After several years of intencely spradic study I've developed this level of understanding.

With a sim module and a trode net you can get full immersion VR. This means that a trode net is effectively the same thing as a datajack it handles both Input AND Output between the brain and the machine.

So you don't need anything but a trodenet AR right?

With a trode net no other devices are needed; no dataglove, scroll wheel, contact lenses, earbuds. A trode net reads your thoughts and intents and translates them to the machine. A trodenet also progects visions sounds and feelings into your brain. So you don't need anything but a trodenet AR right?

Then How can Cyber/Bio/Adept reaction and intitiative boosters Posibly effect initiative in AR if your physical body is completely cut out of the loop???

question B; does the matrix adept have to use a dataglove to get the boost from his adept power?

Question C; if he does; does he look like the guy from Minority Report on meth in fast forward?

[edit] Oh and i just thought of another one. How does AR work for a technomancer? [/edit]

The way I've always done it is that if you have a mental connection. Meaning a datajack or trode net or whatever. You always act at the speed of thought in the matrix, AR or VR. Meaning at least three IPs, and if you access the matrix physically. You only ever get one IP. Because your fingers can only move the controls so fast.

VR allows one to go "dream", while AR has to deal with the speeds of the real world.

I thought about that and i like it but i can't figure out how to make that work without turning Hackers back into Deckers.

The whole point of the Sr4 system is that Hackers get their asses out of the chair once in a while and run around with the rest of the team Right?

So how do you reconcile a guy who has initiative 6 and 1 IP in the meat world and initiative 10 and 3 ip in the matrix?

One thought was that the guy has 3 IP tottal and could chose to use any one of them for physical actions each pass reserveing the other 2 for matrix actions. But that still doesn't solve the problem of what he rolls for initiative on any given pass.

I'm sitting here tonight screwing with my very first technomancer build (yarf!) thinking about puting synaptic accelerators into him so he can get out of his chair and go on the run with the guys.

not to highjack my own thread but on a side note I really can't think of many scenarios where the hacker would actually need to be physically present on a run. Ho-Hum

have a look at some of the echos from unwired.
specifically, biowire and acceleration or multiprocessing, overclocking, advanced overclocking and mesh reality...

Technomancer is the only guy I know of that can have 5 passes.

How a Technomancer perceives AR? like any other User he sees icons, overlays and so on. His own "feeds", stuff that your commlink would do, are more like impulses. Your "alarmclock" is a command to your body to wake up at the right time and so on.

And how you can be faster in AR? ^^ Well, trodenets work with speed of thought too, and you can think faster with more IPs, or type faster, manipulate the AROs with the gloves etc.

tho i dont think there is any way he can use all of them in physical reality...

ok, a more detailed take on AR vs VR coming now.

with AR one is distracted by all the data from the physical world, and said world is slower.

sure, you can sit back and only watch the AR, but then you could just as well slip into VR and really allow your mind to fly. And thats the thing, with VR your no longer aware of your physical body, you brain is free to process the simsense data as fast as your comlink can push it.

But with AR, the mismatched speed of the real world and the virtual world means one have to drop to real world speeds. But then one can make use of wired reflexes and similar to "speed up" the real world...

how are wired refleses involved in the AR interface with a trode net or datajack? Theyre not. Or shouldn't be. If you're runing AR throught trodes why wave your hands around to manipulate your AR desktop and GUI? Wired reflexes don't speed up your mind they speed up your body. Your body is cut out of the loop when you're using trodes or a Jack in AR. Right?

In VR maybe. not in AR.

Wait, I thought only hackers could get the fifth IP because of the SimSense Booster.

Technomancers have a few tricks for boosting their initative passes up to 5.
Hackers can get 5 passes using Sim Booster and Sim Accelerator.
Both can then bring those actions into the real world via a Drone.

I think those are the only ways to get 5 passes.

Anyways, back on topic: Trode net and other DNI interfaces let you know information via the data connection, and send information out... but it doesn't do sensory overlays in AR. That means you will still want glasses, especaily if you want that Smart Gun setup. It may or may not provide other sensory information from AR, but it isn't merged with the real world so much as just pumped in. Now pumping in information is fine for some things, but most of what you want out of AR is visual and it really needs to be overlayed onto the rest of the world. Your trode net or datajack doesn't know what your looking at, or what your grabbing with your hand, etc... Even VR doesnt' really work that way (aside from UV Nodes)... that's why Riggers get Control Rigs... so they can use the parts of their brain that handle physical movements to control drones.

In VR you are ignoring your body and controlling an avatar (that in most cases doesn't even have to be humanoid) but in AR you and both the physical world and the virtual world are intertwined. You can get information in and out of AR via a DNI, but if you want it to line up with reallity correctly you will still need glasses, gloves, etc... Otherwise the info is just all in your head. Note that Technomancers are diffrent that way. Game mechanic wise the only sense that really matters is vision. You will need cyber eyes, glasses, or something along those lines with an Image link in order to see AR overlays on the world... and you need that to get Augment reallity bonuses like from Tacnets and Smart Linked guns, Sensor Softs, etc.

SR4A, p. 219 says, "anything you can do in VR can be done in AR, and vice versa." This seems a bit overstated.

It goes on to describe Augmented Reality, telling us that it is the world we live in physically, augmented by an overlay of virtual displays. Those displays augment but do not replace the physical world, and so any attempt to make a change in the real world, even if augmented, must go at real world speeds. I can see changing an ARO at mental speeds, but affecting the object to which the ARO is attached would require interaction with the real object.

This is totally different from VR, which takes the mind into a separate world in which it works alone.

the way i have always read wired reflexes is not that it makes one physically faster (if so, it should increase ones running speed) but that it cuts down on the reaction times on stimuli.

thats why one can get more attacks in, as one is able to more quickly react to the behavior of a gun, or the swing of a club. The body can move incredibly fast, but the mind cant keep up and make the adjustments needed. Just consider how a instinct works, one is programming the mind to react without one conscious that one is doing so. With wired reflexes, the conscious mind is operating at instinct speed, and the instincts even more so. One is basically supercharging the nervous system.

and simsense is doing the same thing. Only that as one can leave out the physical body, thanks to the RAS override, when going VR vs AR.

Maybe one could think of AR at VR speeds without wired reflexes as having to change from 1st to 5th gear over and over again in the space of a second or less.

err, no, trodes can perfectly well do sensory overlay.

there are 4 ways to access AR:

* fondle the comlink directly
* glasses and gloves
* simsense module and trodes
* simsense module and datajack

Or Glasses and Trodes
Or Cybereyes.

Having any kind of DNI means not needing to wave around like a junkie.

well, cybereyes (or the imagelink cyberware) do provide a display, but it will not replace trodes, jack or gloves for input...

Actually, they do, because they feature DNI controls. You need to be able to control the System and the Programs running on them, after all.

DNI controls specific for the eyes, yes. not general ones that enable you to control the ar interface projected from the comlink...

Even Peripheral Nodes support one Persona, so no, those controls enable you to use the AR Interface of the commlink.
Sure, you won't bea able to feed simsense ofer it like you would with a datajack, implanted sim module or trode net - but there is no difference controlling the System and the Programs of the cybereye and the ones on the commlink, either.

Basically, that ease of use is pretty much the only reason to get such implants in the first place.

Peter Taylor once told me that the reason you can get all your passes in AR is because the technology is faster than a metahuman could ever be, so the interface can keep up with you, even if you've got four IPs.

'Cause you're too busy answering your Instant Messages while you're hacking.

yes in unwired, no in sr4a. make of it what you will.

Go with the most recently published.

Hackers can get 5 as can Jarheads...

Even SR4A quotes Unwired as Advanced Rules...

K. I still don't see how wired reflexes could help you in AR through a DNI.

DNI (trodes or Jack) means you're working in AR with You'r BRAIN only. Right?

So what is the benefit of having a faster body if it isn't involved in manipulating AR???

ON ANOTHER NOTE:

Since techno's don't need any electronics I say that they should ALWAYS USE THIER MATRIX INITIATIVE REGARDLESS OF WETHER THEY'RE USING AR OR VR.

Caps Lock - you lose.

It is pretty simple I guess...

AR is a representation of matrix actions taken in the physical world... Cyberware/Bioware/Technomancer Echoes allow you to increase the rate at which your physical body reacts... since AR is a representation of your Physical speed, you can get as many passes in AR as you have physical actions... Please note that these augmentations for physical speed DO NOT influence your Matrix actions in any way...

Yeah, wired reflexes would be totally useless without that.


(I'm kidding, btw.)

So what are you saying? Do physical reflex boosters effect your matrix initiative or not? What do you mean that AR is a representatoin of physical speed?

Everything I read in the book tells me that you don't get extra IP for matrix actions through initiative boosters Even IN AR. unless you're useing physicaly manipulating a device ie. using a dataglove or keyboard or the like. If you're using trodes and a sim module or a datajack or an implanted comlink or technomancer powers using ar has nothing to do with your physical body. You don't neeed to gesture or even blink. The device is opperated directly from impulses generated in your mid brain.

Wired reflexes don't have anything to do with your brain. they make nerve signals faster and cause a release of adrenaline. (incidently wired relflexes are 'Bodyware' in the book.) A move by wire system is attatched to your brain stem and throws your body into a controled seisure. Synaptic boosters modify only the spinal cord and have nothing to do with the brain. The same should apply to any physical initiative boosting magical powers as they are just analogs of the implants. (but we'll never know until some one explanes what magic actually does.)

So why should a samurai diddleing his scroll wheel be a faster hacker than a hacker with a datajack?

Why would a technomancer who has super fast matrix initiative, (and cant have cyberware) be retard slow in AR until he can become an 'initiate'?

Here are some relevent quotes they're all from SR4a (the most recently published )

Not sure what the disconnect here is. From page 335 of SR4A:



I bolded the part that I think the OP neglected. Wired Reflexes increases your mental response just as much as it increases your physical response. Of course it would work with AR via DNI.

Oddly enough the Synaptic Boosters don't mention neural boosters at all (although the only Synapses you have are in your brain, as far as I remember from high school biology, I was a Lit major) and actually refer to the spinal cord. But the bit about "providing a wider "'datapath' for the transmission of impulses and decreasing the amount of time required for the signal to traverse the distance" seems to indicate they'd work well with a trode net.

And of course Increased Reflexes via spells or adept power gets the universal "IT'S MAGIC!" <throws glitter dust in the air> pass.

<edit: never leave Dumpshock windows open before going to exercise. Shit happens between browser refreshes. >

Dirkformica essentially has it. What limits a normal person to one initiative pass in the meat world is not the speed of his body, but his mind's ability to process stimuli and react to it. The real world, at most times, is maxing this out. Augmentations that provide initiative passes are either boosting the brain's processing capacity, or using a computer to aid it.

As such, when using AR, you're limited to your meat initiative, even with trode nets, because your brain is already tapped out. It doesn't have the response time.

But when you go into VR, you are bypassing all of the signals from your body. Your mind isn't processing them, but is instead only processing what the computer is feeding it, which isn't anywhere near the amount of data the the real world provides, as a computer is going to limit itself to significant details. Moreover, we can assume that your brain doesn't have to send as many signals to interact with a VR environment, because it doesn't have to handle complete muscle groups, deal with the aches and pains of the body in motion, or even bother trying to keep your body balanced. As such, your brain can react to things more quickly.

The reason that Wired Reflexes or Synapic Boosters don't aid in VR is fairly simple as well. These things better enable the mind to process stimuli coming from the meat world. In VR, there is no stimuli coming from the meat world, so much of the benefit there is lost. There might still be some benefit seen, but it wouldn't be as great.

You are missing the point entirely, however...
Lets just solve this entirely with a referenc to a Source...

Page 39, Unwired... Tweaking the Rules...
2nd Topic: Limiting AR Passes...
BY DEFAULT, your character receives as many AR passes for Matrix interaction as his Physical Passes in the Meat World... This OPTIONAL RULE detailed in the Sidebar allows you to limit that to a single pass if you think that that is too powerful...

So, as you can see, you receive as many passes in AR as you would in Real World interaction arounds you... Pretty cut and dried to me...

Keep the Faith