Are there any upper limits on commlink attributes and program ratings?

I see that higher than six rating programs and attributes are mentioned as mill-spec/cutting edge stuff, but given the ease of creating a rating 7 response chip(hardware + logic[14/1 day] [pg 240]) for even a beginning level hacker(avg logic: 5, avg hardware: 4, avg success per roll: 3, avg. successes assuming upper limit on number of rolls based on hardware skill of 4: 12. Cost: guessing 8000:nuyen:) it seems like there must be some sort of limit. Programs aren't so bad, with intervals of 1-6 months.

Still, anyone got any comments? Is there an errata/section of the FAQ(boo!) that I missed?

Commlink Response Rating is capped at 6 currently. You can get it to 7 via Reality Filter.
Program Ratings are capped at 6.

The details are in the equipment tables.

Anything beyond those limits is purely within GM's realm. The mentioning of milspec, experimental, cutting edge technology just means, that the tables are not the absolute limit forever, but especially for players that's what you can get.

Bye
Thanee

The matrix book, is it "Unwired"?, will probably have rules for programs over rating 6, but for the moment that's the maximum for players. Gm's get to play with whatever ratings they assign to their killer-nodes however.

Hmmm.. I think the defining section is in the skills section. It says under the technical skills section that when they refer to "Building" something, it means assembling components to create something, and that creating something from a concept/idea alone requires an engineering background and lots of collaborative effort. This would provide that limiter on higher rating stuff.

Those rulse are more for stuff that doesn't exist in the lists, though.

Now, of course, Rating 7 commlinks don't... but you know what I mean.

Bye
Thanee

Well personally I figure that at 2070 tech levels, the hard cap for program/hardware chips is somewhere between Rating 8-9, and although a character might be able to snatch a Rating 7 Responce Chip or program from a military or corp research death trap, the only way they'd ever anything higher was to wander into the den of one of the 'God' AIs.

Still I wouldn't allow them to create anything above Rating 6 on their own unless perhaps they had natural Rating 7 Hardware/Software active skills & Rating 7 Hardware/Software knowledge skills as well. And even then Rating 8+ would be the result of decades of pure research and toil, so wouldn't be in the realm of anything the PCs could actually hope for.

Hmm, I guess I had always assumed that since Knowledge and Active skills were treated to seperate caps during char gen that they were also treated seperately per the appitude quality.

*Edit*

But yeah, I would allow a partnership to work, but it would take longer to pay off...

Rating 6 is just the highest level of commlink/programs that are usually available. It is entirely possible to get a program of rating 7, 8, or even higher by stealing a prototype from the military or a mega.

The rating for technology is simply a measure of how good the tech is in comparison to other tech, so there is no "upper limit" per say, though as the tech level increases, old programs would likely go down a rating as their not as good by comparison.