Unwired has several things requiring tests with an interval of one week or more. One of them in particular concerns me: Patching programs with rating loss due to program degradation.

According to Unwired pg119:

So to keep a program current takes 1 week and 1 hit on a Logic+Software test. Assuming a Programming Suite 5 is available to a hacker with 4 Software skill and 7 Logic thats 16 dice. To keep from making the Commando witnessing the rolls from clawing his own eyes out he buys hits at the standard 4:1 so his 16 dice buy 4 hits... but he only needs 1 hit.

Q: Is his 4 hits able to patch 4 rating points spread 1 rating point per program across each of 4 programs?

Q:If so, is the same dice-rolling method permissible with other tests like forging licenses and programming program options?
DISCLAIMER: I know that extended tests for forging lifestyle are handled differently, I'm asking about other software tests.

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I'm posting this in the missions forums since the book is not explicit and there are serious time constraints for maintenance functions. Every four games patching has to be restarted! My weekly SR GM will certainly do it one way and there are several ways folks can simplify it... my question is how it is to be handled for SR missions.

No, because that would effectively net you four weeks worth of work during your 1 week threshold.

n.b. It's perfectly legal for you to trade programs with other player characters in order to keep things up to date, rather than trying to do the patching on every single one of your programs yourself. I've no qualms if that trading happens on these forums.

Well, not the answer I was hoping for but I appreciate the speediness of the response. Thanks!

Is there a limit to how many weeks we can take between games in order to do stuff like patch software, etc?

The only limit is how long your nuyen to pay for lifestyle holds out.

In the past I've only spent lifestyle time for downtime actions after the game but with all my teams programs JUST having degraded I'd like to sack a few months of my own lifestyle (not team lifestyle) to get them up to par so the team doesn't suffer.

Q: Are we allowed to spend lifestyle time to patch software and such BEFORE a game?

Before a game is exactly the same thing as after the last game. It's all down time. I fail to see how you could differentiate.

Thanks!