When programing your own software what is the highest rating you can create? For the life of me I can not find this. I would guess 6, but I do not see this in print anywhere. I did see the side blurb in Unwired telling that anything above 6 is military and rare. So is 6 the max, unless introduced in game?

I do recall a person at a Shadowrun Missions game with rating 8 stating he programed them himself.

-map

I don't think there IS a limit, other than that the Thresholds and Intervals are crazy high. It's not something you're going to be whipping up for the next run, anyway.

Wow, fast reply.

Well programs are limited by the System rating. Is there a limit to the system rating?

No limit seems like it could be abused. Even given the TN/time (IIRC software - TM = rating x2 / 3 month base time). I think you could get some wicked high software with this. What ratings do other people run? If this is the rule.

No Limits... but as previously indicated, there are practical limits based upon time and availability of resources (and never forget the vagaries of a decreasing dice pool for the extended test)

Keep the Faith

The trick is that your self-programmed programs are all subject to Degradation. You'd have to find some time to both upgrade them (1 month is the base interval. Remember that Hacking programs degrade every month) and patch them continuously. This makes it very inefficient in terms of downtime cost to make and maintain a program at a high rating. It's possible to do, of course, and hackers who spend all of their downtime programming are pretty much true to their concept.

Unless you use the Optimization program option, your program is limited to the System rating anyway. And god help those who make their own custom System (1 point of degradation every other month)...

Though I know that you do not agree with the following, you are incorrect according to the Unwired Erratta... Self-Made Programs Do NOT degrade... ever...
Just want to point that out so he has all the information... the reason standard programs degrade (in the game world) is because of planned obsolescence... nuff said...

Keep the Faith

Wait, what? How do you know I don't agree with that? Isn't that being a bit presumptuous?

I was simply unaware of Unwired Errata at the time of my posting. Besides, that's NOT what the errata says:
"Software programmed by the hacker and Open Source programs never degrade in this fashion, but may require patching to remain current at the gamemaster’s discretion."

It's not "Do NOT degrade... ever...", it's "may require patching to remain current at the gamemaster's discretion". I know that's Catalyst Game Labs saying "We don't care, don't bother us", but still...

As to my actual thoughts on the subject, I think this is a better ruling than the one in Unwired. I have always thought that degradation initiated a whole shitstorm of unnecessary bookkeeping (hey, look at all of those double consonants). We still don't use either in our game, however, since we switched to a set of house rules about a year ago.

In the erratta, degradation for self written software is less of a problem...the GM applies as needed.

I see a problem with no caps. My hacker has a programming DP of 22. Using the 1 success for 4 dice, and the -1 die per roll, that means in 18 months he could make a rating 27 program. OK, so It could not run on anything. Is there a system cap?

What would prevent a corp from easily making rating 27 programs?

You have over 162 dice? (Average needed to get 54 hits in one roll--which takes 3 months).

I could be wrong on this, let me know...162 dice would be to write the program in one attempt. As per extended test rules, I am doing it in 18 attempts, not one. This is how I figure it.

My character has a Programing DP of 22. I am using the following rules for the extended test. For every 4 dice in the pool, you get one success. Each time you roll, subtract one die from the pool. To make a rating 54 hacking program the exdended test is: TN 54: 1 Month. With a DP of 22, that works out to 18 attempts or 18 months to reach 54 successes.

18 motnhs IS a long time for one program, and a rating 54 program is crazy...but my point is a corp could pull this off, easily, with all it's resources...

I was wondering if there are program or system rating limits in the rules. From what I gather the answer is no.

If there are no limits, I am wonderign what ratings people typically use, and ask why don't you go higher (Beyond GM common sense LOL) ?

Then its not coded in one month, unless you have access to some time travel/distortion effect whereby you are allowed to make extended tests at a shorter interval.

OOps. Sorry, typo in my own post that I missed. I will edit =)

Alright then.



You'd need a System 27 OS to run it.

Also there is the simple feel/flavor/general setup of the game. Most things cap out for standard at 6. In the core book program examples are 6 is top of the line, while 7 is cutting edge, absolute newest possible. While nothing in Unwired specifically limits program rating, thats more of a general oversight/lapse in Unwired, of which there are sooo many.

Personally, I am a fan of limiting a program's rating to the programmer's skill. So if you have taken the investment to have aptitude for the skill, I would be more than willing to let a "legendary," by the terms of SR, progammer have rating 7 programs.

The maximum commlink hardware is the Fairlight Caliban at 4/5 which means you can upgrade it to a 6/7. OS is the Novatech Navi giving you a 3/4 however it can upgraded as high as you want within limits of money and time (die rolls). It looks like the System max would be either 4 or 6 depending on how you read "limited by the base Response" part of the quote. To me, "base" is the unmodified Response.

Military can have higher, military grade commlinks created especially for them. They'd have to have the Cray Commlink created (lots of processing power) then they could upgrade the System (OS) as much possible (within the limits of the hardware).

Carl

Which is indeed the true limiting factor of any program...

Keep the Faith

The fact that they say that a System and Firewall can climb to at least 10 is a pretty good indicator, and yes, it is in Unwired...

Keep the Faith

And in the end, anyone with a top of the line Hardware skill and access to a fairly well stocked shop or facility can create base stats above 6... the only true limit is what your GM sets... but hardware is listed at least as high as 10+ for comlink/nexus environments, as that is what is needed for an Untraviolet system.....

So, if it is capable of being created, then there you go... the drawbaCK IS THAT ONCE PEOPLE KNOW THAT YOU CAN CREATE SUCH HARDWARE/SOFTWARE, YOU MAY BE ON SOMEONE'S EXTRACTION LIST...


Ooops, Caps, damned caps lock key... Not screaming, just too lazy to correct...

Keep the Faith

Or the poor man's/slightly mentally unstable option, have an AI reside in the implanted commlink in your head for the sexy bonuses to it. Works for one of my characters.

Then again, the AI does really enjoy screwing around with all his cyberware that is linked to the commlink. . .

And the GM only allows it because the AI is another player.

Don't forget that the System of a Nexus is not capped by its' Response rating. Couple that with Optimization allowing you to effectively double the System rating for running a program and you can run a R12 program on an off-the-rack Response 3 nexus.

Which brings in more of my problems with Unwired. Massive powerscaling.

Nexi are also cheap enough that, just as corporations don't run server rooms full of cell phones, they have massive processing power at their disposal, every corp, even an A sized one, would use Nexi for most things, especially central data management and any research.

Which would allow them to constantly run really high rating programs, which forces the player to then do the same. Although the van full of the necessary components for a Nexus parked near the site of the job with the rigger inside doing his thing is cool imagery, it is unnecessary.

And, in the end, though many more for the character . . . nothing changes. Except the character had to spend more to do the same thing.

Really, I dislike Unwired on many levels, and one phrase sums it up. . .

5 IP? WTF?

....my 400 BP character who's not even a hacker bought one at chargen. I spent 4 whole BP for backstory epicness.

That's actually one of the few things I really liked about Unwired. It introduced the concept that you can think faster than you can move. One that I personally like. It is after all silly that someone with a high rating MbW or WR can type in commands faster than they can think them (Because they get 4 IPs typing and only 2 IPs by using a datajack, thus they type their commands twice as fast as they can think them.)

This assumes that an IP typing gets as much info through as an IP thinking. That's a big assumption.

> Run Exploit.exe

Huh. That takes 1 IP in the meat, typing, or 1 IP via datajack. Same results.

Not really, because all matrix actions take X actions, and it doesn't matter if that action is obtained by high-speed typing or simply thinking. So yeah, typing gets through the exact same amount of info in an IP as thinking does.

well matrix interfaces are in general designed to work like our body (hell, thats partially why TM's exist at all), so the speed thinking thing only really comes into effect when one want to go "outside the box", coming up with ways to break the interface.

remember, in SR, you do not have to type out a lengthy command to download something, just grab its icon with your virtual hand, and put it in your virtual pocket or similar.

the TM takes this to the logical extreme btw, as they subconscious handles most of the actual hacking. They just try to do something, and all the nitty gritty code wrangling happens by instinct. A bit like moving a muscle one was not aware one could directly control, but once learned, can be repeated with little effort.

I noticed something odd, after looking at this thread.
The base book says that software rating is limited by OS.
So folks on this thread and elsewhere have observed that OS is not limited that way for Nexi.
But if we look at Unwired, in talking about System rating and Nexi and various other things, it talks about Nexi more vaguely.
The way the Nexi description (page 50) is worded, it seems to imply that the purpose of the higher system rating is to enable the higer persona and processor limits. But it does not explicitly say that it does not enable higher complexity software.

So I guess it does allow higher rating software. The reason for highlighting this is that it is a sufficiently large gain that I would have expected it to be mentioned if it were intended.

However, all that said, it does not actually allow what folks in this thread have asserted. Folks have said you could build a nexi with a rating above 6, and use it to run software above rating 6. The above deals with the second part. But there is also the first part. The tables in unwired only give prices for nexi components up to rating 6. So at least by RAW, there is not any way I could see to build a nexi with a rating above 6, even if it is "allowed" by the rest of the rules.

Yours,
Joel

PS: An ally who is an AI, who is willing to use a node you can also use as a home, can drive the response and system rating of the node rather higher

The trick is/used to be, that a hacker in hot sim has 3 IPs, while a street sam with wired reflexes III using AR has 4 IPs, and is also not in danger of biofeedback.

This is solved by allowing 5 IPs in hot sim to both technomancers through echoes, and hackers through an implant and an upgrade to your sim module.

Is there a system rating limit to a commlink? Or, can you build a commlink with a rating 10?

You could. BTW, System is the limit on program rating, which is itself a program. A R10 System would take a software extended test (20, 6 months).

Indeed it would... it is not trivial to program such a System... though you could reduce the interval to 3 months through the use of a programming environment...

Keep the Faith

There aren't any prices or availabilities for Response 10, and Commlink Systems are constrained by their Response rating. Optimisation cannot apply to System, either.

No, But just because there are no prices, does not mean that they are unavailable, as there are examples of such systems in Unwired (may be based upon Nexi)... And optimisation is for the programs so that they can run on a lower powered System...

Keep the Faith

System and Response as far as I am aware have no correlation.

I'm pretty sure, the way the rules are written, that you can not apply optimization to the OS (System) itself.
Thus, only a Nexi can run a System of higher rating than its response.

After that, we get in to judgment. For example, can you legitimately develop a piece of software with no way to run it? Given that I think you need to test the software before you can optimize it, it seems to me that you need to be able to run the software to develop it.
Thus, to develop software, you need the high rating system, and the nexi to run it.
I would also generally conclude that said nexi is not a software development environment, and therefore you can not get the time reduction to develop either the System Itself, or the higher rated software to run on it.

So sure, if a hacker wants to have a conceptual goal of building a rating 12 System, and then writing rating 12, optimize 6, software using it, it seems like it should work. (Although I still think the wording is somewhat fuzzy as to whether they intended to allow this.) Got a lot of time on your hands? (You can probably arranged to have the 13+ dice you must have to have a chance to succeed, because you can get the rating 5 software suite. First extended test, target 24, interval 6 months. After that, it gets easier.)

Yours,
Joel

I pre-empted any discussion of applying Optimisation to System. It cost me about 5s of typing, and most people are going to ignore the mention except those who might think of it. Items with no price or availability rating are only available via GM fiat, and we don't want to discuss a GM's fiat without explicitly doing so. That's all kinds of confusing.

Given that the only Response 7+ nodes I see are in an Aztlan (i.e. Aztech) Airbase and ZOG, I think it's pretty safe to say that they're Nexuses.

Yeah, but if all you have is a commlink (No DNI, no Simsense, no feedback gloves or anything else) you are literally having to type out all of your commands, and it is no slower to type out a command than it is to grab an ARO or even think that you want to download that ARO.

GM Fiat is a great deal of the game though, as they make the world come alive and the rules are just a framework to work within... the fact that the book lists these devices implies that they can be acquired... yes, it is probably the realm of the Nexus to do so, but then again, maybe it is not... the books give fairly good guidelines of what is available (not talking availability here)...

But you are right... the discussion of GM Fiat is not really the point of contention here...
And I am going to agree that the Zurich Orbital is most likely a Nexus (or grouping of Nexi)... but even then, Nexi do not have to be the size of a van as previously mentioned... size is always relative and you might just cram a nexus build into the size of a old style Deck given appropriate access to the right equipment (High End shop or Facility) and time...

And again, a Rating 10 Program optimised to run on a Rating 6 System is still not that far-fetched...

Keep the Faith

I'll quote you the query I was answering again.



The mobility of Nexuses is immaterial to answering the question.

Considering that anyone can just buy an Agent and robohack at the same level as a book-listed corp spider, allowing hackers and high-level security guys to custom build gear/programs significantly better than a Mook actually makes them a class/archetype again. Without that next-level style powerscaling, buying up skills/stats instead of softs and programs is practically wasteful.

I would say No, and Yes respectfully, but then, that is just me... there are absolutely no Rules that say you can't...
It is all interpretation...

In the end, though, I would probably feel more comfortable with using Nexi instead of Comlinks for such highly rated equipment though...

Keep the Faith

Thanks for the info!