Ornot, I believe you are mistaken, because it was just to minimize the subscription list then they would have come out and said that. The Dev's said this in the clustering rules (pg 55 of Unwired):



The bolding is my emphasis of the relevant text. There is NOTHING in the RAW or the fluff to state that Clustering is just to minimize your subscription list



To counter your argument, I can take a whole lot of Xboxs and cluster them together into a Beowulf cluster with "decent" throughput. Individually each xbox is pathetic, but together they are "mighty"




Well my Chaos Mage has a cluster of his Alpha 'ware to backup the commlink in his cyberhand.

Buy a commlink, and just say you made it from a datajack and a wireless thingie. Pay the same essence and cost as an implanted commlink. Same mechanical result, you get a cool story.

I'll cede the point, based off of the additional rules found in Unwired about periphereal nodes and standard nodes, that as a periphereal node the datajack cannot pass as a full comm. But, even as a periphereal, it can still run some programs.

So, what programs can a datajack run? We might not be able to build a full commlink for comparatively cheaper cost (but for Unwired), but we can at least make an extremely effective situational piece of hardware. It may not be able to run Stealth and Databomb, but if all you wanted from an implanted 'link was Browse and Analyze, this might be for you.

It should be noted that running with a Modular Meta Link with trodes is still cheaper, but I was doing this more as an "I noticed this is supported (at least in part) by the rules; how far can we take it?"

I will admit that my reading of Unwired has been sketchy. I frankly found it very hard to digest, and all it seemed to do is add extra features without clarifying any of the core rules. I'd be interested to learn what your cluster of alphaware actually adds to your mage, from your perspective. How do you feel this effects game balance?

I do take issue with your xbox beowulf cluster example though. It cannot counter my electronic paper example as it is a modern day construction that has nothing to do with SR. I brought up electronic paper as an item in the BBB that has a device rating, and wireless capability to demonstrate that possessing firewall, system, response and signal ratings does make that thing capable of replacing a commlink. I do not believe there is anything else in the BBB, besides a commlink, that lets you access the matrix.

I have to throw in with Ornot here... A lot of things in the BBB (other than Comlinks) allow you to access the matrix (heck, your refrigerator accesses the Matrix to place an order for more Milk when you are out)... However, not many actually have Persona program Interface Capabilities, which is the defining difference between accessing the Matrix and using the device as a Comlink capable device... to "Hack" you need to capability to use a Persona Program... and the Electronic Paper device will not let you run Persona Programs... Just as your Beowulf Cluster may run Matrix (Internet) games efficiently and with respectable power, it possesses absolutely no Persona Capability, so it is just a Game Interface...

Not sure if that made any sense, but there you go... It is getting late...

i do wonder what book malachi quoted when it came to peripheral devices...

anyways, the persona is the SR black box that enables all the other goings on of the matrix.

without the persona, one would be looking at only data requests (unwired, p54), and data requests are basically what powers todays internet...

SR4A pg. 221. The rewrite of the Wireless World chapter in the book really is superb.

The direct answer to the OP is simply, "no" because of this sentence:

Except the text of clustering does say that you have a persona limit. Therefore it has the ability to "hack".

So they basically dumped the statement from unwired that peripheral nodes can do personas? Interesting.

Even more interesting is that the sr4a changes file do not cover this, it just states that peripheral and nexi have gotten basic writeups.

Now i start to wonder if SR4A have precedence over unwired or not. i would say it has, given that its a later book, but still, unwired is supposed to provide a more detailed matrix. This kind of contradiction between books can be troublesome.

It was said by the devs that the changes document isn't finished AFAIK.

Ah, i must have missed that statement.

And for general future reference, one someone quotes something from the books, include book name and page number...

My interpretation of that sentence is that Clustering devices With Persona Capability works this way... If you look further down you will see that the "Pesona Limit is determined by adding the RESPECTIVE limits of the devcices together"... page 55, Topic Clusters... 2nd to last sentence...

0+0 is still 0... If your device does not have Persona Interface software (Comlinks and Nexi do, MOST (if not all) other hardware does not), then you get no capability to use personae on that device, clustered or not...

Don't care what is RAW, but Tymeaus makes actually sense.

Correct. You can't cluster together your toaster, refrigerator, automated "back massager," and your roomba drone to turn your commlink into a nexus. You have to cluster commlinks with other commlinks or nexi if you want a node that can do something useful.

Actually, that would work, IMO. If you have at least one device (your Commlink) that has a Persona program then you can use that cluster to get online and do stuff. Your Commlink will see a slight boost in processing power because of the other devices it is using for some of the background tasks. However, is such a cluster practical? No. The Firewall of a Cluster is equal to the lowest Firewall rating of any device in the cluster. Are you willing to compromise your Commlink's Rating 6 Firewall by clustering in the toaster with a Rating 2 Firewall (you'd be lucky if its that high) for the sake of a little extra processing power? No, probably not.

This sentence about Peripheral Nodes from Unwired needs to be stricken:

If that part of the sentence were gone, there would be no question on this issue.


When I wrote the post, I put the "name=" thing into the quote header, but for some reason it didn't show up in the post, I guess.

or maybe i failed to look there, silly me

No, I went back and checked the post and the page ref didn't show up. I even tried editing the post and adding in the reference but it still didn't show up. I guess it really didn't want to.

Although with the description of Central Home Nodes (CHN) given in the Advanced Lifestyle section of Runners Companion, I'd say it's more along the lines of "the refrigerator reads the RFID on the milk (or notices the absence of one), decides it's time to order more based on settings given to it by the user, and tells the CHN to order more milk using the appropriate accounts".

Besides, everyone knows that clustering credsticks is the way to go. Device rating 6 gives you 6s across the board baby!

No, I am in no way being serious on that last point...

"And there I was, finally inside one of the most secure data havens in Renton and guess what I was facing! Not some mean, nasty IC or some wiley, corporate hacker. No, it was my refrigerator! It slammed me with a version of Blackout I coded myself!! By the time I regained consciousness, it had fenced some high class data, hired a moving crew and is now somewhere in Bellevue keeping fine wines chilled for some corporate bigwig. I figured out how it did all that the hard way. It managed to cluster a few of my credsticks together, but they got burned during the run. Now, all I have left is an eviction notice and some spoiled milk."

"Darn that refrigerator to heck."

Try it like this:

[quote=SR4A.196]Rules text goes here.[/quote]

Almost-Edit: It seems you can't put actual quote blocks in a post with broken quote blocks. Phooey.