Alright, so given that this topic has probably been covered before, and also given that I am a self-admitted slack bastard and couldn't be bothered to use the Search feature ...

The topic is Skinlinks!

Exactly what devices need to, or are even able to receive this modification?

For example, Quikdraw McBunny has a Rating 3 Commlink, Cybereyes with, among other things, a Smartlink modification, and a brace of 5 Ares Predators. He also has a Rating 5 Medkit, a Biometer, and 2 Flash-Paks.

Would he add the Skinlink adaption to ...

#1 ... the Commlink?
#2 ... each of the 5 Predators, the Medkit, the Biometer, and each Flash-Pak?
#3 ... the Smartlink accessory, plus the other electronics as in #2
#4 ... some other combination I haven't though of?

Add it to everything

what devices *need* it? none.

what devices are able to take it? pretty much anything. so long as it has a device rating (and most things do, including clothes, tools, weapons, and so forth) you can add the skinlink feature to it. for certain items it may kind of defeat the purpose or be inefficient (for example, it would not be useful to skinlink the RFID tags stores use to track their inventory), but it can be done.

now then, as far as what you would put it on: well, first off, anything with a DNI is connected to your brain. you don't need a skinlink unless you want it to talk to other devices, because you can just control it directly from your brain (you should probably just shut off the wireless though). further, DNI devices can talk to each other as well, or such is my understanding.

the cybereyes wouldn't need a skinlink. it is, however, a good idea, because you may want to record or transmit information from them to other devices (like the commlinks of other people in your team). personally, i often take care of stuff like that with a datajack that has a skinlink, since the jack connects to all your other cyber, and can just transmit any data needed. and on to the specifics:

1) probably. if you're going to bother skinlinking anything else, it's a pretty good bet you're gonna want that something else to be able to talk to your commlink. since skinlinked devices can only talk to other skinlinked devices (well, assuming you turn wireless off that is, which most seem to do), your commlink should always have skinlink just cause it's so relatively cheap, and it may come in handy.

2) again, probably for the predators. you don't have to, but if you want your smartlink to be inaccessable to hackers from a distance, it would be a good idea. then again, you may want wireless functionality sometimes as well. certainly, the skinlink's immunity to jamming is a plus though, so i would say yes. the medkit, i wouldn't bother personally... generally speaking, you're gonna be using it when you're in a safe location. that being said, i could certainly see it as a possibility... i just don't personally really see the need is all. biometer, probably yes, connected to your skinlink so it can talk to your commlink, which hopefully can talk to something with a DNI (trodes with a skinlink for example, or a datajack with skinlink). 2 flashpacks? probably not. unless you plan to be touching them when you set them off, that is.

3)not as such, no... i don't think you can skinlink just a part of the cybereye. you could skinlink the eye itself, i suppose. if you didn't have some kind of DNI/skinlink connection, it would in fact be necessary i suppose.

4) honestly, skinlink is so cheap, just put it on anything where you think the added protection from hacking and jamming is useful, and you're gonna be holding it in your hand to use it. skinlink airburst grenades? of course not. hand grenades might not be a bad idea (you lose ability to detonate other than by timer or proximity, but the grenade can't be hacked at least). if you're going to bother skinlinking one thing in your PAN, you may as well skinlink everything in your PAN, is my rule of thumb. it's like camo gear: you don't wear a camo jacket with fluorescent yellow spandex pants and expect to be hard to spot. similarly, skinlinking only half your PAN leaves half of it sitting out in the open, visible and half of it hidden. what's the point.

I understand what a Skinlink does, but was having trouble figuring out just what devices would be appropriate for adaption.

If a Commlink is connected to a Datajack (wired), and thus to Cybereyes, would any of those components actually need to be Skinlinked to communicate with a Skinlinked Predator?

One does NOT need to skinlink cyberware in order to share data with a skinlinked device - only the device in question need a skinlink.

The skinlink completes the circuit so that NON-DNI equipment can be DNI controlled. Having a Skinlink on external equipment like a commlink, pistol etc allows you to connect to the gear without having to connect any cables to a datajack for example and give mental command to the gun/smartgun link.

Ok, so given my first example, with Quikdraw McBunny's gear list (commlink, 5 predators, cybereyes, other electronics), if he was hardwired to the commlink through a datajack, he would only have to Skinlink the peripheral gear (like the guns) that he wanted to use in that manner? He would NOT need to Skinlink any Cyberware OR the Commlink itself?

how about this for flashpak and other trown items:

arm it while in contact with skinlink, 5 seconds or so after it have left skinlink it goes of

Adding a skinlink to a flashpack MIGHT be useful if you got the skinlink connector attached to a wire so that you could wear the Flashpack on your chest and having it connected to your PAN. The reason for this is simple, wireless "detonation" of the flashpack while holding a gun in each hand or other item.

Couldn't you still wirelessly activate the Flash-Pak worn on your chest without a Skinlink attachment. It (as pretty much everything else) should have a wirleless connection, so it could be subscribed.

Hobgoblin has the right of it in regards to Skinlinking Flash-Paks. I can see quite a few uses for peripheral electronics that are wireless to have a Skinlink feature.

It would really mess someone's day up if they were using a Medkit to recover from really bad damage, and a hacker chose that moment to mess with its function.

Why would you need a Skinlink when the signal is already being processed through DNI?

how does the signal get to the DNI?

for example, let's suppose someone has a smartlinked gun and is wanting to get the signal from the gun accessory to their cybereyes, by skinlink.

so first, the accessory is presumably connected to the gun directly (that is, it is not wireless). now you put a skinlink on the gun so that when you hold the gun in your hand, you have a path for information to anywhere else on your body. now where does it go? you want to get it to your cybereyes, right? well, how does it get there? it needs to either pass through a DNI somewhere, or your cybereyes must be skinlink-capable. sure, your cybereyes are already connected with DNI, but the problem is not between your cybereyes and DNI, it's between the skinlink and the DNI. thus, you would need a pathway across the skinlink to something that allows DNI... for example, a skinlinked datajack, skinlinked trodes, or even some other skinlinked cyber i guess. but without some kind of gateway between your DNI system and the skinlink, the signal cannot travel from the gun to your eye.

thus, you might skinlink your eye (which seems silly, but i can't see any reason it wouldn't work), or you might skinlink a datajack (why not?) or you might skinlink your commlink, which is connected to a set of trodes or something by a wire... but ultimately, you do need some sort of device to transfer data from your skinlink to your DNI.

What you say makes sense, and I could easily see it as working exactly that way. I'd really like to hear a rebuttal from someone who looks about it in a different light though, as I am only borderline-convinced. No offence, because as I said, your argument does make sense.

In any case, a further question to muddy the waters (or maybe not) ...

Would, or could a Touch Link be made to be of any use in this case.

As an aside, why would I want a Touch Link (or the dumb glove things) in the first place? I can grasp what they do (manipulate shit in AR), but can't you do that with thought anyway? I mean, does everyone have to wear those stupid glove things to go shopping or flip through a restaurant's menu?

touchlink simply allows you to feel AROs, and to experience the touch track of simsense.

in the event that you already have access to simsense (say, in the form of a sim module connected to a DNI) then a touchlink is useless.

the gloves allow you to manipulate AROs. in the event that you have DNI connection to the matrix, then you are absolutely correct about the gloves being useless. given the common nature of trodes and datajacks, i expect the gloves are not terribly common.

why would they include a cyberware "skinlink interface"? did you see any "skinlink interface" modification that works only on commlinks? how about one that only works for weapons? or any number of other things?

there exists a modification that can be applied to any electronic device. printing a special modification for each type of device is not a good use of space in the book, any more than putting in separate entries for pistol ammo, rifle ammo, SMG ammo, etc would be a good use of space.

why would they need to specifically state that cyberware doesn't have skinlink built in? they didn't say that for any other device either, but that doesn't mean that every single device you see has skinlink unless otherwise mentioned. why would cyber be any different?

now then, if you want a DNI/skinlink interface, it's called a datajack with skinlink. alternately, as i said, you could even use pretty much any kind of cyber with a DNI that sits on or touches your skin (cybereyes, ears, cyberlimbs, and so forth). just pay the 50 extra for skinlink and you're good to go.

I think the touch link is supposed to allow you to get touch based feedback while still in AR. VR has full sensory feedback by default, but AR is normally just video + sound. You only need the AR gloves if you are not using a DNI enabled device. A set of 'trodes, for example, will work just as well.

Ah, ok, thanks. So I was pretty much right in that almost nobody would use them, most people being connected via DNI (trodes or jack). That's cool.

my understanding is that you are using an electrical field that exists on top of your skin. i don't really know for sure if it extends below the skin also, and if that could be used. personally, i would allow implants that are in your skin, touching it, or above it. i probably wouldn't allow, say, wired reflexes to be connected in.

in the event that dermal plating had a good reason to have electronics in it, i suppose i would allow that...

The short form is that you should probably get your data jack skin linked to act as a bridge between your DNI-cyber and your skin linked external devices. After all, it would already do that functionality as a gateway between internal and external devices over fiber optic.

As to why you might skin link a medkit or equip it with wireless, there's the chance you might need at least one hand to keep a sucking chest wound shut.

medkits are by default wireless, just like any other device. hands-free is already built in.

does skinlink give anyone else the creeps? I don't know why but the thought of wires running under my skin doesn't creep me out nearly as much as using my bioelectric field as a network. I'm mean how is that effecting your CNS?

It doesn't, in theory. Skinlink uses the surface of the skin, not the whole body. In theory the signal should be blocked by the epidermis. The power levels involved should be below the sensitivity threshold of the CNS, on the order of millivolts and microwatts. Of course, the CNS has its own electric field that can be detected and measured so there's always the possibility of an as-yet unkown interaction.

I'd think you'd be more concerned about that 2watt microwave emitter you place against the side of your head that you call a "cell phone."

Here's a quick question, what page is skinlink on again?

I´ll have an internal commlink installed to keep my hands free. So no, doesn´t creep me out.

Edit: p. 318

Let's try to ressurect an old thread.

Is there actually any reason why you should have a wireless weapon and not skinlink it? Does skinlink cost essence? I didn't find anything toward this.

What disadvantage do you even have if you skinlink most of your shadowrunner-usable tools, nominally weapons and cybergoogles?

What real advantage is there to have an item being wireless instead of skinlinking it?

I'd like to have a reason why my mage would need to be wireless with his equipment, but if my character can function as efficiently and with no risk for his team by simply skinlinking every item he has and pay no essence for it, why should I let him bother to do it?

Or can you still at least hack the skinlinked items through the skinlinked commlink? I do guess that the commlink has to have a skinlink feature enabled to function with all the other skinlinked items, right?

Skinlink is a modification to any device, like removing wireless.
It has no essence cost, and adding Skinlin to your implanted comlink is usually a good idea.

Do you even have to implant a commlink? Is there any disadvantage to skinlink?

Why shouldn't I simply skinlink my gun with smartlink-feature directly to my skinlinked cybergoogles (or even cyberlenses)?

Why did the authors even bother to make skinlink a distinct separate option? I see nothing that would give firearm weapons any benefit if it were wireless, and not skinlinked.

hmm, i recall reading that with a wireless smartlink you could fire a gun without touching it. or similarly lock it remotely.

Why wouldn't you simply make it so that the weapon can only fire if it gets a skinlink signal send by your commlink? And as long as it doesn't get any authentification code, the weapon stays in locked mode and can't fire at all, even if picked up by somebody else.

I see absolutely no advantage in having your important items being wireless at all.

And the peanuts it costs to skinlink those items aren't even worth mentioning for standart shadowrunning.

i suspect that as older versions of SR often apparently was very runner slanted in its world view (making it hard to see how the world was for joe wageslave) they have now gone for a more joe wageslave slant.

as in, wireless gear is how joe will have it normally. and for him its fine. if something happens he most likely have it covered by some kind of insurance or similar.

just look at many things today, they are not security hardened out of the box, and likely will not be as security is always at odds with ease of use. and for a consumer, ease of use is king.

therefor, no it makes no sense to not skinlink just about everything for a runner. but runners are not joe wageslave. they are not the majority user.

But I'm mostly talking about weapons, the one thing that everybody thinks about being dangerous to be hacked in Shadowrun, the Game about Shadowrunners. Lenses, googles and all those other things also work perfectly by skinlinking, and can be skinlinked to the sole item that needs to be wireless, the commlink. But you can even let them communicate through each another via skinlink without having to connect them through the commlink.

I want to know whatever disadvantage there is for skinlinking all external items for my shadowrunner character so that I might have a reason to use wireless at all.

none, so go right ahead...

I guess so.

But that also means that my awakened character won't have any problems with hackers and technomancers at all. Which somehow saddens me.

Awakened characters indeed have the least problems.

Well something to keep in mind is that if your gun only fires when if your commlink sends a Skinlinked Signal to it then you are in very big trouble if your commlink is ever lost, damaged, or hacked by a Decker.

So personally I wouldn't ever do it because to me anyways the danger of getting shot with your own gun is less then the danger of not being able to shoot your own gun. (Or loan your gun to a teammate in the heat of battle.)

If you're so afraid of not being able to use your gun because you can't send a skinlink signal to it due to loss of your commlink, you might of course want to disable such a feature. But that's not really the problem, isn't it? You would want to make your weapon sending and receiving feedback for the purpose of the smartlink system as the primary reasons, I guess. You can, if I'm right, simply let your weapon connect directly to the smartlinked googles, lenses or whatever visual device you use.

And you can easily give your better cybered teammates the authentification codes to use your weapon, and they surely will have some skinlink-featuring commlink device, implanted or not, as there really isn't any drawback to have skinlink at all.

I'm also pretty sure that you're more at risk losing your gun prior to your commlink, for that matter.

I'm confused. What are googles? Is that a funny word for "Various non-cybered hardware", or are you just unable to spell goggle? No offense intended.


Also, I think a lot of stuff is wifiable so that doctors, fellow team mates, etc can access it's information and inquire if it's still working. IE: In the book, they mention even BONE LACING having an RFID tag that gave you detailed information on it's current status.

Sure, I'm not saying that you shouldn't Skinlink your weapons, in fact I'm a huge fan of Skinlink as a first step towards reining in this Decker's Eden that Fourth Edition has become. What I am saying is that its a bad idea to set your weapon to only fire via a command sent from another device, whether you are using Skinlink, Wireless, or Cables to relay the command. You are introducing additional things that can go wrong into a situation already full of uncertainy.

*EDIT*

Samantha except in very rare situations I personally wouldn't want my team mates to be able to see through my eyes or check on the status of my cyberware and DNI can be used to tell me about the status of my Implants.

You do have a point about the Docters, which is why you'd want to turn Wi-Fi back on while in the clinic.

@Samantha: Mah, sorry, I did indeed mean goggles (and glasses), I'm not a native english speaker, so thank you very much for pointing me to this spelling mistake.

@Ravor: Yes, I understand, but on the other hand, I wouldn't mind seeing skinlink having one real disadvantage to wireless. If at least you would have to insert cables like in prior editions to make your external equipment non-hackable, then I would see this as a real disadvantage.

But skinlink is just too good in every way, at least in my eyes.

I would really like to know whatever disadvantage I'd have with turning off the wireless system of all my equipment with the exception of my commlink, which I perhaps wouldn't even need to have for smartlinking. Also, the external visual devices wouldn't be affected at all if being skinlinked only.

No problem, although from now on, I'll have to reference equipment as "googles".

Heh that flashpak blinder thing is interesting. Does your GM let you not suffer the affects of it or something since its under your eyes.

device <-> skinlink <-> body <-> Cyber (ONE WAY)
device <-> skinlink <-> body <-> skinlink <-> cyber (TWO WAY)

You can display smartlink data to your visual preference(eyes/glasses etc) no problem. The problem is if you use the one way method you cant send back information like "zoom in, switch fire mode, switch to low light vision, eject clip"

You So far the only two ways i have seen to send data back to your guns is to:
1. use a skinned datajack
2. use trodes + skinned commlink (which would probably be a second comm running in hidden mode 24/7)
3. Just use wifi and risk getting hacked.


@Particle Beam/anyone else. The slight disadvantage of skinlinked gear is that all the crap you can see or hear with secure gear is not immedeately available to the rest of your team. Because its not connected with anything wifi enabled. There are ways to bridge the gap but that makes the stuff you see/hear time lagged by the time you send it to the rest of the team.

Lagged by how much? Some micro-seconds? Unless dealing in VR, I don't see that lag to be of any real concern at all. Most dealings with cyberware and hacking are rather in the material world by AR, which makes the time delay really negligible, I'd say.

If you route traffic (through a chokepoint), there is no lag by RAW.

Assume this set up:
cyber eyes, datajack, commlink

Bob pokes his head around the corner and see's 7 gangers, after zooming in on each one and magnifying them looking for weapons he ducks back around the corner. Looking across the way to where his other team mates are all against the wall waiting for his report he gives them a "wait" hand gesture.

Reaching down bob pulls out a data chip from his commlink and slots it into his datajack. After burning the video onto the chip bob removes it from the datajack and slots it back into the commlink. Mentally bob commands his commlink to transmit what he saw to the rest of the team. Now they are ready to kick ass and take names. Bob waits for the signal from the rest of his team.


Another method to avoid the time lag all together involves the skinned character having to waste more money than their friends by doubling up on stuff. Bob may have cyber ears and cyber eyes but he still has to buy some fancy goggles and earbuds so he can keep his cyber seperate from his PAN.