In no sense do those simulate astral sight.

How?
The makeup shifts physical color in the presence of astral beings, or due to local mana fluctuations.
Airborne FAB I can be used to track an astral being's location.
Airborne FAB II not only allows you to see movement of astral forms, but also impedes their movement to near-manageable levels, and gives astrally perceiving characters a difficult time.

If you're talking about assensing, I feel the big issue is more being able to tell where people are, rather than knowing everything about them (although that can be nice too).

It's the difference between having thermographic vision, and carrying a mood ring. Astral perception does so much more than just let you know where spirits are (which is worthless).

Yes, I'm talking about Assensing, but also just *seeing* people (and magic). It's thermo that thermal smoke doesn't affect, it beats invisibility and (largely) infiltration, and many other fun uses. It's not the single be-all vision, but it's pretty handy, and you can't buy it.

It always gets messy with forking threads.

Anyway, I don't think it matters if a mage can outshine one role - that just becomes his role in the team. A MageFace is the Face of the party? Fine. If noone else was playing the Face, who minds if the Mage does the Face job with Magic?

It's bad if the Mage steals the spotlight, not if he just gets his due share of spotlight for doing one of the team roles.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought astral perception boiled down to three things:

• assensing, which allows you find out some things you shouldn't be able to with magic (for example, whether someone is a technomancer). As for cyberware, at best, it should only allow you to detect cyberware by the fact that you can't detect any aura/life force where organic tissue should be.
• detecting astral presences.
• screwing over any mundanes who wanted to be stealthy by detecting life force (which conveniently enough is automatic no matter how much the mundane reduces his essence) instead of light in the visible spectrum.

Also, aren't spirits, magic, auras, and mana fluctuations all either disturbances in the mana flow, or concentrations of mana?

Sure, Ascalaphus, but that wasn't the question. 'Does he?', not 'is it bad if he?'. I forgot where I was, which is why I responded the way I did.

longbowrocks, … yes? You say that like those aren't awesome. (Assensing specifically can detect cyberware—doesn't matter how—, but it's not easy with good 'ware.) Personally, 'detecting astral presences' is the least important by far (especially if you can't do anything about it). I'd pay 15 BP for that (plus the other great tricks it gives), gladly accepting that I'd have to spend a little karma to offset 'ware. No, it's not for *all* characters… who said it was?

How does it ever not beat infiltration?
*simple action to switch perception to astral*
"Hey look guys! There's an aura on the perimeter of our compound. Physically he would reduce my dice pool to perceive him into the negatives, but since I'm perceiving astrally I don't even need to make a check lol."

There are threads (and a section in the FAQ) about that. Basically, infiltration also involves hiding behind stuff. Astral perception doesn't penetrate stuff. But yes, it's basically awesome for that, and that's a big deal in Shadowrun.

So, besides that, for your 'cheap' 15BP you also get the ability to bind weapon foci (handy for some characters), and a little magic defense (Counterspelling, as Brazilian_Shinobi mentioned), plus Projection (if you're just dying to fly through the wall and scout). Astral Sight at 5 BP is overpriced, but Magician at 15 BP (or Mysad, minus Projection, plus 1 PP) is very cheap. That's why there's the disclaimer. Or Adept (5BP), one free PP for anyone who didn't already want cyber. Not everyone does.

Nah, just making sure. We're frequently on a different page, especially concerning magic since I'm still reading up on it.

My main point was this:
"Also, aren't spirits, magic, auras, and mana fluctuations all either disturbances in the mana flow, or concentrations of mana?"

The reason being that the methods I suggested work by detecting mana irregularities. If they can detect the large one of a spirit (although notice the size of the spirit you may detect is never specified), then by extension, they can detect the small disturbance made by an aura, or the large disturbance of a spell.
Effectively, the astral may be physically perceived in this way (minus assensing of course).

Oh. … Nope. Manatech isn't advanced enough for that (yet). You don't even have an 'astral detector'. You have a generic 'hey, astral stuff!' litmus paper; no details, no meaurements, etc. So, you meant '*ineffectively*, the astral can be perceived this way.'

But all of that still falls under the umbrella of 'who cares, I can see through invisibility/dark/smoke, etc.!', plus the other bonuses I mentioned.

FAB-II grenades are really expensive, and they only slow astrals down to 100m/turn anyway; other manatech is also expensive. None of them give the real benefits of the 'cheap' Magician quality the disclaimer is talking about.

Ugh, don't get me started on how much I agree (although I look at it as more OP than cheap). I think we were looking at just the astral perception (and assensing) though. You can add Astral Combat too since astral sight comes with it as a complete package.

… That's what we were talking about! You asked 'why is there a disclaimer?'

"Hey astral stuff!" is good enough to say "hey astral stuff where it shouldn't be!"
I'm not implying you could see the shape of an aura (if it has one), but it is astral stuff, so if you see disturbed FAB, it's either spell, spirit, aura, or flux.
Stronger things like spirits and spells could be ruled out (leaving only aura or flux) since the FAB description says that you could discern a silhouette using it.

I actually forget why I quoted this.

Wait a sec, I know we switched gears somewhere in here.

Found it, I switched tracks after this:


The original question was answered pretty well, so I got sidetracked.

Psh. I think you went off the rails, you nut. We were never talking about 'is manatech handy?'. You asked why they tell the GM to be careful, and I said Astral Perception alone is worth it (exaggeration, yes). But it's certainly true that Astral Perception (*with* the ability to buy Magic points) + everything you also get is totally worth it.

We can still fit this into broken rules if we argue about whether manatech can effectively simulate astral sight (not including assensing and astral combat). Opinions?

'No', and 'those provisos render the question meaningless'. Half of astral sight is seeing non-astral things.

Kinda confused me there. I said 'no assensing' and 'no astral combat'.
Both of those only work while perceiving astrally (otherwise you're effectively blind).

You make my brain-meats hurt, longbowrocks. I wasn't talking about those. I was just saying that manatech doesn't address seeing non-astral things, which (IMO) is a major strength of astral sight… you know, like negating infiltration?

Doesn't astral sight negate infiltration by allowing you to see auras?

I'm suspicious of why you ask. It doesn't matter how it works.

How's this Broken Rules, though? You should make a thread about the state of manatech now that Attitude is out.

*edit* moving this to a new thread as Yerameyahu suggested.

Thermoptic-camouflaged drone infiltrator?

(yet another reason that Otomos are fecking scary - almost no astral presence)




-k

Otomo? Is that a rigger who operates drones remotely?

It's the drone from Arsenal that looks exactly like a human, usually with a cyborg brain installed who is an elite level hacker. Expensive as hell, so if one gets sent out it's always for a DAMN good reason and probably has every bell and whistle a Megacorp can manage stuffed into it. Including, probably, five IPs, stupidly high dice pools, more armor than many military battle vehicles, and backup support. It has a big brother called the Tomino.

As a vehicle it shows up as well on the astral as the brick wall behind it. As in, not very much.



-k

That's true for any drone, though. You're stuck with mundane detection, or maybe special spells.

I'd actually call the Tomino the Otomo's LITTLE brother, sice the Tomino is child sized.

Wrong.

That's the Akiyama. Although, Little A is faster, more expensive, and mostly better stats. :/ Wacky.

That's Right. Akiyama, Not Tomino. Not sure what I was thinking there. Apologies.
Thanks for setting me straight Yerameyahu.

It's what we're here for. That, and verbal abuse!

Gotta love that Verbal Abuse...

Certainly won't get a bonus for contrast (like an aura against a shadow background) but depending on circomstances it might still be easier to see in Astral then with other vision types.. In full darkness natural vision is at a -6 while Astral takes no penalty. Shadow Clutter would be the same penalty to vision as cover I believe. Then take into account that it is a humaniod shape with movement... and no aura. If I were observing from the Astral I'd take note.

SM p112 on Shadows says that color, texture, smell, taste, sturdiness, tect, and images are difficult to dicern. "Seeing" shapes and contours, movement, and telling one shadow apart from the one next to it are not really effected. Getting detail on a shadow is hard, knowing it's general outline and that it's walking around isn't.

I'd take Astral over Normal for seeing an Otomo in the dark. Seeing a person with an aura would just be gravy with a few bonus dice for the aura contrast.

Hmm, I just found another possibly broken rule: Indirect combat spells with touch range.
By RAW touch spells may need a melee touch attack to establish a proper connection and indirect combat spells are resolved as ranged attacks. So wouldn't then the caster need to first succeed at an opposed roll of AGI+Unarmed combat+2 vs. REA+Defensive Skill(Unarmed,any melee skill, dodge) andsucceed at an opposed roll of MAG+Spellcasting vs REA(+Counterspelling if available). And then the target gets to soak. Good luck with that.

Oh and sorry for the creation of a thread-cyberzombie.

AI's can only use SOME programs (They should be able to use ALL software)

AI's are slower on the matrix than a good tricked out hacker.

Wouldbt the spellcasting test be VS opponents Melee skill instead

By RAW that's only for the touch attack and pitting the spellcasting test against the target's REA+melee skill/dodge would make that type of spell even worse:


There is no exception for touch range indirect combat spells.

I don't think it's a bad thing for spells to make poor melee combat weapons. For one thing it would be stepping on the adept's toes. For another it doesn't sound easy - mastering the mana, making deliberate physical contact with a melee opponent and channeling the spell through your arms at just the right moment sounds like a mammoth challenge in coordination and concentration.

But this does not make indirect spells untenable. If you really don't want to spend precious BPs on Unarmed Combat (Touch Spells) you've still got surprise. Save it for people who aren't expecting a fight or don't even know you're there. Hell, a troll enforcer might even let you get in a free hit just to show you how buff he is - then you sit back as he bursts into flame.

Well it shouldn't be more difficult than any other touch range spell. Making contact is the same but the actual casting is only one opposed roll, except for indirect combat spells.

I wonder, why would anyone learn a spell that is only useful in a few situations, if they could get one that is useful in many more.

Interestingly enough, there are no touch range indirect spells with P damage or an elemental effect.

Explain.

AI's can only get 3 ini passes in the matrix, while a hacker can get to 4 i think.
Or 4 and 5 . . both Hackers and Technos can get one more IP than anybody else, but only for full VR stuff.

Yes, AI can only have 3 IP. What about AI's only being able to use some programs (or rather, what programs can't they use that would be beneficial?)? And AI can actually end up having a higher (sometimes significantly so) Initiative than TM/Hackers, so that offsets their IP shortage in some instances. It becomes an issue of IP efficiency rather than quantity.

Without the Pilot Origin quality, an AI can't use any autosofts ever, which jacks up your AI's capabilities as a rigger.

Which means that meat people are actually faster than an already matrix connected program.

True, but they cannot use OTHER programs. In short you should be able to create an AI that emulates every skill with autosofts and software.

Autosofts = Physical Skills
Empathy Software = Social Skills (Since this is not an autosoft it is verboten)

Thats my main gripe, a program that is born on the matrix that cannot use certain software?

exactly

Can you explain this? Why is empathy software verboten? Why can't AIs use other programs (or is that regarding autosofts / piloting origin)?

AI's can only use Hacking/Computer software and Autosofts with Pilot Origin.

They cannot use Empathy software and some other programs because of RAW - Which cannot be RAI because that is just stupid. I'd love to play a newly born AI with no skills that ONLY have softwares as skills. Give him the basic inherent programs to manage spoofing to get access but any regular skills demands software.

Physical Skills: Autosofts
Social SKills: Empathy Software

You would essentially be able to emulate ALL skills with the limit that you need to update software and that they have a base skill level limit of about 4 at start.

Cool - thanks for the reply. I found the relevant rules, Runners Companion p89.

"AIs may only load and directly use Common Use, Hacking, Knowsoft, and Agent Autosoft programs."

So this list leaves out the Empathy / *Recognition sensor software, along with linguasofts, datasofts, mapsofts, tutorsofts...even activesofts? I agree with you, this is silly - should've been errata'd

I would also change the rules so that AIs can't take ANY physical skills, and would need something like autosofts / activesofts to emulate physical skill use.

Exactly, for some reason a self learning adaptive program cannot use software that a mere meatbag can use. And yes, I would demand autosofts for interaction with the real world as they would be forced to use drones - I would say that an AI without Pilot Origin should be able to use autosofts, or at least Command software to order a drone to do the job for him.

They can do that part just fine.