OK I still oppose the bul of the 4th ed books as a needless cash grab BUT I think they finally got the decking stuff right after only 19 years. It was so off that my group finally had a house rule that deckers HAD to be NPC's but this system seems to be workable, needing skills but fast enough not to bring the rest of the game to a screaming halt as the decker does his bit while the rest of us go out for pizza. We'll keep using mainly 3rd ed stuff but definately go with the hcanges to decking.

Because of the complete lack of storage limitations the whole mp thing is gone so good, less book keeping BUT where does a decker carry all the stuff? I mean before it was the guy lugging around a key board. Now, not counting head ware is the guy just carrying a small pouch on his belt and connecting to a data jack?

The AR system especailly seems very much like the system in GitS which is GREAT! One of my fav scenes in the 1st TV serries has Batou viewing AR and making angry gestures at a map he's seeing, while almost litterally scaring the piss out of a shop keeper in front of him who can't see the AR image.

Now the question, how do you plug it in?

Ok now I get it, not counting the head ware stuff, more on that in a momment, but most people carry their access stuff the way many Americans now carry cell phones and I-pods. OK I get that. BUT how does the info get from the 'i-pod' to the eye ball? Does everyone have a data jack now? Do you load to glasses? I mean how does it get to where the average person can, as used in the example, go shopping? Sure Paris Hilton always has her cell phone to pick upo the signals but without a jack to plug into how does it get to her visual area?

My especial concern here is mages. IF data jacks are common then mages are going to stand out in a crowd and 'geek the mage' will get even easier if she's the only team member not on the system.

Now for someone with head gear it's pretty obvious on that front, but less so it how does osmeone with headware up load the hacking programs? Chip jack? To remind you long term vets of the SR world in 1st ed it was possible to surf the net without a deck, surfing naked I think it was called but if you do this now, with a head deck and it gets fried by ICE is it litterally brain surgery to scoop out the melted goo from your brain?

Like I said I adore the new rules for decking (yeah I know it's 'hacking' but I'm an old fashioned girl and these will always be 'deckers' to me)

I'm guessing you somehow missed the whole "commlink" thing that's practically written in every other paragraph in the main book, not to mention every other sourcebook. Or the fact that pretty much any electronic device can function as one in a pinch. Or that you can cluster several of them together to make an even stronger device. Or that you can weave a commlink into your clothes or pretty much anything else.

Or, in other words, that for all intents and purposes it's a non-issue anymore.

Datajacks aren't required. You can do everything wirelessly, trodes and skinlinks are a dime a dozen and pretty much not even noticable, and even mages can and probably do equip them with no one being the wizer.

Just... try reading the book sometime. It's discussed everywhere therein. Literally everywhere.

As I understand it, the average citizen has an earbud with a built in microphone. This gives them audio in and out. Video is handled by either AR glasses, or AR contacts. Non-verbal input is either manual, or via trodenet (which could be built into a hat.

If you need a faster interface, or one that won't fall off in a fight than you need a datajack or nanopaste trodes.

Interesting side note, those with datajacks or trodes do not need to use a cable since the datajack/trodes can connect to the commlink via wireless (less secure, but convenient).

So the ear bud is near universal tech with even mages getting it?

Funkenstein. I did read the page and if you could try to be nice instead of snide you migfht actually be helpful.

I did read that a comm link is the wireless go to item and if you have it as head ware I can understand that. BUT they talk about differnet brands that can be fit into pockets and the like, which is why I used the analogy of a cell phone or i-pod. MY point is the comm link picks up the signal but if it's on your belt and since you are NOT automated but just meat how does it get the images etc onto your field of vision?

I mean right now I have a cell phone on my belt. It is wireless and can give and receive signals, take and send pcitures and even connect to the internet for news and e-mail BUT it have to look at the screen for that, there's no connection between it's works and my eye balls, the Commlink details are written that this stuff superinmposes images etc on your field of vision.

Again, just read the book. It's all there.

Wireless. It's not a fancy word that means "you have to be plugged into it" or "it only means wireless in that it, like, communicates without wires like my cellphone, teehee." It literally means that by default, pratically every electronic device in SR4 is wireless and can be controlled (keyword there; controlled), that's right, without a wire. Which means you obviously have other options available. Like those listed right there in black and white in the gear section where they talk about commlinks. Like the aforementioned trodes and skinlinks, not to mention datajacks. And yes, those are all wireless to by default. Because, again, almost every electronic device is wireless by default.

I'm sorry. Stupid questions (and yes, there is such a thing as stupid questions) provoke "snide" comments from me. Being confused by the rules is one thing, but flat out not even bothering to read them is something else entirely. This isn't some obscure, hard to comprehend, or even remotely difficult concept to grasp. It's mentioned quite literally throughout the entire book. You could almost flip to a random page and find mention of it (warning: hyperbole).

As Dr. Funkenstein said, "You can do everything wirelessly, trodes and skinlinks are a dime a dozen"

Everything is wireless down to contact lenses. They all get 'subscribed' to a commlink so they can talk to each other. To control the commlink skinlink it or use a wireless link to trodes. To see it use a wireless signal from contacts, glasses, goggles, guncam, or cybereyes that has an Image Link on it. Everything on your body talks to everything else on your body. The rules dictate how many devices can be subscribed and how to both defend and defeat them electronically.

Welcome to 4th ed, and if you dont want veterans like Dr. Funkenstein to be inflamed, first examine thyself.

The cyberdeck has pretty much been replaced by the commlink. The lack of pictures on commlinks make me twitch a little as I don't see artwork with the runners ever wearing anything that I can readily pick out as the commlink itself. I think I managed to handwave it to the point of they have varying appearances. Smaller ones around the size of maybe one inch wide bracelets and wrist watches to full on bracers that take up most/all of your forearm. all depends on the options and gear. As far as interfacing with them, I believe the flavor text mentions them having displays and trackballs built in as well as roll out keyboards. Though most of the display is supposed to be routed to a pair of image-linked goggle/glasses/contact lenses/motorcycle helmets.
I personally like to think commlinks look somewhat similar to the Pipboy from Fallout 3. http://fallout.bethsoft.com/images/art/fal.../concept07B.jpg
Just not as bulky, but I could probably see the first models (2065ish?) being similar.


I imagine headware commlinks have a datajack for datatransfer or you just download it wirelessly from the matrix and save it to the hardrive.

You're not the least sorry and you are being snide to no good effect. two other people have mentioned contact lenses as an option. you did not. in fact your posts are more than useless because and really really think about this here and maybe actually read my post instead of trying to think of ways to priove you're an asshole, trust me we already know it, you don't have to prove it further-that your FUCKING EYES ARE NOT ELECTRONIC. You can sit in a room stuffed with wireless gear all ahppily chatting to eachother-yeah I get that-but without some medium to translate that onto your meat eyeballs which are not, believe it or not, liquid crystal, or even cathode ray tubes there is no way given in the rules for them to translate that detail onto your meat eye balls. If there is please give me the page and that will answer the question. You might even be helpful, for once.

Please don't confuse your contempt for 4th ed with contempt for players. You got called on not having done your legwork and for being inflammatory and now you're screaming and cursing?

All/most of the sample characters have glasses/goggles/contacts with an image link to display AR data from their commlink. Image Link is listed on page 323 of your BBB under vision enhancements

The data isn't injected into your meat eyeballs. Either it goes to your wireless enabled contact lenses or sunglasses, to any piece of wireless enabled cyberware and into your brain, or to a trode net, which then translates and transmits the signals directly into your visual cortex. To control it, either you use a wireless enabled interface device, or you send your mental commands out through a device hardwired to your brain (which happens to have a wireless connection), or through a trode net which is reading your brain activity, translating it into matrix compatible commands, and routing them to your commlink.

As a longtime SR vet, going back to that blue book from 1989, if you're moving into playing SR4 and using the matrix rules, completely forget everything you knew about how the matrix worked. The whole old system crashed and burned, and the new one has nothing in common with it, backgroundwise or ruleswise, except the name.

Yeah we were usingm ainly 3rd ed rules but the decking rules were so screwed that we had a house rule that deckers were just NPC's. As I said at the begining, I think they finally got the decking rules right where they are not gonig to disrupt the game from when the decker does his thing.



No, I read the book and made notes and kept coming up with that one point. because I could not find how the image was transfered I posted a question here looking for help, which is one of the reasons the forum exists. you were helpful,. fuckenstein who seems to get his jolly's off from just being snide with people, was not and got the treatment he deserved and deserves. I've pointed out another thread where he recently asked a similar and even more obvious question about the system and so is certainly being more of a jerk. He blew somethnig on straight number crunching which the rules excvel at.

Snowfox, think of a displaylink as a more advanced version of this link:

http://aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2...ns-diagram2.jpg

The data is literally written onto the lens and then your eyes see that information written there.

Should warn you: While my short term memory may not be what it used to be, but my long term is pretty spot on. If anyone on these forums lack the right to be respected, it's a bold-faced liar like yourself. "No, that picture of a model really is her! TEEHEE!" If you want to get personal and bitchy, I can get personal and bitchy, too.

That said -- and this said yet again since you can't seem to grasp the concept -- just read the damn book. Close your little browser window and flip it open. Use those non-liquid crystal orbs you have and actually read those funny black symbols on the flat white stuff therein. Enlightenment will follow soon thereafter. Despite your claims otherwise, it's blatantly obvious that you haven't read jack shit.

Well that jabba the hut image of you is just too cruelly accurate. I notice you still cannot cite a page number. meaning you have still provided less help than anyone lese posting here.

When you post politely you'll get a more positive response than when asking for help while insulting CGL. I'm only speaking for myself but if you're going to open your post with inflammatory ravings you can't expect to be treated the same as the person who asks for the same info and lays out their confusion for others to help. Folks just don't react the same to people full of hostility and ignorance.

Be nice and be treated nice in return. Seriously.

to people who have been nice, I have been. I asked a question and fuckenstein decided to one more prove he's an ass**** rather than help. Had he helped instead of being snide, I'd have been far more impressed and polite, but since I asked for help and got BS from him, I'm not too inclined to treat him other than the way he's shown he deserves

ok, that makes sense.

so the programs with headware are not actualyl slotted into place, they way they were on an old deck, but just site on the deckers belt/pcoket/where ever and link to the headware, so that when ICE melts it, it just slags the blet and not the person's headware/brain? right?

Okay I'm going to try to explain this in plain english. Commlinks can display the images/sound from the commlink onto a pair of glasses, contacts, etc... through a thing called an Image link. It wirelessly reads the data being broadcasted from your commlink and displays that data so that you can see and hear it through the imagelink and soundlink that are implanted into contacts/goggles/glasses and the soundlink is implanted in earbuds. This causes the images to be displayed overtop of your normal vision. If you have cybereyes or Cyberears Image links and Sound links can also be implanted into those. If you have Trodes then the data is translated directly into the cerebral cortex which is then translated by the brain into visual and auditory information which you "see" as if it were actually there. If you are using Contacts/Goggle/glasses they can read your eye movements to determine how you interact with icons and personas on your "screen". So for example double blinking is like double clicking an icon that you are looking at. The contacts/glasses/goggles then send the data back to your commlink which then processes this information. Now for other information that you wish to interact with such as grabbing and manipulating icons on your "screen" AR Gloves are used to to manually interact with arrows and allowing tactile sensations to be felt. I will quote SR4 209 "You can see arrows by linking your cybereyes, display link cyberware, smart goggles, display capable contact lenses, or retina writing glasses to your commlink." I would suggest before asking about matrix topics reading the matrix section of the book.

Image Link - SR4 (323)
AR Gloves - SR4 (318)
Sim Module - SR4 (318)
Augmented Reality SR4 (209)

There is no longer a strict rules mechanic for damaging hardware. Its handwaved when Sprites use the Gremlins power and get a bunch of hits. The software ALL sits on a network.

The network is called a PAN and the commlink is the control center for the PAN even if using electronic glasses, sensors, smartguns or whatever. So yup, the software is all in one big pool of programs thanks to SR4's effectively unlimited memory storage.

Admin post:

* If you report someone's post, please don't then use four letter words to describe them later in that thread. Or in any thread.

* Doc Funk, next time, please throw in at least *1* page number.

One of the biggest things players take for granted is sending commands to commlinks. Everyone quickly grasps commlink-to-display, after all, displays in goggles, glasses, contact lenses, datajack, cybereyes, or eyes with a Image Link implant is comprehensible. On the other side, sending commands can work -just- like an iPhone, but in 2070, that's pretty clumsy. AR gloves, as well as trode/datajack DNI commands are the most commonly used by players, but voice command, both audible and subvocal, and eye-pointer inputs are entirely valid, and assumed, in a lot of cases. Also, if you're entirely oldschool, you can roll out a keyboard, but more likely, you'd have AR gloves/rings/fingernail polish to type in a 3D virtual keyboard, if you wanted that experience.

Also, there's still screens, holoprojectors (Help me, Obi Wan), and even digital "paper" you can send displays to. THough AR is making such things pretty obsolete.

I figured that would have sufficed. Didn't realize there was a forum rule about having to supply exact page references upon demand, especially when the information isn't even remotely hidden or obscure.

Like Wasabi said, there really aren't "Trace and Burn" ICE anymore. It's all just "trace and crash" nowadays, except crashing your personal network is generally worse than just crashing a deck.

In SR4, just about everything is wireless, right down to your socks and underpants. The commlink is usually the hub for everything you have on you, allowing you to control everything as well as enabling you to use the Matrix. You can get the display in a number of ways; but usually it's through AR-Glasses, AR-Contact lenses, a trode net, or a DNI link such as a datajack or implanted commlink. Crashing your commlink means any or all of these can go nutty on you. You can also lose whatever data you had stored, and all your personal info will be available to the invading decker.

Because you can use trode nets or other manual controls, most users will never have to worry about their brains being slagged. In fact, trode nets are now just as powerful as a datajack, which makes datajacks pretty redundant. The only time you have to worry about taking physical damage from IC is if you're in full VR mode, Hot Sim; which pretty much means the same thing it did in SR3.

Programs can sit anywhere, and can be transferred from device to device. If you crack the copy protection on them, you can upload copies to each of your devices, right down to your underpants. Why is this useful? Because then, you can store copies of programs (and other useful data) in multiple places on your person, giving you insurance in case your commlink's data gets trashed.

Now, do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Like you, I prefer SR3. But I never found the SR3 matrix to be unplayable. Unreadable, yes; their layout and writing is a complete mess. But once you sit down with a scorecard and analyze it, the basic system is actually pretty simple and straightforward. Could you tell me which rules you have the most trouble with?

There's a problem when you're making snide remarks to other posters asking questions, even if they're not getting what you're tring to say the first few times you say it. There's more of a problem if you're being snide to the administrator responding to the issue of your snide comments.
Everyone should be familiar by now with what Bull likes to call "Thread Crapping", so please move on from this discussion if you don't have anything to add without the attitude.

Matrix <--> Commlink <--> Electronic Device <--> Metahuman Sense (Eyes, ears, touch etc, anyone looking at that device projecting could see it)
Matrix <--> Commlink <--> SimModule/DNI/Trodes <--> Metahuman Brain (Direct sensory perception, whcih can overlay a normal sense, but is actually created in the head. Only you see it)

From there you can have things like

Matrix <--> Electronic Device <--> Metahuman Sense
Matrix <--> Electronic Device <--> SimModule/DNI/Trodes <--> Metahuman Brain

Or various other combinations

SimModule/DNI/Trodes are the main ones a Matrix User perceives when interactly directly, so this is what you want when you want to "plug in"

Now, where it gets confusing is that any inastalled cyebrware gives you DNI, and you can install Sim Modules as independent devices or accesories.

I think a good way to think about the whole thing is to apply it to the closest thing we have in the present. Bluetooth. Just imagine the next logical step on the technology and apply it to not just earbuds for sound, but to some nifty shades for the visual as well. As for input we already have holographic keyboards now, no reason they won't available in '70. That's for the low tech grannies out there though, everybody else just uses a keyboard represented in AR (viewed from those nifty shades if you don't want to lower your precious essence) and manipulating with those ar gloves everyone keeps talking about. Now all these devices, the gloves, the earbuds, and the shades, are all connected to your superphone (read commlink) completely wirelessly. Because you have Bluetooth shades, gloves, and headset.

Now I'd like to address the snide remarks and trolling issues. :: sets up soapbox:: ahem.
Ok, everyone slamming on Snow_Fox, ease up. So Foxy doesn't like the new system, and is vocal about it. It happens. Some people have played older editions of this game for a long time and to change it seems like taking a dump on what they believe in. I can relate. I feel very much this way about Dungeons and Dragons 4thEd. Or as I call it, D&D the tabletop MMO. Actually I'm not allowed to talk about it, my girlfriend gets concerned for my blood pressure when the topic comes up. So, remember there will always be members of the "Old Guard" who buck the newest edition as an abomination. Being snide with them only serves to make them more embittered with the new system because they think not only is it unnecessary, but attracts a-holes and stupid kids who don't know "what the game's really about." Yes, they're looking for reasons to hate it, and they're wrong for that, but if you wanna change thier mind, that's not the way to go about it.

Now then, Snow_Fox,
Slamming the new system in a post aimed to ask questions about the new system, even for a part you like, is NOT a good way to start. Like I said, I can relate. I'd like to go to the D&D boards, but it's all 4thEd. now, and that all those kids talk about. I know that seeing so much about 4th and not the edition you loved probably sucks. Sorry, hate you have to deal with it, but if you wanna still use the board, you gotta. I don't wanna derail this thread (too late) by asking you what you don't like about SR4th, but if you want a pro/con debate, PM me...I'll keep it nice and intelligent. I myself like the new Ed. They kept everything I liked about the old Shadowrun and actually gave it rules that weren't like reading stereo instructions. But that's my opinion and is what kept me from running/playing the old editions...I'm glad I have one I can handle now.

All in all...both you kids chillout and go get a chocolate soycream together.