Let's say I'm clustering 4 commlinks togeather. Each of them as a full 4 add-ons as listed in Unwired, including each one of them being Optimized for a diffrent program.
Would the resulting cluster gain the benefits of each of the 16 Commlink options? Spicificaly would the cluster have Optimized for all 4 programs the seperate component commlinks do? I imagine the Custom Interface option only gets to provide it's bonus once even if all the links had it?

Would smart use of clustered commlinks be an expensive way to punch one the base abilities of a single mobile hacker?

Of course many commlink modifications are obvious... armor casing, gecko grip, ceramic/plastic, and other purely physical options would only apply the commlinks they are built into.

Part of me is picturing a combat hacker wearing armor that has all it's addon slots filled with commlinks, with each of those commlinks having it's 4 addon slots setup with useful functions... the result being a walking super computer suit that provides a lot of bonuses in hacking. A helmet alone can easily get 3 commlinks, and it's possible to get 10 more into Heavy Combat Armor. While getting 13 commlinks up to snuff at Response 6 each is by no means cheap, It's possible. That's 13 Optimizations, along with all sorts of other options.

I don't have access to Unwired, so I can't comment on the clustering, but I will ask why you'd spend your armor slots on commlinks. You can stick them in your pockets without giving up insulation and whatnot, so what advantage are you hoping to gain?

I cannot really see how clustering lots of low level Commlinks together would have any benefit other than letting you run more than one Persona and lots of programs? When you cluster Commlinks you use what, the lowest stat for Firewall and System and the average Response of all the nodes? That means you would have to buy a fair few 6/6/6 Commlinks just so your stats didnt drop out. That could get expensive.

And then adding options to those commlinks does not seem to have much of a benefit in itself. If you put an Armour Case on each of them all you get is lots of commlinks that can take a bullet. A biometric lock is not really that useful (Other than as a security device). The Customized Interface almost certainly acts on a Commlink by Commlink basis and so I would rule it does not stack, but the rules dont specify this and so you might be able to be cheesy and get a stupidly high MInitiative. Hardening would only protect the specific Commlink from an EMP (I thought '72 hardware was all optical? Why the hell would an EMP do anything?). Optimization could be useful, you load each specific program onto an Optimized node of the cluster and get a +1 bonus to lots of programs. Self Destruct, kind of useless. And then the Simsense Accelerator, which your GM would have to be fucking crazy to let you stack. However again, it does not specificly say it does not. (Kind of. It states using the device with a simsense booster gives you 5 passes, which you could read as saying it does not stack)

So basically you can get lots of really expensive Commlink nodes that are each, individually, protected from bullets and EMP that you can run lots of programs on? But yes, I would rule in one of my games that a large cluster of Commlinks with Optimization could be used to get you a +1 bonus on each different program.

Customized Interface and the like should likely never stack, but were I the GM I'd require all of the clustered commlinks to be modified as such to receive the base benefit.

The guts of it are optical, but the wireless connection it uses to talk to the matrix is not, can not, and will never be, optical. Optical is for hardline stuff only, if you have a radio then it's vulnerable to EMP.

Ah yes, forgot about the antenna.

mind you, if you connected them all with optical cable and had only one with an antenna, or even if that one communicated solely by laser link...

(actually, presumably the power supply is the other end of the problem. or at least, i personally am unaware of any means of storing power in purely optical components)

You need a light capacitor made of pure unobtaium witch RAW wise might exist.

Correction; if it has transistors it is vulnerable to EMP. While the fiber optics within range of the EMP would be immune, if their transmitter or receive is also within range then they can be knocked out.

Sign--

Wacky

Transistors are not required for EMP vulnerability, and you could have a (recieving) antenna that doesn't actually have any (diodes only, with LEDs for conversion to optical). However, this would still be vulnerable to EMP since the antenna is still going to be subject to much higher voltages than it was designed for.

I'm not sure you could make a transmitting antenna without transistors (or tubes, but why in the world would you be using those?). But not all antennas transmit.

You could use Vacuum Nanoelectronic tubes. I don't pretend to know anything about them, but if tubes are less vulnerable to EMP, then the corps would have something to shoot for.

Tubes are no less vulnerable to EMP than transistors of the same size. Either type of switching element dies if subject to too high of voltage (which is what EMPs do). Old tube based devices are more resilient than modern transistor based devices only because the tubes are far bigger. There's no point to use tubes instead of transistors.

Tubes iirc produce much higher quaility outputs IDK if thats sized based but if not and nanotubes can bemade most high end speakers and even A/V systems would use them.

They also burn out like lightbulbs. I doubt you want microscopic bits of your comlink randomly failing on you and needing to be replaced. This is why making tubes smaller is such a challenge.

OK, quick question for everyone, if your commlink is part of a cyberlimb can you harden the whole cyberlimb as a "just in case" kind of thing?

I'd say no KC.

You'd need to individually harden each piece of gear... especially the commlinks (since each commlink has it's own radio).

Not to say you'd need to harden all the commlinks used in an internal cluster. (if you had 3 of them clustered together, really only one of them needs use it's radio, the others are simply hardwired together to give extra processing). Though it could be a problem if you wanted to switch to a different one as the transmitter.

EMP is off topic a bit, but I'd like to point out that cyberware is harder to damage with EMP then other gear, and damage to commlinks will only be to their signal ratings, if anything. Of course to the average user, 3 points of signal loss is enough to disable most wireless devices.

I remember back when that Soviet fighter pilot defected to the US, in a Foxbat interceptor plane.

The US techies were astonished to find circuit boards in that aircraft that featured pinhead sized vacuum tubes.

The Soviets at that time apparently didn't have the resources to make mass amounts of transistors, so ended up developing the micro vacuum tubes to compensate.



-karma