So from this passage, it appears that if you don't resist the spell fully, you get no chance to stage the damage down. This is the only combat action where you get no opportunity to stage the damage down.

An example would be like this:

Fire a 5P gun and a force 5 spell
Get 3 successes on both rolls
Target gets one test to resist/dodge
Target faces 7p from both
He now can use body/armor to reduce damage from gun but not from spell

Has any one else noticed this inconsistancy? Or have a better reading of what the rules say for this? Or created a house rule?

So force 4. Max successes 8. Assume no successes on the resistance test. 8 net successes. Add net successes to the base damage of the spell, which is 4, right? 12 damage. Am I doing this wrong?

Base 4 DV + 1 DV per net hit, maximum 4 hits meaning a maximum of 4 net hits. So 8 DV maximum. 8 DV is only reached if the target had no hits on their resistance roll, each resistance roll hit reduces that maximum even if it does not negate the spell.

Absolutely.

Now, depending on how your GM interprets the "casting multiple spells simultaneously" option, you might be able to incap a single target by throwing two Force 4 Manabolts at him at the same time.

You'd still have to split your casting dice between the two spells, and the drain would go from 2 to a 3 on each spell. But, if the dice gods are very kind to the mage, you're looking at a maximum of 16P damage done in one complex action for the price of soaking 3 points of drain twice.

Bump it to Force 5 if you can for a little extra damage at no additional drain, by the way.

Of course it means your target is all the more likely to just outright resist your spells completely. If you're a beefy mage throwing, say, 12 casting dice normally, then you're looking at casting with something like 6 and 6 against the target's Willpower.

Your odds are still pretty decent of getting one net hit but not near as assured as if you had just cast the one Force 5 and relied upon net hits to stage up the damage to something respectable.

Of course, throwing two spells at once also means you have two chances to use Edge. It also means the target likewise has two chances, but usually PCs have more Edge than NPCs. Usually.

So, the moral of the story is that if you're pretty sure the target has a very very low chance of resisting your casting even at half your normal dice pool, doing the "semi-automatic" trick and firing off two spells at once might be useful.

Just to clarify and curb anyone's misconceptions or inclinations to jump on me:

Casting two spells at once is more like using two pistols at once than it is like pulling the trigger twice on a semi-automatic. Dual-wielding requires you to split your dice pool, while firing one gun per Simple Action does not split your pool.

So, when I said casting two simultaneous spells is likened unto shooting a semi-automatic, the metaphor was very loose and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

And here I was, about to get a gas vent for my team's mage.

Well, I've known some troll mages that coulda used them after a particularly large bowl of soychili.

Oddly enough, when he became a liability that's exactly what we once did to our rigger.

To an extent, ranged combat penalties (especially visibility penalties) are worse on mages since they have to rely on natural, optical, and cybernetic vision mods. Mundanes and even shooty adepts get to use those nifty contacts and goggles to give them every vision mode imaginable.

It is a fairly casual thing to remove them and leave them at home. Not so much with cybereyes.

Heh. It does make for a sticky problem from a rules-mechanic standpoint. You paid for those eyes via Essence, so they should work. However, they're not part of your "aural whole" when they're separated, so it shouldn't work.

Aside from the obvious imbalance issues, of course, which easily negate the possibility.

Well, there are "tethered" drones from old world technology (1990 - 2006) that use fiber optic imaging systems. LOS through FO cable/image systems is already allowed ( the SB on corp sec., I don't have with me at the moment). I can see some security systems having FO jacks for drones to plug into at various points along their patrol routes, allowing the sec mage to "do 'is thang".

It's from Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It is the mantra of the gunslinger.
I had to edit it to fit in the sig, the full version is:
I do not aim with my hand.
He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I aim with my Eye.
I do not shoot with my hand.
He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I shoot with my Mind.
I do not kill with my hand.
He who kills with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I kill with my Heart.

The main character is a "gunslinger" from this alternate post-apocalyptic world. He's basically a gun-adept. Great series. I highly recommend it.

That's pretty much what I said, yep.