I'm pouring over the rules.

If I'm playing a wheelman. Do I need anything from the electronics group?
And do I need anything from the cracking group except Eletronic Warfare?

I'm looking at the tests i'll want to be doing, and I'm just not seeing it.

If you're going to be purely rigging, then no you don't. However, it's very rare for someone to only be a wheelman/vehicle rigger. Those other skills may be useful so you're not just a glorified chauffer.

Hardware should be needed if you attempt to disable car alarms or start cars with completely electronic controls. Of course your wheelman may never need to steal a car, but ours always ends up doing it.

You need Computer. Its whats used for the all-important Analyze tests. If you want to mess with other peoples drones, or prevent peopel from messing your your cars, drones, and devices - then a high computer is good.

How is Analyze all important?
I don't remember seeing any analyze tests?
(for defending)

Computer is also used to trace other matrix users (and the nodes for their cars), which can be invaluable when you're following someone. You'll also want Hacking and Cybercombat so that you can defend yourself when attacked in cybercombat.

Analyze is used to detect an intruder in your node. But you don't need Computer for that: it is the node that rolls Analyze + Firewall.

The node only rolls Analyze+firewall when the firewall is initially breached into. Thats the one freebie you get. Your node doesn't roll Firewall+ analyze ALL the time. Just when the firewall's originally hacked.

After that, if you want to scan for intruders in your node that the firewall -didn't- get, its a Matrix Perception Test.
and -that- is computer+analyze.

Being able to reliably analyze things, especially those running stealth is -critical- on the matrix. Per the sidebar on 4a 228, matrix perception can tell you the following things, one per net hit:

Access ID. Hidden access to another node(whether a node is connected to others. Such as a drone to a rigger). Programs running. Rating of one matrix attribute (such as FIREWALL). Type(agent, user, etc), and whether its encrypted or not.

Yes, perception tests on the internet can tell you whether the icon you're chatting with is holding a blackhammer behind its back, or how tough things are on the matrix. Its especially good for sizing up targets for jacking with electronic warfare.

Honestly, the best use of Analyze is to streamline things for the GM. The first thing I do when hacking a node is to make a perception test, and discover its System and Firewall.

One that's answered, I pretty much know all the important stats its going to be rolling, and can decide if I want to go for admin and/or use edge while hacking on the fly. More importantly, once those questions are answered, the GM knows it too at the top of his head, and Opposed Rolls during hacking become easy-peasy.

I don't really care for how they merged Hackers and Riggers in 4e and gimped the VCR. Mostly because I like to run chase scenes a lot and that has always given the Rigger a valuable niche all their own in my games.

computer is one of those skills that you just can't go wrong with, a bit like perception or etiquette.

You'll want a spoof chip, and that needs Hardware to install.

Another (possibly broken) option is Data Search at 6 (to find pirated skillsofts) and a skillwire system. Going that route, I'd spend the 5 bp on restricted gear and just get the skillwire at rating 5. If you do that you can be running gunnery, pilot, computer, hacking, and electronic warfare all at 5 (unless I'm misunderstanding something - quite possible). Then, when you're working on something in a shop, you swap those activesofts out for whatever technical skills you need. Add to that a control rig and (for pure evil) a Encephalon (at rating 2 even). All the above about should cost only 48 build points. (The encephalon is expensive but it's better than a logic of 6 as far as hacking is concerned.)

Assuming I haven't messed up you should have a very capable hacker/rigger at that point and a lot of build points to spend on anything else.

Hmmm. I may sit down and write up this guy...

Edit: At 354/374 points he was far too broken to continue working on. (I was debating between Born Rich or not.) He's no longer a playable character. He's a better arch-nemesis. He's become Neo with Batman's toy collection. If someone needs a reason to toss the piracy rules, this character is it.

Except when you can replace it with an Agent.

note quite. the table for skillsofts only goes up to 4. of course, if you want to get really technical about it, you can get free open source software up to rating 4... i don't think they've errated anything in unwired yet, so technically you can still just get open source activesofts if your GM is stark raving mad.

Well, let's not assume that. It specifically says that FOSS is sporadically updated, available only for some programs, and sucks. Okay, not that last one.

I've had success with a few characters, just ignoring that merging and trying to see the cheapness (essence and nuyen wise) of the VCR as a good thing. Merged with, say, a Street Sam instead of a Hacker, you can still be a pretty badass driver/criminal type. Very GTA, without having to delve too far into the computers/electronics aspect, just murdering and driving.

Aye, it's nice that my riggers can get out of their cars without getting completely murdered now. It gives me a lot more flexibility when writing new adventures.

If I remember correctly, I'm the first one to post that. Good to see my ideas are taking root.

But yeah. Free R4 Activesofts for everyone who doesn't mind like Psychotropic and R3 Overdrive on them (never said free 'softs weren't buggy).

And on Skillwires: The rating x2 is how many "Skillsoft Points" you can run. Each activesoft takes up a number of skillsoft points = the rating of the activesoft. For example: R3 Skillwires can run up to 6 points of Skillsoft Points total - either two rating 3 'softs, three R2 'softs, or any combination adding up to six and with any one program not exceeding 3 (the rating of the Skillwires).

You can Personalize a skillsoft, gaining a +1 Dicepool bonus while using that 'soft, and you can Overdrive them, gaining a bonus equal to the rating of the Overdrive (up to 3), but also gaining a dicepool penalty to any other Test not related to that 'soft the same number (IE: +2 Pistols, but -2 Gymnastics [and many others], but not -2 Perception to see something to shoot with your pistol).

You can also Pluscode (up to R3) an activesoft in order to reduce the "Skillsoft Points" drain, and you can Cluster 'softs to reduce the memory usage also. All those pretty rules are found in Unwired.

It's good to see the rules I missed. I'm much happier realizing that monstrosity isn't as broken as I thought.

Suoq if you are who I think you are just keep a mind open source is specifically disallowed in SRM as an optional rule. If you try and bring it to the theoretical home game I've kicked aorund starting I will laugh/slap you.

Oh this reminds me of the f"joy" of having a player who wants to be a GTA type like Tommy from GTA3 but refuses to take any skills that allows him to steal cars in 2070, because those skills are too nerdy for someone as tough as Tommy. And then he gets upset that he is having trouble stealing cars.

Um, what? The only skill you need is open the door, pull out the driver, and drive away. Car stolen.

Sadly, the way it works in SR4, presumably they just sell car-hack agents in prepackaged commlinks to anyone. One button wireless stolen car. :/

With the current piracy/registration rules, the two roles I don't want to touch are hacker and rigger anyway. I'll stick with playing the legend of Ransom Stoddard.

This type of behavior is a sign. That sign means I can never play in your games.

There are more than enough ways to allow players to have things like freeware and still maintain game balance. Have the skillsofts have Psychotropic or Overdrive, for example. Or have a program actually be spyware, always telling whoever made it the locations and nodes the person with the 'ware connects to. Freeware was not intended to simply be R4 programs for free - they're R4 programs with bugs, spyware, and problems for free.

Please notice, I said "without having to delve too far" into certain skills. Reasonable attributes, a skill of two or three, and an appropriate specialization, and you should be pretty golden where boosting cars are concerned. I'm sorry if your player feels differently and it's causing you some problems, but not all of us completely ignore the rulebook when making our character.

You wouldn't expect there to even be freeware activesofts. Freeware is mostly just for Common Use programs.

Agreed, freeware is already an optional rule. Personally i wouldn't allow it at above a rating or two in all but the most common of programs.

I wouldn't expect freeware (that is, open source) to have all manner of vicious, crippling bugs, either. I'd expect OpenOffice, GIMP, and Firefox, plus a bunch of super-niche clones of commercial apps, etc.

There's always the Neo-A's and Berlin. After getting addicted to Tiny Yellow House ( http://www.youtube.com/user/relaxshacksDOT.../13/GEvYT3CMtQI - I swear this guy is friends with Peace Man), I'm convinced that people like this exist to allow humanity to survive and even, in their own way, thrive.

As a player, I'd never try to pull something like this into a game, except as contact or background fluff, but as a GM, they're great plot devices for when the team completely ignores the thing they were supposed to do and you need (as a GM) to go to plan Q in a hurry.

I wouldn't expect it to be good but it might be something that will let the players get from plot point A to plot point B. Or maybe they're dealing with Neo-A's and you need to add a bit of something to make the Neo-A's a challenge. Pull in Survival Research Laboratories ( http://srl.org/machines.html ) and beef em up. The world may be under the control of the mega-corps but the squatters and anarchists aren't. They do their own thing.

If a coder is looking for recognition, validation of his existence, creating a new piece of freeware is his ticket to maybe being remembered, maybe making a difference, maybe having a reason to have lived. I wouldn't expect it to be good, but I'd be shocked if it didn't exist. Sometimes the team needs to find something they can adapt to get the job done.

I'm definitely not saying it isn't possible, esp. in a cyberpunk future setting. I am saying, though, that vast majority of freeware is Common Use, and one shouldn't interpret the rules as saying 'you can find anything at rating 4'.

I wouldn't expect open source software to be like that, at least not in any game that's trying to be "realistic". If someone does release a program like that, it won't take very long for an enterprising hacker to release a cleaned-up version. All the spyware would be in the proprietary programs instead . Mostly if they don't cost any money, but I would expect even some paid programs to have spyware and hidden bugs.

Double post.

Why do you believe this? Remember the Shadowrun universe runs on some very different assumptions then our own. It's a lot more dystopian people do horde information as it's power, people often don't have time to code freeware as it is better spent finding food. In shadowrun literally if it's worth doing it's usually worth selling.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean all the open source (*open source*) would have Psychotropic and Overdrive; as I said, vicious, crippling malware. Besides, if time is so precious, they wouldn't bother *adding* these.

In the Matrix, you can probably find an example of almost anything. However, the norm for FOSS should be basically as today: unpolished, sometimes useful, and, in rare instances, great. For Common Use.

I would imagine you could probably find some Hacking Programs out there too. But then those would be very well hidden and likely to be loaded with scary malware and such.

Why does Freeware have to suck so badly?

Legit software is so much more of a hose.
the Registered software thing means you're going to get tracked and hosed eventually.

How would people feel if all the bullets you bought for your gun had a serial number and could be traced to the buyer with some work.

Also, with Freeware, a hacker ends up having a 10-15k a month software habit to feed.
That's a freaking metric ton.

Oh I understand you read the rule book. We explained it multiple times even, but he refused to take "nerdy" skills. We explained stealing a car in 2070 needs these skills its the hot wire skill of 2070, heck take it at 1 and specialize in car stealing and we are golden. Nope that was too nerdy. All of which would not bother me except he was upset when stealing cars was difficult for him. I'm just happy I wasn't the GM for it, I don't have the patience our GM displayed and he isn't known for his patience.

does active soft? which costs something like 10k/rating have the crippling register "feature"?
Do you have to hack and clean up all your active softs if you want to use them?

Even if an activesoft had Registration, who cares? There's no fingerprint of its use.

Freeware *should* suck. It's free.

Warez stuff isn't free though.
It's 10% cost, for something that degrades every month.
Basically you're buying it again and again once every 10 months.

What other Archetype in the game has a 12-15k a month spending habit just to stay "the same"

It's highly unlikely that a Street Sam's going to spend 15k on ammo

I was talking about Freeware, not Pirated software. Pirated software (by the rules) is both awesome and the only way to play a hacker at all. Only Hacking programs degrade every month, by the way; the rest are 1 rating per 2 months. I don't find the costs prohibitive at all, especially because the hacker will be Spoofing Life anyway.

Just to be clear, the piracy patch is 10% of the difference between the street costs of the current and full rating. For Common Use thats 10 per program every 2 months. For hacking, that's 100 per program every month. Agents = 300 every two months. System and Firewall = 50 every two months. Autosofts = 100 every two months.

(Agent is 300 instead of 250 because I'm assuming unrestricted agent at a cost multiplier of 1.2.)

For a suite of pirated system, firewall, agent, hacking (18 programs?), and common use (8 programs), the upgrade cost is 2065 a month. (You might want to check my math.). That's assuming you go full bore paranoia on registration and actually have that many programs.

Here's my first pass at a wheelman/b&e

Elf
Resources: 250k
Body 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 3
Strength:2
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 5
Logic: 3
Willpower: 2
Edge: 2

Skills
Pilot Groundcraft: 6
Perception: 4
Hardware: 3
Gymnastics: 4
Pistols: 4
Electronic Warfare: 4
Stealth (group): 4
Etiquette: 2

English: N
Hangouts(Shadowrunner) 2
Security Design: 2

Contacts:
Armoer: 3/3
Mechanic: 4/3
Street Doc: 4/4
ID Manufactuer: 2/4

Qualities;
Restricted Gear
Indebt (30k)
Thrill Seeker

Cyber/Bio
Control Rig used/std
Skillwire 5 used/std
Wired Reflexes 1 used/std
Muscle toner 2 used/std
Bone density Augmentation 3 used/std
Cerebral Booster 2 std
Attention Coprocessor 3 used/std
Hot Sim Module used/std

Commlink
Hermes Ikon (4/3)
Upgraded: 5/5
Firewall: 5
System: 5
Customized Interface: Command
Simsense Accelerator
Armor 5
Attack 5
Track 5
eccm 5
analyze 5
Browse 5
Command 5
Edit 5
Encrypt 5
Purge 5
Reality Filter: 5
Scan: 5

Knight Errant Selfdefense Cluster( 3 dodge. 3 unarmed combat) 14.4k
Dockwago Medic: 14.4k (3 dockwagon procedures, 3 medic, 2 medicine)

Vehicle:
Hyundai Shin-Hyung
Concealed armor: 10
Engine cust(speed)
Engine cust(accel)
Run flat tires
Rigger adaptation
Chameleon Coating
morphing license plate
Response up: 4
Pilot: 4
Maneuver: 3
cameras modded to 6, so the car has a sensors of 6

Gear:
B&E stuff, narcojet, gel rounds, reg ammo, some stick and shock
a silence pistol, a machine pistol, and a heavy pistol
glasses and contact lenses with smartlink, imagelink, flare comp.

Formfitting Ful Body suit
Chameleon Suit

I didn't know you could piracy patch. I thought you had to rebuy the whole thing at the new high rating. My fault.
That is much more reasonable.

Just two and no Feedback Filter? That means you will roll two dice against dumpshock, feedback from vehicle damage and opponents using blackout/blackhammer...

They can't be Psychotropic, but they can have bugs and Overdrive. Overdrive is a "bonus," but you have to make and Edge Test every time you load it otherwise you burn out your 'wires and get addicted to it (wanting to run it more than anything else).

EDIT:


Can you tell me how that says "The vast majority of these programs are Common Use programs"? To me it says "computer software," and skillsofts are run on an extremely advanced computer.

For a Rigger and somewhat combat type I would suggest Dodge, also you may want to decrease Agility to increase Reaction, Agility does not aide you rigging a vehicle.

I also agree about the Will power stated by Sengir

Yes. At least buy a R6 Biofeedback Filter program. Even if your Response is only 5, when you upgrade the Response in-game you won't have to rebuy the program.

Sorry, Neraph, I was using common sense and I forgot to mention it.