Ok, in addition to my other character I'm putting together a cyber-stealth character.
I was planning on having a fair chunk in the way of skillsofts etc for things like Electronics and Lockpicking to save on my active skills, but I'm getting quite confused as to what to get, what works with what, what I need to activate what, that kind of thing.

I was planning on using mostly bioware for upping my combat abilities (muscle toner, etc), but obviously I'll still be getting stuff like bone lacing and smartlink.

What I want to be able to do:

* Use skillsofts and skillwires, primarily for skills like the ones mentioned above, and depending on the group makeup I may need vehicle and some gunnery skills on them as well.

* I'll be wanting basically every kind of sense I can cram into my head

* I want a way to collate and store all that I see/hear etc (ie, I sneak through an area, record everything, and send it back as a full 3d map to my teammates)

* Anything else suitable to a scout/stealth person that you think I've missed.

Play SR4.

If using 3rd edition (haven't read 4th on the matter):

-My advice for skillwires is read over the options in Cannon Companion for program mods, and then build your skillwire system around the problems you want. My first character with skillwires had too high a rating and not enough memory because the GM and I didn't understand the rules as well as we should have the time (First character, so deserve some slack).

-You don't seem to be chipping combat skills which is probably a good idea because I never really liked DIMAP (the only way to use combat pool with activesofts).

-Chipjack Expert Drivers for all chipjacks give a 3-dice task pool to skills. For all the skills that never get to use a pool, this is really nice.

-Enhanced Articulation and Reflex Recorder bioware and anything that gives extra dice to skill tests stack really nicely with skillwires.

-Implanted chips with devoted chipjacks for any skillsofts you are going to focus on. A little bit more expensive at purchase, but you get to run programs that are 2x your skillwire rating and they are half the memory to run. Depending on how high a rating your GM allows (I think the availability remains the same), this can be powerful.

-Specializations are really nice for some skillsofts since less memory usage and lower cost.

To give an example, my character had a rating 5 stealth program, a chipjack expert driver (3), and enhanced articulation. 9-Dice for stealth wasn't bad. Expert drivers combined with some of the mental task-pool cyber/bioware and a good program can do the same for mental, rather than physical skills.

Any technical skill is a good one to have on chip (electronics, computers B/R skills, lockpicking, criptology concepts, french cooking, ect). As far as what to have as active skills, just think aobut what would happen if someone took all your chips away. Can you still survive? So basic skills are required (pistols, stealth, biotech, athletics, edge weapons). Anything that your charcter might want to do, but not spend the time learning you could chip as well (spray weapons, kung-fu, launch weapons, hovercraft).

Just be warned that alpha head wear gets stupidly expensive very fast.

What you want is:
Datajack
external memory (pocket sec.s work nicely)
external transducer (why pay more for the internal one, right?)
internal GPS system
Orentation system
spacial recognizer
Ultra sound vision mod
eye video recorder
ear recorcer

and as many other eye and ear mods as you can manage to fit/afford.

Lindt, I think that's the benefit of using implant chips for any skills you can't live without and don't have the skill points to raise up. The Implant chipjacks in cannon companion are also cheaper essense and cost than regular chipjacks because they can't be easily changed. Usually if you are taking skillwires, you need at least 400k, so you don't have as many skill points as other characters.

If the person is able to remove implanted chips from you, you are not in a good situation to begin with (they have to have time to perform surgery or weld part of you open). I agree that combat skills probably shouldn't be chipped because you can't use combat pool, but stealth and biotech can get a decent number of dice quickly and relatively cheaply at character creation. And with biotech, if they do manage to get the chip out, you probably aren't going to have access to any medical gear as well.

Leviathan, if you are spending all the money on skillwires, chipjacks, and expert drivers, make sure to get a knowsoft link as well. Knowledge skills and language skills can be useful, and they require this bit of equipment.

Depending on what your money and availability limits are, laser microphones, tactical computers, etc. are useful for scouts. I think there is also a piece of equipment that can be used with the GPS to make maps, but I could be mistaken.

Added: Lindt had it listed already. For mapping, the Orientation System allows the display, use, and recording of map data (Man and Machine, p 17).

Do you need DNI's (is that the name?) to link all that crap together?

I done forgot, woe unto my brain.

Buddha, do you mean cyberware routers for linking skillwires, etc.? If I remember correctly datajacks and chipjacks come with one built in by default, so unless you have too many items, these should cover it.

Or do you mean for the Tactical computer system? I don't remember the rules for that since never had the opportunity or right conditions to use one.

The first one. =)

The information you seek is under the heading "Interconnectivity", which occurs on pages 10 and 46 of Man & Machine. Start, however, with "Direct Neural Interface" on page 8.

Yeah, sorry forgot to look up the details. Since chipjacks are a type of datajack, they can connect up in the same way. I think routers are for characters without datajacks or with more devices than can be handled by one or two datajacks. Not all devices need to be linked up either to work, but for anything that produces data, you might want a way to pass it on (especially if you are going to map areas).

I had to make a separate character sheet of my own design to keep track of all my cyberware - which programs are running in my wires, which are in my multislot chipjack with multiple expert drivers, which are in headware memory, and which are in the large skillsoft jukebox I had. If you are using even more interconnected stuff, you probably will want to do the same, especially if you are doing the optional stress rules for cyberware (where if one piece of equipment goes down, all the pieces connected through it are no longer connected up to a personal organizers, deck, etc.).

One thing I forgot, your character might want to have an imagelink connected to one of the chipjacks for the mapsofts stuff and data softs. Also saves essense if you have a smartlink and don't need to buy the eye mod part of it.

Actually the orentation system would be better far then an image link for mapsofts, but image links are also a choice bit of kit.

A router is really only needed if your going bat shit crazy wth your gear. So far the only guy I have put tougther that needed a router had a VCR, 2 datajacks, and a list of sense and comm gear.

I think there are reasonable times when a character would have a router beyond extreme examples. If someone doesn't have a data jack, but has an internal comm and a GPS/Chemical Analyzer/video or audiorecorder and wants to send the information over the comm, I think you need to use a router to connect the devices. I agree that beyond the really paranoid, why not use a datajack over a router if you can.

I don't remember how the orientation system works, but I still think an image link is a good excessory to it. Especially if all you have is a quickly scanned image to use as a map instead of a really detailed mapsoft. And for streams of data or pictures of targets, image/data links are useful. If he's getting a smartlink and all the rest of the headware, he might as well double task the essense for the eyeware part of the smartlink and make it a more flexible imagelink.

The best reason to have a router, and not just use a datajack, is having more than 3 systems that need something to push data through.

I always assumed you could run chipjacks and datajacks in series and deal with the problem of not having enough connections. Of course, I understand not all characters have a 4-slot chipjack and a datajack.

An encephalon from SR2/3 is handy though it was a bit nerfed in 3, as it acts as a knowsoft link, as well as other stuff. SPU math is another scource of extra dice pools.

If Datajacks have ports, instead of getting a router, get extra data/chip jacks if you can afford the essence, and put the ports in your spine so the wire from your head to the deck in your backback which some joker always yanks turns out to be a shock cable, and not an easily severed connection to the matrix.

Skillwitchers make life not fun, enure that you build in a mental + manual over ride into any port from your brain to the outside world so you will not get completely fragged if some joker switched your B/R hot air balloon chip with a Black Death BTL (or whatever it's called).