Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Why implant?
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Pages: 1, 2
Nasrudith
I've found no reason to have an implanted commlink, cybereyes, spurs, datajacks or other cyber weapons. All they do is cost more essence and nuyen.gif.
Goggles:
Decked out with everything on the list at it's max rating.
2,225 nuyen.gif.
Cyber eyes: Full system. Rating 4. No Ocular drone or Retinal Duplication.
10,850 nuyen.gif 0.5 Essence
Cost Ratio Eye to Goggle approximately 4.9

Is there a reason to go cyber when you can?
Aku
for the decker i made, i implanted a comm, and had a visable, public external comm as well, for those random sweeps, yep, one person, one commlink, oko hes normal... sorta things
Voran
I think implants still benefit from the always on/always available factor. They can allow for a secure fallback in the new days of PANs. If I raid your house when you're sleeping, you have to grab all your gear first if you want your full bonuses right? But with cyber stuff, you can be ready to go quickly. A cybered dude in his underwear is going to be better equipped than the non-cybered dude in his underwear who needs the same type of external gear to get the same benefits.

Internal gear also benefits from protection versus being ripped off in the heat of things.

Datajacks are still the haven of secure links. A wireless smartlink has a chance of being spoofed and taken, an old fashioned direct link has the benefit of security, since its not broadcasting in a way to be taken over.
Shadowmeet
Not to mention, you will be allowed in places with cyberware that you would not be with specialized kit. For instance, going to a meet? Well, your eyes will be allwed (Though noted) while the goggles might suggest you were waiting for some action. Put off a johnson, and you might not get the job.

Not to mention, external means stolen, told to take off, etc.
James McMurray
Does a smartlink have to be wireless? Is there no longer a connection in your hand?
Jaid
actually, voran, by default datajacks are wireless too nyahnyah.gif

or at least, new ones anyways. naturally, old datajacks may remain wired or may be upgraded i suppose.

but anyways, as has been said the main reason for implanted gear that you can get in non-implant form is theft protection. generally speaking, if someone steals your implanted commlink, you probably don't care any more anyways. (on account of you've got a large hole in your head).

also, sometimes the DNI is nice... can't hack that smile.gif
Shadowmeet
Personally, with so much wreless subversion, I'd probably go to a Doc who could hardwire my shit.
Rooks
No, there is no real reason for those implants unless you want to waste essence they will have cyberwear detectors anyways and just get glasses instead of googles "what take off my glasses? but I can't see without them! also what shadowrunner in their right mind sleeps in their underwear defenseless? my character sleeps in an armored jacket with a pred under the pillow
Voran
I guess I'm just 'old fashioned'. Heh I like the more secure hardwired stuff. But mix it with the external gear as possible.
James McMurray
Rooks: yeah, they'll have cyberware detectors, but it's a lot easier to make someone take off their goggles than their eyeballs. If you make the con check to convince them that you really can't see without the goggles then you're golden, but unless those goggles are somehow implanted into your head you may have difficulty.

Voran: You sleep in an armored jacket? That's gotta be really uncomfortable. Does your GM apply any penalties afterwards because you didn't sleep worth a crap?
Voran
Rooks sleep in the armored jacket, not I smile.gif I was going to ask the same thing tho nyahnyah.gif
Dranem
QUOTE (Rooks @ Apr 10 2006, 01:47 AM)
No, there is no real reason for those implants unless you want to waste essence they will have cyberwear detectors anyways and just get glasses instead of googles "what take off my glasses? but I can't see without them! also what shadowrunner in their right mind sleeps in their underwear defenseless? my character sleeps in an armored jacket with a pred under the pillow

Does that come with matching Kevlar pijamas?
Heck even in D&D adventurers would remove their armour when bunking in a real bed....

You want an armoured comforter? Fine, but as your GM, I'd apply some nice penalties for not being able to get a good night's sleep. (unless you're a troll, you may not notice the difference.)

[edit]
As a side note, I hope your runner sleeps light... one missed perception check, and no armour in the world is going to stop an assassin from slitting your throat (or some other convenient vulnerable spot) in your sleep
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Nasrudith)
Is there a reason to go cyber when you can?

To get those things you can't get by using external gear?

Retinal Duplication is one thing, cyber select sound filters got three levels more, balance augmention is nice, too, not to speak of the possibility of really subtle recording.

Most of the time, it's just the comfort of 'always there', though - being paid with essence means that they will be protected by your body/willpower, too.
As a sidenote, googles with everything are really hard to get.
Dissonance
Sleeping in armor? Ha-ha! Sarcasm.
Thanee
QUOTE (Nasrudith)
Is there a reason to go cyber when you can?

The additional cost is almost neglectible. The benefit is mostly subtlety. Subtlety is good! smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
Thanee
QUOTE (James McMurray)
Does a smartlink have to be wireless? Is there no longer a connection in your hand?

Correct. It's an eye implant. You could probably use a skinlink, though.

Bye
Thanee
James McMurray
Mental note: slap some IC in my smartguns and link. smile.gif
Dranem
From what I read in the BBB, the skinlink mod is the latest Induction Pad tech... so get a gun with a Cyberware Smartlink + Skinlink and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than the Smartlink II + Induction Pads of previous editions.
(Note skinlink will not work for external vision mods)
Nikoli
Nothing says they won't. You install a skinlink in the glasses and the earbuds, you've got a "wired" connection established. While you're at it, toss a skin link on your jammer, your white noise generator, and any other sensor type devices so that instead of pulling out object A to deal with situation B, you just pull out the commlink and pretend to make a call or access a file, meanwhile you've accessed god knows how many devices and activated them.
hobgoblin
or just go simsense with nanopaste trodes or that wireless datajack. then you dont even have to pull out the comlink, just think about it nyahnyah.gif

hmm. now that i think about it, how do you "jack out" when using a wireless datajack?!:eek:
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Nasrudith @ Apr 9 2006, 07:15 PM)
I've found no reason to have an implanted commlink, cybereyes, spurs, datajacks or other cyber weapons. All they do is cost more essence and nuyen.gif
Goggles:
Decked out with everything on the list at it's max rating.
2,225 nuyen.gif.
Cyber eyes: Full system. Rating 4.  No Ocular drone or Retinal Duplication.
10,850 nuyen.gif 0.5 Essence
Cost Ratio Eye to Goggle approximately 4.9

Is there a reason to go cyber when you can?

Cyberware is a cultural item in Shadowrun and is specifically metioned as so in SR4. You'd be the odd-man out using goggles, although glasses or contacts are neat ideas but those are harder to bring along and less durable than Cybereyes. For the runner on the go, being self-contained goes a long way.

Yes there are drawbacks to some cyberware, but most general populace places don't care unless you are packing heat. If you are for some reason in a High security area, your ID, gear and cyber would all be under scrutiny so you'd lose there in any case.

And in your moment of insanity if you decided to take a public flight, then just turn in your Runner's License at the door chummer.

Short answer, it's always been a part of Shadowrun.
mdynna
I'm not sure, but I think there might be an availability issue as well. Considering that all the add-ons are listed with a +X on their availability, I was ruling that they stacked together. Eg. Base Avail. of vision (goggles, glasses, whatever), then +Enhancement 1, +Enhancement 2 etc.

If this is the case, I believe that you can't get non-cyber vision mods with as many goodies as you can with the cybered version. That seems odd meta-game wise (non-cyberware is harder to get?) but considering the prevalence of cyberware in SR (the book specifically mentions cyber eyes IIRC) it is justifiable. ("You're wearing goggles?")

EDIT: Assuming of course that you are using the "standard" Availability limit of 12 on character creation.
Dale
As well as all the good reasons above, CYBER IS COOL !
hobgoblin
one of the good scenes in the jonny mnemonic movie was when he used a fake id to make the neural storage implant appear as some sort of medical implant. i would guess that if you have a nice fake id, atleast your R implants should be ok for a public flight...
James McMurray
Yeah, and if you have a reaaallly good fake ID even the F gear should be ok. Just be sure to also have licenses and not just the ID. smile.gif
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
i would guess that if you have a nice fake id, atleast your R implants should be ok for a public flight...

You would guess?
That's what fake permits are for. wink.gif
hobgoblin
lesser screwup. i was thinking licence and wrote id nyahnyah.gif

btw, about the only cyberware (didnt check limbs or bioware) that i can find with F availability are stuff like hot sim, bone lacing (say what? i tought atleast the plastic one would be a medical implant for old ladys and similar), the cranial bombs and implants that allow you to pretend to be another person (retinal duplication, voice modulation with alternate pattern. should be hard to detect with a cyberware scanner i think).
Rotbart van Dainig
Especially because the latter implants are just upgrades to perfectly legal versions...
Cain
There's only one advantage to cybereyes that I can tell: magicians can cast through them. No books handy, but apparently the old LOS rules still apply for spell targeting. Glasses are easy to circumvent, but contacts make things more difficult; and in either case, you lose your vision mods while you're casting. With cyber, however, you keep all your vision mods and can still cast freely.
hobgoblin
hmm, never tought about that...
makes things interesting...
The Jopp
Cybereyes and ears have multiple uses. You can record everything you see live and send it to your teammates. You can also record any conversation you are having and listen through it later.

Storage space. The larger version of cybereyes can contain a vast array of goodies that would cost a lot more essence unless you had the eyespace. Just the recording and imagelink that is included is 0,2 essence.
fool
I can't cast spells through the glasses or contacts I wear? Does that mean I can't cast through glass wondows too?
Actually the glasses and lenses work just fine for mages to cast through since they are overwriting on your feild of vision instead of replacing it.
James McMurray
You can cast through glasses, but you can't cast through electronic vision enhancers. If those "glasses" are actually goggles that enhance vision through electronic means, you can't use magic through them.
Butterblume
True, if your glasses grants lowlight vision, it's an electronical enhancement, so you won't get lowlight modifiers wink.gif.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Butterblume)
True, if your glasses grants lowlight vision, it's an electronical enhancement, so you won't get lowlight modifiers wink.gif.

I'd guess the "glasses" would be some sort of electronic display even with the low-light turned off so you couldn't cast through them period. Unless there is some provision that says otherwise.
Butterblume
I don't think there is. But i am basically a nice guy.

When i think about it, no vision enhancement in glasses/lenses/whatever would work in my shadowrun for mages, so perhaps i am not that nice after all mad.gif .

Ok. maybe the optical binoculars on a bright day.
hobgoblin
it realy depends on how they are designed.

as mirrorshades? (or basicly small lcd screens with a mirrored finish on their back)

or as transparent sheets of plastic or glass with a kind of lcd tech in the center that have the ability to turn on and off its transparency?

as in, can light pass thru the display?

if it can then i would allow a person to cast using them, but would not get any modifiers from low light, termographic and similar.
Voran
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
one of the good scenes in the jonny mnemonic movie was when he used a fake id to make the neural storage implant appear as some sort of medical implant. i would guess that if you have a nice fake id, atleast your R implants should be ok for a public flight...

Another good part was when you thought Keanu got brain fried and died! But then they ruined it.
hobgoblin
heh, tastes vary...
Jaid
i always presumed that goggles/glasses/whatever with an image link built into them used the image link to relay the information on them. ie, the screen is inside your eye, and would have to be at least reasonably translucent on account of it's not physically there nyahnyah.gif
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Voran)
QUOTE (hobgoblin @ Apr 10 2006, 02:11 PM)
one of the good scenes in the jonny mnemonic movie was when he used a fake id to make the neural storage implant appear as some sort of medical implant. i would guess that if you have a nice fake id, atleast your R implants should be ok for a public flight...

Another good part was when you thought Keanu got brain fried and died! But then they ruined it.

That movie somewhat dates itself when they talk about Gigabytes in terms of storage. I realized how smart SR1-3 was at using a generic storage term and more smartly in SR4 of removing the need to concern yourself with it.
Voran
You can give the illusion of being harmless with implants. You could walk into a place with external gear on, 'surrender' it if asked, yet still have all the same effects due to your implants.
hobgoblin
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll)
QUOTE (Voran @ Apr 10 2006, 02:39 PM)
QUOTE (hobgoblin @ Apr 10 2006, 02:11 PM)
one of the good scenes in the jonny mnemonic movie was when he used a fake id to make the neural storage implant appear as some sort of medical implant. i would guess that if you have a nice fake id, atleast your R implants should be ok for a public flight...

Another good part was when you thought Keanu got brain fried and died! But then they ruined it.

That movie somewhat dates itself when they talk about Gigabytes in terms of storage. I realized how smart SR1-3 was at using a generic storage term and more smartly in SR4 of removing the need to concern yourself with it.

heh, i think some people have more storage in their home computers these days then the ST:TNG enterprise had in its computer wink.gif
Jaid
actually, i'm pretty sure star trek uses a completely fictional prefix for everything (or rather, it's a real prefix... it just has no current, specific meaning, like mega, micro, deci, deca, hecta, etc. do).

thus, their warp core generates <prefix>watts in power or whatever, but all the prefix means (loosely translated, i am told) is "many" or something like that.
Moon-Hawk
Hojilliwatts?
nick012000
No, there is a book out there that gives real units for Star Trek ships. They get their asses handed to them by Star Wars ships, by orders of magnitude (a 20-year-old troop carrier blows the Enterprise-D to pieces, after taking their entire load of photon torpedos simultaneously).
hobgoblin
like the creator of babylon 5 said about the starfury, it have a speed of plot...
Azralon
QUOTE (nick012000)
No, there is a book out there that gives real units for Star Trek ships.

Google has revealed unto me the following from the dubiously-named http://www.starfleetjedi.net/m5.html.

QUOTE (Supernerd technical writeup)
In "The Dauphin," Riker states that a terawatt is "more power than our entire ship can generate" when faced with a terawatt comm signal. It is difficult to reconcile this with a massive starship that is capable of leaving a star system in a hurry, but remains one of very few explicit power rates given. This is echoed in "The Masterpiece Society," in which Geordi describes the power output as being in the terawatt range.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Azralon)
QUOTE (nick012000)
No, there is a book out there that gives real units for Star Trek ships.

Google has revealed unto me the following from the dubiously-named http://www.starfleetjedi.net/m5.html.

QUOTE (Supernerd technical writeup)
In "The Dauphin," Riker states that a terawatt is "more power than our entire ship can generate" when faced with a terawatt comm signal. It is difficult to reconcile this with a massive starship that is capable of leaving a star system in a hurry, but remains one of very few explicit power rates given. This is echoed in "The Masterpiece Society," in which Geordi describes the power output as being in the terawatt range.

Bah, they've mired themselves in reality or at least our 21st century view of what it might be like.

Physicist Michio Kaku has written several books talking about certain technical milestones we'd have to surpass to generate the amounts of energies to achieve certain physics wonders.

Current times are marked as "Type 0" and IIRC, Star Trek like tech is ranked "Type 4" where basically you'd "be able to harness the power of a galaxy" if I am not mistaken.

Check out Hyperspace by Michio Kaku
nick012000
Maybe so, but canon Star Trek has never been known to be all that accurate. wink.gif

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012