Ok looking over the Metasapient (AI) rules there were a couple points I was looking for clarification on.

It states:

"An artificial intelligence has two Matrix attributes, Response and Signal, that are always the same as the Response and Signal of the node in which they are at the time."

Does this mean that the AI's response and signal are equal to those of their present home node or the node in which they are presently performing actions? (ie. The AI is hacking into a node with a response rating of 4, even though their home node has response 6 because the node they are currently hacking has response 4 their response rating drops to 4.)

If the AI's response is based on node they are presently hacking it is going to make for some hellish bookkeeping as their system rating and program ratings will have to be recalculated every time they switch nodes.

My second question "Inherent programs automatically have the Ergonomic and Optimize (pp. 114–115, Unwired), but may not have any other options."

What rating of Optimize do inherent programs have? Is it equal to the program rating, half the program rating or is there a fixed value for it? Again I ask because:

"Additionally, AIs may improve an inherent program rating by 1 for a Karma cost equal to the new rating; the upper limit of the rating of an inherent program is equal to twice the AI’s System rating."

The only way for an inherent program to operate with a rating of twice that of the system would be for it to possess an optimize quality of at least half its own rating.

Anyway if folks could clear that up a bit it would be appreciated.

From the total lack of response I'm thinking that there are no current answers to these questions.

Developers, can we please get this included in the Errata/FAQ?

Thanks,

LOL Give us time, AI's are still new.


I bolded the part that answers your question. It's the response of the node they are occupying at that moment. So if they're in a node they hacked that has a response of 4, that's their new response. You're only as fast as the computer you're running on.
Easier way to think of it is when you run a computer game on your awesome system, it runs hella fast. You go to your parents' crappy system and try to run the same game, and it's much slower.


Yep, but thems the breaks.


The 2nd question I'd say starts with the programs at rating 1, and goes up from there. Doesn't make sense to max it out at start. Hopefully a freelancer or dev can clear this up for us.

For some reason I just assumed it was at whatever rating the innate program was at (Or maybe one less than it).

Because otherwise if the AI moves onto a slow node every innate program they had would suddenly become almost useless.

that's the peoblem with running a high end program on an insufficient system. *shrug* Hackers would be just as hosed.

Easy, there. Some folks on DSF do other things than post.


That's a fair question.

I think there's another thread where I talk about intending one thing and having it edited somewhere else. Initially, an AI's inherent programs were effectively not limited by System or Process ratings, and couldn't take options. I was told to change it so that they had the Ergonomic and Optimized options, but could take no other options (I found this way more of a kludge, saying it has options but can't have them, but I'm not a developer, so I write what I'm told). The draft I was looking at when I did the re-write didn't have ratings for Optimization, so there you go.

If you want to follow the writer's intent, assume that the Optimization rating of an inherent program is "enough." I can't speak to the developer's intent, or any official ruling.

But "enough" is a little hard to quantify, Aaron. Had it been up to you to provide values, what would you have gone with? (Understanding that it's not an "official" answer)

I'm not entirely sure why you need a value, but is "enough to run at its full rating" sufficient?

Had it been up to me, I would have kept the text that said that inherent programs aren't counted as running programs, and their ratings are unaffected by System. This would obviate the need for numerical values.

"OK, HAL-9000, hack that system!" "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that." "What?" "It's a Ghetto system! Totally not worth jumping into. I mean, it's almost three years old!"

Apologies, patience is not a virtue I possess. I'll work on that.

Ok so response is equal to the current system the AI is hacking. More optimize options on the non-inherent programs will be necessary.

As for inherent programs assume they have a high enough optimize option to run at full rating no matter what. In other words optimize rating would be equal to the program rating as this would be the only way to guarantee it could always run.

Makes sense, thanks for the responses.