Ok i got some questions about know/skillsofts. Why should you take the real versions of skills if you can just dole out some money and buy the software for a skill?? Is there a limit to how many softs you can have? Would a datajack have enough storage to store them all? How many datachips do you think could fit into cyber compartments small/large.

If you take a certain qaulities couldnt you counter them with skillsofts. For example Uncouth cant take the social group or whatever and it costs double to raise any of them. What happens if a character like that plugs in a social group 6 program??

Incompetent is another example.

Im working on a mechanic/rigger/armorer who is very skill intensive and he would be a great candidate for this.

The only limit to how many you can have stored is the GM's idea of what constitutes "reasonable."

The big problems with skillsofts are:

1) You can't get above rating 4 for active skills, 5 for others.

2) You can only have twice your skillwires rating running at a time, so if you've got rating 3 wires you can only have a total of rating 6 worth of softs running.

3) You can't spend edge when using softs.

I've got a character that runs almost exclusively on skillsofts. It's an interesting character, and he's extremely versatile, but it has its downsides too. IIRC rating 3 is the best you can start with due to availability. Also, softs are incredibly expensive after character creation, at least in our games. The character is also a rigger though, so that's a cash dump on him as well.

What are the BP ratios between uncouth and skillsoft costs? If they're close and you then add essence cost in it might be close to balanced. If not, then I'd seriously look at any character trying to get "freebie points" by abusing flaws and softs.

Hmm Interesting. Skillwires are suppose to translate skills into muscle movements or something how the heck does that work for social skills or matrix skills ??

Hmm a lv3 active skill would cost 9k which is almost 2BP as opposed to the 12 bp it would cost otherwise..

Example of qaulity abuse on a character with Uncouth:

Etiquette (3) normal skill= 24 bp
Etiquette (3) skillsoft =2BP

Hmm it doesnt say if you can buy skillgroups

IIRC Skillwires are an interface to the body and the brain, so they work for muscular and mental skills.

2 vs. 12 is a huge difference, so I'd probably disallow a character looking to abuse the skill flaws using wires.

Unless it specifies that you can, you cannot buy skill groups.

For uncouth characters you could make social skill wires cost twice as much, since they need stronger and more custom personafix chips to assist the character.

Skillwires are an extended interface of introdicing artifical memories, including motor memory.
They are neither skill-specific nor do the need to connect to muscles... or add to normal skills, for the matter.

Sure, you could run an ettiquette skillsoft as an uncouth character. There's still a limit to how many skillsofts you can run at once, however, so that stops them from potentially running other softs.

Still, it's a nice idea until you glitch that test and can't spend edge.

The evil thing is that you could be using a Linguasoft and the wrong etiquette program and never really realize it.
Having a dependency on Skillsofts could be dangerous, expecially if they have unreported extras or hacked.

I've got a Face character with a serious dependency on skillsofts - if he ever lost his cache of software, he'd be unable to communicate in anything but English and pretty half-assed Sperethiel.

Are skillwires required to run ANY activesoft now? Or just the physical/combat ones, like it used to be?

I could see that rating being very limiting for social situations... if you had to run a couple of skills at once (Con and Negotiation, for example) or you're trying to use another language in addition to one of your social skills (or do nearly anything else doubled up, for that matter) you're going to be severely limited...

sr4 pg320 "Activesofts must be accessed with a skillwire system." It includes combat, physical, social, technical and vehichle skills.

know/linguasofts do not require a skillwire and can be used with just DNI(sim mods/datajacks.

Skillwires after character creation max out at rating 5 which means you will never have rating 6 skills or be able to specialize for 8.

There's also the limit on the programs themselves. IIRC Activesoft programs cap at rating 4, while the rest cap at rating 5.

So, skillwired restrict the number of Activesofts that you can run at a time, but what restricts the number of know/linguasofts? Anything?

Nothing, apparently.