dikoting rules come out, though i'd suggest either an extra -2 onto the existing weapon or maybe 1 DV and -2 AP if you're feeling generous. i'd kinda hate to see it get crazier than that. And i don't even want to think about dikoted vibro mono-katanas.

As to wether a katana should be more or less powerful/concealable than an entry as generic as "sword", and debates about single/two-handed swords, i'll save those for another time.

it says in the book the sword is 1handed and the katana is 2handed...

so yeah it's better then the katana.

My biggest beef with dikote is it did everything. Added damage to any weapon (even blunt weapons, somehow magically) and if sprayed on armor (that could handle it ) you got more armor to.

The stuff was pure gold.

Then of course you add that to a guy with a vibro-sword and some light security armor, let the team rigger put some on his car and you've got a shadowrun team walking through town like godzilla....

I think it was like 1k to get a katana done. and that was the min cost.

What's with the jokes about sex with ally spirits and dikote?

I sware your honor my ally spirit was perfectly willing I SWARE!

What the hell is the connection?

It's all got to do with the AVS-materialization.

AVS-Materialization?

A spirit using its Materialization power to take the physical form of an Ares Viper Slivergun, so that it can be Dikoted™ and had sex with. Duh.

So they're basically like how "Soylent Green Is People" is a reference that refers more to how the secret of soylent green was released by bad marketing than to the actual movie?

hmm, yep, kinda...

I figured that dikote had become standard SOTA by 2070, and if someones sword had it, then someones plates in their armored vest w/ plates had it, etc etc. What I want to know is what happened to my good friend Move-By-Wire! (just joking; but it was hilarious... essense cost = 7 !!!)

just wait for the tech book, i have a feel it will return.

hmm, put enough bioware in there and the cost of the MBW will "only" be 3.5.

but then you would need a bioware total that goes above 7 (or more if you have aditional cyberware)

hmm, given that now initative and number of passes isnt joined at the hip, i would expect MBW to have a very insane number of passes

as for dikote being standard. maybe, maybe not. most likely only on high end variants of the normal gear, but thats just my take on the whole deal...

Thanks for ruining a movie I've been wanting to see for a while...

They gotta be pulling our leg, Angel. I mean, people aren't green! It just doesn't track.

oh hang on, maybe i have it confused with the number of dice you can roll on initiative when all mods are calculated. still, if all dice are sixes, how many passes can you possible be able to generate?

Give me Lofwyr with a Force 72 Increase Reaction spell...

You can definitely get past 5 IPs without any crazy shit. 5 might be the max number of init dice without drugs, etc., but I'm not too sure about that either.

Why Lofwyr? Aren't Ghostwalker and Hestaby bigger and more experienced?

Well, Ghostwalker is larger and more experienced than Lofwyr. But he's also a corpse humping crazy man even by dragon standards. Hestaby is not more powerful than Lofwyr, she's more able to understand human nature and thus has beaten him several times in this world where humanity has all the cards. But those have all been "upsets". The other dragons were surprised.

-Frank

I read about a contest among the dragons in Dragons of the Sixth World, and Hestaby beat out Lofwyr and Ghostwalker, which was supposed to be an upset. What was the nature of the contest, and what was it over? It was never really gotten to in depth.

To make a long story (Survival of the Fittest) short, Dunkelzahn used to be the big man of the dragon world, which is why he was able to get away with so much crap that would have gotten any other great dragon killed. After his "death" there was a big contest amongst the great dragons to reapportion the dragon accolades. The smart money was on Ghostwalker (Big D's crazy brother) or Lofwyr (the more stable and effective of the Alamaise brothers). But Hestaby won and became the dragon head honcho.

It turns out that Dunkelzahn had previously rigged the contest so that Hestaby would win after his death. Possibly because he thought she would do things more like he would have (and indeed, she does Wyrmtalk now).

-Frank