How does the virtual connection rating system found in the sidebar on page 129 of the runners companion actually work? Their explanation either isn't terribly clear, or I'm just not seeing the obvious.

Thanks for the help.

Okay, your average contact has two ratings, Loyalty and Connection, and the cost of the contact is (Loyalty + Connection) BP. However, some contacts, particularly virtual contacts, may have a variable Connection rating. In this case, the contact is demarcated as General, Focused, or Specialized, and the cost of the contact is (1 + Loyalty, 2 + Loyalty, or 3 + Loyalty) respectively. Whenever the player wants their character to consult that contact, the GM rolls the dice to determine the effective Connection rating (I would suggest only doing this once an adventure, or once a session).

For example, let's say the character is a member of a professional organization. A "general" group might be the Institute of Magicians, Adepts, and Mystic Adepts (IMAMA); a focused group might be the United Talismonger's Association (UTA); a specialized group might be the Seattle Society for Unique Enchantments (SSUE).

With group contacts, like those given about, a Membership modifier is applied based on the size of the group, so the cost of a contact is (Loyalty + Connection + group modifiers), or in the case of variable connection ratings (1 + Loyalty + group modifers, 2 + Loyalty + group modifiers, or 3 + Loyalty + group modifiers). The Membership modifier adds to the dice rolled by the GM to determine the group's variable connection.

To use the groups above, the IMAMA is a large organization with thousands of members - that's a +6 Membership rating, so the cost for the contact would be (1 + Loyalty + 6 Membership + other group modifiers), and when the GM rolls to determine their Connection rating for a session, they would roll 2d6, add 6 (for the Membership modifier) and then divide by 2. Discounting exploding 6's, that gives the IMAMA a Connection rating of 4-9, on average.