I'm confused, according to my group, there is no game difference in glasses and goggles; yet glasses are cheaper and more normal looking. Why would anyone spend more for goggles then?

With new capacity rules in SR4A.
Glasses 1-4
Goggles 1-6

So can get more slots in Goggles.

Because goggles are sweet?

In game reason though, goggles stay on your head better than glasses.

If you want to stay casual use contacts for your basic vision items like flare comp and image enhancement, then a pair of goggles for thermal and vision mag. Glasses have a higher capacity, but you'd have to think they would stand out in 2070 with all the tech and medical science available for eye correction. I'm sure they are still worn by many people, but at that point I'm guessing it's almost more of a fashion statement than a necessity.

Hope that helps. I'm going to split now though, I don't want to be around when this becomes another datajack thread.

Goggles protect you better ("THE GOGGLES, THEY DO NOTHING!"), stay on your head better, and you look normal when you're tearing down the highway on your Harley-Davidson Shadowrunner!

One word: AR. Spelled out, it's still just two: Augmented Reality.

Glasses are the most common and comfortable way for somebody lacking cyberware (read: most of the population of the 6^th World) to access AR. Glasses are seldom, if ever, used by all but the poorest people for vision correction any more, but that Display-link is priceless. And plenty of people still wear sunglasses, even if just to be cool... or if paranoid, make sure their retinal paterns stay off somebody's database.

As someone who wears glasses in the "real" meat world, a good set of goggles will fit OVER a pair of glasses. Load up the mirrored shades with stuff that will work on a secondhand image like smartlink and flare compensation, and leave the thermo and magnification on top where they need to be.

OK, that's munchy as drek (which is AOK with me in this case), but IRL when you start layering vision systems, it can get a little distorted. Do you really NEED more that six (6) total vision enhancements?

1) Image-link
2) Smartlink
3) Image Enhancement
4) Flare Compensation
5) Low-light
6) Thermal

If you have/need other sensors, just feed them to the Image-link.

I fail to see how you can put magnification in glasses without it looking stupid.

Even 1st Ed offered digital image mag along side optical. Optical was clearer and longer ranged IIRC, but digital was compact.

Side Micro-Cam with electronic enhancement that links to a dedicated Image Link? Not that difficult to do with todays tech (Expensive, but possible) and with 2070 improvements it is not likely a problem.

And on most people not having Cyber, is it not hinted that Cybereyes are one of those things that quite a fair percentage of the population has? It isn't *that* expensive, and the only legal restriction is that you have to be over 18. Might be something your parents buy you for your 18th.

Same technique as current day bifocals.

Although, I still strongly disagree w/ bringing real world logic into a game for some elements, when we readily accept the fact that some characters can summon spirits and shoot fire from their hands

Yeah, well, you had already covered the reasonable applications, so I just figured I'd paint an amusing mental image for the folks reading along. Just be glad I didn't put contacts under the shades...on cybereyes.

Layering vision enhancing tech is always a good idea, and I see the point about glasses being the common option. But that's not neccessarily true for shadowrunners on the job. For my characters I always go the contact route for essential vision tech, goggles for supplemental and a drone with a full sensor suite feeding an AR display for total situational awareness.

If I'm feeling really squirrely I use a sim module/simrig combo. Simrig sends a feed of my sensorium to my commlink. Commlink gets a feed from the various sensors on drones, teammates and my person; overlays that on the live feed and pumps it back to my brain via sim module. Controls and AR are all handled via direct neural interface.

Sure it's AR with all the danger of VR (and I'm one hack away from dead), but it's also the absolute best way to allow your brain to interpret all that data. If I get my way as the group's hacker, everyone gets a simrig and it's all piped back to me and run through a Tacsoft. Team gets bonuses and I get an incredibly detailed record of everything that happened on every run.

Course your mileage may vary. Checking around it looks like our "face" member of the team has a nice pair of glasses while the orc pistol adapt prefers goggles. And his do lots of things.

Come on SaintHax, this is DS. It's where people accept Dragons, Magic, and Cybeware, but complain that the rules for Decompression Sickness are too unrealistic.

It also talks about how bioware is much more popular in the current decade. And the equivalent of Lasik can be done with nanites, so why go for chrome? I would say a DATAJACK is more ubiquitous than eyes, but I agree that eyes are probably a good second place cantidate...

*smacks Zaranthan with a large wet tuna*

No.

*grin*

::gets out the gas can and matches as he giggles::


And now, explain...Ultra sound on contact lens!

:edit: bah after looking at my pdf I does not list the cap number for ultra sound, any one know it hehe,

As AR works perfectly well with trodes, glasses seem to be a little bit outdated. All you need are some nice buttons with built in sensors and a sim module. No need for glasses at all. And you could pin some sensors onto your back, too. Works with cams and mikes.

Style over substance, baby.

Agreed. As a Dwarf how can I look like a walking Steampunk Vehicle without my Goggles!?

or for that matter, black pajamas, gas mask and goggles style HTR

Toxic green mohawk, ripped wifebeater shirt, tattered synthdenim pants, heavy boots with pink laces, armoured leather duster with patches and spraypainted logo on the back, oxy-acetylene torch, and goggles with flare compensation, and a Smile!

And you guys say I don't get the Punk mentality.

I see buttons. Lots of buttons. And style.

Ok, that's not too far off for what I do, but you're taking steps you don't need to.

First of all, a SimRig INCLUDES a SimModule... the better type, actually (more like a desktop player for hi-fidelity playback) because it's hard wired into the whole body's perceptive centers.

Second, if you're just going for the ultimiate in display-link, you can mod your internal comlink (it has 4 "slots") with a SimModule.

Third, there's no danger of VR with using a SimModle that way, unless you actually switch it to Hot Mode, just like when decking. There is no REQUIREMENT to override the body's natural senses, except that's the normal play-back mode.

You're exactly right about being able to feed live SimRig data through a TacNet. It's especially wicked when people have all those nifty sense enhancements, or if some joker got a penetrating milimeter wave radar implanted.

What some people haven't considered is the possible "user experience" from pulling that particular stunt:

You can use your implanted comlink as the central point of coordination. It can display a transparent HUD imagery overlay at the periphery of your "vision" but it is always in perfect "focus". The TacNet data for location is a 3D moving map in the top corner. Your NanoBiomonitor is feeding detailed information from your body's vitals to the comlink and it's displayed in the opposite corner as a diagram of your body with marks for levels of fatigue and damage. Tie in sensors in smart body armor, and you can get an idea how that's holding up. Your smartgun reports in as its own window with ammunition levels and the proverbial targeting carrat driven by a LCOS (Lead Computing Optical Sight). The 'link runs a continual visual recognition program on faces and objects you focus on, popping up warnings and details as you changed visual targets. Your team members status' are listed in a column to one side. All floating virtually in front of you. Plus, you can pop up anything else you want or need, and set up "quick buttons" you can "touch" with a thought, programmed with macros of commands.

If this is sounding like a video game you play, there's a reason. The people who design the interfaces of those games have spent decades now tweaking the best possible arrangements to maximize information availability and situational awareness while minimizing information overload. You're a Shadowrunner whose runs, in their own head, look like a video game. Heck, you could have the mission objectives and maps or whatever recon' data you've managed to assemble accessible, too. "Waypoint 1 reached, objective, scout Waypoint 1, successful" because your SimRig is recording EVERYTHING you sense for Johnson... if you want.

Anyhow, that's my little exposition on the potential "soft" fun you can have with the wicked wireless toys and chrome in the 2070s.

'Trodes are not just a pair of wires, sadly. It's a whole network of wires. As somebody else said: style over substance. And it's not subtle at all.

Personally, I favor the embedded comlink with Skinlink and all my devices skinlinked as well, using a SimModule modded into the implanted comlink. All taken care of, right there.

I can just see that.

Mr. Johnson: "I want a full analysis of what happened at that site."

Mr. 'Runner: "Sure, sure. Slot the stick, and then we'll hand over a SimChip of everything Mungo the Runt Troll here experienced. Kick in an extra K, and it'll be a BTL Chip!"

Thats why you put them under a hat!

To cross-post a little, not enough runners wear hats.

Tell me more about that. Does it save the essenz costs of a sim module?

---

Speaking of style: That's my character

Well, considering that SimSense Editing software is cheap, you can choose to edit it very easily on the way back to the meet with Johnson. Remember the embedded comlink I mentioned? It's good for more than BTL, phone calls and paying bills. And the rules state you can edit and work with any of the individual sensory tracks of a SimSense recording at will. In fact, even standard players have the ability to turn off any of the six sensory tracks (Sight, Smell, Sound, Taste, Touch and track 6 is the emotive track).

Yep. It's PART of the comlink. Look at the electronics mod rules in Unwired. There are other goodies you can cram in, too. Have a look.

hi hi

At the risk of devolving into the Trodes vs Datajack thread...
...so yes, it can be effectively just a couple of wires.

Back on topic though, there is one very good reason to wear goggles: they keep dust and toxic chemicals out of your eyes. In the world of Shadowrun, these are common elements in any large city, however in Seattle, rain and ash are also very common things that could turn into an irritant. I would think that in Seattle (and probably a host of other smog filled cities) goggles would outnumber glasses for people who step outside.

Cool. Thanks.

A headband... which isn't necessarily subtle, depending on the setting. And that's the high end. Now, if it's like a ladies headband that runs vertically, that's easier to deal with (for a female) but if it's more like a sweatband (which I suspect given what it's trying to do and where the OLD trodes used to touch the skin) then that's VERY unsubtle. That's all.

bah, just stuff it under a buff

Did someone say buff?

*FLEX*

Ok now really. So how much/what can a mage put in his glasses, still cast spells, and loose no essence doing it?

In a pair or normal glasses? A Rating 4 pair of glasses can hold 4 different Visual Enhancements. Any of the Enchancements on page 333 SR4A can be added. A mage can still cast spells with any of these enhancements, the Vision Magnification is the only one that might but you can just get them as Optical instead of Electronic with no changes. As long as availability does not go over 12 they are easily bought at CC. That means that you could not, for example, buy Contact Lenses with Ultrasound at CC without taking Restricted Gear (Contacts are Av. 6, Ultrasound adds 8 to that.)

I don't think that's what they meant, CodeBreaker.

thelovedr: If I get your meaning, you were trying to ask which enhancements a mage could get away with? It's a sticky problem, but the answer has ALWAYS been, if it's pure optics, it's fair game, otherwise, you're getting into problems. With things like low-light and thermo, for example, you still have native line-of-sight, and you're aiming with your own eyes, but a really stick GM could say it's no-go. Image Mag in glasses won't work, because there's no room for actual focal length, and if you use digital enhancement *pffft*. There is a reason, if you go back to 1st and 2nd ed, that most corp mages (or mages of any stripe in the books) took cybereyes because once you paid essence, it was part of you. The only exception was optical vs. digital zoom, and that would still apply.

Between the two of us, did that actually cover your question?

Thanks! You totally answered my question. What you can get away with and be able to cast has always thrown me off. I've never played a mage before now, and wasnt quite sure.

EDIT: Clarity

Aye, saw that, threw in a quick edit before you posted

May have been mentioned, but glasses and contacts seem like they'd be more fair game to getting dislodged on a glitch then googles.

As for Mages, always scoop out your baby blues and trade up for chrome.

Why!?! Mages should be the example of purity when it comes to chrome IMHO.

Because once you paid for it with essence, there's nothing stopping you from using all of that eye-stuff.
THAT's why. And because most people are think exactly like that. That guy is no mage, look at his chrome eyes.

Because it's cyberpunk?

Style is important. Many mages would go "pure" (stereotypically: Shinto, Native American, maybe Voodoo), but corporate mages are children of the modern age. Think of what people do now-a-days to make their lives easier or to make themselves better at their jobs. Fast forward to a world where augmentation is not only accepted, but really the norm. They won't get much augmentation (since they know it will hurt their essential job skills), but a little? Sure. Especially if it, in the long run, makes them better at their job.

Here's the rule of thumb that I use. If you're not getting photons that bounced off of the target, you can't target it.

And rightly so. The existence of elves and magic doesn't make realism less important. It makes it more important. One of the things that makes Shadowrun such a rich setting are the attempts to think through the realistic repercussions of events and to justify how things work. You can alter aspects and still make it feel believable so long as you have internal consistency.

To put it another way, I have a mate who is a computer programmer. I can watch a film and enjoy it whilst he is jarred out of his immersion in it repeatedly because the hero is doing something ridiculously stupid with IT. Basically, he is familiar with how things work and that can stop him from finding the events believable (which is a strong factor in whether you are able to generate real emotion in the reader / viewer) whereas I don't know much better (at least some of the time).

Shadowrun can have a magician throw fire. I don't know how magic works so as long as the fluff and rules are internally consistent, it doesn't challenge my immersion. I do know how, for example, a bit about martial arts so if they stick in the rules say that a mundane person can work out a bit and then punch through a concrete wall, that changes the feel of the game from something I can immerse myself in, to something cartoon-like. That's why people want accurate rules in a game with dragons and spirits. We may draw the line in different places - what do I know about decompression sickness? - but it's all an extension of the same principle.

K.

[b]EDIT:[b] Regarding what a magician can get away with - I do as follows: If it's purely optical, there's no problem. If it's purely digital, you can't. And if it's a digital overlay on top of an optical view, e.g. thermographic, running Smart Link system or whatever, then you get vision penalties.

There were several points in here that got me thinking.

So the big bad technomancer/hacker sees his target, said target is wearing Contacts that interface with his internal comlink, and of course the simrig...

Can I force him to go hot? Can I do icky bad things to his contact lenses (format the system of the lenses so that they are useless, black them out so he is blind until they are removed, real time edit of everything he sees, and etc...)? Hmmm I might add this in a different post!

That depends. On Hot-Sim, normal Simrigs are not designed for Hot-Sim and it is illegal for one to be modded so. Chances are that Corp-Sec Security will not have a Hot-Sim modded simrig, and neither will most civvies. A Corp-Sec Security Hacker might depending on who he works for but again it is doubtful. People who would be running Hot-Sim are other Hackers, BTL users and other lowlifes who want as much speed when in the Matrix as possible. However if you do come into contact with such an individual yes you can turn on their VR and then hit them with as much Biofeedback as you want. Unfortunately most people who are running Hot-Sim are either savvy enough to use the methods that make this difficult as hell to do (Slaving, Skinlinks, Stealthed Nodes, Encryption) or its just not worth doing (Who really needs to BF a BTL junkie?). Also the command to switch to VR is almost certainly admin only so you need to hack yourself an Admin Account, which can slow you down.

Onto the Contacts. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. First the Contacts would have to have an Image Link to do most of the stuff you want, and even then it is iffy. Turning them off so that he sees nothing? No way, you turn the Contacts off and all that does is turn off the enhancements. Real Time editing? Possible, you insert new footage through the Image Link. Blacking out his vision? Mmm, again possible using the Image Link. But the problem with hacking things like this is that it doesn't tend to be worth it without some footwork before hand. First you need to find the users node, which can be difficult if they are running in Hidden Mode. Then you need to hack into that persons Node. Then you have to begin running your Edit program. In that time the person you can see could quite easily just put a bullet in your head. And that is at its easiest. Throw in things like Slaving, Encryption and IC to deal with and things get even more difficult and take even longer.

Now, if you take the time pre-run to hack into all the guards 'links and add backdoors, do the same to all the vehicles and such then sure you might be able to be useful in combat. But most of the time it is a good bit easier to just shoot the frakker in the face and be done with it. Shadowrun Hacking is not really all that useful when the bullets are flying (At least not without a fair bit of investment in time. If you find yourself in a stalemate and you have an IP or two to spare, or if the Face can keep the guards busy for a few then yes you can be useful.)

If that were the case then you could use the RADAR sensor for magic... it doesn't work (devs said so)

Oooooooh!

OK, that's workable!

Shadowrun (ala Knasser): where Realism (slight Nerf^TM where needed) meets Fluff and Crunch.