BBB 303, "Cyberware and Bioware Grades": "Cyberware and bioware is available in four grades: standard, alphaware, betaware, and deltaware... The prices for cyberware and bioware presented in this chapter are for standard 'ware (with the exception of cultured bioware, see p. 339)..."

BBB 309, "Cultured Bioware": "Cultured bioware must be tailor-made for the intended recipient, so it is more expensive and takes longer to acquire."

I never took a close look before; I just assumed cultured bioware was considered to automatically be alphaware like in SR3 and never thought about it. Is there another citation which makes this clearer? Can you pay double to get betaware cultured bioware?

Also, my head's a bit fuzzy at the moment, and the math eludes me (please don't laugh): what's the Essence multiplier for going from Alphaware to Betaware?

Thanks in advance!

i don't think this question has ever been fully answered . .
some people say you can do . get your delta bio cultured because the rules say so.
some people say you can not .get your delta bio cultured because cultured means it's more or less cloned from you and can not be more fitted to you than it is right then . .
also delta usually means less invasive materials, and this is what bioware allready does . . no metal or ceramics or plastics, only bio-matter . . and further it's built to your specifics inside your own body . . again, bioware is grown to your specifics and then implanted . . so rules more or less say hell yes, and fluff says hell no . . again . .
Usual Ware = 1.0
Alpha = 0.8
Beta = 0.6
Delta = 0.5
best price/gain ratio is therefore alpha, best all in all is beta and only best in essence is delta.
but beta can more or less be freely acquired and delta is even with about 20 delta clinics around the world more or less impossible to attain . .
even for such stuff like a datajack or eyes or other such legal bullshit somehow . .

The price/availability of cultured bioware (the pg. 309 quote) is reflected in the price/availability table (duh). You only have to keep in mind that cultured bioware is custom-made.

All cyberware/bioware is available in all grades. The quote from pg. 339 actually specifies that in case of cultured bioware, the price is not for standard ware.

If it's custom-made, how can you have "standard" bioware? If all bioware is available in all grades, that would imply either that the listed price is for "standard" cultured bioware and thus you could pay double for Alpha, quadruple for Beta, etc. or that the listed price/availability is for alphaware, and you could somehow get "standard" cultured bioware for less money and more Essence.

If the price is not for standard 'ware, what is it for?

@Stahlseele: I meant what would you multiply the Essence cost of cultured bioware by to get the betaware cost, assuming the base cost is for alpha grade? I'm sure it's very obvious, but I have a mental block when it comes to math, and doubly so when my back is acting up and I haven't gotten enough sleep.

It is for cultured ware, which is something different than standard ware, yet the same. The SR4 FAQ is clear on both kinds of bioware being available in alpha/beta/delta.

Edit: Alpha to Beta is 0.7/0.8 = 175/200 => 0.875.

Weird. Thanks for the clarification. I should have checked the FAQ.

Tyro,

Assuming grades apply to Cultured Bioware, you would use the multipliers given above.

So if you wanted Cultured Delta Bioware, it would cost 0.5x the Cultured Basic Bioware version.

Ex: Some Cultured mental bioware costs 1.0 Essence. You get it in Delta Grade. It now costs 0.5 Essence (1.0 x 0.5).

I've always treated Cultured just like regular Bioware. Apply all grades normally and such. Simplifies bookkeeping. This way, the Grade Multilpier is applied to the base Essence cost just like it would be for regular Bioware and Cyberware.

BTW, Cultured Bioware has never been Alpha-ware as a baseline. It's just Cultured.

so, delta says 8x the price and half the essence.
cultured means 4x the price and half the essence again?
so for 12x the price you can get down to one quarter essence cost?
and with one or two positive qualities you can get the essence cost even lower?

Based on the FAQ, no, you just work by the table, just like everything else.

My math question was based on the (erroneous) assumption that cultured bioware was considered alphaware. The FAQ makes clear that cultured bioware uses the same cost and Essence multipliers as non-cultured for Alpha-grade and above.

Tyro, you're reading too much into the word "cultured." Just replaced "cultured" in your books with "more expensive." In all ways, Cultured Bioware is the same as "standard bioware."

Delta Grade Cultured would cost 12x Nuyen & 0.5x Essence.

You could also get the Adapsin quality, Type O, quality, and one or two others for further reductions in Essence costs.

Don't forget about Cyber/Bioware suites. They also give a discount (-0.1x Essence).

For simplicity's sake...

Essence Cost Multipliers:
Standard Grade..... 1.0x
Alpha Grade.......... 0.8x
Beta Grade........... 0.6x
Delta Grade.......... 0.5x

If you get the goods in a suite, lower the multiplier by 0.1x. Thus a Standard Grade Suite's total cost would be 0.9x Essence.

Ex: You have 3 pieces of cyberware and it costs a total of 3 Essence. If they were a cyberware suite, you would apply the multiplier of 0.9x and it would cost you 2.7 Essence instead.

Yes, the Suite discount applies to the grade too. So getting a suite of Delta will cost you 0.4x normal Essence costs.

Properly done, you can get some sick amounts of cyber & bioware installed AND still have a hellacious amount of Essence left making your options to be a Cybermage rather decent if outrageously expensive.

Cultured Bioware comes in all 4 standard grades. This is clarified in Augmentation.

The reason why cultured is not automatically considered Delta: Cultured is tailored to the Nervous System &/or Neural Structure of the recipient, which is why it must be custom-grown.

Higher grades are grown from the recipients DNA samples, for a perfect blood match.

You can have 'ware that is customized to interface with your brain, without it being a perfect genetic match (aka Delta).


Once again, this is detailed in Augmentation.

Incorrect. Standard Bioware of Basic & Alpha grades can be re-used by different recipients. Cultured Bioware is specific to a single individual, and cannot be re-used by others.

Other than that though, yes, they are basically the same.

In other words, no used alphaware synaptic boosters. Darn! There goes my munchkin!

/sarcasm

Aye, you can get cyberware down to a 0.2 multiplier, best you can do for bioware is 0.4. The two are mutualy exclusive however so cyber 0.2 and bio 0.5, or cyber 0.3 and bio 0.4. Since you can only take biocompatibility once.

I thought only Cyberware came in suites, though.



Very true - once you get down to 0.2x Essence cost, it's really hard to decide what to get. You've spent effectively 0.1 Essence in Adapsin, leaving 5.90 / 0.20 to play with. Folks, that's 29.5 Essence (basic) worth of cyberware.

Let's play with that a minute.

Encephalon 2, Attention Co-Processor 3 & Math SPU: 1.95
Datajack, Cranial Commlink, Control Rig, Simrig & Simsense Booster: 1.70
Move-By-Wire 3, Skillwire Expert System and three Reaction Enhancers: 6.00
Four cyberlimbs, cybertorso, cyberskull (all maxed, of course): 6.25
Blood Circuit Control System: 1.0
Balance tail: 0.50
Chameleon Dermal Sheath: 1.80
Two cyber-eyes & two cyber-ears: 1.0
Cybergill 0.25
Nanohive with 6 nanite colonies: 0.0 (built into a cyberlimb!)
Nano-Biomonitor: 0.30
Flashback System: 0.30
Voice Modulator, Taste Booster-6 & Olfactory Booster-6: 0.60
Anything else you'd want just takes up Capacity.

All this adds up to 21.65 (which reduces to 4.33). Add the 0.1 for Adapsin and you're left with 1.56 for Bioware and Geneware, which will be reduced in Essence cost by 75% (50% for Delta Grade, and halved again because it's the lower of the Bio/Cyber pair) - so we've effectively got 6.28 Essence worth of Bioware to shove in. What can we fit? We don't need any Physical Attribute Augmentations, since everything's been replaced with cyberlimbs already - all we can do at this point is swap out organs. So:

Synthcardium 3: 0.30
Toxin Extractor 6: 1.20
Tracheal Filter 6: 1.20
Symbiotes 3: 0.60
Pathogenic Defense 6: 0.60
Digestive Expansion: 0.50
Cerebral Booster 3: 0.60
Sleep Regulator: 0.15
Reception Enhancer 3: 0.60
Trauma Damper: 0.20

All of this comes to 5.95, which will reduce to just under 1.5 Essence - leaving 0.0825 Essence left.

That's either 0.3 Essence-effective of Bioware or 0.40 Essence-effective of cyberware before we have to call in the Cybermancers, and we have run out of gear. So seriously - what's left?

Ack! I can't believe I forgot the geneware! So, let's give this puppy fun cancer!

Genetically optimizing all his attribuets will cost 1.60 Essence-equivalent, or 0.80 Essence-actual. Now we're in Cyberzombie territory, but just barely.

Then, buying all possible Ehnanced Protein Exchange genes costs another 1.90 Essence-equivalent, or 0.95 Essence-actual.

So when we're finally done, we've dropped to -1.7 Essence, and bought everything in every book that isn't incompatible with something cooler.

Penile Implant?

...

"motherfucker had like, thirty goddamn dicks."

My kind of President.

So basically what we're getting at here is that no matter how much ware you have, you can fit more, hell you could fit a lot more in by replacing the move-by-wire system by skill wires and a synaptic booster.

well, that IS what cybermancy is there for . .
but now think about surged people with either 4 legs(centaurs) or 4 or 6 Arms . . then you can do even more gruesome stuff . .
or do what i did and find a surged centaur with 6 arms . . you can hit the -6 essence this way i guess . . and you could end up with binky ^^

Scary part is... leave off some of the more non-essential items and you'll have 1+ Essence left. Which means you can be a Mage and initiate on top of being a cyber bio monster that CZs would love to emulate.

shadowrun is a game of glass-cannons.
allways has been, allways will be.

QFT.

Ever seen a 6-armed SURGED ork who took Ambidexterity three times? Give him 4 cyberarm gyromounts, 4 SMG's and 2 SA grenade launchers and get out of the way. Or just give him 6 grenade launchers.

True dat... although the MBW gives much better bonuses.

Augmented Reaction only goes so high before you hit the cap. If you don't have genetic optimization or metagenic improvement, the highest it goes is 9 anyway. +3 from a Synaptic Booster is quite enough, and you can always get more with reaction enhancers or drugs if you have to.

Eh, I'm not so sure about that. For one, I'm ALWAYS going to get genetic optimization. For another, it's +6 to Reaction, +3 to Dodge, and +3 to Reflexes, plus a Skillwire-5, for 1.0 Essence. The Synaptic Booster is only +3 to Reaction and +3 to Reflexes, for 0.38 Essence. Add in the 3 Reaction Enhancers and the Skillwire-5, and you're at 0.75 Essence - and still haven't got the +3 to Dodge.

The other cool thing about the Move-By-Wire + Reaction Enhancers stack is that, like four cyberlimbs and a cybertorso, it makes the body's physical stats completely superfluous. Pretty much, Move-By-Wire + 4 Cyberlimbs + Cybertorso + Cyberskull + Cybereyes + Cyberears allows you to buy your way to your augmented maximums, no matter what your starting stats were. It's the great equalizer.

True, but all of my sams are cybered adepts - I'd rather have that extra Essence for other things, since I have to keep my implants to one or two points. Skillwire-5 is awesome, I'll admit, but I can live without it. I love the concept of MBW, but I've not yet managed to build a character who would do better with it than with one of the alternatives.

Fair enough. One of the things I've been playing with lately is an alternate character generation system, based on random stat generation and random lifepath rolls. The idea is to get you more into the mood of the crapshoot that is Shadowrun's socioeconomics - you really, really could be born anybody, and go through some fucked up things, before winding up in the shadows. So I've been looking at things quite a bit lately from the perspective of "what do I buy if I didn't get to pick my stats in the first place?"

6 BF or FA grenades launchers also. Nothing says loving like 36 grenades per initiative pass.

O.o

Just be glad you can't fire full bursts or whatever it is that the 10 round is called. 60 grenades just might qualify as overkill. Also depending on how your gm reads "...unusual loading mechanism or exotic ammunition..." you could do 36 missiles in one round. 6 armed troll with a FA modified missile launcher from the main book, the mitsubishi one. It would only be that one initiative pass true, but it is unlikely you would need more than that one.

Now add in the fact that bonus dice aren't split. Bonus dice like specializations and Adept powers, for example