darwin in action i say

No. First Aid works just fine on all types of damage, including Drain (both Physical and Stun). Healing Magic will only work to fix Physical damage, but not damage caused through Physical Drain.

I've always thought of AR having all the information and appearance about everything availible at all times, if you know what to ask for.

So say I walk into a cafe, I'll get an AR instruction to seat myself, all reserved tables will be marked in red, tables I can sit at in green, a menu will be available by request, I'll be able to change the view out of the windows to a number of famous cafe's around the world, the tables, chairs and glasses will all identify themselves and have an order now link if I ask, I'll be able to read/watch newsfeeds, order, and check both my bill and the status of my order.

I'll also be able to check out everyone else in the cafe's virtalmyfacespacebookebo profile etc.

If I bust into the cafe as part of a shadowrun team doing an extraction, our systems will have tagged people our scanners/the hacker who got into the CCTV system have determined have no weapons as green, people with no completed checks as blue, people with guns who have not drawn them as orange and people with drawn guns as red, AR will report were my team is, what they are doing, who they are shooting at, their ammo status, that I need to cover them if they are reloading, mark firezones visually, tag the target, allow me to mark targets for the riggers drones and give me everyone's vital signs - if they are wired up to the team, so the information for the hacker, riggers, drones, sammies will be great, and information for mages will be sparse.

there is such a thing as information overload, also known as a spam zone. but yes, quite the interesting mental image.

quite like a team FPS, no?

If the mages are smart they'll have enough cyber to use the system as well, but I'm not sure that using AR in the middle of a run is really that great of an idea considering that you can never really be sure that the system hasn't been hacked by a talented Decker or Techno.

No reason for cyber. All you need is contact lenses with image link, and a commlink. Now while you will get very little feedback from the mage on ammo counts, fire zones, etc. The mage should get all the other peoples relevant information.

Depends on how harsh you are in in ruling whether or not an image link blocks magical LOS, although as I've always said, any smart mage should gladly trade their natural baby-blues for a pair of tricked out chrome, and everyones should be using a datajack as opposed to trodes.

Eh, I just don't see how an image link would block los. If it isn't blocking a cyber-eye persons vision then it should not block a mages vision. I have always imagined it as a transparent heads up display type of overlay or set as a mini-screen in your vision.

Any electronic vision enhancement not paid for by essence could be construed to block magical line of sight. In earlier editions there was even an optical version of the Vision Magnification enhancements (as opposed to an electronic magnification) to allow magic users to use the enhancement and magic at once. In other words, just using contacts is fine for magic, but using the image link in the contacts to highlight bad guys and target based on those highlights could be iffy depending on the GM. I'd allow it because you're still targeting the guy highlighted, not the highlight itself, but I probably wouldn't forgive range penalties for vision magnification if it wasn't part of a cybereyes package.

I'm even more harsh because I figure that in order to shift those highlights and other AR in real time, the entire contact/glasses is a screen.

no reason for the glasses to be a screen - it's easy enough to project an image onto them. Even the contacts could work as semi-transparent with a nano-thickness lcd equivalent on it.

I see it as being easier and cheaper for the corps to use screens as opposed to fancy projection technology (Not to mention people having to deal with the projecters getting misaligned and the backglare.), and that thin film of LCD tech on contacts counts as being a screen in my opinion.

changes to the AR setup can only happen during an action that someone makes the cahnge so its not exactly real time unless you setup a network for it (see battletac) someone pulls a gun but the hacker hasn't had his turn yet, he's still orange to you. you could write a program or allow pilot to be used to make teh judgements though decreasing efficiency for speed

I consider them transparent screens which display an image as well, but if a mage can target through windows and using mirrors, then a transparent screen shouldn't be a problem. But, if that transparent screen has been configured to show only ultrasonic information without any normal, visual information passing through the transparency, then there's no way to get a magical LOS.

*nods*

Which is why thermovision and low-light enhancement definitely don't work for a mage. The +perception mod is a bit iffier though - since all it's really doing is drawing your attention to something, not necessarily modifying the image itself. The picture on p. 211 is a decent example of that - identifying the camera, drone, and troll, without interfering with the image itself.

Sure, but you see I figure that in order to do that in real time it's cheaper and easier for the screen to record and display the entire image and not just the overlays.

But then again like I've said, cybereyes are nice enough that even not counting AR Modifiers every Mage should have three. (Two in her head and one in her palm.)

And of course, the goodness that are datajacks speaks for themselves, no self respecting Mage should touch a Trodenet.

Not that I wouldn't mind SR 4 making datajacks a good choice, but how is it superior to trodenets especially in the SR 4th edition that every mage should use one ruleswise?

I don't see any advantages speaking for the datajacks when trying to simply use the AR/VR-thingies, unfortunately.

It depends how much mileage a GM or other player intends to get out of it. You could easily rule any of the following quite justifiably. Obviously none are game killers, but if a character intends to make a lot of use of AR then why not get it implanted unless you're awakened or really, really, hurting for essence:

• The trode net comes loose when swimming (voluntarily or during an unexpected pursuit into the sewer system)
• They are stolen during a casual mugging.
• The character wakes up in the middle of the night due to an unexpected emergency and has to spend a few complex actions taping them on.
• The GM includes the trodes in the list of items that catch fire in an incendiary attack (elemental, spell, flamethrower, burning building, etc).
• Same as above, but affected as a separate item by electrical damage.
• Told to remove them when meeting a Johnson.
• Captured and unavailable during "Prison Break".
• Negative social modifier in some situations due to geeky thing stuck to head.

I'm not listing ways that a GM can hunt down and punish players for not buying a datajack. I'm just answering your question as to why anyone would get one instead of just using trodes.

In addition to the reasons that knasser mentioned there is also the fact that betagrade+ datajacks make an excellent and fairly cheap chokepoint for cyberware security (Especially for things like cybereyes, which every Mage should also have.), are able to run an unlimited number of 'softs, and there is nothing quite like being able to speak any laguage known to man or to become an expert in any field of knowledge on demand.

Then there is the fact that since you have a hardwired DNI between your brain and the datajack not only are you never cut off from your wireless toys it is virtually impossible for the baddies to prevent you from issuing a DNI order to delete any incriminating evidence stored on the 'jack in the event that you are searched. Of course, in most places 'jacks are so common the odds of your's being searched is pretty fragging low in the first place if you keep your head down.


Can trodes provide most of the same services as a 'jack? With the important exception of security and ease of use the answer is yes, but they will always b second best because they require additional equipment which can be stolen, lost, or hacked/spoofed by a clever Decker/Technomancer. (Not to mention that unlike datajacks, trodes aren't upgradable.)

This leads back to the question I had earlier - why hasn't skinlink tech made datajacks obsolescent? There are some applications that would still prefer to use datajacks, but skinlinks beat hell out of trode nets.

Anyway - another way to put the hurt onto the invisible dude:

If y'all go back to the Corporate Security Handbook (and other SR3 stuff of about that vintage), there's a security toy called a two-stage laser. In low power, it acts as a laser tripwire. When the laser it tripped, it dumps a weapons-grade amount of power into the beam path... The nasty part of me puts that at a chokepoint, paired with a pressure plate. If the pressure plate trips without the laser detecting anything, the laser goes active high...

This does get you into a bit of philosophy of lasers vs improved invisibility; a strict application of RAW gets you past the laser trip as a sensor, but there's nothing about imp invis granting resistance to weapons-grade lasers. I

Huh? In order to make use of a skinlink you still need a skinlink capable trodenet or datajack if you want DNI, otherwise you are stuck using voice commands or *shudders* typing your commands to your devices.

Yeah. Skinlink can transmit data, but trodes or a datajack is use that data DNI.

Fair enough. Forgot the DNI linkage...

Incidentally, on the topic on contact lenses and the awakened, there is a school of thought that says that Astral Perception is blocked when wearing them, as glass objects are opaque on the Astral.

They'd leave a blind spot certainly, but nothing you'd really need to work around - astral perception does not require functioning eyes. But we've been over that before.

Which is why I phrased it exactly as I did.

I don't necessarily believe this theory, but there are those that do, and the argument they make can be compelling if one is undecided.

Eh, on my thinking. You would lose the benefit of them either way. So since a true blind person doesn't have a "blind" spot when perceiving astraly I don't see why wearing a pair of bifocals would cause problems. Just my thinking on the matter.

Of course, you can get just about everything you want out of a datajack if you implant a commlink instead. Datajacks still come up as obsolete versus that.

Excellent point Cain, but datajacks are still cheaper both in Essence and Nuyen, especially if you consider the security aspect and for non Deckers I don't see enough gain over what a betagrade Datajack already provides to really be worth it, but I might be missing something.

That's where I was going with that, I guess... If you have an implanted commlink w/ skinlink capability, do you need a datajack? (this is getting off-topic, though)

no, no real need for a datajack as you can access all your stuff either wirelessly or via skinlink (if whatever your accessing is readied for that kind of connection).

What is this "skinlink replaces datajack" business? If you connect you commlink to... something else via skinlink you still don't have DNI, or did I miss something?

implant comlink comes with DNI iirc.

note however that i dont think it comes with a sim module pr default.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut, that still leaves the question how the signal manages to hop from your skin into your skull. Unless you use WiFi, which of course makes skinlink redundant.

i do suspect that any headware requires the removal of some section of ones skull to fit, and then the skin is placed back over it...

No friggin way. Never ever. It might be build into the skull, but there won't be contact to the skins surface.

Um ... why not? I can easily see a small port (similar in fact to a datajack) for access.

Because that would be the datajack.

Or change the argument into "internal commlinks have always a datajack included".

Actually it should be a rather simple matter to run a couple of wires from the implanted commlink to the skin in order to make use of skinlink.

Sure it is. It's called datajack. Seriously, I don't think it's in the cyberware list just for lulz.

I don't really see the problem. A datajack is much more than a couple of wires facilitating Skinlink. Much more.

Fortune beat me to the punch, damn I'm getting slow in my old age.

The problem is having "just a couple of wires" sticking in your head just so skinlink can interface with the commlink imbedded in your skull. You don't do something like that. It's like a piercing, but much more retarded. From a medical point of view. A datajack is at least something worth the trouble involved.

But, whatever, do it your way. But skinlink interfacing with internal stuff does not make much sense. And internal stuff having wires just to the skin is like... wrong. Just wrong.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,116655-page,1/article.html

Science is cathing up to Tesla, it seems

Considering that nanowires running through your entire body is exactly how we are told cyberware is hooked up to each other skinlinking internal cyberware is perfectly within the realm of Sixth World technology.

And 'jacks are still a viable technology simply because not everyone wants to have major surgery everytime they want to upgrade their computer.

A wire running inside your body and a wire running from inside to outside is a litte (completly) different.

The "major surgery" argument does not really work in a datajacks discussion. It's in the commlink department.

Not with Sixth World technology it isn't, besides you wouldn't even necessarily have to breach the surface to get skinlink to work.




Gee, ya thunk?

What part of the fact that I was pointing that very thing out as one of the reasons 'jacks were still used instead of being phased out by implanted commlinks did you not understand?

How so? I think it would be quite easy to do surgically, and would be more cosmetic than a datajack, being almost undetectable under the hair. Plus, you could argue that the datajack leaves a larger portal for infection, where as a subcutaneous wire would be completely internal. And you could run the wire through an emissary vein and not have to leave a hole in the skull.

It's nearly hopeless. I don't think I can explain what I mean, since my english sucks to much, so I reduce it to simple gamebalance.

This wire does in combination with a skinlink anything a datajack does, but without cost. Does that seem a very smart thing to do?