We all know that Cybereyes hold .5 essence of options at no further essence loss, but...

Say I buy a pair of replacement Cybereyes (.2 essence) and have them implanted with Low-light (.2), Thermo (.2), and Image Link (.2). The sum of the options is .6 essence.

There appears to be two ways I might interpret the rule in the book. It might be that only complete options fit inside, and I have to pick one of the options to be completely outside the eye. With this method I lose .2 + .2 essence.

It might be that I do simple arithmetic. The sum of the options is .6, and .5 of that is covered by the eye. Therefore my total loss is .2 + .1 essence.

Which way do you play? Is your way Canon?

Main description from the book. SR3.299 "Cybereyes":
Cybereyes will accept additional vision enhancements of up to .5 Essence Cost without further Essence loss.

The way i see it (and i'm going to run for cover after i say this), they can fit part of that last .2 essence option into the eye but have to let the other .1 dangle out into oyur ocular cavities, possibly in the back, between the cybereye and your skull.
Then again, it's been proven that i'm not as rigid as some of the posters on this site.

Well, at .6 Essence you're over the limit, so I'd advise going alphaware. I'd personally say if it's over.5, it costs you the extra essence.

Interesting -- I've never seen it be a problem before, but I've always gone with (.2 + .1 for spilling out of the eye) way myself.

-Siege

Likewise. I figure that the rules are pretty arbitrary, so they don't have to make a lot of sense

That and nowhere does it state that it is either all or nothing for the cybereye mods.

I use the simple arithmetic method. Whatever essense cost over the .5 you incur, you pay for in extra essence. Of course, you could say that the .5 is a sort of cybereye FCU, and that it represents a total amount of space that can be filled. Therefore, the image link in the above example could not be taken, but something like flare comp could. That's probably being a little anal, but would prevent a pair of cybereyes with cameras, low-light, thermo, flare comp, MS vision, lasers, a datajack and a toaster in them.

As long as you pay the essence cost for the toaster, why couldn't you cram it in someplace?

My thinking is, that .5 was the default essence for some default, off-the-shelf cybereyes. You can get SOTA toaster models, but they're gonna cost you more chedda and more essence.

Plus you have to consider if you want a 2-slice model or 4. I've even heard that Sader-Krupp is researching deltatoasters with orichalcum heating elements, but no new info has come to light

Oh, i see. That's... that's hysterical.

If a modification takes it over the 0.5 "free" limit, you incur the full cost of the modification. Check out the example of the covert ops specialist on pg. 61 of the main book. She has Low-Light, Thermographic, Retinal Duplication, and Flare Compensation, giving her 0.48 Essense worth of modifications, which are free. Then they say that the Camera modification costs 0.32 Essense. Note - not 0.30 Essense (3.2 minus the 0.02 of free Essense remaining), but 0.32. So by canon, modifications only count towards the "free" Essense space of cyberears and cybereyes if you can fit the entire Essense cost of the modification in.

Well, you could just get alphaware add-ons for the eyes. That would get you an extra .1 Essence.

OK, I admit its a quick fix and not a solution but it solves the example problem.

Very good, Glyph. I noticed that last night and decided to take a poll to see if anyone played it that way. I think the polling was about 22 to 2 before your post. All 5 votes since them have been the book's way.

No, torturi is the Archangel of Rules-Fu.

I'm the Archangle of Rules-Fu.

I'm very acute.

Add up and subtract .5 essence.

Check out p.44 MM for eye mod limits. Basically you get max 1.2 essence of mods installed per pair of eyes, and only one accessory per eye may be an opticam, laser, or weapon system.

[edit]I really should have more coffee when I wake up and before I start arguing - ignore me[/edit]

Which version of the main book is that math from, about the covert ops specialist. There is some FAQ regarding how exactly this is handled, and Im wondering if its the current printing that is done that way. Because Ive always seen it done as the net cost - .5 = applied cost. It could be that the correct template is in fact done this way. Or not, but thats what Im posting to find out.

It's on Page 61 of SR3.

I'd forgotten those too until I had a player who wanted to cram almost everything into his eyes.

The White Dwarf, I just checked the FAQ and don't find this issue addressed.

Perhaps the FAQ entry you are thinking of is about Alphaware options in an Alphaware eye: do you count the original option Essence amount or the reduced option essence amount when determining what fits inside the .5 limit? At one point the FAQ stated you use the original option essence amount, but the FAQ has been revised to match what the book describes for the Covert Ops Specialist on p. 61. You count the reduced option essence amount when determining what fits within the .5 limit.

Something else I've been thinking of doing in my games...

If you read a lot of cyberpunk books, and even the old runs (Crimson Mary I think it is, from Dragon Hunt), some cyber eyes are really in a class of their own, and thats reflected in the price. I've been thinking of making certain cyber eyes which cost significantly more than standard (like quadruple the price), but come with certain features essence free, for instance level 2 mag, flare comp., "basic" stuff every simsense star would need. Maybe this would be a good place to introduce them, so those cyber eyes that are so expensive, they're removed from the star's body as soon as her contract expires.

The archtypes are notoriously illegal charachters though. Personally I would never even try to look up something like this. Why go out of your way to stick it to the player over a measly 0.1 eyeware essence?

We are talking about an amount of essence that can mean life or death for a Samurai...

personaly i have allways read it like all or nothing ie if its .0000001 over then you take it all as essence loss...

but as it allways seems lately, when i go back and look at the rules i see that i may be wrong as i missed the small print about addons increasing the cost of the basic eye rather then haveing a independent cost so now im kinda split.

damn, seems like i glossed over the rules when sr3 was new, didnt spot the small changes and so on and now is paying the price...

Thanks OurTeam. Even with the example character example (haha) Id still just add it up and -.5, and have them pay the net. It is the most intuitive, the most logical, and what the vast population of the player based interpreted as the rule when reading the same description. So 1 essence of mods, becomes .8 when alphawared, becomes .3 after the free space, for example.

Did i not read somewhere that you adjust the amount of space you get free if the eye is alpha or better?

ie. alpha eyes only get .4 free, beta .3

I tend to keep things easy... for most characters I have with Cybereyes I go Thermo (.2) Low Light (.2) Flare Comp (.1) and then add what ever else I need/want Via Essence.

Did anyone else check the errata?

Yes, some people check errata.

I can tell you what the problem with the Covert Ops specialist was. They tried to put regular cyberware Retinal Duplication in Alpha Cybereyes. You know that doesn't work. And the character couldn't afford Alphaware Retinal Dup 5, so they dropped it to rating 3. It was a money problem (125,000 ), not an essence problem. The fix to this problem didn't change essence.

P.S. The new Covert Ops Specialist still has a money problem, but it's only 730 over the allocated resources, not 100,000+ over. Another problem is her Headware Memory should say it is Alphaware (on p. 61, bottom left line, it indicates she paid for it, and her essence is calculated for it). Last Friday I sent both of these items to Rob Boyle as potential corrections/errata in future printings.

i get kinda scared when the people that makes the rules cant get the straight

but i guess thats the general problem of shadowrun...

OurTeam: Good point.

Still, I ran the math myself, and what I can't figure is why the camera has to be the item that isn't free. It could be any combination of items, correct? Well, if my math is correct, the covert ops specialist in my printing has .48 essence worth of options before the camera is installed. That's so close as to not be worth bothering with, IMO.

Yes, Cain, we're only talking about a .02 difference in Essence for the Covert Ops Specialist between the book rule and the simple way most people do it. That's all it is. For the example I gave for this Poll, it's a difference of .10, which isn't much either.

Over vacation recently I verified all the archetypes against the newest rules and errata, and also used the new vehicle prices which changed in the 12th printing of SR3. I had difficulting getting the Covert Ops Specialist to match the book on essence, so I dug into it.

Some archetypes have too few knowledge skill points, some too much. One has too much money by 60,000 , one not enough by 40,000. One had essence too high by .20, and one was too low by .08 essence. I'm making new .SR3 files for all the archetypes to be distributed with NSRCG.

If anyone wants an Excel spreadsheet with exact costs and essence calculation for all the archetypes, I'm happy to provide it. It's got page numbers for gear, for anyone who wants to double-check my calculations. I'd love someone to check my work.

It would be interesting to see the effects on the archetypes when put into Becks with the reasources recalculated

Heh if somebody wants a medium power eye laser (.3 essence) and an eye dart (0.25 essence) it is a 0.2 difference.

P.S. NSRCG uses the -0.5 rule, at least the version from january does.