The limits of this Quality elude me.

Can you use it (+ a Nanohive) to manufacture weaponized nanites?
Can you manufacture construction nanites?
Are you limited to defensive stuff?

Essentially, hard nanites normally can be reprogrammed to do other tasks, and lose some strength in the process.

With this quality, you can reprogram them and not lower their rating. Thats about it

Thats said, I'm pretty sure you can reprogram them into any nanite system, given enough time.

actually, you'd be much better off buying a rating 6 hard implant medic nanosystem for a set of protective eye covers (technically, this will cost you 5 , but i'll assume that by 5% of the implant cost they meant 5% per rating point, making it 30 ) which you can then reprogram into a rating 2-4 nanite system of your choice, GM's discretion (which, if your GM actually lets you pull this off, could wind up being rating 20-40 because clearly your GM has no spine to speak of)

note that if you try this, you will want to wear a hard hat and steel toe boots to the gaming session. probably a jockstrap wouldn't be a bad idea either. because your GM will most likely want to hurt you.

(note: i would suggest the universal nantidote option at rating 9 and costing 22,500 but you're limited to rating 6 in chargen anyways, so you may as well go with the cheapest nanites you can find; after all, any GM who's actually going to allow you to pull this stunt isn't exactly the sort of GM who restricts things at his/her table)

Actually, it does not quite work that way... The Wild Card Prototype is a Hard Nanite System (supportable by a Hive) that can be ANY Hard Nanite System rated at 3... It will always be rated 3, you cannot reprogram them to be any higher than that. The benefit is that you just need to feed the hive its feed stock, and you will always have a rating 3 "Whatever" that you choose to program it with... now, if you think about it, you have already paid out the 150,000 Nuyen (30 BP) to have such a device, so the GM should not really care what rating 3 system you have at any given time.

Of course you are going to want to be able to program it yourself, otherwise you will be spending even more nuyen to do so...

Keep the Faith

What sucks is you need a very limited use Knowledge Skill to make the changes needed.

Very costly, very useful but also very, very situational.

- J.

What Jaid was talking about was the fact that you can do this with any hard nanite system, only with other kinds it is its normal rating-2 for the new rating. A rating 6 hard nanite is potentially very cheap (Far less than 30 BP), and can then be turned into a rating 4 anything. Essentially it is cheaper and works better. And out of chargen you can grab rating 9 hard nanites which can then turn themselves into rating 7 anything.

Basically the way the rules are set up, the wild card prototype is utterly worthless, other than the fact that the GM isn't going to be annoyed at you using that, but likely will be if you turn your rating 9 nantidotes into rating 7 whatever you wants.

Agreed, unfortunately.

My first time through the rules, I missed that you can only make "internal" systems of rating 3.

So yeah: Wild Card Prototype sucks utterly. Very sad, it would have been a cool concept.

Thanks everyone.

Something I have wondered.

If you have a nanohive, and have it set up to produce nantidotes or whatever, could you use it on others instead of yourself? Just leave it pooled up in your hive and inject it somehow?

I'd assume you need some kind of injector system, plus the cost of whatever nanites you want to inject. But once you've paid for the nanites & the delivery system, I think you're free to use dormant nanites on yourself or anyone else.

or do such for cutters and have some real fun...

Nanohive + Cutter Nanites + cyberspurs = deadly fun.

How do you get them onto the spurs though? I don't know that they're properly designed and programed to run up your arm, crawl onto your spur, and wait for you to hit someone with them.

I personally was considering if a person could have the hive not connected to his system at all. Like a cyber-arm nano-hive equipped to run a line directly to spurs, or a modified autoinjector or something. My intent was to be able to dose someone up with nana symbiotes or nantidotes.

I could see it though.

One thing I wonder though, it reads that you can change the nanoware, and that nano hives support nanoware. I don't think nano weaponry was meant to be supported or altered by a nanohive. If it was, then can we support nanotech or other nano gear with the hive?

By RAW yes, you can use the wild card prototype to create literally any form of hard nanites from nanosymbiotes to cutters.

As to how it works with spurs, the precident already exists - albeit through liberal application of handwavium.

- J.

SR4A + supplements, now with 38% more handwavium!

Yep, it even states so in the description. Wow, suddenly nanoware seems pretty cool.

With this thought process, could a cyberlimbed character produce altskin for his limb in the same manner?

That's how my friend would have done it. The hive in a cyberarm that just put the nanites on his cyberspur.

Really? Huh. Here's what Augmentation says (p.20-21):

(emphasis mine)

I figured the limitation ("any internal nanoware systems") precluded weapons, unless of course you were using them on yourself... which would be of limited utility.

Page 107 augmentation, under reprogramming nanites. Right at the end it uses the example of changing oxyrush to cutters.

As odd as this is going to sound, though, the vast majority of Nanites are "Internal" in nature... even the weaponized ones tend to work "Internally" as opposed to "Externally."

Keep the Faith

Nobody doubts you can change a normal Hard nanite system into any other Hard nanite system.

I'm saying that you can't get your Wild Card Prototype benefit on nanites which aren't internal, and the passage you cite does not contradict this.

That's because it's not really a Quality by the main book definition – it's gear.

Personally, if anyone would choose to dump 30BP on this one, I'd make it a never-degrading system that can be controlled mentally, is able to mimic any nanite system (even systems only available as soft nanites and including Nanocybernetics) and the character can't get rid of it unless using hard radiation that would kill him.

That would make it a Quality, IMHO. Not a good one, though - it's still just Rating 3. (Yes, that means he could use it as essence-cost free SmartSkin. I don't see a problem there, as SmartSkin sucks anyway.)

Didn't they have injection spurs in previous editions? Surely you could modify that somehow.

So whats stopping you connecting it to a cybergland (which is also "internal")?

- J.

If I was going to use the wild card nanohive, I'd end up burning my last 5 quality points on a Restricted Gear(nanohive), and getting a highest rating one I can. Due to availability limits, that's rating 4. Buy some extra feedstock, get the right knowledge skill, a nanite shop, and from there convince the GM that I ought to be able to let my wild card nanites make more of themselves.

Four rating 3 wildcard nannies stops being useless, and starts being amazing.

Edit: also, at least in my printing of augmentation, its the only way to conveniently get taggant nanities - which don't have a listed price/availability. S'missing from the table. Otherwise, they'd be pretty sweet to have for a deckless hacker. Example: "What? No officer, it couldn't have been me. I don't have a commlink, just an RFID sin chip in my arm."

Why get restricted gear? Just get a couple Rating 2's in each cyber-limb

That's what I always do. An obvious hand/foot can just squeeze in two rating 2 nanohives (And an autoinjector). Improvements for the nanohives can be purchased in the future when availability isn't such an issue.

Well yeah, if you can convince your DM that you can make them reproduce, then it's halfway reasonable.

The 30 BP quality does say it is "a rating 3 non-specialized nanoware system", so it's not quite kosher to get multiple systems out of it, but whatever.

Pesky double-post.

I think it also begs the question "If I can make it reproduce ad-infinatim, why can't I start selling it to people?"

Because it'll obviously gray-goo.

Well there you go, it's a quality because now it's basically Trust Fund. We should change the name to Nanite Pimp.

If you're going to spend 30 BP on this "Quality" it should be rating 6 and can be used for as many functions as you have nanohive capacity.

I mean let's face it, you're spending DOUBLE what you need to be a Full Magician for something that is of limited use... one of the less savory positive qualities.

To be fair, there's no reason you couldn't use a the regular crafting rules and blueprints to make nanites at the do-it-yourself cost. Like any other hardware related endeavour, you'd need the right skill, a blueprint/design, probably the relevant design knowledge skill, and a shop.

In our game, one of our players joked about having a coffeemaker sized piece of equipment in their van. Feedpoint in the top, spigot on the bottom. When you want some nannies, tell the thing to start cooking a batch, and set aside a mug and a needle. Hope you don't glitch when you get up in the morning, else you'll end up getting a really expensive cup of 'coffee', instead of delicious caffeine.

Yes, if a person can have their nanohive change their anti- radiation nanites into cutters and pop a does out per week, why even run the shadows?

Because of the folks you stole it from?

I'd imagine you would need a full on facility to make nanites from scratch. Nanohives can do it, but I figure that has alot to do with there already being that nanite there. Remember it can't improve rating beyond the original or make new ones outright. It also takes a week per rating.

So sure, the coffeemaker idea works if you already have the nanite to copy and don't mind waiting a week per rating.

And really, if you have a nanite facility and are making your own nanites, there isn't much reason for you to be in the shadows.