I'm interested what people think that availability measures. The way I run it ( as a jumping off point) is how hard it is to get in the black market. If you have the cred and a SIN you could walk into a high end cyber clienic, and order a custom limb with an availability of 92 and they would build and install it with out you having to track it down. If you wanted to get said item off the record and pay in cash... well now that's a different story. Is this more or less how others see it?

I view it has some things just not being common enough for stores to keep in stock, so if you walked into a cyberclinic and ordered your ( Availabity 92 ) cyberarm they'd say ok, and your order would be added into the que at the factory. However, unless you have alot of money to spend your order is very likely to get bumped down as corps who deal in bulk have their orders taken care of.

We interpret it as general measure of availability on the black market, like you do.

Consequently we do not use the system - except if someone tries to work the black market instead of going through a special vendor. Fixer contacts have all types of gear in their chosen speciality and close to nothing in all others.

The abundance/scarcity of an item is literally availability. The rating can also include the disincentives to deal in that kind of item, eg how much it draws the attention of law enforcement. Cops might or might not bother to track down a novacoke dealer; but they'll almost always make a serious effort to intercept unauthorized sales of APDS ammo, since that APDS might be used against them someday. I'm in a campaign in which the Corporate Court and the UN co-sponsor an agency that seeks to prevent rogue AIs, like the Turing cops in Gibson's stories, and they are a major threat to anyone who deals in certain kinds of prohibited software.

So if you have a spare Striker rocket, and you want to sell it, you can't spread the word indiscriminately, because one of your "buyers" might be Lone Star undercover agents. You only mention the rocket-for-sale to your closer, more discreet associates. Thus, it takes longer to find a buyer. The NPC who has a Striker for sale faces the same situation, and thus the same effect.

Formulae for mind control spells should have extra high Availability ratings because most mudanes fear and hate the possibility of being magically controlled, and some will actively seek and destroy any dealers in such formulae. That may also be why Manipulation fetishes are expensive.

Availability is really just a game mechanic to prevent players from getting really good gear easily and without risk. The higher the availability an item, not only does it take longer to get but there are more chances for you to glitch on the roll. I think the availability rules are just one place you have to suspend your disbelief. Even the black market could have what you are looking for on hand if you know the right people.

Even the above being the case, I do like the idea of having the rules only work for the black market. If I am an a delta clinic, it is a given they will most likely have deltaware there. Of course delta clinics are very rare, and aren't really a good indicator for general gameplay. I think it would be better for the GM to customize what items the shop has on hand or are easily accessible within a few days to 1 week. Everything else can use the availability rules.

We have a defined set of connections for our current campaign. All chars get a set of these for free, depending on their lifestyle. Therefore, the general capabilities of all connections become known over time. If you don´t have someone as connection, you nevertheless know he/she is a shadow person.

In this context, I can do without availability rules. Negotiations center on price and willingness to sell, not availability. Occasionally some char is searching for gear not generally available in the vincinity of our connection set. Then they have to ask, and then we use the rules with generous mods depending on how the char goes about his search.

Most gear is found easily given time - as it should be. If balance is your goal, the availability rules fail. If your extended-test roles number is limited to DP size, the needed dicepool is a bit higher than the square root of (your threshold*3). Not usually an issue between runs, as a pool of 9 can shoot at a threshold of 20 with little risk.

You start searching for a multi-rocketlauncher and a dozen AP missiles, and people start to ask what you are planning to do. Even (especially so) those who might aquire them for you. So far (some 1.5 years by now) my players enjoy playing out key investments instead of rolling the dice. As for all other gear - it is a material world, even more so than today. Can pay = able to buy.

I use availability rules as is and they work well for our group. Granted, most of the rolls are done through me because they are using their fixers to aquire the goods.

But, besides time and money, the players can get whatever they want. For many of the forbidden items I hike the cost up 70-100%, but if they have the nuyen, they are gonna get the item. Its just a matter of time.

My players just came off a run and have up to 12 weeks of downtime. Within a month, they picked up basically all the equipment they wanted to buy, found and purchased instruction to raise their skills and trained their attributes...I'd say as a group, they burnt through about 60 karma and over 100,000 nuyen in about 2 hours of real time...

I use availability rules with a house rule. On character creation the limit is 12, and I have kept this limit for awhile. Now that they have some karma and street cred on their belts, I've raised the cap to 15, and it's probably going to increase later in the campaign.

Other than that, some items with higher availability can be aquired in game in certain situations, for instance when Trog visited the Yakuza gundealer, he could have bought a Panther Assault Cannon right there. But the face can't just roll some dice and get it, it's not common enough.

When it comes to legal items with av., I think of it as items that needs preordering. Almost anyone who can afford them can get them, but it can take years of waiting. Extra fees, bribes and using favors from the right contacts may speed this up considerably, and Jimmy (hacker) got his Skillwires rating 5 this way, in months instead of years. He had to take the risk and go to a corporate hospital who although they accepted his SIN, probably found a few irregularities. If he had bad luck they might have reported this to Lone Star or kept him there himself.