I remember this discussion.

you got me on the ammo, but the wire strippers and cutters listed there are for things like stereo wire etc, the ones in shadowrun are listed as heavy duty ones you might use for B&E at least I would guess.

Again, there's going to some differences, but by and large the equivilent exchange for anything in SR to the real world will be roughly one for one.

You are correct in that it is intended to be a more or less straight current USD:nuyen exchange. One SR3 book says pretty much exactly that (I think it's in one of the forewards). It is, from that, objectively verifiable that the writers did not know shit. Where people diverge here is on whether to change the really crazy shit or try and roll with it as canon. But, for the vast majority of equipment, the prices, along with the weights (and many other things, as written, are horrendously divorced from reality.

How can you be talking about inflation when you're actually talking about two different currencies?


If you ask me I think the exchange rate between SR nuyen and present day dollar would be about 2:1. Claiming they're the same seems to be a very false statement. But I guess you shouldn't listen to me, as I'm doing two conversions of currency before being able to compair the costs—as well as running on the assumption that items have the same value in Sweden and US.

Take that up with Mulvihill and friends, then.

It doesn't matter. If you're going with 1:1 like Liper, you propably have a very pessimistic idea of what things cost in real life. But if it works, that's just fine. Most people, in my experience, have a slightly optimistic idea of what things costs, and should therefor propably go for at least 150% of what they perceive to be the cost in present day dollar.

We really don't have anything to do with how anyone else arrives to the cost of a beach-towel or a gram of marijuana (or whatever) in their game.

Can we go back to talking about boobies and single moms? I liked that discussion more than price wars.

What I want to know is what the intake plugs on the thing are for. *twitch*

Can I just drop in a quick word before the Price Wars are declared over? Thanks.

Liper: You're looking at Weatherby belted magnum deforming hunting ammunition. This would be the equivalent of buying Hollow Point ammunition for your Sniper Rifle. The example prices given by the people who know what they're talking about represent what would be Standard ammunition for Light, Heavy and Machine Pistols, SMGs, ARs, Sporting Rifles, LMGs and MMGs. What you want to base the cost of ammunition on in your game is up to you, of course, but what's realistic and logical has been covered quite well by the other posters.

like I said, I just went to wal-mart.com and looked up thier sporting goods, then rifles, then ammo, that's all that was listed heh. I selected one particular type since they were all roughly the same price.

I'll have to look closer cause I figured the ammo section would have all thier ammo. I know for a fact they sell shotgun shells and pistol ammunition heh.

But I digress, like the one guy said, it has been pretty much said somewhere, or at least implied in sr3 that it's meant to equate to roughly what things cost now 1:1.

Knowing what most RPG characters are like, we should be looking to Kill Bill Vol. 2 or Lone Wolf and Cub for inspiration.

How did this become a thread about inflation between now and 2060, anyway?

Keep in mind also, nipple stimulation could be artificially induced through the DNI interface. It really might be more space efficient to do away with the nipples altogether and simple have the device send constant, low level signals analagous to nipple stimulation. When nipples are being used for their secondary purpose, the partner could simply turn up the level of intensity (perhaps through a remote control?) and can then use his or her hands for other matters.

You could just remove the nipples entirely and replace them with taps.

~J

Frankly, from the practicality standpoint, it would probably be easier to just use a standard breast pump than go through the expense and essence cost of a cybernetic model.

i'm not sure if anyone has asked this or not, i didn't read thru the whole thing but...

Why would a new mother want a cyber breast pump? Why would one even be made?

It makes no sense. After 2 to 3 years, or more depending on the person, the mom is going to ween the baby off breast milk. Now you have a useless peice of equipment in your body, in order to have it removed would require surgery.

Now i don't know about you, but the less i have to go under the knife the better.

And lets not forget that when you are with the baby you won't need a pump. That's the baby's job...

It would make more sense for a mother who is forced to run the shadows to simply give her child formula and let her milk glands "dry up". Unless she's a hardcore breast feeding advocate.

"Excuse me, can you please stop shooting at us for a minute? I need to pump some milk, my breast are full and in lots of pain. Thank you..."

Well, my thoughts would be an extention of the late 90's early 2000's supermom phenomonon - wageslaves who work ten hours a day seven days a week, cooks, clean, does the dishes, changes the diapers, takes th ekids to all the appointments, soccer games, and etcetera, and juggles it all by getting 20 different doctors to perscribe her kids ritalin and the popping the cocain-like stimulants herself five or ten at a time untill she makes her children into ghoul feed one day and blames it on an ork.

(And interesting sidenote, babies who are born addicted to cocain seem to have superior motor skills and learn to walk and talk faster than babies who aren't born addicted to stimulants, so crack may become a prenatal vitamin the the future.)

It isn't quite as dystopian as babies dying from bad formula, but it is dystopian enough for the highranking professional mothers. The cyberbreast pump would allow these corporate leaders to give their babies the best posible food whould taking a single second away from their soulcrushing workdays. Because women who don't give their babies breastmilk are evil according to conventional 90's wisdom .

DNI control means that you can start pumping as a free action and continue to pump with an action, thus making the firefight scenaro you laid out far simpler. There is no need to stop shooting at all.

Formula can be left to people in the barrens who don't have clean water to mix the dry formula, thus compounding the problem significantly.

I must include this link simply for the picture.

you know the real answer to this is?

Kidnap a prego and user her milk until your kid is grown.

Now that *really* sounds like hentai anime of some kind. I'll bet it's poorly drawn but costs $60 for one VHS.

I'm afraid that this is the point where the topic begins to degrade towards SURGEd cowgirls and the underground milk industry.

as for the cyber milker, I see no reason to have one to be honest. a mechanical pump would likely result in the same process and be infinatly cheaper and essence friendly

Well, there is still the issue of dermal sheathing and nipples. Dermal sheathing replaces your skin. The nekkid lady with full-body dermal sheathing in Cybertechnology's artwork doesn't have any nipples. The logical conclusion is that dermal sheathing does remove the nipples. Thus, a cyberreplacement would be necessary for runners who have dermal sheathing yet want to breastfeed or simply enjoy their nipples recreationally.

While the cyberpump is probably impractical, there seems to be some use for it in one form or another.

The way she's standing its impossible to tell. That area is hidden by the shadows of the thighs. If she had Ruthenium sheathing it does pose a question.

"Hey look", says the security guard to his friend, "a floating vagina."

I figured in the future, that there would be genetic clone milk machines, so the exec's wives that either have trouble or are too busy to nurse can still make sure their baby gets the antibodies and nutrition it needs. Some execs would probably just buy the iron fortified breast milk for their soycaf.

I could see a milk factory comprised of clones.

This thread begs for Prescott art.

Hmm, well, if you think about it, the most sensible thing to do from a protection standpoint with dermal plating and ruthenium would be to amputate the penis or breasts, wall up the vagina, and so forth, right?

I mean, it kind of makes you wonder why Anna Navarre from Deus Ex apparently has breasts. If her torso is robotic, why even include them?

My guess is that maybe it has something to do with the psychological soundness of cybered people. Perhaps the genitals are left intact, as a weak spot in the dermal armor, because the soldier/agent not going insane and becoming erratic are more important than armor in that one spot.

Thoughts?

Also familiarity and identity. Certainly some people can manage to be identified as female despite having nothing noticeable in the way of breasts, but it helps.

~J

That, and even cybermonsters might want to have kids some day.

Not to moot the conversation or anything, but a single mother probably wouldn't have dermal sheathing or any discernable cyberware, if only because such a thing would make it pretty obvious she was doing something shady. Plus, what child wants to hug their mother and feel a slab of rigid granite?

I can almost guarantee that a mother would just use a lined duster or something, maybe something a little weightier. But not combat-specific cyberware.

Dermal sheathing isn't very obvious unless you have the ruth flashing different colors or you flash your safe for broadcast TV boobies at someone. Even then, it is less obvious than dermal plating.

However, you are ignoring the possibility that the mother may be a combat monster by profession, possibly even before becoming pregnant. I'm sure that Beatrix Kiddo would have had some heavy duty cyber if she wasn't already an Adept with a prodigious magic rating. I can't even count all of the of movies books, and, ect. that deal with a female combat monster earning a hunted flaw because her maternal instincts kicked in at an inopportune moment. It is cliche at this point.

For a more dystopian and realistic scenario, consider a female teenage ganger who is so desperate for real love and affection that she intentionally gets pregnant because, like most teenagers, she has babies confused with puppies. This is a scenario that happens far too often in reality, with girls who feel alienated and unloved having babies because they feel that children will give them the love that they crave.

Now, the baby comes and the ganger suddenly comes to the conclusion that she does not have the resources necessary to take care of a baby. None of her gangmates want to take care of a baby and the potential fathers are staying as far away as possible. She ran away from the only family she had because of brutal physical abuse and has no desire to subject her child to that. Because she is SINless the closest she can come to putting the baby up for adoption is give it to a bunraku parlor that caters to nepiophiles.

When she learns that the triad her gang is affiliated with is sending someone down to pick up drug money that the gang owes she sees her chance. She kills the triad's courier and takes the money for herself, vanishing into the night with her baby. But, the money isn't enough. It can get her a fake SIN and a new start but it won't maintain a lifestyle for long and it won't keep the triad from finding her.
She has only two useful skills, shooting people and fragging. Her skill at fragging leaves her in grave danger of rule-of-oneing the act but she can shoot straight so she looks for work shooting people.

She gets in a little over her head doing wetwork for a fixer with ties to various international criminal orgninzations. As her skill improves, he has her home made dermal plating (just ceramic plates taken from an armored jacked and crudely stuffed under the skin) replaced with alpha grade sheathing, gets her a smartlink, and provides her with many other augmentations. With each improvement, she is sent on more complex and more dangerous missions, of course.

Her doesn't pay her nearly as much as she earns but he does subsidize her lifestyle and treat her well. She knows that she can't run from him. He has far more connections and far more power than the triad she double crossed and she knows he wouldn't hesitate to kill her child. She's killed children for him herself. Permenatly retiring is out of the question but she has more than enough to live a comfortable life with her child.

Heh actually I could see a use for this in the Tamanous baby-factories...

Yes, actually. Maybe a bigger problem than ever before.

Given the world of SR I have to say that there would certainly be a fare number of people that entered the shadows and decided they didn’t care about the loss of there sexual identity.

And as logic flows with time there would be a large portion of those that regretted it after the fact.

Most would want to keep there external sexual characteristics, functional if possible but still present if not functional. And responsible medical practitioners would encourage this so default cyber wear keeps as much as possible intact, and dermal plating comes with a free cup

Edward