With enough memory and wireless capabilities i could have potential access to everything, aside from spellcasting.

Well, skillwires are never as good as real skills can be. They *are* costly, they take essence, and you do have to buy the softs (even pirated, not cheap to maintain).

Right, like Squiddy said.

No way, there's really nothing commercial that can't be pirated, DrZaius. Perhaps the rules could be tweaked (faster degen, etc.), but it's very much setting-apropriate.

And one activesoft is going to cost more than a skillwire system of the same rating -- 2,000 x rating for the wires, 10,000 x rating for one skillsoft.

Seems a little silly to me, considering one is a program and one is a cybernetic system installed via presumably invasive surgical procedures, but maybe that's just me.



Edit: Actually, discovered something bizarre. My 20th-anniversary copy of the core rulebook says skillsofts cost 10,000 x rating, but a PDF of the non-anniversary edition says it's 3,000 x rating.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, I just think it's unbalancing. Why should a hacker get their stuff for free when everyone else has to pay for theirs? There was a lengthy article on how it wouldn't work a while back, but I'm far too lazy to look it up, or argue the point with much enthusiasm.

Squiddy Attack: SPSS costs thousands, Photoshop costs over a thousand (?), you don't even want to know what corporate 'software solutions' cost… you're totally right that implanted 'ware should be expensive, but there's no reason really advanced software can't be expensive, too. Hard to get more advanced than magi-tech 'it just works, okay!?' skillsofts.

Badzt Maru's eyes bugged out of their sockets. "Oh no, not *that* one!"

"Oh, but why not?" Hello Kitty begged. She walked over to the crate and opened the lid. Her eyes glazed over with big pink hearts. "Ooooooo!" she squealed in delight.

"Oh fer chrissakes, not that thing!" Badzt Maru pleaded.

Hello Kitty would have none of that. She reached into the box and removed the manufacturer's technical manual. "The General Electric M-261E1 5.56mm six-barreled electric minigun..." she read aloud.

"Absolutely not!" Badzt Maru cried.

"Why not?" Hello Kitty protested.

"You couldn't even *lift* the thing!"

Hello Kitty looked down into the crate. "Yes I could," she replied.

"What are you smoking?! That thing has to be three times bigger than you!"

"Oh, but I *could* lift it," she said. "For I--" She reached into the crate. With a grunt of exertion, she withdrew the heavy gatling gun and brandished it at port arms. Badzt Maru was correct; the weapon was easily three times bigger than Hello Kitty. "--have the strength of madness!!!" she declared proudly.

Isn't "Hello Kitty" one of the new metavariants in RC?
There are so many of those in there, that i wouldn't be surprised if you could at least build one.
Perhaps a surged gnome with fur and a devilish smile?

Skillwires aren't so bad. The 0.8 Essence is by far the worst cost - and at 16 availability you need a Quality to get them at chargen. And they don't really offer that much. Instead of spending that Essence on boosting your primary and secondary roles, you're getting a few more dice on skills some of your teammates are probably much better at anyway.

For a jack-of-all-trades type character, they're awesome, but a minmaxed char wouldn't be caught dead with them.

Skillwires aren't so bad. The 0.8 Essence is by far the worst cost - and at 16 availability you need a Quality to get them at chargen. And they don't really offer that much. Instead of spending that Essence on boosting your primary and secondary roles, you're getting a few more dice on skills some of your teammates are probably much better at anyway.

For a jack-of-all-trades type character, they're awesome, but a minmaxed char wouldn't be caught dead with them.

Actually... they would cost 1 Essence Point, Availability 20 (Rating 5 don't you know)...
Don't forget the Skillwire Expert System for an additional 0.1 Essence, Availability 8 and 3,000 Nuyen...

The rest is pretty accurate, if you have a fairly large team... but if not, then those actual skill points you are using from the skillsofts (rather than losing the -1 Dice from attribute, or not rolling at all because it is a non-defaulting Skill) could indeed save your life...

Indeed. Generalist-ization shouldn't be discouraged, because it's non-powergaming. And you're definitely *paying* for it. Even if you get it 'free' with MBW, *those* are expensive too.

Don't forget the Skillwire Expert System for an additional 0.1 Essence, Availability 8 and 3,000 Nuyen...

I'd never bother to take that. All it does is allow you to spend Edge to reroll a failed test, which isn't even one of the normal (better) uses of Edge, as such you don't even get extra dice only another chance.

I think you misunderstand me. Here's what I understood from the skillwires expert system's (SES) description.
Normally there are several ways to use edge:

• declare use beforehand, add edge dice to test, rule of six applies to all dice
• declare use after roll, roll Edge dice, rule of six only applies to Edge dice
• re-roll all dice that did not score a hit.
• several other uses that do not directly influence dice rolls and do not interest us at the moment

Now the description of the SES says "This implant allows a character with a skillwire system (p. 335, SR4) to use Edge to re-roll a failed test when using skillsofts."
This is different from all the general uses above. As such it allows only that which is in the description, meaning all you get is another roll with Attribute+Activesoft and no extra dice for spending a point of Edge. If the roll was very difficult it probably won't work with another try. All it does is give you the possibility to eliminate extremely bad rolls.

I think you misunderstand me. Here's what I understood from the skillwires expert system's (SES) description.
Normally there are several ways to use edge:

• declare use beforehand, add edge dice to test, rule of six applies to all dice
• declare use after roll, roll Edge dice, rule of six only applies to Edge dice
• re-roll all dice that did not score a hit.
• several other uses that do not directly influence dice rolls and do not interest us at the moment

Now the description of the SES says "This implant allows a character with a skillwire system (p. 335, SR4) to use Edge to re-roll a failed test when using skillsofts."
This is different from all the general uses above. As such it allows only that which is in the description, meaning all you get is another roll with Attribute+Activesoft and no extra dice for spending a point of Edge. If the roll was very difficult it probably won't work with another try. All it does is give you the possibility to eliminate extremely bad rolls.

This is different from all the general uses above. As such it allows only that which is in the description, meaning all you get is another roll with Attribute+Activesoft and no extra dice for spending a point of Edge. If the roll was very difficult it probably won't work with another try. All it does is give you the possibility to eliminate extremely bad rolls.

With activesoft only going to 4, I don't see much point in skillwires 5, so I was talking about that

I agree that having access to some good off-role dice pools can come in very handy - but those .8 points of essence could have been used for something that gave you dice for your main role, which makes it a decent trade off.

It's not very expensive, but it also only gives you 2 more points. Unless you go low for your first two activesofts, that's only one more rating 2 program or two rating one program. Not that much of a bonus, considering using activesofts instead of defaulting removes the ability to use Edge.

But if you apply Pluscoding (Rating 3) and Personalization (+1 Dice) to each of your Skillsofts rated 4 (2 options at that level) you now have 10 Rating 4 programs (that are adding 5 dice to your Stat) running in that program space rather than 8 (or 2 Rating 4 at the base level of Soft)... not a bad trade in my book...

I don't look into Unwired much, so I forgot about those optgions. Are you sure they also apply to Activesofts and not only General Use and Hacking Programs? what about Autosofts?

Can activesofts be of skill groups?

I know they can be pistols, or longarms. But can they be of the firearms skill group to cover all? I can seem to find anything in core nor aug that says they can't be.