A Dell technician replaced my entire motherboard* in 5 minutes with no more than a screw driver. If it had been me, probably 10 minutes as I wouldn't have had prior knowledge in order to perform at the same speed that he was.

*That is, every other non-mobo part was removed, set aside, mobo replaced, all the other components replaced.

BTW, OCZ offers "DIY Laptops." Buy all the parts yourself. The only part that comes in the DIY kit is the case and screen.

Agreed. The design of inexpensive, low-end electronics often preclude them ever being able to accept a whole raft of high-end components. For the record, I'm saying it will be perfectly fine in my games to buy one of those "stock" Response 4 Commlinks, putting a Response 6 chip in it, then "installing" that into any vehicles or drones that the player wants upgraded.

it also includes motherboard and optical drive...

what the buyer must provide is ram, cpu and storage...

now if there was breadboarding rules for comlinks, things would be interesting

they existed back in SR2/3, and allowed for a more upgradeable deck, but came at the cost of portability.

I'd forgotten about the mobo, NewEgg said that it didn't contain one when I went looking around for a place I could buy the kit. And optical drives are RIDICULOUSLY modular. In fact, there's only two ways to get them: IDE and SATA. While SATA is faster than IDE, for most uses of optical storage mediums IDE is sufficient. So it doesn't really matter that it comes included (if you don't like it, a new one is dirt cheap anyway).

Is there any possibility of an official answer to this?

It suddenly starts to matter to what I'm doing.

You can just buy System 6 & Firewall 6 from the table on page 232/330.

While the text on page 222 describes upgrading software, the table on the same page only has upgrade details for hardware.

I.E. you can buy existing hardware and upgrade it; or you can build it from parts.

With software you just buy it or write your own.

Thanks for the reply but I could really use an official answer from one of the dev's.

Preferably before Thursday.

Ok I see nada in the material that says during character creation you are only allowed to buy a pre-exsisting commlink.

This being the case on p.228 is the table that outlines building your own response and signal.

So as your character is (in most cases at least) reached the age of 17 to 25 I see no reasoning that you can't just pay the prices for rating 5's at character creation and say s/he built their own commlink.(5's due to availablity rules unless you use 2 restricted gears then 6's)

Which in game upgradeing would allow for level 7 max as the +2 is only outlinded in the upgradeing section not the building section.

It also seems feasible as a good hacker is rolling at least 12 dice per roll with edge and could build said parts in 2 to 4 days and your character is in theory 17 to 25. (again in most cases)

And yes it also says under upgradeing software packages IE firewall and system but again your old enough to have taken the time that during character creation you could say your hacker programed their link before and thus just buy the level you want which would then hit the +2 max in upgradeing later.

In NO way would I ever allow more than level 6 at character creation as that is the soft max and in alot of cases the hard max in allot of the ratings in this game for character creation.

Those would be my thoughts on this topic.

There are just no rules to create a non-preexisting commlink.

That's going to depend on your GM. Some may allow you to take "downtime" before the campaign actually begins, some may not. If a campaign begins as refugees in the jungles of Amazonia in dramatic fashion, the GM might limit things to what you can buy. If the game begins with you working as an office drone and your character background says you spend a lot of your free time tinkering around with commlinks, then maybe it'll be approved.

I mean a magician could just as easily say they spent the last eight months before the game begins collecting reagents in the NAN or refining Orichcalcum.

OK, I think I'm good to say that, I've asked by PM and received a semi-official 'the upgrade limit only applies to hardware' reply.

So buying a Firewall 6 is fine.

But isn't software limited by response, which is hardware.

You'd have to buy one of the 2 most expensive comlinks and then upgrade it in order to have that Firewall 6.

Not quite. I don't know if Firewall counts, but your System is limited by Response, and any program you run is limited by System.


They should try and make this clearer, then. It's confusing otherwise.

Firewall has always been independent of System.

Ah. I'd never seen it explicitly stated, and not having made a matrixy character in a long while I was running off assumed knowledge.

Um ok so just what are the build and repair rules for then? allong with tables for time and what not listed in the books?



Um ok and question if you have the money to buy the items as listed in what is it street magic what's to say you didn't accquire them then do the work to make the Orichcalcum?

No offence but why do I have to be an office drone I took born rich my parents have money they bought me equipment and other items I used to make said commlink.

There are plenty of backstories that when combined with qualities can make very accecptable reasons for starting the game with some uber item like useing restricted gear to start with the uber sniper rifle.

To create items at half the cost. Point is: There is no cost for a non-pregenerated commlink.

Of course, it doesn't even matter: a Transys Avalon can be upgraded to 6/6.

Or, my personal choice, the Hermes Ikon (which is 2K cheaper than the TA) can be upgraded to a 6/5.

Of course, I'd only go for a 6/3 myself, as I don't need a 4Km signal range on my commlink. My R6 Micro-tranceiver (1200 ) with it's 10Km range should be enough to get in contact with other teamates whilst on most runs, and there's always the option of a Satellite Link (500 ) and it's Signal of 8 (the boot of a Rover 2068 makes a wonderful gear locker).

Even with 1700 on accesories I still come in cheaper than the Transys.

Just wondering, this also works for Pilot programs, right? So there's no problem with a drone having Pilot 6 anymore?

only that pilot, by being a special kind of system, is limited by response...

For commlinks, there is no limmitation, as they do not have a device rating. Most other electronics have one for gameplay purposes only. Otherwise every electronicdevice would be given attributes like a commlink. Also to consider is page 225 of the BBB, a program cannot run higher than the device's rating.

As for increasing the rating by more than 2 of the device rating, where is that rule?? It may just be refering to attributes and not programs.

In the SR4A update, they added the rule that the most you can upgrade a device is +2, and apparently according to the devs it only applies to hardware.

SR4.5 still effectively limits software, though. Your Systems is capped at Response, so you can never improve your System past +2. That limits the ratings of your other programs as well. Not to mention the fact that the Sattelite Uplink is now useless; you can't connect it to anything without going past the +2 cap.

My house fix? The cap only applies to things with Device Ratings. Anything with full matrix attributes gets to be raised as much as you like. Sattelite Dishes don't count, or count as a peripherial.

Er, not quite. The Satellite Link is a device which has a Signal rating of 8. You can connect devices (specifically commlinks) to it that have a much lower Signal rating and use it to transmit. You are not actually upgrading the transmitting device in any way, merely using a second piece of hardware (the Satellite Link) to rebroadcast and receive signals. The commlink in question still has a Signal rating of 3 (in the case of the default Hermes Ikon I mentioned earlier) or whatever the rating for the particular 'link in question happens to be.

To continue to use the Ikon as an example, one could upgrade it to be a Signal 5 device (the maximum under the new rules) yet, if connected to a Satellite Link, be able to broadcast and receive signals at Signal 8 due to the Signal strength of the Link transmitter, dish, and the satellites it is connecting to. The commlink's upgraded Signal rating is still 5, it's just allowed to transmit at Signal 8 due to external hardware.




Fix'd...

Just, this is wrong by current RAW - the rules don't make a difference for software. The only thing that 'saves' commlinks is that they don't have original software attributes to begin with...

It does, by current RAW: Drones have a Device Rating (3), and Pilot is per definition just a kind of System.

So Drones are limited to Rating 5 Signal, Rating 5 Response, Rating 5 Firewall and Rating 5 Pilot.

Personally, I only treat the actual uplink with Signal 8, though - the access point function has a Signal equal to it's Device Rating.

Seriously folks, you're reading too much into this. There is a limit to upgrading hardware but nowhere is there a rule for upgrading software. Software has to be replaced with a whole different copy of a different rating.

[And security drone hardware ratings are hard capped at 6 since security devices are rating 4 to start with, 4+2=6]

Nope, see SR4A, p. 222

Actually, only Security Vehicles (4) and Military Vehicles (5) are listed.
Drones still are at a general 3, security devices are not drones.

This begs the question whether programs like Pilot, Agent or System can come with Software Options, too. If they can, just take it optimised, and you can run a rating 6 system on a rating 1 machine.

Optimization is only available to Common, Hacking, Autosoft and Simsense. So, no, you can't.

Then the more expensive stock commlinks actually make sense after all.

Am I the only one in this thread that wants the upgrading cap to apply to Firewall and System as well?

No, certainly not.

I like it mostly for the fact that it exposes the Table Rating from Missions as the sillyness it is.

To firewall, yes. To system, no. System is tied to response anyway.

Except in Nexuses which are still canon.

The Nexus table in the back of Unwired is now worth it's weight in gold.

I will be allowing my players to buy Response 4 Commlinks, upgrading them to Response 6, then "installing" them into Drones/Vehicles replacing the central node of that system. In that manner they can get a Drone or Vehicle up to Rating 6, they just need to buy a stock Response 4 Commlink to begin with.

However, the biggest question to do with drones so far is this: does a non-military drone with a Pilot of 2 have a Response of 3 (as per its Device Rating) with a System of 2, or does the Pilot sub for all Matrix Attributes, thus giving it a Response of 2?

Device Rating comes first, then is modified by given Attributes.

So it's Signal 3 Response 3 Firewall 3, given Pilot for any Drone - even 'security' Drones and 'military' ones, as there is no such thing.