Ok, having a brain fart. Its been years since I've rolled up a char for SR, much less an SR4 one. I had a couple cyber questions that I'm hoping to get answers on. Tried search function but don't seem to be using the right keywords.

1)I seem to recall in older versions if you got Delta grade (or whatever grade) something, like cybereyes/ears, everything else attached to it also had to be the same grade. Is that true in Sr4? Was that ever true? If I went with delta cybereyes 4, would i have to get delta flare comp, delta lowlight, delta etc etc etc?

2)Cyber replacement vs cyber mod. I get the idea that you have the option of either hacking out your meat and replacing it with metal, or enhancing your meat (eyeballs, ears) instead of replacing it with metal. Benefit of replacement is its potential for overall essence budget. In a narrative sense I guess I can understand why you might want to enhance rather than replace too. You get to keep 'your' eyes or ears. I was wondering if there were any game effects that made a difference between replacing vs enhancing. Would it hold that the benefit of enhancing is that theoretically all your cybereye mods could go on the fritz (emp or whatever) but you'd still have your normal vision/hearing? As opposed to replaced which would result in total blackout/deafness? Does that ever come up?

How would hacking be altered? If someone tried to hack my eyeballs (for example, lets say I'm deciding to have my eyeballs open for wireless hacking, for some reason) could they fritz all my mods but I'd still have normal vision, or would there be functionally no difference between hacking replaced vs modded eyeballs/ears? I mean, the way I figure, even on modded eyes, you could end up with the same "I'm blind" result by fritzing with the 5 or so mods I have in my meat eyes which spam me and prevent me from seeing/hearing (for ears).


Do you even have retinal patterns on replaced cybereyes? Do they use your old ones? I mean, retinal ID mods are a separate mod, which implies to me that replaced cybereyes either have a generic pattern or none at all. Or do they give you a completely new pattern via one time randomer when they make the eyeballs?

1. I forget the page number but it's probably right around where they talk about cyberware grades in the main book. If you have something delta grade everything in it has to be delta grade.

2. I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about. If it's bioware that isn't hackable.

If you're talking about adding mods straight to the eye instead of getting the cybereye I think you just pay more essence once add a number of things. Though yes I'd allow hacking to accomplish less with an eye that just has a mod instead of a full cybereye. Depending somewhat on the exact mod added, some could block your vision.

It depends on the mods you've got in the eye. Cyber-eye mods are still most likely connected to your PAN. If your PAN is hackable, then they can hack the mods. They have a few more options when hacking cyber-eyes, for example, encrypting the eye-to-brain protocols and then rebooting them. If you did this on a pair of modded meat eyes then you'd still get normal vision.

However, there's plenty of other ways I can screw up your vision by hacking. You likely have an image link. I can just display porn, or black, or clouds, or Neil The Ork Barbarian episodes to your image link, and then use encrypt to lock you out again. If you have low-light, I could probably just crank the light meter up until all you see is white. Similar with thermo.

So for game purposes, I suppose that cyber-eyes are more susceptible to crashing, but you'd have to encrypt them first. So that's two actions. If they're eye mods, not actual cyber-eyes, then you have to edit then encrypt. So it's about the same, really.

As for retinal scanners, I'd say that a successful retinal scan will pick up that they are cyber-eyes, and in the hardware beneath the aqueous surface of the cyber-eye you can deduce make, model, and serial number. Of course, if you get the retinal duplication mod, then the cyber-eyes likely use thermo-active hardware to replicate blood vessel patterns, and the adjustable display that (almost all) cyber-eyes have would take care of things like colour.

Keep in mind that most shadowrunners will turn the wireless functionality off for things like cybereyes. Even with a smartlink, you can use a skinlink modification to connect to your smartgun - you lose a few things, such as the ability to remote control your smartgun, but it's an acceptable tradeoff to be secure against hacking. Although a PAN in hidden mode with good encryption is another viable option.

btw, pg. 303 is where states "Note that cyberware accessories must be of the same grade as the implant they are added to."

as far as most cyber upgrades go you definitely don't have to just cut out the meat and replace the whole organ. (i.e.) you could purchase an image link and eye recording units for your flesh balls but the essence cost is the same as purchasing the cybereyes basic system and with cybereye system you still have a number of capacity points to use on other enhancements before having to pay more essence, and with each additional rating in cybereyes the capacity for upgrading grows exponentially. the core rules do mention that "most" eye enhancements are available without cyber-replacement and that all ear mods are available without replacement it just costs essence instead of capacity. many other enhancements are the same, as stated if it doesn't have a capacity it has to be directly installed into the flesh and some systems have to be installed in certain systems (i.e.) headware costs essence unless installed in cyberlimbs, cyberlimb assessories must be installed in capacity slots owned by the cyberlimb system (guess that's a no brainer really), and eye and ear ware is installed either in the flesh or in their respective cyber replacements.
as far is hacking you mods it's a real possibility regardless if it's a total replacement or just an extra wire in the flesh. you're cyberware, like all high-tech devices in SR, require regular diagnostics and updating to keep in good working order. The specific system might not constantly broadcast to your PAN but on a simi-regular basis you'd need to have it connected in order to ensure correct functioning of the cyber-system. The device ratings for the various cyber-systems and grades are listed in the matrix section of the core book (not sure what's changed if anything with Unwired I personally haven't read through it yet) and it's stated a couple of times that loading IC into a cybersystem is a good idea to keep hackers from accessing their function via your PAN. I can just imagine what craziness just jacking around with the brightness/contrast of a thermographic upgrade could do or what tweaking a balance augmenter could accomplish. The possibilities are endless.

Thanks for all the replies. Hmm. I was afraid that all the plugins for an eye had to be the same grade. Delta cybereyes quickly become very expensive if you have to delta everything in them. That x10 multiplier for no real effective difference for the mods is a big deal. (By no real difference, I mean that since they're using capacity, not essence, the only real benefit to them being delta in this case is detection threshholds and hacking thresholds. Cost wise, there's a big difference between 12050 cred basic level 4 eyes with full mods, and 120500 cred delta eyes.

This might have changed, and I don't know if it pertains to your character or not... but if I remember right at character creation you're restricted to basic and alpha ware... sorry if this doesn't pertain to your situation

But don't forget that it's good to be able to connect your eyes to your PAN for a whole lot of sweet bonuses. If your hacker has the surveillance system's node under control, he can overlay enemy positions and tactical information to your commlink and cyber-eyes, as well as the AR bonus for having schematics and information up.