Months ago, I swear I read something about improving contacts using Karma, but for the life of me, I can't find it.

Was I just hallucinating?

-paws

As far as I know, the only way to improve Contacts is through Roleplay.

In my game(s), you can adjust you L rating through roleplay. Their C rating stays as-is (unless the contact does something to raise it).

my personal opinion (and it is a jaded one), is that if your contacts are only a source for _______ (whatever that may be) then they are less likely to help you out in the future. If you do little things for them, maybe give them a bday present, or urban brawl tickets for a team they really like, or just little things like that... that means they are more likely to be a better contact or worse.

for example"
lets say I was a bartender at a bar and I had a side business "getting items". If I had two customers (Mr Blue and Mr Green) that were equal customers (same C/L ratings). Now Mr Blue remembered that I liked this odd kinda rare scotch.. and found a bottle and gave it to me.. then send me a "happy holidays' card at the winter holidays (christmas).. and did little things like that.. Now Mr Green who has spent on "work" items that same amount, but never comes around unless he was something.

Now lets say the local beat cops busts me for have some "party favors" and is willing to let me slide if I can give him a "bigger fish"... now I have two customers that I can give him. Mr Blue and Mr Green. One is just a customer and one has some "friend"-like tendencies. It would be a no brainier to give up Mr Green over Mr Blue.

then again that is my person 0.02 worth....

That was my impression too. If you want higher loyalty you have to do something to get that and if you want a contact with a higher connection rating you have to do somethign to help them get that promotion or stomp on that rival gang.

It's not RAW but I tell my players that their C/L ratings are highly dependant on RP and that those scores will rise and fall with or without their aid (although there will usually be something they can do to help or hinder). That's just me though.

I really was only referring to Loyalty (and I assume that the OP was as well), as anything related to a Contact's Connection rating is pretty much out of the PC's (and Player's) hands after chargen is completed and the game starts.

Well, perhaps not entirely, but it could be the focus of an entire run to try and get your contact a better connections rating.

Note to self: Buy b-day presents for my contacts.

True that such a thing is not inconceivable, but not anywhere near as common (or likely) as the Contact's Loyalty being affected by the PC's action(s).

Ah, yes, that much is quite true.

However in light of some people doing less roleplaying and the simple fact that most groups don't have the time to RP players giving little gifts to all their contacts, it could be reasoned that the expenditure of 2 karma to raise rating by 1 somewhere could represent the efforts you've put into making friendly with your contact him or helping him to 'expand'.

I think frequency of use (or 'contact') should be more of a factor in when (or if) a Contact's Loyalty changes. If you use them a lot without causing problems, then I would consider raising the Loyalty rating.

Besides, I do think that there should be some things that Players can't just throw Karma at, and actually have to put game-time effort into improving.

If you want, you could take a look at the Runner Companion Karma build costs for contacts and use that as a means of implementing in game karma cost improvements for contacts.

Personally I favor the In game In Character development of contacts, but if you want a framework for it I would use the RC as a guideline.