OK everyone, here's another question for everyone.

I was going through Unwired and I saw that Agents can get autosoft programs and I was thinking: "Great, but how does that affect the Agent's payload?" For example: I have an Agent on a Response 4 Node with Expert Offense 3, Attack 4, Armor 4, and Medic 4 and still be at Rating 4 for all my programs? Or is each program reduced down to rating 3?

WOW! Nobody either knows or wanted to answer my question. I was hoping someone would know the answer. Please help me with answering. Thanks in advance.

Isn't this covered under the System# x# equation? So if you run four programs on a System 4 node, there's no issue, but once you run 8 you drop the Node's Response (and thus the Agent's response) to 4? Why would it lower the program values? System is your program cap, not Response.

Autosofts are Programs, and therefore count towards payload and Process limits.

Sorry if the question seemed stupid, but I was confused if autosofts counted as programs as the wording seemed strange to me.

Response degradation happens when you run more programs than your System. Both the node and the agent (if not loaded into your persona) can suffer from Response degradation.

The node has the Agent + four programs running. The node suffers from program load. (Node movement and Accounts, Unwired pg. 110)

The agent is now limited to rating 3 (a running program), while the node is at -1 Response. If you calculate agent payload response degradation by current rather than full rating, the agent is in for yet another response reduction, as it is running more than 3 programs. I wouldn´t, but I´m not entirely sure about the way of the RAW.


Now you add the Ergonomic software option to one of your programs. The node is now running four programs (agent+3 others), and not degraded. The Agent is therefore running at rating 4, nothing to see. (If agent and node ratings are the same, the agent needs at least one "empty program slot", because the system will run at least the agent on top. The Ergonomic option is your friend. Also, with generous use of the optimisation option, you can sidestep most of the response issue. A single die lost now grants way more payload.)

Thank you everyone. The reason I was asking all this was because I have a Chaos Mage who is smart enough to know that if his 'Link gets hacked he's uber screwed, therefore he's loading up his Agent with enough IC software to make sure he's safe.

So if I have a system of 4 and a response of 4, and I run 6 programs, doesn't my node immediately crash?

System 4 - 6 Programs = -1, so my Response goes to 3. But System is limited by Response, so it drops to 3 as well.
System 3 - 6 Programs = -2, so my Response/System goes to 2.
System 2 - 6 Programs = -3, so my Response/System goes to 1.
System 1 - 6 Programs = -6, so my Response/System goes to -2.


Are we sure that the Response drop is intended to affect software like this and not just lower your matrix Init (and other Response based tests)?

As per the SR4 FAQ, you are not supposed to recalculate the program load modifier for the changed system rating. Problem fixed.