ok, first of all- should the hidden gun arm slide have some sort of concealability modifier? Otherwise I'm just going to assume it's the same modifier as a concealable holster.

if a character's smartgun is linked to something external to their body, such as glasses or goggles, I presume that they can't perform actions such as ejecting a clip for free?

haven't been able to find the answers in the book

I don't think the arm slide helps with concealability. For balance reasons, it's already good, and I think players should have to choose between badass and sneaky. For practical reasons, I imagine the mechanism that shoots it into your hand negates the sneakiness of having the gun kind of hidden (i.e. I imagine you can see the somewhat bulky slides and other bits.)

As for the smartgun, I'm pretty sure you can do the fancy things if you have a trode or nanopaste trodes that provide a DNI. If you just have goggles I would agree that you only get the +2 bonus.

Can't you just add the Smartgun to your PAN and issue commands via your comlink? If it's implanted (the Comlink) is DNI, trode, datajack or verbal?

My personal understandings of the rules are:
1) Concealibility: Nope. Doesn't help at all. Not any better than stuffing it away elsewhere under your jacket.
2) If it's a smartgun and it's linked, wireless or in any other way, you get the smartgun bonus. For "thinking the command" you need a DNI. Of course, even without the DNI, you might get what you need with a free action (for example speaking a command word), but in some situations that might not be possible.
At least that's my take on it.

ok, so you need a pretty small gun then. which is ok, I was thinking Light Pistol under a Lined Coat.

yeah, I was thinking on a character with essence 6. I hadn't thought of verbal commands, that sounds good. or even- some sort of wink/ blink that the glasses pick up could be the command to eject the clip or change modes.

A verbal command would take more time and effort than thumbing a magazine release lever or button on most serious defense handguns. Hell, a whole lot of the "free action" examples in SR3 and SR4 take a lot more time than thumbing a magazine release would take. Thus no decision either way can reasonably be justified with real world logic.

Forget real world logic. Speak and Gesture are both free actions in game - if your commlink has been specially programmed for it (and you're the first person whose suggested this that I've heard of in 12 years of playing this game) then I say more power to you! I'd worry about it being somewhat obvious, but of course if you have to reload you've probably made plenty of noise already

I'm more of a fan of the blinking and retinal tracking myself. We can already do that now, albeit not with the sophistication you'd see in 2070.

Of course, moving your trigger finger is a simple action. Think of the firepower increase if we made a weapon that was fired by moving the thumb and not the trigger finger!

If a player wanted to just fire a weapon he is already holding at the ready, not caring at all where the shot lands, I'd say that's clearly a Free Action. (Of course, that's also applying logic to the situation, but then I rather do that consistently throughout the rules.)

I might start to use retinal tracking or blinks/ winks then.

different combinations could be used to cycle through weapon firing modes, imaging modes, clip release, etc. sounds pretty cool.

I still find it amusing that there was no size limited listed for the gun slide. Effectively you can have heavy pistols popping out of your coat sleeves. Very 'Desperado'. Guns that wouldn't even fit in a sleeve flying out of one.

For you ninjas out there, consider loading shuriken in your arm slides.

For you facemen looking for an out when a con goes south, I recommend flashpacks.

For you munchkins, I recommend hand grenades.

For you crazies, I recommend Roomsweepers

With no size limitation listed, should the munchkins be loading Steel Lynxes?

Didn't the rules say 'pistol-sized' ?

Those aren't cost effective.

Fie on cost-effectiveness! I'm looking for frontloaded damage. I just need to make sure I get paid enough to cover the cost of the ammo, plus a little extra.

Anyone know the dollar value of a Thor shot?

Yeah, but you can't start with one without also having a munchkin GM, in which case you'll need that arcology in your pocket just to survive getting a can of soda from the fridge.

Great so since the crash we not only have wireless matrix, but they've also invented pocket dimensions so you can store your banshees 'up your sleeves'? I'm surprised no one has mentioned the giant hammers wielded by little cute girls like the old anime cliche.

It's a side effect of the technology that allows infinite data storage in your underwear.

Well, considering one is constantly producing sperm (supposedly, but only if you're male, but we're going to be using males in this example...), then yes, the constant production of sperm and the packets of information in each one (sperm that is)... then yes, the underwear does qualify as a data storage device...

edit:

second edit: Sorry, I blame work, when a person says something, i.e. claiming an invention. I will see if I can come up with the broadest interpretation of it. Plus, I'm feeling a little mischievous this afternoon, must be because it's almost quitting time.

The next time PBTHHHHT offers to "decrypt my pants" for me, I'm gonna think about it a little more...

Great. Infinite data storage, but diffused throughout multiple nubile co-eds. Now I'll never find my tax return by April 15th.

Eh, depends... rumor has it the deckers prefer to keep their data concentrated. Or at least, that's the excuse they're giving for non-distribution...

I wouldn't mind concentrating my data in a nubile co-ed.

You've still got it distributed across two different locations in that situation, though. I've heard of college students attempting to increase storage speed and reliability through the use of panty-RAID techniques, but these usually aren't successful.

I tried to form a panty raid once, but couldn't get enough guildies together.

Nope, just cockroaches.

So it's only useful in the redneck areas?

I live in a redneck area and have never encountered cockroaches (at least not panty ones). Maybe third world countries?

I hate you guys.

Now I'm considering the ramifications of a body-louse spirit, and I can't get the thought out of my head.