I am not sure where you are getting this idea from, but you CANNOT just casually thread a Skillsoft as you indicate... You must first have a copy of said skillsoft so that you may use Threading to Emulate the Skill, and it will be capped at the rating of the Skillsoft you are emulating... additionally, YOU MUST HAVE At least one Submersion to be able to actually do this (KArma required out of Chargen)... you need the Biowires Echo for this at all... And to make it actually useful, you will need at least 3-4 Submersions to allow you the use of Higher Rating Skillsofts... Even MORE Karma...

And you cannot Thread "Up" an emulated Skillsoft... it is restricted to its base rating when you emulate it... And lets not forget, Emulatiopn is a Thread... which imposes a +2 DP penalty to everything not DIRECTLY applicable to that Emulated Skillsoft... Emulating a Stealth Skillsoft? ANYTHING ELSE YOU DO will be at a penalty... Yes, further Submersions will minimize some of these issues, but that just means EVEN MORE Karma...

Technomancers are not an "I WIN" Button...

As far as why you need to be 150% optimized, I think its more to do with the title of this thread and a practical gaming example.

Also: TM's and Hackers are annoying due to overly complex rules. I find them frustrating.

I do not think that the tendency to remark that a character is "nerfing himself because he is not maximized to its fullest potential" has ANYTHING to do with the title of this thread... Just sayin'... There becomes a point where further optimization, though possible, becomes rather useless... If you can always accompliush a task with 16 Dice, why would you ever want to get 24 Dice? You are not any better for it, and you have just wasted resources that could have been better applied elsewhere...

And, Once the rules become second nature, they cease to be overly complex... But maybe that is just me, as I have a knack for remembering most things that I read...

Do you understand what the nature of a discussion about rules is? Yeah, evaluating your character is not strictly on topic either. Just like your personal character, your group's playstyle, or whether you like your hacker with their 300 Karma or not is. Just sayin'. You bring that up despite nobody really caring about it, and then you complain when someone says that character is nerfed in a discussion about optimisedx builds? That's childish. Just sayin' and such.


Oh noes, the mancer needs something that costs 50 Nuyen! And investing some Karma in an immersion(s) certainly beats investing some 200 Karma in skills. Just, you know, sayin'.


You can thread as an itnerrupt, so you drop the threaded CF, thread whatever you need, the use it, drop, ect. Since there is no game mechanic covering this, nothing says your stealth roll is immediatly invalidated when you drop the skillsoft CF.


If you buy CFs and skills, too, then yes. The point here is a model that replaces these by reactive threading.


I do think a GM will and should put their foot down on an illegal-at-chargen item that gives a PC 5 IP (oh, and you also need the simsense booster, otherwiswe it's just 4 IP).

You should REALLY read the rules...


Quintessence: The rules don't say when it's possible, so it's always possible


Quintessence: The rules don't say when it's possible, so it's only possible when it happens to suit my plan.


As usual, you are mixing and matching rule interpretations to get the worst possible outcome, just to be able to complain about bad rules. That kind of discussion is pointless, it's like somebody who limits his social contacts to two or three people who he knows hate his guts, just so that he can complain about the world hating him. Here, have some black dye and eyeliner.

As Sengir indicated, you really need to read the rules... MINIMUM Cost for a Cracked Skillsoft (Rating 1) is going to be 1000 Nyuen (10% of 10,000 Nuyen), which will only ever operate at RATING 1 (You cannot use a Skillsoft at a greater Rating than it provides)... And lets not forget, you do not just roll your threading test and choose your own effect... When you Emulate Skillsofts, you have a threshold equal to all ratings on the skillsoft, PLUS any options applied to the skillsoft... A Rating 4 Skillsoft with two non-rated options will set a Threshold of 6 after all, Not exactly a walk in the park...



Game Mechanics do not need to cover this. Use of skills is common sense... The second you drop the threaded Skillsoft, you are no longer using said skill (The example for Stealth: YOU ARE NO LONGER BEING STEALTHY)... Extended SKills are just that... Extended... anything else you attempt to do while using said extended skill results in a penalty to the Technomancer... Sorry, arguing that you can reactively drop it to make a different skill check and then "Reactivate" your extended skill, without penalties, is just ludicrous...

As for comments on in-game experience, it is an example that refutes everything that you are trying to say here... In game experience indicates that Technomancers are not the powerhouse that you are complaining about. Anecdotal, Yes... Irrelevant, Absolutely not...

Quntessence: In SR4, if it's not forbidden, it'S legal, so yes, that's a way nobody can argue is illegal (retarded? sure. annoying? of course. But thank the person who wrote these rules).


You aren't familiar with Unwired's rules for pirated software, then? But yes, it was hyperbole, the pedantic version is 50 to 5000.


Given your love of Vampire as PC, that's more your cup of tea, and sharing makeup isn't very hygienic.

I'm staying out of this discussion, but if you guys want to make any headway in your discussion, you -really- need to start providing page quotes to support your arguement.

So threading doesn't take an action? Prove it!

Actually it's very painfully obvious that you aren't, as said a few posts ago rating 1 pirated skillsofts costs 1000 and will only give you a skill of 1.

So can anybody post up a Optimized 400 BP technomancer? I've tried to build one here, but Im sure I missed a few points.

Implants lower Essence and therefore Resonance. Get rid of the hand or suffer a reduction to Resonance 4, reducing your complex forms. I would replace Codeslinger with Perceptive 2.

I have few problems with the Infected, because just like I don't apply yout approach as decribed obove to the matrix or social interactios I don't apply it to alternate character concepts. Chaste emo vampires are only for somebody who desperaty needs to make ip something he can cry about, so no makeup for me, thanks.

Oh, if hermit posts one, this is going to be fun really soon...

@hermit: just to be sure:
Your TM has no skills, because he has 5k for every skillsoft he needs (which degrade btw), seems not very practical to me...

Dropping Stealth while hacking is really bad:
As exploiting is a extended test, if you drop your stealth in between you will be easier to catch.

cya
Tycho

The booster is avail 8. Sure it costs a bunch of cash, but compared to the costs of being a TM, it's chump change.

And, as a GM, you have to basically crap on the rules to prevent someone from buying an unrestricted item through legal channels instantly at game start. A high lifestyle with beefed up starting cash will see to your funds. Then, you just plug it into your comm.

But, hey, if you want to ignore the rules, then yeah, Hackers suck and TMs are the boss forever.

Availability and Nuyen won't stop any decent hacker, even if you don't allow it at chargen. With Hardware they can easily build anything they want at a 50% price reduction and no availability issues, and with pirated software they can easily pirate any software under R6 at 90% off and no availability issues. A hacker can easily get everything they'd ever want except cyberware just by building or pirating it and the only thing stopping them from building all the cyberware they need is that there's no specific rules laying out the interval period.

Yes. He could also spoof himself an account with these on-demand Horizon skillsoft flatrate services, but that's a bit of a stretch at Chargen.


You can buy them at different ratings. I assumed the maximum price.

Yes there is: the GM. One, they need to get a design plan, or have some way of designing said hardware. Two, there may be specific parts required (e.g. a chipset) they need for the device, which has the same Availability as the item required.

Q.V. pg. 78 of Arsenal. Most of those rules would apply equally well to hardware.

they probably have the Limitation program option. but cracking the code isn't too time consuming

On the note of maintaining the Stealth CF, whats to stop the techno from calling up a sprite (w/ stealth ofc) and using it to maintain his Stealth CF while he runs around doing the other CF threading. I agree that you cant drop a CF and expect its effect to continue. Also is there any way for a techno to gain that many Ips?

Yes and no. Per my undertstanding (AFB):
#1 The design plan is simple. Any hacker can easily get Cerebral Enhancements to have a decent logic score, his ware applies to Knowledge tests (since they're logic linked skills) and he can pirate any Knowsoft he needs for cheap. Besides the fact that, since he has his own commlink, he already has a basic blueprint for the thing he wants to build.
#2 The quote from arsenal does not apply to hardware, although it could. Even then though, there's not really a good reason he can't just cook up the special chip he needs in his shop, it's all basically just optical chips. So the GM can limit a hacker this way, and should for R7 and above, but for R6 and equivalent systems he basically has to "finesse" both RAW and logic.

This assumes that 'basically just optical chips' are something you can cook up; maybe, maybe not. The basic rule, AFAIK, is that the best you can get for building yourself is 50% cost, same avail. Assembly, not fabrication.

#1 makes assumptions that you just need to be really smart to duplicate the efforts of the megacorporation R&D centers, staffed by equally smart researchers, technicians, and developers, and can design your own novahot processor. That is, of course, assuming the character is attempting to design their own hardware. If all they're trying to do is obtain a legitimate AR plan or design specs, well, how easily obtained are those specs? That'd be the Availability score.

#2 Why would it not apply to hardware? Sure, any hardware may be a conglomeration of optical chips. But then any chemical compound is an amalgamation of base elements, formed into molecules. Does the character have the facilities needed to turn Radio Shack parts into novahot hardware? No. High-end hardware would be custom designed, with custom firmware/hardware/software/chemical compositions that enable it to be better than any simple kludge.

Now, many of the parts will just be basic components, but some parts will be those key parts that would require a high-end facility to fabricate. Just obtaining the key components would suffice, then. And how does one obtain them? Availability rules.

...I'd change the metatype to dwarf which costs 5 less BP and adds to Strength (+2), Body (+1), and Willpower (+1).
This will give him a 4 BOD (nice to have when the lead starts flying) and 4 WP (important for shaking down spell effects) The 10 BPs saved from Strength could go to Intuition (Response). Drop the Analytical Mind quality and add the 5 BPs saved on the metatype to take Natural Hardening.

Yeah, CHA drops to 5, but with Natural Hardening his biofeedback filter is 6

...and yes, ditch the Cyberhand/Genetech. Resonance is just too important (which is why I never play TMs as I like having a bit of speed in the meat world)

This is exactly what Fastjack has done and is famous for, although most of the really good hackers/deckers design their own custom programs and hardware to compete with the megas. Regardless, the max knowledge threshold I can recall from the book is 4 for obscure knowledge and with a 5 knowsoft and +6 from ware you'll be rolling that before including Logic, which is easy to boost with Cerebral Enhancement and makes a ton of sense for a hacker w/ cyberware because it has great synergy w/ the rest of his ware. And that's presuming nobody has ever snatched any of these designs and posted them anywhere on the Matrix, making them one extended browse away. Besides the fact that he has a high-end commlink already that he can disassemble, examine, and reassemble.


Why would it apply to hardware? We've gone passed comparing apples to oranges to comparing guns to computers. Worse, we've gone to a world where everything, even the guns, is a computer. There are advanced computer parts in the toaster. Unless there is some absolutely unique part that only appears in high end commlinks and appears in no other computerized device anywhere in the world and the effect cannot be duplicated by any other means, then the parts should be easily available.


We had the availability rules break down fairly quickly. There's lots of obvious reasons why you would want a high end device with a Signal of 1 or 0 and a Persona limit of 1 for Nexi. As near as I've been able to find, there's no availability for such customized devices.

But going back to the original point from Saint Sithney, yes, the GM can bar you from legally purchasing it in character creation and yes, the GM can strongly demand availability rolls. You must have pissed your GM off, or he's worried about a balance issue arising, but then you just shift your focus away from high end commlinks to low end commlinks for tricks and high end Nexi for processing power. Your Matrix power will still increase but instead of increasing at regular intervals it will massively increase occasionally throughout gameplay. Assuming, of course, that you don't either talk to him about his concerns or just purchase a Black Market pipeline.

You can set your Signal to anything, within the ranges. A nexus, by definition, has a Persona limit > 1, although I can't imagine any reason that would matter anyway. Not very convincing examples, heh. Besides, a commlink is essentially a Response chip, a Signal antenna, a System program, and a Firewall program. You buy the parts (50% discount being the best case), and assemble them. Rating 7+ is military… steal it from them.

So, you mean the Sprite uses its Stealth program on the TM's icon like one might do to hide a file?
I suppose that would work within a node, but not for hacking into a node. So, once inside, the TM could compile a sprite to hold his Stealth up while he gets to some other business. Honestly though, it would have to be a high-level Sprite to match the TMs unthreaded Stealth, and pulling up a R7-12 Sprite mid-hack is dicey.

As to 5 IPs, the TM would need to Submerge twice and concentrate on that facet alone. For the hacker, it's a starting investment.

Not necessarily. TM's can benefit from a simsense booster cyberware just like hackers, and start with 4. Its not a bad option if you want a point of ware(plenty of goodies. eyes, control rigs, pushed), or so you can get other echoes instead.

A druggie-TM still can also get extra matrix passes from, say, jazz. +1 pass is +1 pass, whether its on the matrix or not.
I'm kind of amused at the idea of a stoner-geek that happens to be a TM, and hacks better while high.

Well, there's always Overdrive and Trance for +1 and +2 to logic-linked skills. Plenty of reason for a TM to dose those.

Don't recall those. Did I miss some awesome drugs in Arsenal?

Yep. Awakened drugs!

Threading is not a complex action?
I may just thread something and then use it, without any problems? In the same Pass?

Yep, pretty much.

You better get you GM high before succesting this to him.
No sane GM would allow you to get a fifth matrix pass, that normally requires very specialised hardware, from a simple combat drug.

Actually, No... Physical Pasases ONLY AFFECT THE PHYSICAL WORLD... You could use them in AR, to be sure, but you cannot use them in VR. The worlds are seperate...

Where does it specifically say that this is Physical only?

Seriously? Why can't we ever get past this kind of thing?
Before you go, 'mwa ha, it says *cold sim*!"…

That seems pretty clear to me.

curses! Y!

You Ninja

First off, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I like the idea of character's designing their own hardware and software. I am of the opinion, though, that you are making it trivial. Software programming has pretty decent threshold ratings for writing new code (and intervals). Why wouldn't they be similar for hardware? Those thresholds you mentioned are for knowledge like "Who made the first commlink?", not "What are the precise schematics for a Singularity Commlink?" I'd be all for a character using their knowledge skills (with an appropriately high threshold of, say, Rating^2 or something) with an appropriately long interval (weeks to months) to design one themselves...but not for them to just know it by plugging in a knowsoft.

And Fastjack's the end-all-be-all of hackers. Of course he can do it. I don't expect even he, however, can create a miltech commlink out of toaster parts. (MacGuyver-Jack, maybe...but FastJack?)



Of course there are unique parts that only appear in high end commlinks. That's why they're high end. I'll give you that if you take apart a rating 3 device, you could easily make a rating 3 commlink. But you're saying that you can take the chips from your smartlink, combine it with the device control from your microwave oven, and viola, you've got a rating 8 commlink? Seriously?

damn foiled before i could even finish the hijinx

oh, no, you're still capped at 4 passes, as thats the limit unless you have a very specific piece of ruling that overrides it (simsense accelerator, advanced overclocking).

What it IS useful for is getting more Physical initiative passes, especially if you plan on going Macro/Multiprocessing/Mesh reality. Jazz and cram will put you up to 4 VR and 3 Physical passes, with two complex actions per pass with that setup. Thats not shabby at ALL.
This distinction is important because Mesh Reality limits how you spend your actions, depening on how fast you are in either world.

Silly people. No, i wasn't suggesting you can go over 4 passes.

Okay, let me clarify. I can see where my original post might have made it seem trivial and that's not exactly what I mean. For you average script kiddie who ditches Logic programming will be nearly impossible and his hardware designing skills will be limited to very simple devices. The kind of dedicated hacker I'm referring to here has Encephelon, Neural Nanites, and PuSHeD and probably a decent Logic and Cerebral Enhancements (because once you have the hacking cyberware, why wouldn't you decide to just own every Logic skill?). Now I'm also pretty sure in Arsenal there are rules for a guy finding design specs on the Matrix (a Data Search as I recall). But yeah, Hackers with the proper cyberware should be able to absolutely dominate any Logic related test. For Hardware (AFB) the interval time is 1 day, the primary limitation is the threshold, which a cybered up Hacker can easily beat. I don't think the Knowledge check is as important as you think, you're looking at a character with silly dice who can find plans on the Matrix and has a copy of what he wants to build.


Okay, let me clarify again. I certainly don't think you could build a rating 8 commlink. However, I certainly think someone with a decent hardware skill could take the computer parts from the toaster, the TV, the microwave, and the cleaning drone, jury rig them to the home's central terminal, and get a rating 4-5 commlink (on the hardware side). Yes, it's probably going to look hideous and parts might occasionally catch on fire but it'll work. That's what I mean. And sure, you wouldn't carry it around with you but why wouldn't you just slave it and leave it under the floorboards anyway. And up until War!, Rating 5 was pretty darn good. 'Course you could have linked all those devices together and gotten comparable processing power. Why when you physically combine them wouldn't the Response and Signal increase?

I guess my main point is this. The primary limitation to building something is the threshold and the interval. With hardware, the interval is a day and the threshold isn't significant because hackers will, almost accidentally, dominate any Logic-linked skill test. So while, for various reasons, there may be other roadblocks, the primary limitation to building your own hardware simply isn't significant.

Now some of this is beside the point. On Saint Sithney's original point, these are some specific improvements to the commlink from Unwired and the thresholds and costs are clear and thresholds easily reachable by a hacker.

I *think* we actually agree on a few things, but we're talking about different things at different times. If they want to build an existing item (which I believe originally was a simsense booster or accelerator), they'd have to find the schematics for the device. I'd imagine the schematics would be difficult to find, as the IP is more valuable than the actual item, but I was arguing that the Availability to find one through normal legwork channels would be the same, at least, as the original item. Using data search, as you said, could also apply. I'm also AFB atm, so I don't know what the threshold for that would be (I do know that AR plans give a +4 to the threshold). You're right: for a good hacker, that should be easily obtainable. The GM could also just make it a mini-run/hack for them to obtain the schematics, if it's something particular they want.

If the player wanted to design their own hardware, for whatever reason, then I'd say the knowledge skills would come into play. And for that I'd say the test should be more like the Programming rules; i.e. long intervals and moderately high thresholds based on the rating of the hardware. In most cases, it'd be easier to just obtain the schematics (i.e. for most normal hardware), but for miltech, it might actually be easier (or perhaps more satisfying) to design your own. That's mostly up to the GM.



As all the main book commlinks have no Availability that I can see, I don't see any reason to think that the parts for them would not be readily available (as the commlinks themselves are readily available). The only limitation would be the schematics, or design, which we talked about above.

Originally I think this was about the Simsense booster/accelerator add-ons: one costs 65,000, and IIRC is 8R availability, while the latter is 15,000 and 14 Availability. I was arguing that these two pieces would need to have some sort of special hardware not found in common electronics (hence their price tags, and Availabilities) like a special chipset or whatnot, that would require an Availability test. 50% of 65,000 would be a LOT of toasters. Note that the Availability isn't all that daunting, even for a part-time face with 10 dice.

It's when you start talking about the even higher end electronics (rating 6+ commlinks) that it becomes important to enforce this, else any hacker with a decent logic-attribute and B/R skills will just build themselves a rating 10 commlink after his first run (or two, perhaps).

------
The real issue is controlling the influx of high-rating gear, really. And there's two places to do that: the building of it, or the design/schematics of it. If the GM doesn't mind players having high-rating hardware early on, then by all means, make it easy.

The 'design and build novahot gear' also remains problematic from a 'realism' standpoint, because you have to assume that these massively-powerful organizations have scads of identically-talented and identically-augmented (or better, in each case). Yes, FastJack is legend, but earlier I saw the argument that 'any hacker (with brain mods, etc.)' could do these things; that simply breaks the realism.

The problem is that what Fluff wise a 5, 6 or heaven forbid 7 skill represent in power-increase, is not represented with the flat dice pool increase.


a 4 logic, 4 skill guys has 8 dice. He's a freaking pro. Yet, with the right implants he can double his dicepool.
The +4 bonus from his skill is fairly meaningless compared to the other 12 dice hes' getting.

Additionally, having a 5 skill is fluff wise meaningful, but it's 1/3 of a hit increase, at best.

I don't disagree with anything you just said. I think that means we agree.

Having said that, I don't think the building part is a significant barrier. The designing may be, depending on you GM.

Edit for Y:
I think it's much better for hackers to go after pre-designed schematics. They've got to be out there on the Matrix and Data Search should take care of it. I think for designing something from scratch, GMs either need to ban it entirely on the basis of realism or find some way around the massive Logic dice pool a hacker should be throwing around. Because if you set any kind of reasonable threshold (not based on realism but compared to other thresholds) the hacker will chew it up with 20-ish dice.

Welcome to the future – a place where you rarely need worry about your stupidity or incompetence because we have technology to make up for it. This situation has been developing since the industrial revolution (or, arguably, even further back).


Actually, that's the very least positive assessment of a one-die increase. Other beneficial aspects include:

– If Edge is involved then that extra die is worth 2/5 of a hit through exploding potential or 2/3 of a hit through re-rolling and exploding potential.

– Glitch and critical glitch probabilities are reduced.

– The increase in probability of success is higher for the range of less-certain tests than those that are very easy or very difficult. For example, if a DP of 8 were increased to 9 then the probability of meeting a threshold of 1 increases by 1%, for a threshold of 3 or 4 it increases by 9% and for a threshold of 6 it increases by 2%*. So that 1/3 increase is concentrated on those tests you can feasibly accomplish (but easily might not) at the expense of those tests where success is almost certain or almost impossible. This (IMO at least) is in practice very preferrable to an even increase across the range of potential thresholds, not least because very easy tasks are often not even rolled-for and very difficult tasks are often not attempted at all.

Furthermore, a bonus increase in skill has advantages over bonus increases elsewhere. Gear can be lost/stolen/broken, tech can be hacked and magic can be undone (e.g. counterspelling, background count) but skills are nigh-untouchable.

You did mention the fluff aspect, but I suspect many GMs don't really use it. A high skill rating can and should have implications beyond dice rolls. E.g. you're driving a VIP on an uneventful journey – no tests are required but if you have a high skill rating the GM may determine that the VIP had a much more comfortable ride because of it and thus becomes impressed, friendlier, more generous with their tip, etc.

* Edge and glitches excluded from calculations for simplicity.

And don't forget the effect it has on Extended tests: it's a whole extra round of tests (since each test results in a cumulative -1 DP in SR4A).

Very interesting stuff on the statistics, by the by.

Thanks, and good spot on the extended test aspect. A one-die increase will grant a total dice bonus equal to the new DP, so for extended tests (of the diminishing variety) each die increase is more beneficial than the last. Assuming you need it, that is.

Could a TM use a registered sprite's Stability power while programming malware? Seems like a great way to abuse the hurry up rules for extended tests.

Yes. Check the stability power's targets. You can use it on people's icons, as well as nodes.