Take a look at your example the way I see it now:

Joe Normal gets mad at Anthony Adept, and takes a swing at him. Since Joe only has skill 1 he doesn't have a good technique, he decides to really give Anthony a good one so he first makes a fist, checks it to be sure it is balled up tightly, decides it is no good, so he adds a little spit to make sure it won't pop open when he clobbers Anthony with it, raises it proudly forward in the engarde position directly out in front of his face, then starts his approach, Every good fighter crouches as he stalks his target so he cautiously steps into range checking the ground often as he does to be sure he doesn't trip over anything and end up looking foolish, once he is close enough for the actual swing to hit he decides to do a little wind up for extra power, so just like a pitcher he first leans backward, gets his arm pumping like crazy, forward, then reverses direction, holds his breath, blinks a few times to focus on Anthony's chin, he lets it rip. Anthony saw the punch coming a mile away, at first he thinks it is funny and with all the theatrics of Joe's noobie mistakes he has time to comment to his buddies that "this fool is going to punch me", he got a few chuckles as Joe wounded up his punch, he even had time to ask them "should I kick his ass?" to see if they wanted him to show off a little, he gets into a comfortable stance just before Joe haymaker gets thrown, so he easily parries it, in fact he had so much time to parry the punch he had time to think about what he should do to Joe for pulling this stunt and decides to teach Joe a good lesson in getting his ass kicked. Joe is beaten so he goes out and gets some wired-3 to give him the advantage. He comes back after Anthony and opens with the exact same set up as before, except this time he doesn't have to spend alot of concentration time to plot his next move. Before Anthony can make a move he has closed the distance wound up his punch faster than Anthony's eyes can even track and takes a swing at him. The smile is wiped off Anthony's face as he realizes that Joe just threw a punch at him that missed his face by a few inches that was 3 times faster than anything he has ever seen since wired-3 makes you really move fast. He decides he will kick Joe's ass if he can catch him. Joe changes tactics and decides to stamp on Anthony's foot. He makes a mighty leap and smashes down only to realize Anthony has steel toed boots on. Bad mistake. Joe even sees that Anthony is taking a swing of his own. Up to this point it had been all Joe making inaccurate swing after swing with his jacked up self, suddenly he sees Anthony Adept's fist coming right towards his face, wow this wired-3 makes time stop, is that a class ring Joe's mind wonders, ooooooh, yes it is as it gets closer, wonder what year?, seeing a fist coming at you is kind of cool, "wonder what I should do in this situation? is his last thought. If poor Joe only had more training he had the jacked up reflexes to give him multiple attacks and a higher combat pool.

It helps them make more tries. And in a suprise situation it will give them an edge. Maybe enough of one to be able to take the skilled opponent out with lucky shot. Speed counts in some situations.

Would you say that a martial arts master who spent his life learning an art form, but got MS later in life and couldn't throw a good punch was unskilled or slow? Above you said skill brings speed. Just curious.

I don't think I would make that call on that sliver of evidence. I have played D&D style games, but the last time I played was over 12 years ago. It is not much of a "background". Shadowrun is the game system I like best. Which is why I bother to add suggestions to improve it. I just never get to play it much. As far as reality I think GURPS beats SR though. You can't kill hundreds of girl scouts when it's not your turn in that game system.

Thanks for your input though on getting a working solution going though.

Of course it's impossible, it's not listed in the table on page 96 of Canon Companion. Duh

Wired doesn't make you move any faster, as evidenced by the fact that Quickness and movement rate stay the same no matter what the reaction.

In terms of SR game mechanics, yes. Active skill ratings are a measure of effectiveness, not knowledge.

They'd likely weigh him down with numbers long before that.

In game terms it does. Every description I have read says you react with blinding speed. With 3 extra dice on initiative you will likely get an extra action sometimes 2 extra actions where you had previously only got most one action in a combat round. In effect you are twice or three times as fast. You can still only pump your legs at a certain speed however? so your movement rate doesn't go up. Maybe it should?

I have an 8 year old daughter btw. I don't think her and a hundred of her friends can whip me, sorry. Even if they felt no pain and were fanatics.

Which in Rory's example I don't think he applied that correctly.

In game terms that most definitely is not true. As TheScamp correctly pointed out:
An increase of reaction and / or initiative does not increase physical speed a.k.a. quickness. That's pretty much because muscles can't act faster simply because the nerve signals to, within and coming from the brain are "slightly" faster than before.

Which is pretty much the reslut of that very common misconception about "reflexes", "reaction", "initiative" and "speed".

That's the point where the sequential nature of the SR combat system shows it's ugly head. The problem is that everyone seems to think with that given time frame of 3 seconds and then simply divides that time frame by the number of actions a chacter has, in order to determine the time frame of a single action. Unfortunately, that calculation simply doesn't work out. A character without reaction or initiative enhencements who is involved in a combat round that includes a boosted person, will act in the same time frame (and thus at the same "speed") as the boosted person, since all actions are considered to be taken instantly and can be reacted upon instantly by any involved character during any single combat phase.

That's merely how it "looks". The unboosted person becomes equally "fast" during his/her combat phase. The fact that SR doesn't cap the maximum number of actions per turn increases that effect the higher the difference between highest and lowest initiative becomes.

It shouldn't ... by no means. Let me give a simple real world example:
Let's have two "identical" 100m sprinters when it comes to physical quickness.
Sprinter A has a higher reaction / initiatve than sprinter B. Both hear the signal for staring their sprint. Sprinter A processes the signal faster (due to higher reaction and initiative) and leaves the starting point a fraction of a second sooner than Sprinter B. After that point their reaction is of no concern when it comes to movement, since they are both operating at the maximum of what their muscles can achieve. At the end of their dash sprinter A will e the winner ... but merely by those split seconds that he reacted earlier at the start ...

And it is extremely unlikely that there would ever be a situation where this would even be a possibility, let alone that it would actually happen.

And I would suggest that those more complex rules actually do a worse job of modeling combat; they're there mainly to give people more options, not to make things more realistic.

Hey, if you believe you can stand up to a few tons of girlish frenzy, more power to you. I, however, think you're seriously underestimating your daughter and her raging mob.

Correct.

Yes I did. You failed to realize a troll with a reach 2 weapon is only a a 1 worse net penalty. With a huge dice advantage that means next to nothing. That is why a melee specialist adept is the king of the battlefield in close combat. The cyborg's strength and speed do him no good at all under the current system if he never gets a chance to inflict damage, even when he beats the adept to the punch.

No they're not incredibly slow. And no they don't become much, much faster...at least not because of the reason you are trying to mislead us with. When a new guy walks in the door to a Kempo school he is in a range of physical condition from couch potato to olympiad. You probably see the couch potatos more because they are the ones who need to learn some self defense or whatever, that is not important. From your observational point of view it is more important to see that the vast, vast majority of the ones coming in to a martial arts school are seeking to improve their conditioning, skill, and strength and need the same, so over time they do improve. However you could also get a top conditioned athlete from another sport who is able to throw a blinding punch that could be clocked faster than anyone you have. We used to call these guys the ones with "raw talent" or "naturals". You DO NOT gain any more speed or power than you already had unless the muscles needed to propel the fist are exercised and stressed ever higher in your class. Speed has absolutely nothing to do with the skill you learn in the class!!! Learning the correct form, stance, footwork, recovery, and all the other fluff of learning a new martial arts style is the skill part.

To prove the point of what I am saying, I will bet you that if a world class boxer that had been training 6 hours a day for a solid year walks in thru your school door, clocks his fastest punch speed he will beat anyone you have in the school in speed. But if you spar with him he will not be world class in kempo, because he does not have the skills. If he stops all conditioning training except the half hour a day he devotes to your class he will fall out of shape and a year later will not be able to clock the same punch. Sorry, but skill DOES NOT give speed. Any sort of physical exercise will though, but it has nothing to do with the skill you are learning. If the above boxer finally mastered the kempo after a number of years of training and then put himself back in shape he could become a world class kempo artist as well. Skill and conditioning are completely separate issues.

Assuming the one excercising also at least used his fingers in his strength and endurance training regimen he will be able to tap random keys faster and longer than the couch potato pianist that is skilled enough to actually play the correct ones and form music out of them. It is a matter of muscle memory more than speed as you want us to believe. Skill and speed are separate. You certainly don't get speed just from skill. Which is why martial artists get their asses kicked quite alot on the street.

Really? Then how come Joe normal with his wired-3 would be able to squeeze off anywhere from 2 to 4 rounds at you with a Panther Assault Cannon in a full combat turn? Where you would only be able to squeeze off 1 shot assuming you were both normal attribute humans before Joe got his wired-3? I hope you have armor on, Joe doesn't have to be accurate with that many pulls of the trigger, he just has to hit first. You are confusing speed and memory, which is basically what skill boils down to. Take the piano score you mentioned above. The more skilled pianist of course will be able to flawlessly move his hands to the correct positions over the course of the song. This was achieved by muscle memory and memorizing exactly where each note is on the piano thru hours and hours of familiarity practices. The new student can possibly hit notes faster than the master, but does not have the skill to make music out of it.

No I am not. I don't care if you call it reaction or quickness, they are inter-related in as much as they both add to the initiative score. The higher your quickness the higher the final score will be. Your initiative score is your speed. If you are under 10 you are slow, if you get 11-20 you are twice as fast, 21-30, three times as fast, etc...Someone with 3 extra dice is going to roll an 11 on average which is enough to double the speed of an average human. When he gets lucky he could triple his speed. So my example of Joe getting to take a couple of shots at Anthony is right on the money. He would find out just how true if he rounded a corner in a dark alley, got caught flat footed without any armor on, and found Anthony waiting for him with a couple of those haymakers. How strong is Joe normal anyway? I never once said speed was the most important aspect of the fight either. You must have misread me somewhere. SR is over weighted to skill, absolutely. I am not complaining of this, I like abstract rolls and don't care if skill is the factor or attributes like in GURPS. My main complaint which you have ignored to the point of dragging the debate almost completely off topic is that a person can effectively roll his skill dice 3 or 4 times when it is not even his turn with no penalty to his next action, which is supposedly happening in the same couple of seconds. Until you realize that you will just not "get it". Maybe you need to reexamine your own views a little.

Yeah, The Scamp, you and a bunch of people keep saying this, but none of you can explain how wired-3 doesn't make you faster? I say ir does, Cain says the skill does, yet skill gives no reaction increase or initiative dice like wired-3 does. Reaction and initiative dice are a direct abstract manifestation of speed if I ever saw one! Quick example: Give a normal mundane 3 in every attribute and skill. that gives him a reaction of 3+1d6. The best he can ever do is get one complex action a combat Round. His twin has wired-3, which boosts his reaction to a 9+4d6. There is no chance at all he will get just one complex action, so he is at least twice as fast as his twin. Many times he will get 3 actions and once in awhile he will get 4 complex actions, meaning he is up to 4 times faster. If you do some simple math you see that it was the jacked up twin that was blazingly fast. The skill levels have nothing to do with it other than to see how accurate you are with your extra shots.

I like the way the novels describe jacked up samurais though. And I think you are under the misconception, reaction and initiative dice are direct manifestations of speed. You and others are arguing movement rate or quickness stat, which is something else entirely. Quickness is only half the equation of reaction, reaction is speed, speed is physical quickness and mental intelligence to guide it into a useful purpose.

Huh? If we roll initiative and I am boosted and you are not, I roll a 33 you roll a 9 I am 4 times faster than you. I am going to take 4 shots at you to your 1 at me. Do you get this concept? Wired-3 is going to make me into a speed freak. In SR 2 you got your actions first. You probably moved so fast it was a blur to the mundanes standing there slack jawed.

Apathy, you are on the verge of understanding everything I am saying it looks like. And if this were the way it worked it would be broken as well, however I already said that if you choose to just resist the melee damage with your body dice, armor, and combat pool you would NOT lose your next action. You took the shot full force, you resisted the urge to throw your hands up and block, instead you held your discipline and loaded a fresh mag in your uzi. Now that you get to act you should get to fire it with no penalties. You paid the price when you decided to let your armor absorb the damage instead of trying to dodge it. Staying focused thru the pain of getting pummeled so you can get your gun loaded should be rewarded.

Ever here of gangs? When they surround you they might all draw down on with a big ring of chains, knives, pipes, and assorted weapons. Doesn't have to be an army of pikemen. Point you are missing is that it could happen and it is such an easy fix just to say melee defense rolls are only going to allow you to avoid damage, not do damage when it is not even your turn.

I have a pretty good squat, but not several tons worth. I assume I get a sword? They are not going to be able to climb on me high enough and balance at there strengths in order to make it several tons on me at once. Meanwhile I am chopping them to pieces slowly but surely. Keep in mind they have brains of 8 year olds too right? They won't have much by way of tactics. I think you are seriously overestimating girl power. If it even matters to this discussion at all?

Wrong. I can't possibly outrun people, yet I can clock a punch at speeds that make boxers flinch. They can twitch faster than I can-- one of the benefits of youth is faster neuroconductive speed-- but I can land the punch faster.

Heck, clocking the punch isn't even necessary. It doesn't matter how fast you throw a haymaker, you've all but given the guy written notice the punch is coming. Punches are fast because the technique is fast, not because the guy's nerves work faster. Just watch any boxing match-- jabs are faster than an uppercut. Someone who throws a lot of jabs is going to seem blindingly fast, especially if all you know how to throw is that slow haymaker.

Wrong again. A pianist who spends every day jogging will not be able to play music at the same tempo as one who spends every day practicing. Compare two of them, and see which will be able to play Fur Elise as the fastest tempo. Skill grants speed, and not the other way around.

See, if I followed your logic, quicker people would be better at electronics. Someone who jogs a lot could fix a car, program a computer, and build model airplanes faster than someone with a technical degree. Skill is what makes people do those jobs quickly. You've just got to realize that martial arts is a skill, like all the others.

That has more to do with the unrealistically slow RoF of firearms in SR. In the real world, Joe Normal can squeeze off an easy 10 rounds or more from a SA firearm in 3 seconds.

Only if the opposition is truly stupid. You gave an overly-broken example of someone with 36 dice to throw around; against that, large numbers of weak opposition are going to get mowed down anyways. That's perfectly realistic, especially with weapons like the monowhip-- said troll wouldn't even need to aim, he just needs to keep the weapon spinning over his head.

Against a more normal protagonist, large numbers of opposition can be fatal. Friends in Melee is just one part of it-- several of them could also be using Herding, Zoning, and Disorient to further penalize the PC. Clever team tactics can add up real fast.

Don't think of it as getting to roll his skill-- think of it as a chance to avoid getting hurt. Now, what bugs me about all this is that there's no possibility of both people getting hurt. I've been toying with a few methods, but nothing seems to work properly. However, if both sides stood a chance of getting hurt-- as opposed to just one, under standard rules-- that should silence your objections.

As I said: Common misconception of terms like "faster", "speed", "quickness", "reaction", "initiative".
The problem is: Whenever you refer to things like "faster" or "speed", the usual context is physical quickness. Physical quickness is not altered with wired reflexes or similar implants. Neither in SR nor in the real world would an increase of the "speed" of neurosignals in your body increase your physical "speed". The overall time for performing certain action would of course become shorter, since the processing part to, within and from the brain becomes "faster", but noone here actually doubted that.

Again the same misconceptions. You're both talking about different aspects of "speed". None of them relate to physical quickness.

That's the point that I already tried to clarify: That's not so much the result of actually being twice as fast as the slower twin, but a direct consequence of sequential simulation of a simultanious instances.
I'll try to give a simpe example for that one as well:
Let's assume those twins are boxers and they both simply make a single jab against a target after seeing a light going from red to green. The reaction time involved here is: Seeing the light, processing and sending the command for extending the arm. The physical part is the time that it takes to actually extend the arm. Even an unboosted person with some training can perform the whole action within a time scale of 0.1 to 0.20 seconds. The last time I did research on that, the figures for the reaction part was about half of the overall time. The muscle extention time is pretty much fixed (although there are slight variantions between individuals), i.e. 0.05 to .1 seconds, depending on the individual.
Now your assumption is that things like wired make people twice to thrice as fast as normal people. Fine, you'r wired twin now reduces his reaction time by half => His jabs would now take 0.075 to 0.15 seconds. Obviously not twice as fast as the unboosted person.

Interestingly enough the unboosted twin will become equally blazing fast during his action. I'll come back to that later ...
The problem with your "simple math" here still is that RPGs in general have to accomplish somtehing that doesn't naturally occur: The have to use a combat sequence although real fights are a parallel thing.

Wrong and right at the same time: Just as you use "speed" for the overall time an action will take (reaction time + physical movement time), Cain uses "speed" in another relation than just physical quickness:
The better trained you become (especially with martial arts), the more trained reflexes you gain (actually wired reflexes is a mis-nomer, because their technical description has nothing to do with reflexes). Reflexes (regardless of being trained or being natural) are "faster" than concious reactions, simply because they require almost no processing by the brain. So yes, skill does give you "speed", since you don't have to think about what you're doing, which shortens the reaction time until physical movement starts. The physical movement itself will allways demand the same time however, regardless of trained reflex or conciuos decission to move.

As much as I like them, they are inaccurate to a certain extend (at least when looking at the technical description of certain implants). At least the novels have one advantage: While the author is still stuck to a sequential description of a combat scene, he's not stuck within a given time frame with time slots provided by a game mechanic called "initiative".

It's more the other way round. Speed is a direct manifestation of reaction, quickness, skill and a varying factor called initiative, which is more or less "coincidence" or "luck" ...

That's another very common error there: You are correct that reaction in SR is determined by (quick + int) / 2. However that's not a fixed equation, nor is it a really good representation of reaction within the model.
The problem is, that if that equation worked in both directions (to actually be an equation in mathematical terms), any increase of reaction would have an impact on quickness and / or intelligence.
Again a simple example from the SR-Implant list: Reaction enhancers. The replace part of your spine with superconductive material, thus speeding up your reaction time. But most definitely that change has no impact on your physical quickness or on how intelligent you are. So SR rightfully does not confer any increases on Intelligence or Quickness there.
So although reaction is calculated on basis of those two attributes, it's no direct equation (nor should be one).

As said before: Problem of sequential combat.
I'll pick up your example and will do the "simple math" you did before:
Inititaive 33 vs. 9 => 4 Initiative passes in that combat turn.
Each combat turn has 3 seconds => 0.75 seconds per initiative pass.

• Initiative pass 1: Two persons are acting => 0,375 seconds per complex action availible (the more combatants involved the smaller that time frame becomes and the "faster" each combatant becomes). With initiative 33 you as "Speedster" act first. You shoot, but for the sake of the example we'll just say you "miss". Your action just required a blazing 0.375 seconds Now it's my turn. I can instantly react to what you just did. I will return fire and quess what: It takes the very same 0.375 seconds to shoot at you. So my action is as blazing fast as your's just was, although I'm not boosted in any way. Of course I'll "miss" as well, because we both actually suck at shooting. This ends initiative pass 1.
  
  
  
• Pass 2: You're the only person who has actions left. So you now have the whole time frame of 0.75 seconds for your actions. You shoot again. By "miracle" now you need twice as long as you did during the first pass, although you're doing exactly the same as you did before. Did I miss the part where you took some sort of tranquillizer? End of pass 2.
  
  
  
• Pass 3: No changes in comparison to Pass 2
  
  
  
• Pass 4: No changes in comparison to Pass 2, End of combat turn
  
  

So my sole action during this whole combat, was just as blazing fast as your's. Doesn't make you actually "faster", now does it? You had just more control over you actions ...
Had you only had an initiative of 23, all actions would have been slower, even your's.

Actually I do ... Your tone however is not called for ...

And it's going to turn anyone involved in combat into a speed freak as well during their actions (see above and below)

Oh, I remember those times very well. The mechanic was equally bad when it came to time frames and blazing actions and wasn't good in terms of game balance.
And while I'm at it I'll show you why:
This time we'll have Char A have Initiative 28 (saves some needless repetitions) and Char B an initiative of 7 => 3 Initiative passes with 1 second each.
Back then each pass had 10 phases => Each combat phase is 0.1 seconds

• Char A starts out at 28 (two phases are simply dropped) and takes out a box of cigarettes (simple action) and a lighter (another simple action). He does that in 0.1 seconds. Char B looks in awe, but can't do anything. According to you (and most novel descriptions would go along the same line) Char A obviously "sees" all surroundings going slow motion or stand still. The rest of this pass nothing happens.
• 10 phases later (at 18 ) Char A first lights his cigarette (use object = single Action) and then puts away the cigarette box (another simple action). Char B still looks at this blurring "speed" of another 0.1 seconds for this action. Char A still "has the feeling" of perceiving all his surroundings in slow motion, while Char B still "sees" only a "blurr". For the rest of this pass nothing happens either ...
• 10 phases later (at 8 ) Char A says aloud "Catch" (free action), throws the lighter at Char B (simple action) and then pulls his keys from his pants (simple action).
  Now it's Char B's action (at 7). He stood still for over 2 seconds, giving Char A the impression of slow motion. But suddenly his arm comes up and he successfully catches the thrown lighter (simple action), since he can react to all actions that occured before his own, even if that means that his reaction time drops to almost 0 (in situations where people act in the same combat phase) ... and then he pulls his cigarettes out of his jacket. He instantly becomes as fast in his actions as Char A was during those previous 2 seconds. So now suddenly Char B sees the world without the blurr and Char A suddenly faces a person who goes equally fast has he himself does, since Char B's action of catching the lighter and getting his cigarette "ready" also takes only 0.1 seconds. So from Char A's POV Char B stood still and then virtually exploded into action, while Char A went from "blurr" to identdical movement in a blink of an eye for Char B

Sorry, neither the perceptions nor the calculated time frames really leave the impression that Char A was thrice as fast as Char B

The next thing that you mustn't forget: All actions in SR are more or less considered to be concious. The more complex an action becomes the less impact has pure reaction time. That's why there are no rules on actual auto fire and also why the weapons in SR have non-realistic ROFs: The system doesn't include rulse for simply spraying lead around. Even what's called "full-auto"-burst ist still a concious, controlled and timed action. Thus a "speedster" cannot actually spray more bullets than a "slowbee", he can just spray a greater number of controlled bullets per time.

I absolutely agree with just about everything you said in your message, but I would like to point out that keeping the trigger depressed for several seconds on a fully automatic firearm can still be a concious, controlled and timed action.

Generally speaking, you're absolutely right, but that would require a different type of action modelling for SR. The current system uses actions that have a determined outcome (spraying 10 bullets) with a time requirement that is based on the number of actions a character has within a given time frame (leading to those strange effects where a bursts can have different time requirements over the course of one combat round). And at least direct combat related actions begin and end in just one combat phase (Less combat oriented actions will require a number of combat turns determined by the number of scored successes in the test). In order to model real full-auto you'd need actions that last longer than just one combat phase (like movement) which measure their outcome not by only skill but also with the time that was spent on those actions, but independantly from the number of successes during the skill test.

That would be extremely hard to implement ...

Usually it causes less problems than movement in combat. In some cases, like the Init-6 Goon firing FA at the Init-31 Samurai you have to keep in mind changing TNs and such, but generally speaking it's pretty trouble-free. You just roll an attack in the phase where the firing character would act if he acted on that pass. You get off easier if you don't think about it too hard (like trying to classify it as some sort of actions...). I haven't run into actual complications yet, and it's been tested quite often.