OK everyone, I have a question for everyone. I am making a combat mage with some cyber/bioware to increase his survival chances and saw the Biocompatability quality. This would allow my mage to squeeze in just that much more 'ware and still only have a decrease of his magic by 1. I have .7 in Bioware and .72 in cyberware and the Biocompatability is in cyberware.

The question is how to do the math:

Method 1) (.72 * .9) + (.7 * 1/2) = .998 essence loss (the Raw cyberware was in greater quantity so bioware only costs 1/2)

Method 2) (.72 * .9 * 1/2) + .7 = 1.024 essence loss (the cyberware, after Biocompatability, is in less quantity so it only costs 1/2)

Method 3) (.72 * .4) + .7 = .988 essence loss (because decreases in essense cost add up and are not multiplied (1/2 for being in less quantity and 10% savings for biocompatability for a decrease of 60% )

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Before anyone asks, I looked at the whole thread about the Augmentation for this question (the download feature only got the first 12 pages), AND emailed Synner this question. Since I haven't heard anything from Synner, I thought that I would put this out for everyone to answer.

My reading of the rules for Biocompatibility is that the quality lowers "the Essence Cost of implants" (p. 20, Augmentation). The Essence cost is reduced for each implant, such that, as far as the character is concerned, the reduced cost is the only cost there's ever been. That suggests that the "take the discount off for the quality" step comes before "figure out whether cyberware or bioware Essence loss is greater" step. I believe that's your Method 2.

I'm chucking my vote in for #2.

I'd have to vote #2 also.

#2 I'm afraid. In your case the ten percent reduction from biocompatibility is applied immediately to the cyberware essence loss and then the cyber/bio losses are compared and the lower halved, as in #2.

Oh, and please post your augmentation choices, I'm always interested in low essence cost combinations.

[edit: totally missed Aaron's post, what he said]

#2 as well

first add up how much essence each kind of ware costs (including grade) and then half the cost of the lesser one.

Okay, I'm creeped out. This thread has way exceeded Dumpshock's agreement quotient for the week.

By RAW, it depends very much on when you put in each piece of 'ware and when you gain the Biocompatibility Quality. Remember, Bioware and Cyberware Essence Holes are tracked separately.


Let us say that you get .72 worth of cyberware first and then get .7 of bioware and then obtain the Biocompatibility Quality via karma purchase. Your total essence loss will be .72 + .7/2. You'll have .72 worth of cyberware essence loss but due to the biocompatibility you'll gain a cyberware essence hole of .72/10

Look at the bright side, you're already past the 1.0 mark, so now you might as well look into burning 2.0 on purpose, more toys are always better.

A burnout? Who me?

#2 is it.
Also, to clarify somewhat what hyzmarca said (I had to read it a few times), it really depends on the order in which things happen. If somehow you gained the quality after chargen (meaning it isnt genetic and thus....... I dont know how it could happen), youre lost essence would not come back, it is gone forever. This also applies to adapsin genetech. All the implants after it will be at *.9, but it will not lower the essence already lost. As for the solution:


Just pump yourself full of metal, dont worry, the gains far outweigh the losses

Well in theory if you had enough money you could get teh genetech done followed by having every last piece of metal ripped out of your body and reinstalled with a couple extra toys. (Seriously, I know that most people don't play it this way, but a Mage is simply crazy for not burning 2.0 Essence and getting her extra IPs from bioware instead of mojo.)

None of the above.

Biocompatibility is per implant. like Implant grades (and adds to them, making the table Used x1.1 - Standard x0.9 - Alpha x0.7 - Beta x0.6 - Delta x0.4)... involving rounding, possibly.

Yeah, Betaware still sucks in SR4.

You are mistaken.

Nope.

Also, that calculation was stated by the devs in the Augmentation questions thread.

Maybe you should explain your position a little clearer, as I am having problems figuring out what you are actually arguing about.

You made the statement that Biocompatibility applies to only a single implant. This is wrong, as I said above (I did not quote any other part of your post).

I don't think anyone is arguing that Biocompatibility does not reduce the Essence cost by 10%.

The discussion is about when that 10% discount occurs, in relation to the comparison of Bio/cyber implants for the purposes of determining actual Essence loss (which type of implants are halved).

Sorry if not making my point clear - my statement is that the reduction directly applies the implant's Essence cost, not the total essence cost, nor the relative essence cost.

Biocompatibility is treated exactly like Implant Grades or Adapsin - and those percentages simply add up before calculation.

BTW: Biocompatibility (Cyberware), like Adapsin also applies to 'Nano'-cyber implants - Biocompatibility (Bioware), on the other hand, doesn't apply to GeneTech.

OK, everybody is asking about what implants I had:

Cyber (all alpha grade) - Commlink, Cybereyes (level 3), Cyberears (level 2)
Bioware - Synaptic Booster (level 1), Cerebral Booster (level 1)

The reason I didn't want to use the full two points of essence is that my character's a mage, not a sammie. I took just enough 'ware to make him dangerous... not ungodly.

So, with BC, the modifier for Alphaware is 0.7, resulting in the following essence costs:
0.14 + 0.28 + 0.21 = 0.63


That would be 0.5 + 0.2 = 0.7

For a total:
0.7 + 0.63/2 = 1.015

Tough luck - still more than one point of essense.
Consider downgrading the eye to level 2.

Is it to late to join in on this group hug thing? I´m also for option 2!

The solution for going just under 1 pt of essence is taking Cyberears rating 1 (Damper+Audio Enhancement).

Drop the Ears by start and buy them during game as betaware, they aren't that expansive and so after a few runs you should be able to pay them.

cya
Tycho

with biocompatability its actually cheaper to take those as stand alone implants, same essence cost but you only pay for implants not for alphaware ears.

Only if one does not need the Recoder and Sound Link.

And that is pretty much exactly what everyone else had said prior to your post stating we were wrong. The reduction is calculated before the two different types of implants are compared.

Actually, not quite:

Option #2 calculates Implant Essence Cost x Alphaware x Biocompatibility - which is wrong.

It is Implant Essence Cost x (Alphaware + Biocompatibility).

Im pretty sure this topic is in the FAQ also. And im pretty sure they said Add up all the implants, then apply the biocomp, then half whichever side is less.

Actually it isn't mentioned in the FAQ at all. It was covered in the Augmentation Q&A thread:

Get a cybersuite for the eyes/ears, they are a common enough mod that suites should be offered. Also you'll probably want a datajack to go along with your commlink (Remember to carry an external sim-module if you actually want to use sim-sense.), which also should come with a suite.

Oh, and you'll want to save enough Essence for the pain Editor that you should be willing to sell your soul (and ass) to Bubba (the love troll) for.

no it's not the same fortune, you cant just add up essence costs of alphaware implants and multiply it by 0.9, the math doesn't work like that.
you have to multiply the invidual essence cost by 0.7(alpha+biocomp) and then add them up.

I just now realized that I misread/didnt consider that .72 could only be achieved through graded ware. I agree with you completely, as you are correct. What I was trying to clarify, is that post-chargen, essence loss is just (Essence Cost * Grade Modifier) if they did not purchase the Quality at Chargen or before they had the ware installed.

Well, technically, there is no 'after chargen' for Biocompatibility.

I was paying more attention to the order in which the calculations were done, since that was the crux of the question, and not the calculation themselves.

(a + b) * 0.9 = (a * 0.9) + (b * 0.9)

It doesn't matter whether you apply the biocompatibility individually for each implant or for the set of implants as a whole. It comes out to the same value. Why is there an argument here?

Because Implant Essence Cost x Alphaware x Biocompatibility != Implant Essence Cost x (Alphaware + Biocompatibility)

I would like to thank everyone who answered my question about this issue.

It ends up with a slight difference. For example

1 x .7 = .7
1 x .8 x .9 = .72

Had to edit the second one, put .7 in twice intead of .7 and .8

I concur with this statement, and agree that the right half of the inequation is the correct formula to apply.

From earlier posts I had the impression that you were arguing that there would be some different result if this formula were applied to each separate implant (and then adding the separate subtotals) from applying the formula once to the sum of the essence costs of multiple implants. This did not make sense to me. If I misread you, sorry.

Well that wasn't my point, but technically, that is the case as soon as there are rounding errors.

So don't round. ;o)