Don't forget that pirated software means monthly upkeep. And depending on your style of play, it can become even more expensive than the legitimate thing.

Yes, but even if you count 1 run = 1 month it still takes a very long time. And if you survive long enough in the shadows and don't mess up your runs, you should rise in reputation and get more difficult jobs with better payment. In the long term you will pay more, but be able to afford it.

And why would it be unavailable? You can get the skills, I am sure, to do so. If nothing else, it would be a Simsense Production Skill (Professional Skill). Just because you are having a hard time seeing the ability to record, massage and produce a finished product does not mean that it cannot be done, using the rules in the game. So it is possibly a Specialized application of Software (if you demand an Active Skill), A computer roll with Specialized hardware and software (What I would use), or maybe even Artisan (There's a thought). Whatever works.

After all, you can "Record" music with a simple edit and computer roll. Seems pretty straightforward to me that you could use the same skills (Edit + Computer) to do Simsense. Not really all that difficult. And honestly, If I had that as a Concept (assuming the GM did not mind going that way), a Recording Studio is not that expensive (Or even a facility if you demand such things), after all, any and all concepts are equally viable dependant upon the game you want to run. Just as a Rockerboy is a viable character, so is a Simsense Producer or Director... There is enough fluff described that the mechanics can be adequately modeled in the game (And Mechanics can be gleaned from Shadowbeat if no where else). Maybe we will get more on this when Attitude comes out.

While I can agree with this from a fluff and common sense perspective...



I think its wholly within the realm of feasability, in the dystopian world of shadowrun, to find a metahuman who is so incredibly well-adapted to a cybernetic lifestyle, the greater fusion of man and machine, that they're better ON the chip than OFF it. A good example from fiction would be the Ghost in the Shell Major.

In practice, allowing an 'activesoft' specialization for your own skills would be insanely broken, because its basically a free +2 to everything you do, and thats not something Specializations do.
A good middle ground is allowing regular specializations to apply to skillwired skill.
In the end, if you paid for it, you should claim the benefit.

For all the naysayers, who's arguement is basically 'herp derp, computer recording replaces a skill, end of line', i'd like to point to Unwired's section on skillware, which clarifies how it works a little bit.
As it turns out, running skillsofts doesn't replace your own knowledge. Its actually added to it, integrated INTO it in your short term memory, so that when you try to use the skill in the moment, the information you need is simply always on hand(and relevant parts are parsed by the program). Activesofts combine this with a sort of neuromuscular override, which provides the movement half of the equation.
The point being, a functioning skillware doesn't replace anything, it adds to whats already there. They just never actually learn the skill because the programming deliberately uses short-term memory only - long term never comes into the picture at all, no retention, and monthly fees for the corps.
In contrast to this, there's the DIMAP option, which is specifically programmed to become a real skill over time, explicitly calling out a greater integration of the users skills with the software into a greater whole. (Its game effect allows edge use; more realisticly it should operate as a Tutorsoft as well.)


Basically this, except in reverse. The skillwiree themselves have habits that are enhanced by the superior technique of the soft, but not completely overwriting their own training.

Possession means that you are using the spirit's skills, not the character's (barring Channelling etc). It's not just attributes, it's spirit skills as well.

So you DO have a skill granted by an external source. Would the spirit's skills, being used while possessing a character, receive the benefit of a spec that is known by the character?


From this, it sounds like the skillwire does replace something - the movement half of the equation. It doesn't matter a bit if you know the best way to do something, if your movement half is overridden, there's not much for you to do, is there? It's the skillwire that's controlling the movement that is the one doing the work. Unless you're saying the skillwire is able to take what you know, add what it knows, then translate that into the movement impulse?

Given that skillwires are pure magic (not Magic), they could literally do whatever they want. If they wanted, they could add to your existing skills, work with 'meat' specializations, whatever. Don't forget that skillwires apparently work with 100% mental activities (hacking, etc.). Delving into the 'science' is (as always) no use here. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to decide the rules *tell* you to use specializations with your activesofts, whether or not it's an optimal munchkin strategy.

Well, basically, there's a difference between a Knowsoft and an Activesoft.
That is to say, one lets you know stuff, the other requres hardware support to expand the bridge(its already there, but doesn't reach your motor coordination) because it involves doing things instead.
So, its the same thing, only more so.
An activesoft doesn't FORCE you to act a certain way, like you're implying (Actually, I think the Limitation option would work to restrict its use). If you have a Hardware activesoft, you're still fully consciously able to apply your newfound knowledge on any test the Hardware skill lets you make.
So, to answer your last sentence.... Yes, yes I am.


On the possession front, other implications of Spirit Stat Replacements: What happens to adept power during possession. With channeling? Without?

Ahem, if you think that the skillsofts add to your own abilities and not replace them, please explain the following: my character has a R2 skill, and he plugs a R4 activesoft in his skillwires. His resultant skill rating is 4, not 6. How is this not overriding existing skills, but adding to them?

I suggest you read the rules before offering your insights.
I believe it's quite clear where the quirks come from, and I still can't see how can they crop up if activesofts are a sum average of a hundred skilled pros recorded.

I really don't get what the fuzz is about. A Skillsoft replaces your normal skill (or lack thereof) with a recorded skill. Therefore you lose access to whatever specializations you'd tacked onto your normal skill.

As for the whole "coding you own": you can't just program experience, you have to have the experience to begin with. Maybe you could use a single experienced "author" to record into a program, but I'd say it would be easier when you use more "authors" - easier to filter the generic skill from the particular person's behavior. It could be done as a PC, but it'd be so ridiculously time and resource intensive that it goes beyond the bounds of what is interesting to provide rules for. It's more something for ShadowSit: the Office Career.

What you're doing is confusing is fluff and background justification for how things work, with hard, read-as-written rules.

Instead of using your Skill at rating 2, you use it at the Program rating of 4.
Your characters capabilities are being directly added to by the program being inserted into his brains short term memory. Enhanced by about two dice more than they were, i believe.



....yes, and what i'm saying is that, in a similiar but not exact manner, the End-user(not the recorded one) can also bias the operation of a skillsoft with their OWN unique flair.

Because, when you actually bother to check the rules, Specializations of your own apply to skills you're using with skillwires.
The people in this thread saying it DOESN'T work are, more or less going 'Baww, it doesn't make sense to me, therefore it doesn't work that way', and arguing their view with fluff and background, because the rules don't support how they want it to work. Instead of, you know, bothering to look beyond the core book's half a paragraph on 'how it works' to back up their views.

Honestly, the quirks are probably encouraged due to marketing(cook exactly like rachel ray!) and copywright laws.

You don't receive two dice to your two. You receive four, replacing your two. Slotting a R4 skillsoft gives you a R4 skill whether you had 0 ranks in that skill to begin with, 2 or 6. Your skill is replaced. You are not using it any more. It is gone, along with the specializations.
More than just that, skillsofts are not "inserted into the short-term memory". They override muscle memory, and use ASIST to manipulate the cerebellum and cerebral motor cortex to believe it's normal.

How, minding the way skillwires work, you suppose the user can add his own peculiarities to the skill, when it's explicitly stated that his skills are overridden, I can't begin to figure.

I'm yet to see that in the rules. Whatever skills you have are overridden - it's stated explicitly.


Oh of course, ad hominem arguments are just the perfect way to prove you're right. Way to go.
Where are the rules you talk so much about?

Actually, its anything but explicit.

I quoted the relevant rules above. But, since you asked so nicely, i'll do it again. Sometimes you have to actually dig out the book and look at all the relevant things as a whole.




So you can have both the skill and the skillsoft at the same time, got it. Only the rating changes.
Note: This is a Swap - there's no overwriting, replacement, or loss of karma you spent on a skill. Since you MAY use the skillsoft, you may ALSO use your own skill if you want. It doesn't force you to to use the skillsoft rating. The skill and the skillsoft coexist at the same time(its a hard concept to grasp, i know!), and you can change one for the other if you so desire.
This, right here, is the crux of the arguement: The rules show you can have both at once, while fatum's entire arguement is based around them being mutually exclusive, and overwriting/replacing things. Theyre not.







The rules are not mutually incompatable. Specs add to the Test, which is an important distinction from adding to skill: It means that all the requirements to use it are met.

And thats a backwards loop for all the relevant specializaion rules. Each section points at each other.

Now, I can agree with you from a sense-making perspective, in that what i'm proposing probably shouldn't work in a game system.
Buuut... seriously? Fantasy game? Common sense doesn't really have any place here.

No, you don't lose it - thats the point. The skillware section says you don't have to use it, AND tells you what happens if you and the wire have the same thing.

this entire arguement is, basically, several people(mostly on the first page, like medicine man) realizing the implications of what happens if it DOESN'T replace anything, and everyone else freaking out about it for various reasons, and not being on the same page ruleswise.

Speaking of which.



Your turn. Find your rules, quote your sources. Burden of proof's on you, now.

Oh, god. Not that 'it's just fantasy, anything goes' crap. There's always internal coherence. It *is* possible that skillwires are supposed to (in-setting) work with specializations, because skillwires are magic, but that's not the same thing as "it's impossible that they don't". And we can't rely on the RAW to resolve that question, for obvious reasons.

Anyway, do what you want in your game (as always). I guess if you're playing Missions, there could be an official ruling.

Its not 'just fantasy crap', its 'back up your opinion with the rules'.

Sometimes, sometimes(okay, most of the times) Fluff and Crunch don't match up in the rules, and you have people on both sides of the fence vehemently defending How Its -Supposed- to work and How It -Does- work. Both are right, but the dice only agree with one of them.

Where I get annoyed is where people pass of their own opinions as the rules, without bothering to check them first. Or at all, really. Its been a big problem in my game, where half the players are seasoned vets who still mix up SR3 and 4, and new players who only know 4, and go 'wait, thats not how it works' every once in a while.

Frankly, SR4 is one of the most internally incoherent systems i've seen in recent years. Just because the authors can't keep the whole thing straight doesn't mean you have an excuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater: Some, most sections are fine as they are.

I'm only addressing the one aspect. The RAW allows this, but that doesn't tell us anything; it could be a stupid loophole, or it could be intentional. Conceptually, there's no good reason to allow it, especially because real skill + wires-skill doesn't stack, add, or anything like that. That's the internal coherence. If specs are allowed, then activesofts should be some kind of boost (perhaps along the lines of sensor software, which adds hits as a DP bonus, though the weird medkit skill rules also exist, and we do want activesofts to be a lot stronger than AR bonuses).

My emphasis.

In place of.

The skillsoft replaces the skill in question. Yes, you can opt to not use the skillsoft; that consists of telling the skillsoft to stop running. Yes, you still have the skill. No one's arguing you lose the skill (straw man). But as long as you choose to use the skillsoft, you cannot use your skill. You cannot use both. One or the other. Not both.

Your specialization is tied to your skill. If you're not using your skill, you're not using the specialization.

Now, I can see a skill specialization being a program option for skill softs: record the skills of someone who's specialized in the skill in question, perhaps. Or maybe have a dedicated skillsoft that's only good for, say, Heavy Pistols (and not all pistols). Etc.

Basically a skillsoft is a database of skill performance snippets that get spliced together into apropriate actions / memories by a program and then "played back" on your skillwires (or in your head, for knowsoft / lingasoft). That's actually a pretty common design pattern for real world software, and something a person (or team of persons) with cybertech, simsense, and programming skills should realistically be able to do. They might need some special software (development environment / editing suite) and hardware (specialized simsense recording gear) to do it, but its not the sort of "complex voodoo" that needs to be relegated to NPC hand waving. (For that matter, neither is voodoo- the rules cover voodoo very clearly!)
Or at least, that's the pitch I made to FASA along with my contribution to the Simsense section in CC. Unlike the skillsoft programming options, it didn't make the cut for publication, but it was the basis for having such options in the first place. If you look at the simsense / skillwires section from Cannon Companion, the implication is pretty clear that Skillwires ARE programmed more or less like other software, and this has carried over into more recent books as well.



Probably because skills are hard capped (at 6, or maybe 9 if you use adept powers to raise them). If you had a skill (say "Pistols") at 5 or 6, and a specialization added to that skill, you would typically be unable to have a specialization in that skill, because if would make your skill exceed the cap. You could make an exception to the cap for specialized skills, but that is no simpler than making the exception that specializations don't add to skills provided by skillsofts (which to me, seems obvious even if unstated).

On thing I pitched to CatLab fairly recently was a set of optional upgrades to Muscle Replacment. The idea is that Muscle Replacement, since it actually replaces muscles (and chews up a huge amount of essence) can be configured using forms / materials not seen in natural muscles, offering new benefits. One possible benefit was that, for each leve of muscle replacementl, you could have a single Specialization (in a skill linked to strength or agility) that applied when using the appropriate skillsoft. The price was pretty low, and there was no additional essence cost (the option goes into the Muscle Replacements "option capacity"). I think that's a fairly balanced way to use a specialization along with skillwires. The actual rules were a bit ore complex / flexible, but that is one possible implementation; others would cost mush less essence, but dropped some of the normal benefits of muscle replacement (eg, the stat boosts) and only provided the benefits of the options (in this case, a specialization for a skillsoft).

That's fine, Mongoose, but it's not in the books. In the books, they're *not* programmed like any other software, and can't be. House rules are always fine.

I could reply to your strawman argument, Udoshi, but Eratosthenes has said everything that needed to be said.
You can try to use whatever else fallacy you haven't yet used to prove your point, but the rules are quite clear, and I don't believe you're proving the point both unreasonable and contradicting the RAW as well as the RAI.

If one had a special skill, say, Activesoft Editing, and some special and expensive software, I'd be fine with allowing a PC to make some crude hacks or edits to a given skillsoft. For example, sabotage a throwing-weapon activesoft to pull the pin on a grenade and drop it at the thrower's feet. It would be time-consuming, and you'd need to hit a pretty serious threshold to make it.

Think about it like CGI back around 1990 : individuals could make crude-looking images, but it took a legion of animators to make something really look realistic.

An individual could probably create an Activesoft that would point a gun and shoot it with jerky, uneven motions; but having the gun track a target as seen by the eyes, compensating for wind, movement, range, would be next to impossible without tons of R&D.

It's sorta like having the PC's design and build a car. Sure, its possible if you go a bit outside the rules, but it would take much more time than would be practical for a shadowrunning team.