On the diminishing dice pools in an extended test:

Professional is Skill 3 for a minimum professional, say recently out of trade school or seriously unmotivated if more experienced than five years or so.

Most professionals tend to gravitate toward what they're good at, since they don't need the kind of diversification 'runners typically need, so I would say there is an above average chance they have Attribute 4 instead of the ususal 3, but let's stick to "norm" for the moment.

You mentioned installation of an alarm system. But here's something I can give you as an example: Installation of a Direct Broadcast Satellite system. If you have relatively "green" installers, it's not uncommon to send them out in pairs where they can participate in a teamwork test on each of the rolls. Consequently the primary skill roller probably has an extra "hit" coming, and can keep it. That's going to help all down the line. And there are probably ways to further improve your chances of success. But believe me, there are plenty of people who are technically "professionals" who still routinely botch installations of all kinds of things and then need to spend time on the "repair" side of Build & Repair.

It's all about how you look at it. But fundamentally, if you look at sub-veteran individuals of average talent, they ARE going to mess up even relatively routine "extended" tests a measurably significant amount of the time.

Because this appears to be this kind of discussion thread...

For a certain definition of professional.

I've been trying to get a quote on getting my timing belt changed for month now. All these so called experts want to do "mark and pray" and tell me I am paranoid. None of them have ever worked with my engine and assume it will be "good enough". According to the world, they are professionals but not according to me.

They may still have 3 skill but the Threshold to escape assumption is higher.


Diesel FTW

BlueMax

*grins* I don't have a problem with that, I've already read the source code and could adjust it to my tastes when making my own. My first big problem though is I don't know anything about getting a website.

Create a pathfinding algorithm for a robot? Sure, no problem. Get a website? Huh?

<laughs>

I just used this site myself. It's free, let's you upload your site straight from the web, and doesn't throw any obnoxious ads up or anything. Seems to be fairly decent.

Given the discussion is it worthwhile for me to have Armorer (Fire Arms) 1(+2) or with this skill level would I absolutely never succeed at anything? Would it be worth it to trade Pilot(Groundcraft) 1 for a 2nd rank of Armorer?

TSP Karoline?

Well I do hope you'd succeed with a 3 in Armourer Firearms. My character only has 4 himself in Armourer. If we go to 5 we're limited to just 2 of those, and 6 is one per character. So 3-4 seems reasonable. Probably wouldn't attempt to repair armour though.

Doc Funk that's a great page! Very cool, will definitely rip off if you don't mind.

Just finished the questionnaire. So that's two down, I'm working on a more complete background/vignette. But that'll have to wait. Busy few days. And I want to add some more to the questionnaire.

Well, presuming a logic of 3 (Don't know if you've posted different) that would give you 6 dice base. You might also be able to manage some AR plans which gives you another +2 and gives you 8 dice which is the max you could have ((skill+stat)x2). That means you could buy a simple/malfunction in one go, and could even buy a basic/easy fix in three, or roll it in 2 most likely.

You might be able to manage a complex/common repair, though it would be somewhat iffy. One extra skill point would let you take advantage of superior tools or superior working conditions, which could put you up to 10 dice, which would let you do the complex/common repair without much trouble (You could buy the hits in 5 tries)

The side car mod does seem amazingly high, but I figure that it involves more than simply hooking a sidecar onto a motorcycle, but instead involves modifying the motorcycle so that it can accept a sidecar, which I can certainly imagine would take alot of work without really messing with the vehicle. You'd have to weld on a bunch of extra parts securely so that the sidecar doesn't break off, but you'd also have to adjust the rest of the bike so it balances properly when it doesn't have the sidecar. So yeah, I can see that taking alot of work.

I went ahead and traded off the pilot for the 2nd rank of Armorer.

Oh, and calling the anti-theft system an alarm is like calling a nuke a small explosive. Not only do you have to get the vehicle to be able to tell when people are near, you also have to (and here is the difficult part) wire up the car so that it can shock the hell out of them without frying its own system. So yeah, I can totally see a system like that being really hard to set up.

That's kind of the thing, too, regarding the sidecar. Thresholds aren't always about degree of difficulty. They also represent a required time investment. Like you said, modifying a bike in order for it to be able to accept a sidecar shouldn't be that difficult, but it should take a good amount of time. Thus the Threshold of 24. Unfortunately, the diminishing returns rule doesn't account for that abstractness at all; it only reflects the degree of difficulty. That's probably the reason I'm not too keen about it personally, but I certainly have no problem using it if that's the way things are going to be. It's just something to consider.

One other thing I'm curious about is why is there such a huge leap of diffculty between a professional (3) and a veteran (4)? What exactly are beginners (1) and novices (2) supposed to represent, if a professional is really just a novice (ie, new to the field)? It seems odd that there's three degrees of skill ahead of being a true professional (aka "veteran") to me. I mean, if a beginner is just learning the basics and a professional has just finished learning the basics, is the novice really a necessary leap between the two?

Well, consider this though. How much easier would it be to set something like that up on a bike if you had a buddy or two standing around to hand you some tool or help hold something in place? That could get you an extra die or two per person per test, which is about an extra hit. If you're joe average with plans, good tools, a good place to work, and a couple friends helping out, you have logic 3 + skill 3 + AR plans 2 + conditions 1 + tools 1 + help (average) 3 = 13 dice. So you roll 12 (max DP from skill and stat) + 12 + 11 + 10. That's already 45 dice in 4 attempts. While not yet enough to do that sidecar mod, that is a good start on it. Another two tests brings you up to 62 which is about enough to be able to finish up if you've been doing fairly well. Two more is 75 by which point you should have been able to finish unless you're getting particularly unlucky.

I still think that the difficulty of modifying a bike to accept a sidecar without messing up the bike for use without the sidecar is being underestimated. That is the sort of feature that I think generally comes installed from the factory or just doesn't happen because it would mess with the bike so much.

Also remember that a true professional mechanic is going to have a skill of 4, and likely a logic of 4 to match. They'll also have plans for whatever they're working on, great tools and conditions, and most mechanic shops they'll be able to get a half dozen or more people helping them out with teamwork tests (Even if it is often 'hey bob, come look at this and tell me what you think'). The teamwork part is what will often set a professional mechanic shop apart from joe average working in his garage. That and better tools.

How expensive are good tools/superior tools versus regular tools?

I get where you're coming from, I really do. I think my biggest problem is that I've always loved the old dice mechanic (even if it had its flaws, like the difficulty 6-7 nonsense). I mean using that system, you could have a modifier for difficulty and for time investment. They were smooshed together like they are in SR4. Thus if they had a similar Extended Tests mechanic, you could lower the difficulty a bit on that sidecar installation while still requiring a big chunk of time to do it. As it stands now, installing a sidecar on a bike takes exactly the same amount of time and exactly the same amount of skill to perform as applying a stealth-fighter like surface (Unstable Structural Agility) to a jet. Which is nonsense all around.

Except that the intervals are going to be different. Sure, it takes the same X number of tests to install a sidecar mod as it does to apply a stealth-fighter like surface to a jet, but the sidecar mod has maybe a 1 hour interval, while the jet one likely has a 1 day or possibly even 1 week or longer test.

I mean that's like saying that just because writing a program and doing an extended data search both take you X rolls and so take you the same amount of time while ignoring that the program has an interval time of 6 months and the data search has an interval time of 3 seconds.

So yeah, SR4 takes difficulty and time into account separately by setting the interval of the test.

Okay, you got me there (I don't think the customization rules go into time intervals so I guess I overlooked that; as I've said before, still relearning the game), but in the end it's still the same difficulty. It may have taken less time to install the sidecar, but it was every bit as difficult -- and your chances of failure were precisely the same -- as doing that top-end jet fighter customization job. Which is particularly odd if you consider the fact that the jet obviously wasn't designed for it, either, but apparently the engineering know-how is roughly equal to the sidecar bit.

I'll shut up about it now though. Not trying to turn this into a discussion thread. Kerenshara was kind enough to explain things a bit better to me about the skill ranks privately, so I'm good for the most part.

Hmmm, where is that customized advantages/disadvantages for the mentor spirit coming from? I've never seen anything before about making your own mentor spirit. Have I just not read through Street Magic thoroughly enough?

There are no mechanics for customized Mentor Spirits. They are made from handwavium.

BlueMax

Kerenshara referenced a thread with some house rules she came up with. Let me see if I can find the link again. (We're still working on that part, too; that was a very, very, very rough draft.)

Here we go: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=829789

Having a bit of trouble with that site. I think I might have deleted something that I shouldn't have by mistake. It has info up there, but it doesn't look like Dr. Funk's.

I'm fairly sure that I need to find a background image after I deleted mine by accident. Not doing all the tables and whatnot for some reason... oh well, I'll have to work on it some more another time. Playing with it via strait HTML is hard work.

If it's got a white background and no real formatting, that's probably because you don't have the style sheet. Try changing the line that reads:

to

and see if that fixes it for you. I'll go in a few minutes and change the URLs to point to my files, too. So try it in about 5-10 minutes.

EDIT: Okay, it should work now.

*Hugs and kisses*

Edit: Behold my glory! (Under construction )

Ooh. <3

Mach is a dark haired, average sized Troll. he tends to wear reds and browns. And, unless circumstance prevent it, he carries multiple knives.
The crunchy bits are in the spoiler. Stats, when modified are written natural / adjusted. Costs were sent the Kerenshara. For skills, if a group is listed, followed by a skill from the group, then the group was purchased, and the skil purchased up further.

I had asked about having earbuds with Damping and Kerenshara said no, its only availible in Cyber and therefore as an adept power.

Just so you all know, I killed a small forest and am reading your submitted/posted character information. I wish I had more time to do it, but I'm doing what I can. We still have some people who are missing, so when I'm done reading, if I have the pieces needed for a full team, I will get that thread started. If, instead, by the time I am done, everybody else has in their material, I will do what I wanted to, which is run two threads simultaneously.

Objections?

No objections at all. Please let me know if there is anything else you need from me for Jordan.

Joel,
Your earbuds are way better than mine. What is the total cost and rating, availability and capacity on those badboys?

Skinlink? I guess it beats slaving to my node.

BlueMax

Two threads simultaneously? Like two separate groups?

There is a question on whether or not he can get damping in them that should probably be resolved before he starts hooking other people up with them.

Yes, two groups. An even dozen 'runners isn't going to draw any attention, is it?

Now, after the 'run, if you somehow combine forces, that's your deal. But at THAT point, time/date/place stamps will be vital.


There's nothing official, but here's MY ruling:

Noise Cancellation is most effective when you can cut the signal down at the SOURCE, i.e. the nerves in question. Remember, this is less about hearing loss than disorientation and stunning, from a game perspective. So while buds can (and do automatically) include active noise cancellation, it's not the same thing from the perspective of the Crunchy Bits^TM, nor is it effective to the same extent. Some people will disagree, and I play their way in their games. But that's how I'm handling it. Now, if you want a pair of big over-ear muffs... we'll talk. But that's not especially subtle, neh?

Serious Max says
"Even without the Damping they are better than mine and I would live to see the Avail, capacity and cost writeup"

Silly Max says
"What was that about a pair of Muffs?"


BlueMax

Depends on how much punk we have in our cyberpunk. They could look like big headphone for listening to ear damaging music

ROFL.

Multi-port buds are available now that have bass response superior to most traditional large muffs and with volume power capabilities that will literally destroy hearing. I don't see needing big muffs to damage your ears.

But it sure helps if you wanna get a fuzzy pair to pull off that punkish Princess Leia look.

*reaches for the fish and a pair of hair clippers...*

DireRadiant is managing three separate groups in the Way of the Yen thread. It's working really well. Though, one of the three groups is just me. Still.

Eventually I expect you all to figure out-er, I mean, wind up in the same thread, but to start you need to be separate.

With regard to the damping in the earbuds, I'll settle for just having it damp the amplification. The case I worry about is amplifiers on full, and someone throughs a loud sound at me. I may not like it without the bud, but I don't want the ear bud making it wors.

There is an argument that good earbuds would probably seal the ear canal, meaning that the ear bud becomes the actual sound source. But that seems a stretch to me. (Glasses tend to have the same question, and they explicitly have flare compensation.)

As for the specs:
Base earbud: 10 nuyen avail: ---
Skinlink: 50 nuyen
Audio Enhancement, rating 3, 300 nuyen, +2 availability
Spatial Recognizer, 100 nuyen, +6 availability
Sound Damper (for amplification only), 50 nuyen, +2 availability.

I had assumed tha tthe skinlink was another +2 availability. (On a comlink it is purchased separately, rather than as an increment to the comlinks availability, so it is not really comparable.

The select sound filter, which allows very clever eavesdropping, has an availibity increment of 8, which is why I did not include it.

It may be that when kerenshara goes through all the numbers she may tell me to drop the Spatial recognizer (we already had a discussion about how much harder it is to really make that work right in earbuds.)

Yours,
Joel / Mach

I could be wrong, but I thought only your commlink needed a skinlink in order to be able to communicate with all your electronics except your gun (Which needs a special attachment because the computer parts are too far away from your body I guess). I didn't think you needed a skinlink attachment for anything else that was going to use skinlink. Would make the system fairly cumbersome.

Here's the thing on eyes: they have a fixed and extremely directional ability to absorb light. So the further out from the center you are, the less light you absorb. That means that you're primarily worried about damping the area where the pupil directly focuses (straight foward and to X degrees around). That makes Glasses a heck of a lot easier, whereas the whole human body can carry sound to the ears, especially bass, which is highly disorienting.

Yeah, I think you should drop the spatial system.

Each device needs a skinlink capability. A gun can use it, with the actual "link" in the palm grips. The rest is handled with conventional wiring. (Most "smart" weapons have the "wiring" in places that don't actively "recoil" for that reason.) That would include contacts...

I assumed it (skinlink modification) was more of a surface modification for the other devices, which is why I assumed it was less of an availability hit. I bought it for each device (even the implanted commlink), because that is how Kerenshara said to do it. I could understand it either way. And at 50 nuyen, I was not going to argue.

Yours,
Joel / Mach

Sorry for taking so long to get things finished up. I did start a little late, so I'm excusing myself on that account! However, I do have a large portion of my stats done on my sheet, though I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to afford my contacts, the gear I've selected, and still work in a (low force) ally spirit. I may end up just abandoning the spirit for now and save that for some in-game fun.

That said, any recommendations you guys have all around would be great.

Sorry for taking so long to get things finished up. I did start a little late, so I'm excusing myself on that account! However, I do have a large portion of my stats done on my sheet, though I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to afford my contacts, the gear I've selected, and still work in a (low force) ally spirit. I may end up just abandoning the spirit for now and save that for some in-game fun.

That said, any recommendations you guys have all around would be great.

Dr. FUnkenstein, I see one difficulty:
Quoting from page one: "but I have ONE limit at character creation on Initiation/Submersion: your Maximum MAGic score may not be more than one point above your actual MAGic score. So, to take level 2, if you have no 'ware, you MUST have purchased MAGic/RESonance 7"

If I am reading your character sheet right, you have two initiations, and a Magic of 5?

That initiative spell is an interesting tradeoff.
The Fetish-centric design is also an interesting way to manage drain.

Yours,
Joel

I thought that house rule was a limitation to boosting your Magic with initiation, not limiting initiation by forcing your to raise Magic. I'm so confused. I guess that'll fix some of my karma problems if I ditch the second grade though.

Yeah, it was intended as a limit to initiation by forcing you to pull your magic real high.

The final ruling (I've talked with her quite a bit about it) is that you can't have more than 2 initiations/emersions. 1 from the base 750 and 1 more from the added 50, but to do both you have to end up with a magic of 7 (Or the equivalent if you have ware). Despite being able to manage two initiations via the bonus 50 karma and get a magic of 8, she didn't seem to want to allow a third total initiation.

I could have misinterpreted that last part, as I was talking to her while she was still sick, and sometimes wasn't 100% clear.

Edit: I'm fairly sure the 'above' is a typo, and it should say 'below' so if your max magic is 8 your actual magic has to be at least 7

Oh yeah, I knew about the limitation on two initiations. The forced Magic bump just seemed a little brutal. But it's cool, gives me more freeway elsewhere. Might be able to give myself a more functional grimoire of spells. XD

Karoline is correct.

Yo,
Orb is looking for someone who is really good at the "Real World MMO", to act as his mentor. As Mages are the best class in the "Real World MMO", mages would be preferred. After that, anyone with an exceptional skill would be awesome. Looking for volunteers.

BlueMax