OK, maybe I am just blind or maybe I keep looking int he wrong place. Could someone point me to a rule on how to pay to have things done. For example, customizing a Weapon, or a Drone, or a Commlink, drekcetera.......

Sometimes you want something and want a pro to do the work. I can not seem to find a way to determine what a contact would charge for such a service. Am I missing something?

No your not ther'e not any good table of prices on most things. I would presume a couple hundred nuyen an hour for most stuff plus a multiplier if the work is actually illegal to perform.

This, pretty much.

There's Hacker Services in Unwired, and costs for Surgery in Augmentation, but beyond that..... yeah, not much.

hrmmm. How odd. Seems like it would be commonplace enough to warrant a guideline. Well, thanks for the replies.

Though a couple hundred an hour seems a bit. . .high. That would make every mechanic earning well into the high lifestyle mark, which is unlikely. For standard services, 50/hour is probably about right, maybe more for illegal services.

It would make sense to me that the fee would be based on the skill rating involved. A person with a rating 6 can charge more than a person with a rating 2.

Maybe ratingx10 per hour

I would recommend you use the current prices for such services in USD or EUR and transfer them 1:1 into ¥. Double the cost for illegal services.

Great idea! Now all I need to know is the current price for replacing a Drone sensor package in USD? Any drone mechanics out their wanna chime in with recent experiences?

In terms of Game Mechanics, doing-a-modification yourself costs Half Price for materials, then effort to meet the threshold.

I would think a mechanic would bill at least Materials, since they have to buy them for a customer who wants work done, and then somewhere between At Cost and Full Price for the work.

Example: Rating 5 camera = 500 NY. Building/assembling it would be 250, and retail for 500. So a prospective shop owner, for assembling, installing and configuring it would bill the customer between 250 and 500, and probably double that if it was illegal(I do like that rule of thumb).

Reference please?

You know the price of the sensor package. The rest is covered by paying a mechanic. Whether it's a car mechanic or a drone mechanic isn't really much of a difference in SR. Keep in mind that huesholds feature drones regularly. Your chores are done by drones. Your security is done by drones. Drones are an everyday item in SR. Just use regular "mechanic" prices.

I was hoping for a rules based answer, or at best a rules based speculation or opinion. Just what are regular mechanic prices? Almost all such current mechanics preform jobs based on a set price and not by the hour. Go to any dealer and they will pull up the repair, the price, how long it should take to perform, and step by step instructions on how to do so, complete with diagrams. There is a whole industry based on around this software.

edit: Took out the attitude, since others did the same.

Oh, the irony. Your first reply to me was sarcasm and now you ask me not to be a "dick" when I gave you a straight answer...


1.) There is no rules answer. Period.
2.) There ano possible rules speculations, because there are no relevant rules to speculate from.
3.) The best you can get is a speculation based on logic and real life comparisons. That is what I gave you. That is what you answered to with a snide remark.


Modern day mechanics charge set prices instead of hourly wages and you expect SR to suddenly charge by hourly rates again? On what grounds do you come to this conclusion? And what keeps you from using the very SAME set prices as your SR prices? You're creating a false dilemma.

SR4A page 227: Using Hardware (If you don't have that book, and need a paste, say so)

I'll ignore everything else since you are just baiting.

1. Hourly because the dice rolls usually have intervals expressed hours so it is a rule to start with.

2. I do not use the same prices, because they do not exist. My Chevy dealer has no idea how to customize a commlink. If we were talking about changing a transmission it might be relevant.

Because Real Life Rules have no reflection in Game Mechanics. There are numerous instances where something should work one way in the real world, and doesn't in shadowrun. Them's the breaks, but that's always the case with fantasy gaming.

And you think in RL mechanics always take the exact same amount of time for a particular job? The costs for the mechanic fees are basedon an average. Sometimes they are done faster, sometimes slower. To assume SR mechanics are based by the hour is ridiculous! And more importantly it is a flase dilemma as far as your question is concerned.


1. Hacking services are listed in Unwired p.93:

For repairs to your commlink, use regular the fees of your regular telecommunications company. It's usually a fixed percentage of the model price.
Just use a LITTLE bit of imagination. Is that too much to ask?

And as you can see from the list above, SR uses fixed prices as well, not hourly wages.


I am baiting? I have given you straight and informed answers. I have given you guidelines that you can use to solve your problem. I addressed your concerns.
In turn, you deliver sarcasm, snide remarks and personal attacks. And I am the one baiting? Honestly, for someone asking for help, you're being rather ungrateful! If you think you'll get people to help you out with that attitude, have at it, hoss! I am done.

That's an argument that works where it's relevant for game balance purposes. Not when you are talking about service fees, most of which are covered by your lifestyle in the first place.

Can we make a proposal that does not include violence? Or is it the wrong crowd?
I think payment by the hour is stupid, in real life as well as in SR4, believe an old project manager like me! If you pay by the hour, and you don't know exactly what to do, then you gonna end up waiting for your stuff forever...
I mean, base yourself on the lifestyle prices: high lifestyle 10000 per month, so if you pay a mechanic 2000 for a one day job, he is a rich man!
And then, like in real life, it all depends on the availability, if you're in the middle of the sprawl, you gonna have some competition, which will put the prices down. If you're in Lagos or in a smaller town, want a job to be done on your drones, the price is gonna fly higher...
And, as already said in the thread, illegal or not? That changes the price as well.
Are you in a hurry to get it done? Or can you play with the mechanic, get the prices down, wait until he has no clients, until your Mech is craving for his next BTL fix...
Be creative, friends!

Keep your head low,
Ricomoh

Not everywhere. Plenty of services in the US and Europe include a labor charge based on the time the task took.

Fair point. I think fixed rates are easier to calculate, though. Both in RL as well as in SR game terms.

The game used to have a lot more guidelines for these sorts of things, but most of them didn't make the transfer over to 4th edition. Mostly because they seem to want to discourage players from being able to build things from scratch (unless you're a hacker for some strange reason). Yet, even more strangely, the few rules you can find on the subject all revolve around PCs doing the work, not hiring someone else to do it. It boggles the mind.

I know the Sprawl Survival Guide, for example, had rules and prices for hacking credsticks and creating fake SINs, Rigger 2/3 had rules and prices for repairing and building vehicles, and so on and so forth.

Personally, I tend to just make the assumption that parts and labor are all included in the item's price. Couple that with the Contacts rules and you're set. That's what's assumed during character creation, so why not afterwards, too? Keeps things nice and simple. I mean, I seriously doubt it costs 6,000 nuyen in parts to create a fake rating 6 SIN, 2,500 nuyen in parts to silence a revolver, or 1,000 nuyen in parts to engrave a really fancy design into a sword blade.