I want to set up a tac-net and have kinda of wiki-database for magic, awakened critters and such. How would I go about it so the users of tac-net might benefit from it...especially the spell slingers?

After that would love to do the same for say vehicle, drone and weapons identification. Like a Janes book.

Thank you!

Uhm... Roll the tac-net rating x2 as a knowledge skill?

Sensor software does this already. Weapon watcher IDs weapons. There is one for vehicle ID and also for critters. A pocket mage can help with magical things (though not very well). I'd say just link them into someone's (or everyone's) sensor suites and run it that way.

So I can't say have a database that can tell me, "okay big glowie thing... shoots pain at me from it's arse...its a "ex-wife?" and this is its weakness and strengths?

There's a cream for that in most cases. But no there is no automatic identification of most threat that doesn't involve some kind of dice roll. Otherwise it would completely defeat the purpose of having knowledge skills.

I'd say that a Clearsight Autosoft would be needed to analyze the sensor inputs, but the database would just be a set of Datasofts for Parazoology, Spirits, Weapons, Armor, etc.

Roll Clearsight + TacNet rating against a given threshold (2?) to identify.

Once the system has identified, it's a simple lookup. I'd roll the rating of the datasoft, just to see if it glitched.

I'd be pretty liberal with the penalties on this too, particularly against magical phenomena. Citing the trope that magic and tech don't mix well, I'd say add a penalty of F/2 (F/3?) for spirits and spells, and chalk it up to sensor distortion and difficulty to analyze non-physical objects.

Buy a magic knowsoft.

What?

A tacnet already rolls Response+Tacnet rating to identify threats, feeds, and loadouts for stuff it can detect (see Tacnet Information for more info, towards the tail end of it).

It can even autonomously snag matrix access and roll Tacnet + browse to look shit up if it doesn't know.

I don't see why the Tacnet wouldn't include a database of paracritters, because they're often used for security purposes. (barghests at least).

Becouse it only has an built-in databases of weapon, armor, and implant designs and schematics, per the book.
But nothink should stop you from hooking up a database of paracritters on it yourself, i guess that would be a knowledge soft paracritters.

Ditto: per the book, it should have a database of *any* non-obscure threats, and you're right that it can look up other things online.