I mostly started thinking about this in regards to program maximums. Folks said that they could just have their PCs spend some downtime and create rating umpteen stealth programs and rule the matrix. But the books say that rating 7+ are uber secret miltech things. "Why is that?" I wondered. Perhaps I could say that everything with a rating needs to be made by a person with the appropriate skill equal to or greater than that rating. It's a bit of karma, but game mechanically easy to get a skill of 6, hence rating 6 programs are available. It takes, what, 48 more karma (aptitude plus double advancement costs) to get to a skill of 7? Uber enough that you could call that bleeding edge secret stuff. Adept magic can get you to a skill of 9 or even 10, but it's probably uncommon to have an adept waste his points and possibly a ton of karma in a nerd skill. Yet a rating 10 program could exist by this ruling.

Now questions for which I need feedback. (And flames. Don't forget the flames.):

How would this affect break the world?
After programs, to what items should or could I generalize it? (Focuses, nanotech, cybertech, everything but acceleration, speed, body/structure, armor, and DP?)
Is this reasonable?
Any other criticisms/feedback?

Thanks,
Da9
[edited]

While I don't feel I can directly explain this question, I wanted to give some perspective as I understand it thanks to Unwired.

All legal programs throughout the Matrix are constantly improving, getting better, upgrading and evolving. Software patches are replete so that your rating 4 program remains a rating 4 relative to the upgrades of its counterparts. This is why illegal programs start to degrade; every month new patches and processes come out, and they all stay the same relative to each other but the illegal programs don't receive any patches and fall behind.

To put it another way, your legal program is not rating 4 but rating 4+N, where N constantly increases. Therefore an illegal program might be 5 this month, but it's not 5+N, so when N increases from zero to one, 5 is then equal to 4+N. It's just easier to say that all the 4+Ns out there stay the same and the single 5 goes down by a point.

Even if you managed to get your hands on a rating 7 program, it'd only be good for about a month or two before it'd relatively degrade down to where all the rating 6 programs are.

Next point goes to adepts.

Many adepts are physical, but mental adepts do exist. They avoid cyberware but they can become great hackers in their own right via trodes. They can exceed the conventional rating 6s to the skills, but their aversion to cyberware and bioware balances them out relative to conventional hackers.

If you let anyone code to the cap of their rating, though, I just hope you don't mind either letting the hacker adept roll 20 dice when everyone else rolls 12 to oppose, or having wunderkind pop up all over the place to fight the shadowrun team.

Unwired errata explains why cracked programs degrade, and selfwritten and OSS do not.
Of couse, Technomancers can easily push the dicepool beyond 20, too.

Having that out of the way:

Keep in mind that there are things that have a regular max rating of 10 or 15.

RE: Degredation
Pre-errata: Patching is not hard. Post-errata: Patching is not necessary.

RE: Adepts
If someone wants to work that hard at being awesome in one thing, I'll let them be that awesome in that one thing.

Indeed... on both points...

Keep the Faith

RvD:
In regards to maximum ratings, I only found a few listed in the book as specifically available for purchase above rating 6.
Jammers (various) (1-10)
Tranq Patches (1-10)
Microwave Link (1-8 )
O-cells (1-9)
Universal Nantidotes (1-9)
Damage Compensators (1-12)
Cyberlimb Enhancement (1-7)
I am willing to bend this houserule by adding 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 to the maximum as needed. I don't see these as a problem. I was wondering, however, if I was missing something big that might change the setting. I actually very much like the limitations this will put on focuses.

Those are not what characters will likely build, indeed – with the exception of Jammers. Explosives are a problem, though.

And the setting will be changed by the fact that Task Spirits and Tutor Sprites will rule supreme.

Aren't such tests Extended?

Generally, Yes...

Keep the Faith

Just a quick clarity check. toturi: did you mention the Extended nature of b/r tests to debunk the dominance of task spirits and tutor sprites? I.E. they would need to be high force, bound/registered, and have many tasks, which is sufficiently difficult that they lose absolute dominance?