hey I've been aware from SR for a few years, my last game was when 4e just came out. I have the core book, street magic, runner havens, and First Run. I just ordered all the rest of the available books including Unwired.

MY questions are

1. Does the 5th printing of the Core book contain the errata?

2. Is "hacking" still an unescapable morass of rules creep death that is better suited to being glossed over by the GM?

Feel free to fire away with any input you'd like regarding hacking in general.

It's not a slam against the hacking rules but I was a bit overwhelmed just by what was in the core book (I know it's basic). I'd rather know more now as opposed to when I start the game back up.

*EDIT* Just wanted to add that i started playing in 2e.

Thanks in advance.

Well obviously unwired isn't out yet. EDIT: PDF is out. I need to pay better attention, just the tree version you can't get.

But hacking is much much better and faster in SR4 as opposed to earlier editions. Most of the time a hack consists of maybe a couple electronic warefare rolls to pinpoint the signal you need to hack from the camera/guy/drone whatever. Then you roll to get in, GM rolls to detect the hacker and usually they just get in and do something.

The biggest issue, that will hopefully be resolved in unwired, is that they don't really spell things out. Meaning the hacking environment in one GMs campaign will be very different than anothers, and there may be inconsistancy about things like what happens when you crash an IC from game to game.

The 5th printing includes all to-date errata, and then some. ~5 months and they still have not gotten around to updating the errata...

Unwired fixed a few problems, and added a few more (*cough* program degradation *cough*). Most issues are resolved with some of the Tweaking the Rules & Optional Rules presented in Unwired.

The matrix is much better. There are some ... idiosyncrasies ... where it diverges a bit away from the other SR4 mechanics but it is overall workable as long as you don't think about it too hard.

Forget the bad old days of having to keep track of network components like CPUs, SPUs, and SANs. Now you hack a (sub)network and have access to everything on that (sub)network appropriate to the security level you acquire. So an admin can see and do anything, security folks have access to logs and IC, while users see subsets of the system.

The reason I said "(sub)network" is that each private network can have a near infinite number of subdivisions, just like IRL. You've got the accountants, HR, R&D, maintenance, etc, each who have their own systems that the others have limited access to. Even inside the castle walls, you may still need to pick a few locks to get the real goodies.

Don't think very hard on encryption as it will make you cry. Just accept it as a game function and believe in magical "new math" that destroys encryption in moments. Amazingly short transmission ranges are countered by infinite bandwidth. There's some other stuff but the truth of the matter is that it generally plays well even if it isn't vaguely realistic.

And really, playability trumps realism.

I just wish that Sim Modules could be a commlink module that could be included with Cyber commlinks. It's complete crap that cybercommlinks don't come with one.

Nor have they updated the PDF version. It's still the same version they sold in feburary 2006 (version 1.3 based on 2nd printing with additional corrections).

Now that everything is fine with the license it should hopefully not be long before we can get a new version

Lars

Ruleswise "glossing over": Character has comlink and a source for software of a specific rating. All software is assumed to come with ergonomic, optimisation 2 options. Optional: Player rolls Logic+Skill capped by (software rating) for almost everything, always. It is possible, you don´t have to figure out how the hacker does it. True hackers differentiate themselves not necessarily by better rules knowledge, but by owning a (longish) list of hacking augmentations. As simple as combat. Note that actually going into the hacking rules is IMO very rewarding, but you have a base everyone can work on without that effort.

No, it's marketing. Make them buy it seperately and you increase sales.

That can only work under very specific circumstances. For example, rational customers would always replace the hideously expensive stand-alone SIM-module with datajacks carrying external SIM-modules (DirectInput-BTLs prove that SIM-modules can be chip-sized).

But the real issue is caused by a rather needless retcon, telling players that they need to give something up they previously got for free.

Like I said, marketing.

Lots of things used to be included that you now have to pay for IRL. Why should that change when the Corporations get even MORE power?

Thank you. This is extremely informative. Any other insights like this would be greatly appreciated. We were more than a little overwhelmed by our first few games trying to use the new 4e hacking/wireless rules. Alot of that probalby has to do with our tendency toward hyper-analysis.