John McDeficit is a Spider with a desire to set up a little Matrix-delivered computing service business on the side of his main job, to remedy his poor financial situation. He figures that he needs to be able to support at least 30 processes at once, but he doesn't really need to support Personas (in fact, he has no minimum Persona limit). He wants scalability (able to run whatever Rating programs he can get). He'd like to have as high security as possible.

Conventionally, a Response 6, System 6, Firewall 6 system with a Persona limit of 5 (he tried for lower but nobody would even give him a quote for some reason, he blames marketing) and a Process limit of 30 would cost him 11k nuyen (or its purchasing power equivalent in other currencies) and would require him to do some pretty slick product hunting. Given that he wouldn't be setting up this business if he had 11 thousand nuyen to spare, John has to reject the conventional method of delivering these services. Fortunately, John is a Spider and can reliably cluster up peripheral devices, if he wanted to.

John manages to discretely redirect one of his employer's agents to do a data search for information on cheap, high performance clustering and readily available devices to use. A few weeks later (he has to consolidate the search over a number of agent downtimes), the agent drops him a finished packet of data for him to peruse. He is astonished to find a number of everyday devices that he never considered particularly powerful computationally are, in fact, appopriate for clustering. He is astounded when he discovers that all major Credsticks perfectly match his criterion for cluster hardware.

Whilst they're not particularly powerful (Response 2), they've got a very good OS (System 6) and security like nobody's business (Firewall 6). As a cluster component they'll do fine for processes (each will contribute 3 to the Process limit). The only problem is the limited programming scope that they seem to be able to handle, but it seems like the clustering mechanisms (which he's surprised credsticks even support) work around that (nothing is said about program restrictions inheriting into cluster Nodes, equally nothing is said to prevent it). It sounds insane, but it's the best chance of getting

After some rough calculations done on the back of a paper serviette over his lunch break, he figures he'll need at least 10, probably more like 12 or 13, credsticks. He goes out and dumpster dives, calls in his credsticks as stolen, buys certified cred, and does anything to get more Credsticks. Each time he gets a credstick he isolates it from the Matrix (using his microwave) and hacks the admin account. Each time, he goes out for a celebratory drink after a feat of personal endurance.

A month later he's ready to do the test run. At the moment of truth he takes a Bliss derm to take the edge off his anticipation. When he comes down, he runs a cluster diagnostic tool and is rather pleased with the results (Response 2, System 6, Firewall 6, Process 36, Persona 12). John is one step closer to getting the bank off his back, now he just has to write his service software, advertise, work out his prices, and all those other boring business activities.


John did it, and so can you! All you need is a couple of Credsticks and you, too, can run an arbitrary number of Rating 6 programs. System caps program rating. Response normally caps System, but doesn't for peripheral devices like Credsticks. They only contribute half their normal Process limit, but Credsticks don't have a significant monetary cost as far as I can tell.

How can you tell the hacker apart from the mage at a restaurant? He's the guy with 5 more credsticks than anyone ever needs!


The most important hole in this whole shebang is that one could imply that the offhand comment about the restricted nature of the programs that may run on Peripherals apply to clusters formed from Peripherals, which is the superfact that contains such subfacts as "Credsticks aren't really computers, they just handle credit transactions" and "Credsticks don't work that way!" The text on Peripheral devices implies that they are actually somewhat useful when Clustered, I take this to mean that the restrictions are lifted.

The rules for clustering don't imply that they follow the normal Stat restrictions, so I'm taking that as my line. You can gimp this trick easily by ruling that the rules for Matrix Stat restrictions inherit from the nodes that were running on the devices before the clustered node, though you'd need to answer what happens when I cluster my credstick and my commlink together.

Now, consider how many Credsticks Corps have access to, if only they would figure out the secret to winning the Matrix... Balance of terrpower, no?

Just waiting for someone to tell me I'm wrong, now!

Uhm... aren't peripheral nodes restricted to run only those programs their systems are made for?

I think you're missing one small thing:



The way I read this, you could gladly cluster as many credsticks as you'd like to but they're still only going to be able to perform the basic operations that their OS is capable of doing: small data transfers and some basic read/write capabilities. Sure, the stats on your cluster would be reasonably significant, but it couldn't win the Matrix because the OS of a credstick just cannot perform to the level that a standard node can.

Sounds like you are making quite the leap of logic there based off the clusters description as a "super-node" (Unwired 48). It seems more like they are referring to the size of the node than any particular quality. It does not say that they are useful when clustered.



It makes no reference whatsoever to any change in usefulness.

No, you are right, one hundred percent correct, it is already done! You've won!

Now what?

If it's possible, does it mean it's being done?

Basic Read/Write, enough Mathematical functionality to handle reasonable enough encryption and calculate your current state of finance. It would need to have some kind of branching (logical decision) capacity to ensure it can change modes. It would also need a basic network stack. If it can do arithmetic, it can do Taylor series. If it can branch based on the truth of logical propositions it can act as a hub for a cluster to share out the work and run new protocols.

Your argument is, I noted, a solid foil to the trick. I do think, however, that the intent of the section writer when making the comment that one can cluster small devices implies that they intended the limit to be lifted when doing so. The fact that Peripheral devices can be clustered at all does imply that it was intended to be useful when doing so. Not to mention that it would become prohibitively difficult to decide what happens when you cluster peripherals with different program restrictions together in large quantities.

Think of the horror of a GM trying to figure out what happens when you cluster your fridge, your credstick and your underwear RFIDs!


Cheops,
The mention implies that it is thought by the section writer to be useful. RPG books are meant to be helpful and the writer would surely have been briefed on this. If the writer didn't think that this fact was useful to the average reader of the book, they would not have included mention of it (space concerns, confusion concerns). This implies that they intended clustering up Peripheral nodes to be a viable and useful tactic for running the programs your normal Unwired reader would want, which the program restriction does not support.

That's fair as long as all you want to do is use the cluster for extra computing power; all it's going to be able to do is run your programs for you. You'd probably want to slave your cluster to your commlink (taking up a subscription slot) but in the end you'd be able to run more programs that the next guy.

Or perhaps that a normal person can cluster all their Peripheral Nodes in their house into one "super-node" so that instead of having to log in to their Fridge, Toaster, Frying Pan, and Blender to make a balanced breakfast they can just log into their Kitchen or Home Cluster and issue all the commands there.

Doesn't give it any extra computational usefulness but it sure makes getting up in the morning more efficient.

I'm pretty sure you don't have to log onto a device to send it a command.

I'm pretty sure you do, though I wouldn't be surprised if logging onto your toaster is automated. The end user probably doesn't even notice the process, since most kitchen appliances would be clustered by their Evo Kitchen Wizard. I have always thought of supplements as saying, "this is how it's always been done, now we're just giving you mechanics for it instead of relying on GM hand waving." This, if anything, fits the bill perfectly. I can have my entire apartment clustered together with a cheapo nexus in my closet providing security overwatch. I keep the nexus subscribed to alert me if something happens while I'm out, and when I get home it's just a matter of pointing at my autocooker to pull up a menu of what I've got in the ol' icebox.

Actually you don't need to log-on/subscribe to just send a command.

As for winning the Matrix, I think that if there was such a possibility, and if it was that easy, it would be commonly used.

I think most household devices will be slaved to the home telekom. If they aren´t, see that giving orders (pg. 220(German) main book) does not require a subscription. Device access is granted by any legitimate user account.

Need I point out that clustering your devices together would cause half of them to stop working? Assuming, of course, that they run programs to perform their tasks. If peripherals didn't run programs they wouldn't need the note to indicate that the range of programs they can run is restricted; they'd have a note saying that they don't run programs and everything they do is done automagically by dint of being a peripheral. So, it is implied that peripherals use programs to do their jobs.

The program restriction is based on the idea that their system doesn't have the codebase to support most of the tasks needed for anything but their specialist programs (who needs a natural logarithm function on a hairdryer?). That's fine because clustering is designed with heterogenous platforms in mind. Good clustering will avoid assumptions like "the target supports all these function calls" and provide that code as well as the fragment being executed. Whether you want to think of anything in Shadowrun as "good", is up to you.

As for "winning", it does allow you to run Rating 6 programs from the very beginning (the number of credsticks you own is pretty much a character choice, so choose high). It's not too much of a "win", but if I can't use comic exageration now and then, life would be boring.

Issuing Commands (BBB 221): "you can issue commands to an agent, drone, or device under your control with a Simple Action."
Actions Needing Subscriptions (Unwired 55): "command connections to drones and agents"
Controlling Devices (BBB 220): "you must first gain access to the device before you can control it"

While they don't include device in the table I'd argue that it still takes a subscription to issue commands to a device. Alternatively you can log in and directly control the device. So if you simply want to issue commands to your home appliances you can subscribe to each of them and either take a simple action for each one or send one bulk order to all of them and trust their dog brains to figure it out. Finally, you could cluster them all together in which case you have one subscription and issue a bulk order.

As for processor limits I don't think that is an issue. The BBB/FAQ/Errata makes it clear that any programs that are NOT listed as gear do not take up processor limit. So that toaster running the Aztechnology Perfect Crips™ program does not count against processor limit.