You could always adjust it up by 3 per rank, with alpha being +3, Beta +6 and Delta +9. You just have to remember that your everyday street doc wont be able to install beta or delta since you have to go to a specialised clinic for those grade ware. Most players would have a hard time getting ANY Delta done without alot of favors pulled or a high difficulty mission with the gear and installation as a reward.

Sounds like you need a new GM.

Nah he just needs a GM that doesnt stick ot the letter of the law of the rulebook. Because yeah. Theres alot of really 'common' crap that you need to make avail rolls for in SR. Stuff thats so basic you sort of wonder about it.

SR4 does away with alot of that. And keep in mind in SR3 Alphaware you could suposedly buy out of your average legit cybershop. (Course the much higher avail sort of countered the fluff on that) By SR4 I'm sure you could legally obtain a good deal of betaware at a 'high end' legal clinic.

Deltaware.. Well I still see that as mostly the realm of the big AAAs own little playground. On the flipside however there WAS a comparitively large increase in the number of delta clinics by 2070. And arguably at least one or two of em is 'publicly available'. And by 'publicly available' of course. We mean only to the ultra rich jet setters of the world public. The rest of you are too poor to dare set foot within the sanctified walls of yonder Delta Clinic. Now out you bum and here's 10 for your trouble. Go get some soup.

Legally obtain.

Legally.

Think about it.

If you have access to a Deltaware Clinic (Back in '60, I think that there ere only five of 'em?), you'd better hock everything you can, take out loans, and beg, borrow, or steal to get as many upgrades as you can, because it's durn near impossible to get an appointment.

If you get in and only get a Datajack, I think that they implant a cortex bomb as well, just for being a yutz.

Yep. High-rated fake IDs are good for things like that.

Something the average runner won't be getting his paws on for a long while, if ever.

Maybe in your games, but it's usually one (or more) of my characters' first purchases in-game.

Which is also available at chargen up to rating of 4.

I'm talking about getting a R rated ware totally legit, no fake anything accept for your SIN. You would have a legal official license for your ware on your Fake SIN, so no needing to spend that extra cash for the Fake License. This is taking into account that this is in game and not CharGen.

At CharGen, unless your character took the 'SINner' quality, you would need Fake SIN and License for everything that was R rated, that is unless you dont care that the Star might arrest/fine your character for having illegal stuffs due to not having the proper licenses.

Why are you differentiating between the two? A fake permit (whether attached to a real or fake SIN) will be just as useful in getting the stuff implanted as a real license (as long as it holds up under scrutiny).

I think SR3 has been out too long (it's been over a decade, right?) People just can't get the "only five delta clinics" idea out of their heads... What's wrong with putting delta on a more realistic level? Like, say, PC is to supercomputer as standard ware is to deltaware? The only real difference is a large gulf in price. Though supercomputers are generally reserved for corporations with lots of cash who need them for industrial applications, they're not going to put a trojan on your supercomputer just because you're a regular person with enough money to buy one. You have money, they have goods, you exchange money for goods... What's the disconnect here?

In SR3, deltaware was basically experimental technology. Stuff that can only be made by five secret clinics in the world is not "top end," it is beyond that. The theme in SR3 was such that if your GM ever let a character have deltaware, he was taking gross and uncalled for liberties with canon. Delaware was, like so much of the sourcebook material in SR3, something to help fill up pages of endless rules, not something you'd ever expect to see in a campaign. But in SR4, that's gone, it's dead. Deltaware is just the highest grade of available cyberware. If you have a burning need for unattainable ware, introduce some novahot experimental lambdaware or something into your game. Don't preserve outdated theme that ends up being more of a barrier to player advancement than a boost to gameplay.

Actually Cyberware grades have a great deal to do with the actual hardware. Basic grade cyber. You basically hack off a limb, and directly connect nerve endings to metal and plastic. Beta and Deltaware levels you really get a hybrid limb going by cannon explanations. At the deltaware level the surgeon is litterally creating half the control circuits and such for the cyberware durring surgery. It's why its so difficult and expensive to do. Their basicallyt aking nerve endings and 'blending' them with the hardware. It's also why Beta and Deltaware dont give you half the benifit as 'used' cyber that Basic/Alpha does under SR3. Infact it's arguably impossible to use some one else's Deltaware in SR3 because of the fact that those very circuits arnt just present. Their litterally -part- of the person. It's also why the essense loss from Deltaware is so much less than basic. Much more of the body's 'holistic whole' is preserved/rebuilt.

I suppose to try to explain it abit better, it's best to say:
Basic Cyberware is all metal/plastic
Deltaware is bio-mechanical.

The latter being an actual blend of metal with flesh and blood. The former not being a blending at all but flat out crude connections. The biomechanical aspect of the cyberware increases as you work your way up the grade chain. In a way that explains alot of bioware. I mean under SR4 Wires 3 via game mechanics is pretty much -identical- to Synaptic 3. But what's the fluff difference? Both are enhancements but one is still a good deal of metal and platics. The other is enhanced nerve endings.

Same with muscle replacement cyber. Think about it. It's litterally carving out your muscles and replacing them with pure synthetics. But you get the same effect from combinging equal parts of Muscle Augmentation and Muscle Toner bioware. ANd what do they do? They basically take that synthetic muscle and blend it with your real muscle. Thus why the essense cost is lower for the same degree of enhancement.

It's alot more expensive, and surgically intensive. Though that intesity is sort of going away with all the nanotools doing most of the work now. But that again really is tech doing stuff a guy with a scalple cant do.

Also Deltaware is still hard to get ahold of in SR4. Not half as hard as it was under SR3 Because basicaly between 2060-2070 you went from there only being 5 top secret deltaware facilites to... I think it's closer to 20 facilities now. Two of them actually being 'public'. Rich people public but still. I'm also not 100% sure on those figgures but they -are- listed somewhere in the SR4 books. That or System Failure. Either way the info is there in the offical cannon fluff.

So while your not too likely to find deltaware that's 'fallen off the back of a truck' there's not reason you cant find betaware that has if you go to the higher end shadowclinics. Afterall, the stuff doesnt even fall off the back of the truck at that point. At that level it's either comming from highjacked convoys, or more likely straight out of the factory with enough bribes floating about for the stuff to never actually show up on paperwork.

5000 Betaware Datajacks this month? No.. not at all we only made 4000. I dont know where you got that extra 1000 from at all.

Well for starters your restricted to standard and alpha grade at character creation.

The other factor is your required to find and get access to the higher grade clinics, which requires gameplay.

The surgeons are a real important factor as their skills reduce the strain and damage to your body when adding the implants.

Of course the only ones who can support them are organizations with the resource to support and keep them.

I haven't seen anything to support this, beta and delta seems to be custom parts and better installation rather then a change in overall technology. ( Bioware and Cyberware are distinct paths from each other with the same overall limitation.)

The other point that discounts this idea is the fact that no matter what the grade of cyberware, it still requires repair when damaged. ( Biomechanical implies organic self repair.)

Ehh... not entirely. It depends to the degree of 'biomechanical' you mean. At it's very foundation 'biomechanical' is really just a flat out 'mesh' of blood, bone, gristle, and unyeilding metal. The biological components would certainly in many cases mend themselves. But that doesnt necessarily mean that the biological parts can infact also mend the mechanical.

Now granted the Beta/Deltaware is more along the lines of 'customization' than biomechanical. But by fluff at a certain level it is at the very least on the 'fringe' of biomechanica to that sort of definition. Though instead of having bone and gristle in there it's mostly just nerve endings and such. Nerves cant repair themselves much less repair metal and plastic. And there isnt a change to the 'base technology' simply as a much greater refinment.. Deltaware is manipulated at something akin if not directly at the nanolevel. Where as stuff like alphaware your just using very finely controlled instrutments. But thats really all a nanite is too. Just ti's even more finely controled than say.. a surgical scalple or a laser.

I suppose what i really should have said is Deltaware is more 'borderline' biomechanical. Because indeed it isnt really. Bioware on the otherhand techncially is. Alot of bioware can I think actually repair it's own damage.

But if you go over all the fluff around whats involved in installing stuff like deltaware it goes to an almost absurd level of 'customization'. To the point where when installing say something as 'basic' or 'simple' as a cyberarm. Half the actual circuits and other components of the cyberarm dont even EXIST untill it's installed. Their litterally built right then and there durring surgery using stuff like your nerve endings being melded with synthetics at a nanomolecular level. So if you travel down the nerve from the spine your all bio untill lsowly you start getting part bio part synthetic and eventually wind up pure synthetic.

Where as basic and alpha you have this very distinct line where it suddenly jumps from biological to pure synthetic. It isnt a gradual change at all but a very sudden one. I'll have to dig through all the SR3 and SR4 books again since the information is rathe rscattered. Not to mention betaware in SR4 is about what Deltaware is in SR3 tech level wise.

Overall I'd say SR's augmentation is slowly going the way of augs in Dues Ex. Where you went from this cheap mending of flesh and blood to 'nanoaugs'. Though alot of the stuff is really more like bioware in some cases than actual nanites. ANd then Dues Ex 2 the refinement goes even further. It's not as huge a leap as cyberarms to nanoaugmented arms though. It's just so cheap at that point that no one would even dream of using something as 'crude' as cybernetics.

I mean.. afterall thats really what you have in SR4 isnt it? "Cheap" is wired reflexes. "top of the line" is synaptic accelerator. They both do the same thing. But Deltaware Synatpic 3 essence wise just blows deltaware Wired 3 out of the water (You go from 2.5 essence to just over .93 or somethign like that). The only difference then is that delta wired 3 slightly cheaper. But I dont think it is by a whole lot. And then consider that Delta Synaptic 3 is effectively 'undetectable' compared to even delta cyberware? Well its well worth the added cost then. Because you coudl waltz right though a cyberware scanner and you wouldnt set off a thing. Deltaware cyberware on teh other hand -might- go undetected.

Yes, this is exactly my understanding as well. Granted, that understanding is taken from old edition books, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that hasn't changed, at least until Augmentation comes out.