A player's asked me about this, and I'm sort of wondering myself.
If you have shock gloves, and you slug someone, it says you can use the shock glove damage or your own, take your pick. I can sort of see the idea (choose the higher of the two, perhaps), but here comes a few questions:

1) If you go with your normal unarmed damage, do you still get the shock carrier effects?
2) If you have Critical Strike, would this add to the shock glove's damage?

Or, if you decide to go with unarmed damage, do the shock gloves, then, do nothing?

The easiest way to solve this is the following:

1) You would not get the elemental effect. Think of it this way: the electrodes are in the fingertips/palms, and you punched them with the knucles (not exactly, but you struck with a different part of the glove). Or the contact was not long enough for the elemental effect.

2) I don't see why not. The shock glove replaces your unarmed damage code with its own. Critical Strike adds damage value onto your unarmed attacks. That would make sense.

You know, from your training in critical areas of the body, that if you apply the electrodes right there, it'll really hurt.

2.5) Pretty much.

As an aside, don't forget you can get them with the shock gloves and gain a +2 dicepool for just having to touch them (however I would say you don't get the option for a normal unarmed strike then).

Shock Gloves do NOT Stack with ANYTHING PERIOD!
Either you do fixed Electrics/Stun Damage, or your usual unarmed Damage.

While the gloves might not do enough damage to make a melee specialist want them, there are plenty of reasons to pack them anyways. With an availability of 3R anyone with a decent fake ID and a not-too gaptoothed smile can get ahold of them. And oh the uses! Just think of how useful it would be to short out any electrical device you can get at. And maglocks rely on electricity, do they not? And there is always the Joker handshake for a quick subdual for extraction.

I think most shock gloves would come with fingertip contacts. Even if you were to modify some for knuckle contacts, I think the punch and electrical damage should be resisted separately, not stacked.

So a Strength 13 Troll can punch someone and do shock glove damage, or punch someone and do Troll Damage but with no shock glove carrier effects.

"Damn, I punch like a sissy when I wear these things."

Does this make any sense at all?

Really? I'd been given the impression you could punch someone with them, so I thought the entire hand was tazered up. Could be wrong, though.

no it does not.
just like those other balancing rules do not make any sense . .
you know what kind of damage trolls in SR3 did with their bare fists.
you know what kind of damage an adept can do in SR4 with their bare fists.
now do you want them to get to add the electrical damage from the gloves too?

The purpose of shock gloves is to shock people. It is a LOT easier to touch a uncooperative target, or grab them, than land a solid punch, so I think the glove would be optimised for that. Sure, there might be gloves with contacts in different, or multiple places, but I think most will be fingertip-only. It does the job with the minimum material.

I also think tazer-type electrical weapons should be a "Nausea" effect (SR4, 245), not stun damage. Read up on modern tazers. You get hit, go down immediately, then are completely fine a little while later. Stun damage does not model that.

Think of shock gloves not as tasers on your fists, but as tasers attached to your hands. You touch someone, they get tazed. The limited amount of time from a punch does not give enough contact with the electrodes to sufficiently shock someone.

And don't forget, it's hard to melee in SR4. That's why they have shock gloves and stun batons - to give you a +2 dicepool to "touch-only attack" (page 148, SR4 BBB).

Hmmm... I like the ones that have been shown in the Ghost in the Shell series, where Togusa or the Major has donned a pair at least once and used it on some cybered up individual. The way I see it, some designers may have it there and you need a certain amount of pressure to trigger the shock, such as a light punch since there would be no need for full out punch yet one would need more than just a touch, you don't want to taze the wrong person at the wrong time.

Would a Shock Hand fall into the same category here as the Shock Gloves?