This question is coming up because of a mage with minor cyberware but to be honest it's a question I've had for years through many editions of shadowrun but I figure now that I've found dumpshock it would be a good time to the address the issue.

My assumption for cyberware has always been that once essence is spent that it is gone forever however once an cyber'd bit is installed it can be upgraded.

For example - Tony the Tiger the ganger purchases a DAtajack, Cybereyes (1) and wired reflexes (1) for .1 + .2 and 2 essence respectively. for a net loss of 2.3 essence


Later on in Tony's career things are good, money is coming in and he makes some good contacts one of which happens to be a street doc with some occasional hot drek tech. The Doc gets a betaware datajack and some alphaware wired reflexes (2) and lets tony know that he's got some new gear, tony has got the cash to spend so he decides to get the upgrades.

Datajack alphaware - .07 essence cost
wired reflexes (2) alphaware - 2.4 essence

Tony has already spent .1 for a datajack and 2 for wired reflexes but since these parts will be removed and replaced with upgraded parts I've always assumed that the essence cost of the original parts creates a gap that is partially filled by the new cyberware.

So

Datajack replacement 1- .07 leaves .03 essence "empty"
Wired reflxes replacement 2 - 2.4 leaves a loss of an additional .4 essence

Means that tony's essence is now reduced by a total of 2.7 essence with a .03 essence in the head gone but empty and unused since essence isn't regained. With that being said MY assumption is that replaced parts leave an essence hole that is filled by the new parts which may or may not be cheaper in essence cost however where applicable essence is not regained it is simply left empty and if a similar part in a similar location is installed that empty essence can then be used to apply to the new cyberware.

Correct, the only way to regain lost essence is some stupidly expensive gene therapy from Augmentation.


The rules don't care what reduced your essence, you can fill the essence hole left by upgrading a cyberfoot with some new headware.

That's pretty much it. You end up with a gap between your Essence attribute and the amount that you're using, which is filled up before you lose any more Essence. Think of it as store credit from the universe.

So, what price would you place on regaining a resource that otherwise would be gone forever, with absolutely no other way to recover it?
I think that the prices are totally okay for what they accomplish... at least in my opinion...

Keep the Faith

As a matter of fact, Augmentation has all the rules you need on page 128 and on.
That said, yeah, your assumptions are correct.

yeah thats pretty much how ive delt with it in the past,

Q, I play wit a higher cap on qualities of 70BP which has been in place since i joined my group as a newbie playing for the first time and i was wondering how you calculate the essence cost of cyberware for a character with a combination of the following qualities:

Type O system (half essence cost for all bioware)
Biocompatability with bioware as the chosen item (-10% essence cost)

which of the 2 do you account for first as the total essence cost would work out differently either way

I don't believe 0.5*0.9 works out differently than 0.9*0.5, but what do I know.

I don't think it works that way. I think the way stacking reductions works is the reductions are added together for a net Essence saving of 60% (except for cultured bioware which only gets a 10% Essence discount)

That'd be against basic Math sense.
That said, not that I argue it's possible, but it'd be nice if you referenced books on that.

Would love to see where it's written that you add all of the percentages before calculating the essence cost. Also, cultured bioware doesn't give you a discount on the essence; just means you can't get it second hand as it must be tailored to one's body as opposed to something that can be universally implanted (Augmentation, page 61).

Thus far, the only explicit totaling of percentages first is calculating the increase/decrease for speed and/or acceleration for vehicles & drones.

Now if you were to add the percentages first, then if you prepare a character first for any cyberware with Biocompatability (Cyberware) and the Adapsin treatment would pay a mere 30% of the original essence if deltaware cybernetics are chosen; otherwise it's 40.5%.

Added: Almost forgot about the cyberware suites bonus, if a GM allows a particular package deal. Makes at best a 20% essence cost on cyberware if you add all percentages first, else it's 36.45%.

Correct.

Augmentation and the rules are very simple.

Track cyber/nanotech totals and bioware/geneware totals seperately. If something is removed, the cyber total or bio total doesn't change, but leaves a hole which can be refilled w/ new equipment of that type. Your instantaneous essence score is reduced by all of the larger plus half of the smaller. The only way to get essence back is to have a lot of free time, a lot of money, and the connections for special therapy which SLOWLY restores it.

IE: 3 cyber, 2 bio... you have .5essence worth of cyber removed.. your essence is still 2 (6-4-(2/2)). If you get 1 essence worth of cyber... the first .5 comes out of the unused hole... and your cyber total moves to 3.5.

Per a dev quote here a long while back... discounts and surcharges are added together before applying them to the base costs.

So Bio-compatibility (-10%) and Type O system (-50%) if used for Bioware, would be a 60% discount on Essence costs. You could add in Adapsin & Cyberware suites for additional discounting.

Likewise, Bio-compatibility & 2nd hand ware would be -10% + 20% for a final +10% Essence cost.

IIRC, the best discounting one could get was 29.5 Essence of stuff crammed into 6 Essence with just a smidgin (that's a technical term for a *really* tiny amount) of Essence leftover.

Is there an official errata on this somewhere? It would certainly make tracking essence easier if you added all percentages first (having to count Sensitive System as a +100% in all of this).

I honestly don't think it matters which gets accounted for first, biocompatibility or type o system. After all, one's a 10 BP quality and the other's a 30 BP quality so having them both on the same character is somewhat impossible...

Not unless you're a mundane changeling and going to aim for tons of bioware. Class I SURGE, five BP, gets ten freebie points for the character for positive metagenetic qualities, and Biocompatability is one (RC, page 110). Spend your last 30 for qualities on Type O System and you're done. Doesn't really matter what your negative metagenetic quality is.

Surely you get what you pay for, but for the average runner the prices mean that such options might as well not exist at all. High tech and low life

Could you take Biocompatability twice? one as normal and second from SURGE..
Or take cybercompatability twice.. which could get intresting which would get max discount from 20% (delta suite+ adapsin + compatability ) to 10%..

Biocompatability explicitly says you can take it only once, so unfortunately you couldn't take it a second time as a metagenetic quality.

You are right... the Average Runner will not seek out, nor care about, the re-acquisition of Essence, as it is very expensive... but when you manage to get a bit of money, and your Essence is dear to you, you do what you can...

And not all 'Runners are low lifes... sure, you are paid for some very questionable things... but you can be more than a low life in the Shadows if you play your cards right...

Keep the Faith

Well, in ANY game system where you have multiple discounts, modifiers, or adjusting elements to ANY statistic, it only makes good design sense that all such adjustments are to the BASE statistic, not to the modified statistic.

Allowing discounts on discounted prices, etc, ends up with mathematical madness.



-karma

Yeah, I'm familiar with the mathematical madness, especially in seeing 4 decimal points in essence calculations. Does make it interesting to try to get a cyborg character as close to that 0.0001 essence level as possible. Would make for a good point to add for an Arsenal errata file.

Now I'm just wondering if there's enough backing and agreement on this to consider it an official ruling for errata or something. Thinking on how easy or hard it might be to get DamienKnight to rework his wonderful Excel character sheet file to calculate the essence percentages first before applying it to the base essence cost (currently it does the... "mathematical madness"). I know I can fix my own copy, but not everyone has my mediocre skills to do this.

On the other hand, allowing stacking discounts on the base also ends up with mathematical madness, but of another kind: there only need to be two more Qualities/ware/tricks that lower Essence cost by 10% each, and delta cyberware becomes free. Worse, if you get three of them, then I can gain Essence by putting in ware.

To clarify:
Deltaware: -50% Essence cost, +900% Nuyen cost
Suite: -10% Essence cost, -10% Nuyen cost
Biocompatability: -10% Essence cost
Adapsin: -10% Essence cost

total: -80% Essence cost.

Now, let's say a new Quality comes out, "Expert Implantation", which reduces cyberware cost by 5% per 5 BP taken (15% max), because the Surgeon was perfectly awesome. Then another trick comes out in another book, "Holistic Essence Allignment", which is some kind of Awakened treatment you can get to reduce cyberware or bioware cost by another 10%.

Expert Implantation: -15%
Holistic Essence Alignment: -10%

total: -105% Essence cost

woo! Cyberware now gains me Essence! I go out and have a thousand datajacks implanted over every square inch of my body! Each one costs me 4,950Y, but gains me +0.005 Essence. A thousand of them gives me a final Essence of eleven. Well, 10.9, since I have to pay for the Adapsin. I am now a hole-filled freak, shooting lightning bolts and fireballs out of my thousand digital orifices!

FEAR ME!!!

Well any system except SR4 it seems...



Mind you, this is just an example text and one could argue that a "second-hand 'ware" is different from other essence modifiers, but in this case all modifiers are multiplied with the base costs in one step.
Of course this leads to the absurd situation were second hand alpha 'ware is in all accounts better than standard cyberware, costing the same amount of but less essence

-CJ

If they had anything like "Expert Implantation" then they would would only allow you to take it once... like they do for biocompatability.

Next, they would most likely put it so that the "Holistic Essence Alignment" treatment can't be stacked with biocompatability. Heck that might be why that treatment came out in the first place... they studied those people who had that quality and saw how to replicate it with magic.


That is why the developers made it so that modifiers stacked rather than multiplied. It neatly voids this situation. No getting secondhand alphaware for cheap.

But that's not an issue with the mechanics. That's an issue with game balance. Putting TOO MANY adjustments into the game that modify the same statistic.

The reason why most game systems have adjustments modify the base value, rather than modify the modified value, is because that way it doesn't matter what order you apply the adjustments.

Modifying the modified value ends up with different results depending on the order of adjustment. It's just bad design.



-karma

Only if you mix multiplication and addition. For example, if you have an effect that gives +10 to a stat, and an effect that gives +100% to the same stat, applying one before the other can make a difference of + or - 10. That can be solved with a general rule like "apply all additive effects first, then multiplicative effects" (or vice versa. It doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent.)



When did this change from what's in Augmentation? (Augmentation says it multiplies using real math, rather than some D&D-math-lite)

It isn't D&D-math-lite. A developer said that modifiers are added together THEN applied to Essence. Like CeeJay said:

I mean Emy, why would anyone get regular cyberware when you can get secondhand Alpha 'ware for the same price, but a little easier on your Essence?

Which developer and where? Why should I take that over what's actually written in the relevant rulebook?


I agree that it's absurd--and I never said otherwise--but that's how it works.

As CeeJay said, Augmentation spells that out, and even uses secondhand Alphaware as its example. x.96 essence cost, x1 cost

The dev post was after Augmentation was released. Basically, the text in Augmentation was incorrect.

Besides, it simply makes things far easier to figure up if all modifiers (positive and negative) are summed first and then multiplied against the base value.

Of course it is, adding multiplicators together would be an exception and not exactly the mathematically correct way.


The German printing of Augmentation includes the errata, want to guess what approach is used there? It ends with "plication"

My German is rusty at best, but could we please see the exact wording?
Or better yet, a scan or a photo of just that line, if it's not too much to ask for.

Why does 'real math' matter? This isn't a math class. We're talking game design. 'Real math' isn't the most critical factor. Good design is.

There shouldn't be an "Only if". If a mechanic is designed properly there shouldn't be conditionals like that.

Having all modifiers adjust the base value avoids the need for conditionals - you're not required to keep adding additional rules on top of it just to clarify and explain the original rule. Which is what adding in "apply all additive effects first, then multiplicative effects" is. Extra rules just to clarify other rules.

Bad design.


-karma

I vaguely remember having read that somewhere here on Dumpshock... Could you link to that thread?

Besides, adding several multipliers before multiplying with a base value, makes the mathmatician in me cringe. Sometimes I think this (wrong) math stems from the habit of using percentage values as modifiers. A +10% modifier and a -10% modifier seem to cancel each other out but that's not the case.

Of course it's much easier to calculate that way and as KarmaInferno said game design is an important factor as well. Who likes to play a game requiring constant use of a calculator.

-CJ

That post was made by Synner(line developer at the time) and its from the augmentation Errata that still hasn't been released.
There have been periodical wondering on why its hasn't been realised, even from those who wrote it, becouse at some point it was ready and to be posted at the SR4 site, but for some reason it wasn't posted.

Sure, just open your copy of Augmentation and look at the lines in question, they are exactly the same in both languages
- The example for used cyberlimbs uses the same calculation
- THe compiled tables at the end list both used cyber and implant grades as "essence cost multipliers"
- Nowhere does the description of the new qualities or Adapsin say "ignore what you learned about math and calculate it like this:"

Since all other parts of the evasive Augmentation Errata have been included (at least as far as we were told), I find it hard to believe that we are supposed to use wrong math although it's not mentioned anywhere.


And @Ceejay: The cost modifiers are nice even numbers, who needs a calculator to calculate something like 1.2*0.9*0.9? 9*9 is 81, 81*12 is 810 + 160 +2, final cost modifier is 0.972

Lazy people like me?

Of course, I also use an excel spreadsheet regularly when making characters, so for me it comes down to the question of excel using the correct formula to calculate essence costs.

-CJ

First you say the German version has the way multiple modifiers work explicitly stated, now you return to logical arguments. I concur with the logic behind them, but if it's covered in canon material specifically, why wouldn't you just quote it and thus end the discussion? And there's no errata neither in nor for English Augmentation.

It may make you cringe but when that +10% & the -10% are EACH of the base value, it makes perfect sense.

2nd hand ware is +20% Essence cost.

Alpha ware is -10% Essence Cost.

So 2nd Hand Alpha ware is +10% Essence over Standard or a 1.1 multiplier. It makes perfect sense. It also does NOT violate the EBMDAS rules. You aren't making fruit salad of addition & multiplication. You are keeping them confined to their respective areas.

Besides, 100 + (-10% + 20%) IS mathmatically different from (100-10%) +20%

100 + (-10% + 20%) = 110
(100-10%) +20% = 108
(100+20%) - 10% = 108

Think of it another way. Where I live has a 5% sales tax and a 6.5% Restaurant tax. Assume I buy $100 of stuff. After sales tax, I pay $105. Now if that was food from a restaurant, the bill would have been...

$111.50: $100 (base cost of the bill) +$5 (5% Sales tax) +$6.5 (6.5% Restaurant tax).

It would not have been ($100 +$5) + 6.5% Restaurant tax. Doing it this way would make it...

($100 +$5) +6.5% or $111.825. As you can see, that does significantly change the outcome.

This is the reason that all modifiers are based off the base value in question, not the modified value. Thus, if you have a discount and a price increaser, you add those values together BEFORE applying the result to the base price.

Besides, if adding multipliers together makes the mathmatician in you cringe, then "A(+2x - 5x)" should make you cry. That little tidbit of algebra is exactly what is being done by adding all multipliers (X in the example formula) together and then applying them to a base value (A in the example formula).

So, assuming addition our best effect is:
Base (100%)
Delta (-50%)
Suite (-10%)
Biocompatability (-10%)
Adapsin (-10%)

= 20% of base, allowing for ~29.49 "base Essence" worth of cyberware

Assuming multiplication, our best effect is:
Base (100%)
Delta (x0.5)
Suite (x0.9)
Biocompatability (x0.9)
Adapsin (x0.9)

= 36.45% of base, allowing for ~16.18 "base Essence" worth of cyberware

@darthmord: Alpha ware is a 20% reduction in the Essence cost, not a 10%. This makes getting secondhand alpha ware just as Essence "friendly" as standard 'ware.

Not according to the math in the example in Arsenal on page 32. A book that is still, sadly, lacking any errata.

Now if everything were actually handled as a percentage off the base essence cost...

You may be able to get that much cyberware....but WHAT would you get? Bioware just seems much more useful.

It does in the example for used 'ware.


There is and several writers have told that they have it on their disk, but for some reason they never bothered the release it to us common folk. Pegasus sent in some deniable assets and was able to secure a copy of the errata for the German printing.

Move-by-Wire 3, reaction enhancers, four modular cyberlimbs, a cybertorso and a cyberskull, cybereyes and cyberears - all for under 5.40 Essence (this is with Adapsin and eight Genetic Optimization treatments factored in).

All my physical attributes are now at augmented maximum + 1, and I still have room for 1.2 Essence worth of bioware.

At which point you add in some fun stuff like Trauma Damper and Platelet Factories...

Keep the Faith

The German Version of Augmentation has the Errata in it and therefore quite some changes.

Important for this thread is: there are no more cyber-essence-holes and bio-essence-holes. You just get a essence hole, no matter what you remove.

There are some other things, like a nanno biomonitor adds +1 rating to any medical nannites you have.

According to insiders this Errata is around since August 08, but nobody bothers to release them. It is like the RC errata which was promised over and over again, but has not been seen until now. I guess, if it takes 7month to put a new FAQ on the website, you cannot expect to much.

cya
Tycho

Well, yes. And I forgot the Skillwire Expert System for the Move-by-Wire. So there's 5.50 Essence spent, and we're two thirds of the way to the ideal 6-million-Nuyen mark.

Thanks for the correction. I didn't have my book handy when I wrote that.

But it still keeps my point the same. The cost modifiers should be additive with each other first and then multiplicative with the base cost.