So, I was wondering something about the different grades of cyberware. Obviously there's standard, alpha, beta, and delta, and they cost this much and reduce essence by that much. A straight rules question, do bioware and cultured bioware have the same different grades? And a more general question, are they kidding?

The marginal cost of the different grades of cyberware are ridiculous. Let's say I want some Wired Reflexes 1 installed. It costs me 2 Essence for 11,000 . Now, that's a little hard on the internal organs, so I go for alphaware. I pay the marginal cost of 11K, and I get .4 essence in return. Not bad, if I do say so myself. But evidently that's not good enough for me. I go shopping for betaware, and all of a sudden I'm paying an extra 33K for a measly .2 essence! That's a tremendously higher cost than the last upgrade, and for less benefit! Finally, upgrading to deltaware will set me back another 55K, and give me back another .4 precious essence.

Basically, my objection is one of pure math.
Marginal costs/point of essence:
Alpha: 27.5K/Ess
Beta: 165K/Ess!
Delta: 137.5K/Ess

I think betaware and deltaware are really cool. But when the math works so much against them, no one's ever going to use them. I mean, honestly, do you? Ignoring the fact that for some absurd reason the marginal cost per essence of betaware is higher than the marginal cost per essence of deltaware, which in itself makes no sense, do you really have nothing better to do with your piles of nuyen than buy a measly .2 essence for thirty-three thousand nuyen? I understand the costs should be high, but at least betaware should reduce essence to .6 of normal, and deltaware should reduce it to .4 of normal. Then they might at least see some play. I gotta say, my players would sooner buy a helicopter than they would buy high grade ware. Have I totally missed the bullseye on this one, or are beta and delta just in the rulebook to look pretty and not much else?

The highest grades of cyber aren't used much by players. I agree with that. However, if you are heavily cybered and need to get more essence from somewhere at least there is the (expensive) option of beta 'ware.

From a GM perspective it is also a nice way to have something truly horribly cybered up for your players to face without going the cyberzombie route. Big corps have the delta clinics to make such a thing and probably made some just to prototype the stuff.

Really you can get a sensible amount of cyber with standard ware. You can get a silly amount with alpha. If you need more you pay through the nose. Most people aren't going to be buying the beta or delta 'ware since they don't need to so you pay more for something that is low volume. Makes sense to me.

From a storyline point of view the costs seem reasonable. When you get your arm chopped off and replaced with chrome it costs essence. When you get it done well (alpha) it costs less essence due to better/less connections to hook up said chrome arm. I can see it being more and more difficult to reduce the number of connections or perform the surgery better with the same control of an arm. Diminishing returns.

My players probably won't ever be able to afford a fighter jet (let alone one with missiles) or a T-Bird but I still like having rules for them when they have to stop one.

-Strobe

Absurdly cost inefficient rewards in RPGs allow you to give out really large sums of 'money' as a reward without actually doing so.

This gives you the ability to hand out super cool stuff as a GM to a street sammie that won't actually make the game cry. Say you have a samurai who is a bit underpowered, and also want a really big payout for some run. There is absolutely nothing stopping you giving the guy delta grade synaptic boosters as an upgrade from his current standard issue or alphaware as a plot reward.

While the amount of 'money' he just got is totally staggering (1.5 million Nuyen!) - so he'll be pumped - the actual game value is 0.75 of essence, which is good, because you can now jam a pain editor in and maybe a reflex recorder, but thats just going to make your previously slightly under performing sammie somewhat better.. And the cultured bioware has a resale value of zero, so he cannot just turn around and sell it either.

So yeah, it's a plot device you can do things with. It allows you to explain super cyborg baddies, gives you super candy to hand out to players, and does double duty as a back door balancing tool.

Essence is a finite commodity, and every little bit counts when you don't have much to play with.

Cthulhudreams has got something going there. Using it as a reward is another use. Delta clinics aren't open to the public anyway so getting it in game somehow is the best way of explaining it's use.

-Strobe

Ooh, Cthulhudreams does indeed have something there. My party's sammie doesn't need it, but if she did, that's be a neat trick. The only question then becomes, how to balance the rest of the loot so the other characters don't feel shafted?

Plus having betaware or deltaware does give you bragging rights at the local cyberbar, since it's not off the shelf available.

A corporate exec/campaign villain a few campaigns back had a Deltaware Datajack.

Not a good investment, but, by God, it was a Deltaware Datajack.

The players used to obsess over that thing. Had a pool going as to who'd get to claim it if they ever geeked him, wondered what else he had (Nothing, but they didn't know that), and what he'd doen to get access to that level of resource for something so trivial.

Best Deltaware ever.

How could they tell it was deltaware?

Because the guy's walking around pointing at his temple and saying "Look at me, I have a deltaware datajack," maybe?

Jajajajaj...

Honestly, I think someone or a group of someones finally realized how wretched and unfeasible the stages between alpha, beta, and delta grade implants were. That's why they added qualities like Biocompatibility and genetech like Adapsin to the game.

The former essentially turns all alphaware into betaware at character creation and beyond without increasing the cost (well, for only the equivalence of 50,000 nuyen, which is a steal if you're spending a huge portion of your budget on implants). The latter is a cheap option to take after character creation for the same end effect, with the only real cost being a 0.2 Essence loss which can easily be made up for in a single implant.

So while all the options have a drawback, at least there are options now, the latter two being great ones for games where the runners don't have nuyen to burn.

The place I have a problem with the grades is comparing them to those from previous editions and therefore in-game timeframes. Take a look at the old grade stats-

1st ed Street Samurai Catalog (circa 2050-51):
Alpha x.8 Ess x3 Cost; Beta x.6 Ess x7 Cost; Bioware doesn't exist yet

2nd ed SSC (same year):
Same costs

Shadowtech (circa late 2052):
Same costs for cyberware; Introduced bioware, with non-neural available as cultured for x.75 Bio Index x4 Cost (note Bio Index was limitedby your body attribute and had nothing to do with essence)

Cybertechnology (early-mid 2056):
introduced Delta x.5 Ess x10 Cost

3rd ed BBB (2060):
Alphaware is commercially available now at x2 Cost

Man and Machine (2061):
Alpha x.8 Ess x2 Cost; Beta x.6 Ess x4 Cost; Delta x.5 Ess x8 Cost; Used x(as grade) Ess x.5 Cost; Clarified which bioware was Basic and which had to be Cultured x.75 Bio Index x4 Cost (limited Bio Index to Essence+3, note this caused several Troll street sammies to die from overstress when converted from 2nd to 3rd ed.)

Also important to note (although it's been mentioned here before) they basically cut the available starting money by 1/4 along with the Costs of the cyberware, but only cut Bioware prices in 1/2. I personally wonder why Deltaware got more expensive and didn't improve in quality? Also, why is Betaware only a x.7 Ess cost now?

Its only an issue if you are comparing/contrasting to previous editions, though. I played 1st Edition, skipped 2 and 3 and now am playing 4th, so trying to explain difference in setting or costs to prior editions really doesn't mean anything.

It does to me, since I'm trying to decide if 4th ed ACTUALLY is an improvement over 3rd ed or a whole new system I should chuck out the window, except for use as source material for my 3rd ed game.

I did the same thing when White Wolf released the NWoD. Which I very quickly decided was a waste of my time. Since I count one of the developers of SR among my friends (although it's been a while since I've seen him) and I know from a mutual friend he had alot to do with the system changes, I'd hate to reach the conclusion that HIS work was a waste of my time.