Been seeing the talk over the various Metamagic Techniques, and have been fiddling with technomancers over the last few days, so heres a few thoughts regarding Echos. Also, seen a lot of worries and concerns over the following combination: [Biowires/AccellerationX3/Overclocking/AdvancedOverclocking/Multiprocessing/Mesh Reality] but, for the Shadowrunner Technomage, these aren't the best Echos... in fact, I don't think you should be looking at these very soon, into your submersion.. there are far more important ones for you to be picking up. I will be rating each Echo, with the following ratings

AAA+[Awesome, Absolute Must have, ASAP]
AAA [Must Have, get this soon.. one of your first 3]
AA [Must Have.. get this in your first 5 echos]
A+ [Very Good... but depends on Circomstances]
A [Great, all around usefulness]
B [Good, useful, concider this later on]
C [Ok.. take or don't take, up to you]
D [Don't take unless it's nessary for your Character Concept]
F [Useless for all but specific builds]
F- [Useless, avoid this Echo]

Applification - Increase your signal.. has it's ups and downs, but every two levels you raise your resonance, your going to be raising your signal anyway.. automatically.. so it's less useful then the other Echos that increase your Living Persona [Rank: C]

Biowire - Ok, generally, this Echo is sweet, gives you the ability to gain skills cheaply, though I'd wait until around Submersion grade 4 at least, to get maximun effect from it. Also, don't forget, Biowires work like Skillwires, your skills here are Skillsofts learned as Complex forms, and can not be enhanced with Edge. Also, it gives access certain very good Advanced Echos [Rank: AA]

Blur - For the Shadowrunner... this is the second most imporant Echo you can get, IMO. It makes it harder for you to identify, and recongize, and it lets you better hide the fact your a Technomancer.. something that is often very important to Technomancers in the 2070s.. [Rank: AAA]

Coenesthesia - I sense a disturbance in the resonance.. a presense I've not felt in years.. Essentially that's what this one is, lets you better sense the presense of anything in resonance. Take this Echo, and you've just made your GM's job easier, at least, so you might make him/her happy, but mostly, this one is a plot device. However, you havn't done much for yourself.. Oh, and this one is somewhat useful in countering Blur, but doesn't really give you enough to be worth much... take it if you really want it... otherwise, forget it. [Rank: D]

Defragmentation - Not bad, this is a sort of medic program, that works on your persona, useful, though not for everything, concider it later along the road [Rank: B]

E-Sensing - Sweet.. a major upgrade to your perception abilities, this one gives you the Technomancer version of Assessing, if your perception and intuition is high.. take this one early on, it's too useful not too.. if not, pick it up soon anyway. [Rank: A]

Firewall Upgrade - Nice bonus here, but... there are other things to concider first. Still, this one is a fairly good Echo, if you looking to upgrade your defenses.. [Rank: B]

Flexible Touch- AWESOME!! - Why are you still thinking it over, take this one your First Echo!! This one, is IMO, hands down, the first one you should be looking at, I mean, you can alter your Matrix signature, and reduce the time it lasts?! Down to None with enough submersion? For someone looking to hide thier tracks, and move in and out of nodes with greater ease, and avoid attention, this is the ultimate Echo. And that, btw, sounded like every shadowrunner to me [Rank:AAA+]

Immersion - Ok, this one is most useful to Technomancers who are drone focused, otherwise, if you don't make major use of drones, look at other ones first. [Rank: D]

Info Sortilege - this is nice, but there is a problem, Code Sprites can do this all on thier own, if you don't have access to Code Spirits, take Sprite Link - Code Sprite instead, sense you'll have indirect access to this, and other abilities of the Code Sprite too.. in other words.. unless it is nessary to your character concept.. this Echo is useless to you.. and even if it is, you should be looking elsewhere.. like maybe an Echo Bond with a Free Sprite Code Spirit. [Rank: F-]

Living ECM - Hmm.. not bad, however, there are so many other echos, and there are plenty of other ways to develo ECM, so this particular Echo should be low on your list, unless it specifically is nessary for your concept. Or your going to be somewhere where you need this ability, and don't have access to any sort of tech or spells that can do this.[Rank: D]

Macro - Hmm... gives you another action.. not bad, but again, there are plenty of other good options out there, more then this, unless.. you've picked up Mesh Reality, in which case, concider it's rank one higher [Rank: C]

Multiprocessing - Great! The options this gives you, make this one too good not to take very soon, you can pay attention to mutiple nodes, and defend in all of them, plus Observe in Detail becomes a free action.. really, this Echo is too good not to take [Rank: AAA]

Neurofilter - Increase the level of your Biofilter.. this is good, not as good as some of the others, but something you may want to concder after a while, however, with a high Charisma, you don't need to worry about it too much. [Rank: C]

Overclocking - This is the best Echo in the main book, increase your Response, your Matrix Initiative, and number of Matrix IP's.. what's not to like. While some of the Echos in Unwired suprass it, it's still one of the best out there, and one you should be getting early on [Rank: A]

Resonance Link - Unwired, and resonance mesh increased the versitality of this one greatly, seriously concider this if your part of a Guild, as the Advanced Echos avalible make it more and more useful as you add them. Outside of a Guild, it's usefulness is more limited. I've given this one a split ranking, based on that [Rank: D || In Guild Rank: AA]

Sift - very good, turn your data search skill into a nearly prefectly sucessful one, lower thresholds on all such tests, this Echo is one you should be concidering early on, and it becomes more useful the deeper you submerge[Rank: AAA]

Skinlink - Hmm.. not bad, not great, but not bad, if you have more then one Technomancer in your group, this can be even more useful, if both of you develop it. [Rank: B]

Sparky - This one is up to you, I say, it's not bad against Technological devices, but it's uses are limited, compared to other Echos.. depends on your biuld, and concept really... can be invaluable in some situations. [Rank: C]

Spirite Link - This one is Awesome, Access to more sprite types?! What's not to like here? It's a great Echo.. it's not a must have, but otherwise.. it's one of the best Echos out there, and every technomancer should be looking at it after they've picked up a few of the more important Echos [Rank: A]

Swap - Make sustaining threads easier? take two levels of this, and you can sustain a thread without any negatives? While there are other Echos you should be looking it first.. this is a very good echo.. after your more developed, concider it. [Rank: B]

System Upgrade - Another increase your Living Persona Echo.. pick this up if and when you please. [Rank: C]

Widget Crafting - Create Widgets that enchance your ability in the Matrix?! This is a great Echo, and one that you should be picking up very soon.. grab it when you can. [Rank: AA]

Advanced Echos

Accerelation - An Echo that increases your real world Attributes and IP's? This is a very good echo, but concider carefully if you want it, or something else. There are lots of other very good Echos out there [Rank: A]

Advanced Overclocking - Again, another very good echo, increasing your response and your Matrix IP's.. once you pick up Overclocking, this should likly be your next echo, or the one after that.

Enhanced Resonance Link - See Resonance link, if you've a guild, this one can be invaluable, otherwise, its usefulness is limited... though if you've more then one Technomancer in your party... actually, in that case, you should form a guild between you.. Another Split Rank [Rank: C || In Guild Rank: A+]

Mesh Reality - Upgrade your regular initiative with your Matrix Iniative, which is going to be much better, espeically if you've overclocking, and act in both worlds simultaniously.. this is generally, a very good echo. I say, great Echo.. up to you if you take it. [Rank: B]

Mind Over Machine - Good for the Drone focused Techno, otherwise, look at other echos first. [Rank: D]

Resonance Exchange - See Resonance Link, and Enhance Resonance Link, both apply.. for a Guild, and a Mesh, this is invaluable, a must take.. otherwise, its uses are limited. You have to take it Twice for full effect, as well.. so, I give it once gain, a Split Rank [Rank: C || In Guild Rank: A+]

Resonance Trodes - This one, well, its uses depend entirely on your build, it can be very awesome.. and of limited usefulness.. it all depends. [Rank: C]

*****************************

And there you go, disagree, agree, discuss, flame, whatever, I look foward to peoples replies.

Wow. Definitely bookmarked. Thanks for compiling this - I've been wanting to make a Technomancer character, but it seems like a lot of rules to learn. This is a great write-up, and I thank you.

This is actually the only one of said Echo's worth taking.

Nice post! I disagree somewhat on the evaluations, which may partly be due to limited (but existant) TM experience.

Living Persona Upgrades, all of them - What for? One of the premier TM tricks is Stealth. Minor statistical advantages over a hacker are immediately gobbled up by slightly stronger matrix security. Your main tricks work from a rating 4 living persona, as CFs are bound by resonance only, and your living node is immune to mundane entities. Because of this,

Coenesthesia Is more than a "plot device". Only other resonance beings are dangerous to your living node.

Biowire - Given your other ratings, this is a D. Do if you must, else buy skillwires. Karma for skillsofts = no advantage, look on the A-list instead.

Mesh Reality - Triple-A plus. The additional physical IPs are nice to have, compared to getting the VR-bonus for everything you´d otherwise do in AR. What am I saying? Both aspects multiply each other! Mesh Reality = Augmented Reality - TM.

I think maybe Skinlink could be more useful than you might think.

What karma? They're learned as complex forms, which implies you can thread them, and have a sprite sustain them. It removes the need to spend *any* karma on uncommon-use skills.

You spend the Echo, the money (first Emulation, then threading), the registered sprite service, and the actions to set it up. It does not work for skills that are called without advance warning, and it does not work for skills that require more than seconds to use.

You can do it, but the superior way is IMO buying a few implants, in one go taking care of the "storage issue" by hiding a standard node behind the living node.

Since when do Technomancers spend money on their abilities? Did you mean actions?

And no, it won't last forever...but there's not exactly a limit to how many services a Technomancer can have from a sprite. And re-registering them only takes time. So a Technomancer with a week downtime (and a sleep regulator) could have 38 rolls to re-register a rating 4 sprite if they can handle the fading. That can be a LOT of services - several minutes of sustaining, at least.

And even if they forgo having the sprite sustain it, as long as they can thread at least 2 points of the skill, they come out ahead...and can attempt non-defaultable skills.

As for not working without advance warning...well, neither do standard skillwires, unless you happen to have that particular skill already running - using a skillwire for dodge is pretty dumb.

OTOH, for things like pilot(exotic vehicle), demolitions, parachuting, or the million-and-one other once-or-twice in a lifetime skills (especially ones that you can't or shouldn't try defaulting on,) it's fine.

I would permit threading of existing skill CFs (up to submersion grade), but it seems pretty clear from the Biowire writeup that TMs can only get a skill CF from an existing skillsoft. Which costs money.

I promise that I will either cry or laugh when I see services: 100+ on a character sheet for the first time. I admit that it is possible.

Since Threading is technically instantaneous, having Biowires actually has a small advantage over skillwires, in that you can thread up (emulate) a different skill instantly. Loading and unloading an activesoft takes some time. (true, it's a very, very minor advantage)

In our game, the real advantage to Biowires and Acceleration is the fact that you don't set off any cyberware scanners, and anyone astrally assensing you won't see any essense loss or bioware. Since we play in a way that having cyberware can limit your movement (international travel, air travel, getting into AAA neighborhoods, getting into corporate territory) having a person with 3 (or 4) initiative passes and the equivalent of skillwires - totally undetectable -- is a huge, huge bonus. That's our game, though.

Biowires also take no maintenence (unlike cyberware), never needs software patches or updates, is always SOTA, is unhackable, can't catch a virus or malware, is free (costwise and maintence wise) and is undetectable. And it doesn't lower your Resonance.

Hmm...from re-reading, you're right that they'd have to buy the skillsoft first. (Which is basically the first thing other than lifestyle that Technomancers need to spend money on - so hardly a hardship.)

Still, you could buy skillsofts with the DIMAP, Overdrive (which is cheesy for a techno), Personalized and Pluscode options and spend about 10 karma each to get an effective rating 7 skill (assuming you've submerged 4 times,) that you can spend edge on, and have up to 2x submersion of these skills loaded simultaneously. Not shabby in the long-term.


The techno in my game once got 20 services on one rebinding (with edge, obviously)...of course, he always rolls like that - not a guy you want to see with a troll-bow.

Living Persona Upgrades - Depends on what all of your ratings are, if you've got 5s or higher across the board, then generally, your better off then most people, even many hackers, but if you have a 3 or a 4 somewhere, except signal.. you might want to think about them, not soon though, other Echos are fare more important... which is why non of them got an A rating.

Coenesthesia - Depends on if the GM is using those optional rules regarding resonance... not everyone does, in games where your living node is vulerable to any hacker or technomage, it's of limited usefulness... I'll say this however, if your using those optional rules.... upgrade this one to a B, maybe even an A.

Biowire - this is too useful not get soon, once your technomancer has submerged several grades, with emergency access to skills, and access to the Acceration Advanced Echo, all you need is more programs. It should not be a first, second, or third echo, but it definatly should be your fourth or fifth.

Mesh Reality - No Advanced Echos get a Triple-A plus, they can't, as that means must take as your first echo... by my grades. By your standard, you'd give the Triple A plus to Multi-tasking, then a Triple A to Mesh Reality. I might be persuaded to upgrade it to an A, or possibly a double A, after all, I did give Muliprocessing a Triple A, meaning it should be one of your top four. It is most effective with serveral other echos.

My reason for the D is effectivly that I see more benefit in paying karma for a point of lost resonance (thanks to Jaid for pointing out the risk of CF loss in another thread), than for the additional submersion grade required to get the Biowire echo. Both ways can be made to work.

(Max. Number of software options = half program rating = 2 for skillsofts. Sorry.)

Max options: good, I thought that looked a little cheesy.

Interesting that the techno can thread options though - so he could buy a no-options skillsoft and add his choice of 2 on the fly.

Except that Skillwires can be detected, and your activesofts can be lost/stolen... the Techno can save them as activatable skills for special situations. Also, that extra Resonance could be what's giving you a higher signal grade, and allowing you higher level complex forms... also, you can now learn the Acceleration Echo, in other words, you get too more bang for your buck with Biowires.

I totally agree here.
Yes, the effects of Mesh Reality/Multiprocessing are nifty indeed.

But the rest?
Getting a whole bunch of IPs?
That's something a hacker can get much, much easier.

It's nice that TMs don't have to consider loosing resonance for these effects and are theoretically able to be almost as fast as a hacker with fully maxed INI, but blowing 6 echos on that is a steep price, even if you consider that losing resonance is even worse for a TM than losing Magic is for a mage, as RES is also always one of the fading stats.

I wouldn't go down that route, leave the superfast hacking and combat usefulnes to the hackers and concentrate on the TM-only stuff.


I more or less agree on the rest, too.
Exact evaluation would depend on the specific TM build and the overall focus of the campaign, but for default playstile, i think you're mostly correct.

Where i beg to differ strongly :



When reading up on that, my first thoughts where similar, until i realized the major downside of widgets :
Too much prep time.
While crafting a widget, you could as well register (or re-register) a decent sprite, which can do similar things for you, is more flexible, lasts longer and doesn't require an echo.

I wouldn't bother with that one.

I think you need to reread the Widget part again, regarding Widget Crafting.. I know what you mean, I went back and forth on this... first thinking it was great, then not so great, then great again... ultimately, I suppose I could downgrade this one to an A..

However, before I do, allow me to point out some things. First, the higher your resonance climbs, the better this one becomes... sense you can build a higher level widget with less fading... also, within a guild with a resonance mesh, and someone else with both Widget Crafting, and Resonance Exchange - Widgets.. it becomes much more valuable, for a group of Technomages. In this case, someone else can do the crafting, and more or less, turn the widget over to you.

Also, some of the things Widgets can do, Sprites can't. For example, RAM can sustain a CF for hours, where a Sprite will only do so for turns, and a Rendering Widget can increase your ability to Asemble Spirits. Also, a Widget adds to your skill, not just to a single Complex form.. a Amp Widget for example, increases all of your Cybercombat tests, for hours.

Example: I need to Hack into Aztechnology Node X.. in about 6 hours... so, I spend the next hour crafting a level 4 cheat Widget... then, I decide things might get a bit rough in there, so I decide to create a level 3 Displacer Widget and a level 3 Amp Widget.. also... this takes me 3 hours.. so I spend the next 3 hours resting, still leaving my Widgets active for another 5 hours. For the examples sake, say I have a 5 in cybercombat and hacking.. but due to my Cheat widget my hacking is 9 right now, and my Amp widget is rasing my Cybercombat to 8.. also, say I have the shield CF at 5.. with my Displacer Widget, that's presently 8 also. And, lets say, for the arguements sake, I have the maximun number of Sprites possible for my Charisma.. to add to other things.

Widgets seem great to me, at least. RAM alone is worth it to me, and Amp/Cheat cheaply improve those skills without BP/karma use. Not to mention you can have more Sprites assigned to other duties.

Widgets are great if you have a few hours to whip them up and then 8 hours later spend a few hours replacing them. Widgets are best on a TM with the Macro echo.

Hm...maybe i should give them another try.
I'll look into that.

When you put it like that, Widgets seem awesome. I've got 2 TMs right now. I've been using my sprites to hold threaded CFs, but it would be much easier to make a widget, freeing up any sprites to go do my bidding.
I'm envisioning my gun-bunny whipping up a widget every time she expects to get into a fire-fight. Awesome.

In general, Thank you! This compilation is a really great assessment and tool.

I need to chime in real quick here, on a few of your echoes:

Skinlink: You can hack -anything- you can touch, regardless of whether it has a signal or a connection, or if its meant to be hacked. This includes things like electronic devices that are simple enough, they don't have wireless or firewalls at all. Locks, palm-prints scanners, cameras. Its also a very convenient way to defeat Slaving, because its a direct physical link. I mean, seriously - who puts a firewall on a maglock.

Immersion: This echo is NOT a control rig. Control rigs add to all -vehicle- tests. Gives you +1 to ALL tests while jumped in. All. More importantly, if you're a techno with a point of ware, you can have both. Are you using a drone as a relay to hack? Sweet, +1 to hacking attempts. Rolling firewall. Are you jumped in? Free +1. Immersion is surprisingly potent.

Mind over machine: While this IS kind of a niche power - the ability to jump into anything is supremely useful. While jumped in, all external input to a device is overridden by the jumped in rigger. because it lets you rig things that aren't normally riggable, this echo is a pretty ultimate fuck-you-this-is-mine power. Opponent driving in AR? Nyoink - they've been booted. Fighting a Command-Style rigger, who's hardly ever jumped in? His drones are now easy pickings. Having trouble with a blast door closing on you, and happen to have skinlink? Touch it, hack in, jump it, and open it. Viola. Door problem solved.

Macro: While this 'do a second complex action at -2' may sound bad, its actually really, really, really useful. When you think about it, it basically lets you two-weapon a matrix action. If you use your extra complex action to do things that don't require tests - such as Issuing Commands to drones under your control, changing smartgun settings, or spending a complex action to control a vehicle, it becomes rather useful. I, personally, rate this echo over the extra-pass ones for one simple reason: with two complex actions at once, you can full burst with a drone, while on full defense at the same time. (They're both complex actions. one is going to take a -2), but that combo is rather potent.

Or use supressive fire/full-auto burst, while hacking at the same time
Or do some hacking while driving a motor cycle around town to make tracking harder.

I do not think this works the way you think this works.

I still don't get why most people overlook the important part of rules for Mesh Reality, because this misunderstanding comes up just about every time somebody mentions Mesh Reality...

Quoting self for ease of reference...

I´d say I did not intent to use the physical IPs for realworld actions. Given that I wrote that in 2008, I wouldn´t know.

Damn Shedim threads

THanks for the great feed back.

Actually, the OP's post view on Amplification was correct. Due to the way that Signal works (needing to be within mutual range of the lower Signal rating of both nodes) having extra Signal is less useful, especially when you can get (via karma or threading) the ECCM CF to help overcome jamming (which is the only other reason to have strong Signal).

The simple fact of the matter is, the usefulnessmost echoes is depending on your style. For example, if your TM tends to let sprites do data searches in favor of having other CFs, Sift becomes less useful early on until after Browse/Data Search have been raised to having a decent pool, but if your TM is all about the information gathering then Sift and Info Sortilage both become more useful. If you're an almost always in VR TM, then Biowire/Acceleration is less useful, as is E-Sensing. However, if you're trying for an AR only hacker/rigger TM, then these jump up in value. Or if your TM is also your team's face, then Biowire becomes invaluable for threading things like linguasofts.