As I mentioned in another thread, I am looking to run some SR2/SR3 adventures (Harlequin, Corporate Punishment) in my current SR4 game. While most things are very easy to convert, I have found that the Matrix stuff is not.
The SR4 books mention that many secure sights (which is most of those runners try to get into ) may be blocked from wireless, and use hard-wired lines and wireless-blocking building to secure from outside intrusion. Thus, it seems that most of the matrix sites from earlier editions should work quite well in SR4 from a world-consistency viewpoint - these are sites that the owners chose to make hardwired to improve security. So they only have one or two external links to the outside world (the SR2/3 RTG connection), and everything else is accessible only from internal terminals or through the external link.
The problem is with the game mechanics - the SR2/SR3 modules write-up the matrix sites in great detail, but I don't know how to convert them to SR4 terms. What does Red-4 or Orange 5 mean in SR4 terms? What should the Firewall/System/Response ratings be? What kind of ICE to put where?
I could of course just re-write those portions, but if there's a simpler way to convert, that'd be great. Maybe someone put out a guide at some point?
The fact that I haven't played SR2 in over a decade, and never touched SR3 doesn't help, as I don't recall what those designations mean, and don't really want to dig out the old books to relearn the old systems...
Thanks,
Juliean.