@Mäx
So why are you making one order mandatory?
Why can't I get muscle augmentation 3 (used), a pair of cybereys, a muscle augmentation 3 (used) and after that get myself the adept quality for a magic of 1?
Is there any rule which says I can't? Because it is stated perfectly clear, that I may pick qualities at any time I choose.

I'm pretty sure that even in KarmaGen all your final stats are calculated at the end. So you bought(with the quality) MAG 1. You lost at least 1.54 Essence due to ware. The finished character has an Essence of 5.4 and MAG 0 and is burned out.

Actually, Yes...

That's weird, since there's no compelling mechanic to make that choice sufficiently attractive, which translates into no compelling IC reason to make it.

Cybereyes and ears stopped working as an option when cheap equivalents were introduced. You've always been able to replicate some of their functions with gear, but always at some functional penalty. Equivalent functionality means the cheaper option wins. Go against simple economics if you want, but don't pretend that it's pragmatic.

Now the only reason to take them is as replacements if you can't get cloned parts.

And yet, as a Mage, I can now have multiple Forms of Visual sense (IR, Lowlight, etc) with my eyes that I may now cast spells through, which you cannot use Glasses or goggles for...
And yet, as a Mundane, I can now have multiple Forms of Visual sense (IR, Lowlight, etc) with my eyes that I cannot easily be deprived of.

So what if it costs an insignificant amount essence and a bit more money. Big deal. Many Character's will not care about such insignificant things.

And as a Note, They are not equivalent. Glasses and earbuds can be easily removed, damaged or destroyed, while the implanted versions are much more robust, may be indistinguishable from the Normal parts, and no one will care it they set of a Scanner. They are Ubiquitous. Cheaper rarely means better.

Simple Economics? Please... Are you going to buy a poroduct Once per year for half the Cost of the Expensive One, or are you going to buy the more Expensive one that will last 10 Times as long? I know which route I will take. I do not like purchasing something multiple times, just because it is a cheap piEce of crap. Give me durability every time.

Cybereyes are quite a no brainer for mages since google do not work for casting and astral perception is great but has a rats tail of disadvantages.
Still would need a google to read a sign in the dark but you would need to but the googles down to cast a spell. Fucked up.

Then they are just dirt cheap.

For some tools, keeping them as gear makes fair sense - all manner of scanners are just fine as handhelds. But I'm not too happy about trodes being basically a better way to do the same as a datajack, or goggles making cybereyes obsolete.

So what would be good IG reasons for cyberware to be good? Then we can translate those IG reasons to OOC rules.

* Trodes could fall off, or get torn off in combat; someone could smear out the pattern on your nanopaste trodes. Maybe they need to be reapplied every couple of hours if you're sweating a lot?

* Maybe trode-DNI could be vulnerable to jamming? They're transmitting and receiving very faint electromagnetic signals from your brain. I think that could be jammed, or even burnt out with an EMP. (I hold that radio antennas, being electromagnetic-based, should always be somewhat vulnerable to EMP; particularly if they're small).

The big draw of a datajack over trodes would simply be reliability in field conditions. Trodes are fine at home, but if you're infiltrating in the wild, a datajack is just less likely to fail when you need it.

Cybereyes:
* If iris ID is more prevalent, then that mod that allows you to fake irises would come into play often enough, and I don't think contacts or glasses can really fake that one.
* Maybe zooming in with Image Magnification would be slower with glasses, because you need to actually access some sort of controls, while a cybereye moves really really fast (like real eyesight)?

Cyberlimbs/Torso
* If a significant part of your body isn't organic anymore, maybe all kinds of splash poison weapons have a reduced chance to penetrate into your metabolism?
* Maybe cyberlimbs should have custom armor options to protect yourself against various elemental damage types? Such as getting fireproof arms, letting you actually reach into a flame without injury?
* More elegant rules for combining cyberlimbs with a CCU would be nice..

Why not just roll a W6. If the number is smaller than the present cyberparts, the poison does not affect you?

If you start there you should continue with worse results, when the poison hits. There is a lot less mass for the same dose of poison.

@Dakka Dakka
This would lead to far. (There are poisons which scale very good with mass and there are some which don't)
Your general resistance to poison is body.
(Yes, this is kind of silly with cyberware)
But the question was: Making cyber better and not making the system realistic.

And cybereyes can get damaged, too. There's just no longer an explicit system for losing body part functionality. Basing a rant on 'cheap flimsy crap' is disingenuous. There's no reason to expect to lose eyewear (much of which can be handled optically instead of electronically) at a much higher rate than cybereyes, especially with the materials strength of things in SR.

As a mage, 'insignificant' essence loss is still essence loss. It's not a renewable resource.

I'm not sure why you couldn't get optical subsystems in your goggles rather than electronic systems. If the technology exists for optical cybereyes you'd definitely have the ability to make optical goggles.

I think part of the power issue is that while cost of cyber has gone down to the point where adepts and mages can field critical cyber if needed many of the critical items for a mundane build are still extremely expensive from an essence perspective even if you go with alpha or betaware. Qualities can help reduce the cost but many of the cool qualities are roughly as expensive as being an adept and being an adept can net you some nice toys.

In my mind cyber IP boosters are the major culprit with cyberlimbs close behind. Even at betaware essence discounts wired reflexes are still incredibly costly in terms of your essence pool and going with synaptic booster 2 will eat up a large percentage of your starting nuyen. Combat drugs or the various awakened IP boosters (spells and adept powers) can negate much of that speed advantage and awakened have the benefit of having no effective cap on their potential power level. Most samurai don't really have that luxury unless they get rebuilt as a cyberzombie in a deltaware clinic.

How often does that theoretical unlimited power growth of mages vs. the finite growth of others really happen? I mean, it's interesting in theory, but how often does the Sammie player complain that he's got nothing interesting to spend karma on?

Right out of chargen when the sammie already has 6 points in her weapon skill of choice

But lets try and avoid the mage comparisons again as we've already gotten side tracked with that when the topic here is more along the lines of making cyber better than their gear equivalents than making cyber comparable to magic.

Also, someone mentioned a mod for cybereyes to deal with retinal scanners. I'm fairly sure that is already in augmentation somewhere, possibly under nanoware.

Just thought about quick and dirty fix: Invent a quality similar to Type O System but for Cyberware.

The point is not that cybereyes for mages are optical but that they are paid for with essence and thus integral part of the character. Even electronic enhancements work for spell targetting, if they are paid for with essence. (Un)fortunately this is only the case with Eyeware.

@optical goggles. There are only a few enhancements that can be done optically IRL: vision magnification, microscopic vision. The interesting stuff lowlight vision and thermographic vision cannot. I doubt that the physics will change a lot between now and 2070.

That's a rules change that should be made, yes. (If reducing non-implant options for mages is your goal, but I'm assuming it is in this thread.)

I think a Type O cyberware (ignoring the fluff problem) is a little *too* quick and dirty, though. There are some pretty crazy builds out there already.

What aspect of cyber specifically are we hoping to improve here? Reducing Essence cost/increasing effect Essence on Wires and limbs sounds like a terrible idea, on the face of it. So, are we saying those are both much too weak already? While Wires is a very popular (vital) upgrade, there are so many other implants to talk about as well. What about bioware? It's basically the same power as cyber, at vastly inflated prices—does it 'need' to be buffed, too?

It's in the main book. Retinal Duplication SR4A p. 340. It does not work well however.

Hmm, yeah, with a max DP of 6, it is hard to beat anything in an opposed roll.

The you-paid-essence loophole on magic targeting is lame. I can't imagine an archetype that needs fewer concessions than mages. Especially since they can pop stimpatches and take major wounds without fear of magic loss now.

*shrug* Removing cybereyes for Awakened would be a huge change in the SR canon, and it would affect everything from wagemages to ghouls. I thought we were talking about making cyber better, not mages worse?

The optical goggles could just have transparent layers with electronic data super-imposed over it, just like AR data is superimposed when seen through AR Goggles. You could still see through the regular goggles. Night Vision can be accomplished through optical rather than electronic means (although it is bulkier), thermographic would still be problematic but I think most mages can make due with low-light vision.

And no longer having to be deathly afraid of Magic loss isn't a huge change in SR canon? The dynamic changed when involuntary Magic loss became rare to nonexistent, making minor essence trades relatively safe.

But yes, back to cyberimprovement.

I think you could do something like limit the speed with which skinlinked gear reacts. One of the key advantages of cyber is the DNI + the relative speed of transmission between the brain and the internal/external gear. Simply put light or electrical signals over super-conductive wires should move way faster than data transmitted over the normal nervous system or skin-link. When you are talking targeting data transmitted to goggles for instance that speed differential should be tangible.

In previous editions it was a smaller boost because smart goggles were less efficient. For 4e you could make it so that smartgun + smart goggles + skin-link can only be used on the first IP or maybe 2 IPs maximum. That way if you want the benefit for high IP characters you need to go full DNI, likely with a cybereye and smartgun with a external wire leading to a datajack.

The gunbunny adept is thus forced to invest at least minimally in cyber to keep up with the gunbunny wired dude.

You just dont get it, the order doesn't matter one bit, the magic loss happens no matter what order you do think in chargen.
If you take a bunch of ware and then desice to be an awekened, then if you don't buy more magic you start the game as burn-out as you magic gets reduces below zero at the end of chargen.

The fear of magic loss is largely up to the GM, I would say. In my games I use the Augmentation mass damage rules, and wouldn't rule out magic/essence loss as a result, though it wouldn't be my first choice, either. There is also addiction, and focus addiction. If magic is getting out of hand in your campaigns, and the mages are too heavily relying on things that can cause those, then enforce it. Focus addiction, in particular, makes mages weaker, and if they risk reaching the burn out stage, they can be pretty well neutered.

This depends on the GM, I think. I'm sure most GM's on here, based on what I've seen, would prefer to reduce magic then give them an early boost, if they get augmented, but I've had GM's who have told me to keep my magic when I played a slightly cybered mage. I honestly don't know which is right, nor do I think it matters, just what the GM prefers.

I suspect what some people are doing is this.

Buy Metatype + Abilities + Skills

Buy Cyberware have it impact essence since you are still mundane at this point it doesn't impact magic score.

Then Buy Awakened Quality get 1 free Magic point and spend left over BPs on boosting magic.

As long as Magic <= Essence you are all good.

By choosing the order of operations it seems you can minimize BP expenditure on a cyber awakened character.

However the calculation of final stats should only happen after all BP/Karma is spent.

I think what's needed is for cyberware to
* Do stuff that external gear can't do
* Do stuff better than external gear
* Do stuff that can't be (easily) magically replicated

Essence and money costs shouldn't be prohibitive, but generally, they aren't prohibitive right now. I don't think reducing Essence costs is the way to go; it doesn't help in the "vs. Gear" competition. Also, it makes it accessible for Awakened, which not everyone thinks is desirable.

Any kind of 'I buy my ware first, THEN Awaken' trickery is unconscionable.

Sounds good, Ascalaphus. Many aspects of cyber are just implanted versions of external stuff, so we'd just ignore that. But things like smartlinks, 'natural' vision modes, DNI, these I can see cyberware retaining a real edge in. As the game progresses, we do get a lot of 'cyber/gear/magic/Resonance' equivalent sets… and I agree that's often a bad thing.

So, in terms of 'fixing' cyber, this means the sort of ideas that popped up earlier (penalties to external DNI, smartlink, etc.), or… what? Inventing new and uniquely-cyber items, that can't be external and can't be magic? Emphasizing the implants that already fit that category? Removing magic/gear/Resonance equivalents?

Latent Awakening however allows you to start with a Magic of 1 regardless of how wired you are as long as essence > 1. Your magic maximum is the only thing modified downward.

So you could start out with 5 points of cyber/bioware and still have a magic of 1 once you finally awaken. And then you initiate...

Other than no having a choice on when you finally awaken there really isn't much a downside.

In contrast the chargen guy with 5 points of cyber/bioware who wants to start with a magic of 1 seems like they would have to spend at minimum of 70 BP (5 (adept) + 40 (to raise magic to 5) + 25 (to reach maximum) ) to achieve a similar build.

Because latent is so much more efficient I suspect that some people must be doing the awakened qualities after applying cyberware effects.

Citation needed.

Seriously. Quote the part of the rules with page number and book added.
Because it's usually maximum AND actual magic attribute getting lowered.
Meaning you would have to start with 2 magic because your 0 magic got lowered to -1 Magic.
It's the way math works. It's magical!

Ah, I thought we were talking about chargen. Latent qualities have their one whole set of drawbacks that have been discussed at length in other threads; suffice it to say, knock yourself out. Unless you're starting with a couple hundred extra karma, Latent won't make you acceptable, let alone stronger.

Stahlseele, that's just how *Latent* works. Don't worry, it's a horrible option.

At chargen, though, you simply don't get to say 'okay, done with cyber, now I'll buy up my Magic'.

Yep latent awakening is a stupid quality. It has plenty of downsides but it explicitly allows these kinds of shenanigans.

Now personally I don't allow any order of operation shenanigans in char-gen (qualities are purchased after metatype but before abilities, skills, gear) but I suspect that some groups do. Of course those groups might wonder why everyone plays awakened characters in those games

Anyway since this is supposed to be about making cyber gear more appealing I'll get back on track.

As I see it the primary advantages of ware options are as follows.

1) More concealable- This could be a major modifier if you are a face wanting to fast talk a corp sec guard. Black trenchcoat + mirrorshades should be a warning sign for anyone

2) Harder to steal/confiscate- Disabling cyber is certainly possible and even mandatory in some meets but it's a lot harder for LoneStar/Knight Errant/etc to hold onto your stuff pending an investigation.

3) Possibly faster- As I mentioned above a DNI using superconductive wires and/or fiber-optic switching should be much faster than it's skinlink counterpart simply because of transmission rates and relative bandwidth.

4) Possibly better shielded- If skin-link depends on the electrical field of the human body for transmission of data then it should be extraordinarily vulnerable to electrical interference. Get hit by a taser and chances are your skin-link equipment just got fried, etc. Cyberware should be more resistant because it's using shielded/optical systems for the transmission.

5) Cooler - Debatable

I like #4 as a possibility. Even a flat +1 for implanted gear against Jamming or EMP might be a nice little boost (though it's already true that implants all have jam-proof connections to each other). I'm not sure if there's a fluff *reason* for that, though.

I don't agree about equipment getting fried, though. Canon is that basically everything is optronic in SR4, so only antennae are vulnerable to EMP (and presumably shock).

I guess my logic is that skinlink requires some sort of electrical sensor in order to pick up something a low intensity as fluctuations in the body's electrical field. So while the internal workings are probably optronic the sensors themselves are sensitive to being hit by a big electrical spike.

The guts of the goggle/commlink/smartgun would be fine but the ability for them to mesh via skin-link would be compromised until you had time to work on the sensors with an extended hardware test. In the meantime you'd just have to re-enable the wireless PAN mesh but that has other costs associated with it.

Are you seriously saying that you as a GM sit with all of your players one by one and enforce that they build their characters step by step, with every step being locked after you move to the next with no changes allowed to it any more.

I just make sure that my players aren't the kinds of people who like to cheat at RPGs, personally.

No but final stats are simply calculated at the end. Though I haven't used KarmaGen, even with it, latent awakening would only happen in actual play.

Max, it's usually pretty obvious if someone's cheating that way. It's blatant.

Yeah, I see where you're going, Vuron. Basically that's just making S&S stronger. :/ Hmm. Well, couldn't hurt to try it, though I feel like it honestly wouldn't come up very often. Most people using tasers *are* the shadowrunners.

I'm saying that in the case of many beneficial qualities (in particular awakened qualities) they should be applied at or near the beginning of char gen. It makes sense for some people to be born with the "magic" gene or the "TM" gene even if those genes don't get expressed until later in life. Same with characters that undergo Goblinization at puberty, or kids that inherit gene-modification in utero, etc.

Other qualities aren't as critical as to when they happen during Char Gen as they don't tend to modify much. I'm not a ginormous fan of post char gen purchase of positive qualities but certain ones are appropriate such as erased, etc. However just like I wouldn't allow someone to purchase a new metatype after char-gen there are various qualities that should be limited to char gen and specifically to various phases of char gen in order to avoid any mechanical chicanery.

As to trusting your players, you either trust them or you don't. As long as they are trust-worthy and you are willing to go over certain expectations prior to char-gen I see no need to do face-to-face char gen other than avoid the occasional problem with one or more character role not being covered.

Yeah, honestly, it's not too big of a deal to tell the players what order you want them to do things in chargen and then expect them to do it. In any case, a quick review of the character sheets once they're done rather quickly reveals if anyone took major liberties.

Well i just fail to see how the order matters at all, i atleast do think in what ever order i feel like and everythink might change at anypoint even the race and whether or not the character is an awekened of somekind.
How does it matter at all whether or not the character being an adept or an ork was the first think done in chargen or almost the last change?

Don't forget augmentation addiction

Personally I don't concern myself with the order that I get things in chargen at all, and just calculate what things cost at the end, and that is basically how the rules tell you to treat it as well.

So you don't buy one essence of ware and then buy up magic and then buy more essence and more magic, you just have X essence of ware, and your magic is lowered by X from whatever you bought it up to at the end of creation.

I think the easiest way to give ware a boost is to take everything that has a gear equivalent in ware and give it a +1 DP bonus to whatever it helps with. So a datajack gives you an extra +1 DP over trodes, and an implanted simsense module gives you another +1 over the gear version (Or perhaps a +1 to matrix init). Cybereye enhances give Rating+1 to perception checks, and maybe thermo/low light on the cybereyes have the vision penalties improved by 1 point over the equivalent in glasses (You might also consider that the glasses must put out some light to see what's on them in total darkness, which might make you a very easy target).

You might consider giving matrix entities (Pilots, sprites, etc) a 1-2 point bonus to all their actions to make up for the new cyber bonus.

This makes cyber out and out more useful than the gear counterparts without requiring the effort and balancing of trying to come up with new niche gear, of which there is already quite a bit (I mean, there is no gear equivalent of muscle toner excepting milspec armor and drugs, both of which come with their own problems.)

… The order matters because it changes how much you spend on Magic. Obviously. The intent is to cheat the penalties for Essence loss. Yes, this is basically the only place it matters, and only because people are trying to cheat.

I dunno, Ghost. That's more DP-creep. :/ Certainly the reverse solution (gear penalties) has its own problems, like hurting the very low end… but I'm more okay with that.

No it doesn't, magic loss in chargen happens based on your final essence.

Of course it does. We all know that, cuz we're not cheating munchkins. But breaking *that* rule is exactly what's we're talking about here. People try to say, 'oh, I don't have to buy up my Magic because I awakened after all the cyber'. … That's literally the whole discussion. Vuron also mentioned Latent Awakening, which legitimately does that, but that's not during chargen in the first place.

This is why I put out my option of limiting the number of times you can initiate by your Essence. Sure you can take two points of 'Ware, but now you can only initiate 4 times rather than 6 times. Your Magic is now limited to 8 rather than 12 for an unaugmented mage. That would be a big deal for the Awakened/Emerged.

Now how to improve cyberware... I personally like the idea of going back to SR2 version of smart goggles. No weapon control (firing mode, eject clip, firing without pulling the trigger), and only +1 to your DP. Also, if you're using smartlink goggles/glasses, then you had better have a wire leading to the vision enhancement because the wireless signal can get jammed.

Also here's another idea... if you're wearing glasses, then your peripheral vision might be messed up, and you sure as heck not getting the vision mod bonuses. With cybereyes or contacts... no problem.

Finally make it so that using a cyberware version of external gear is a free action, but using it as an external piece of gear is a simple action. You have to futz with the control system and even the fastest person is not moving at the speed of thought.

****EDIT****

Latent Awakening... it should have been taken behind the wood shed and beaten to a nice bloody pulp. I say get rid of that crap. Now if the player wants to have his character Awaken after the start of the game and he still has 1.0+ Essence remaining, then have the player and the GM work something out. Don't make the player spend 5 BP on something that may have ZERO impact in the game.

Epicedion, that wasn't my change. I don't see how two wrongs makes a right in this case, either.

KCKitsune, the weapon control aspects are from your PAN (presumably, your trodes). The wireless won't get jammed because you're using skinlink. Your vision will be fine because you're using contacts, like you said. I agree with pointing out/implementing restrictions, but it only works if there aren't more holes right there.

Via the PAN (again, probably trodes), everyone *is* moving at the speed of thought. IIRC, using most gear without DNI is already a Simple action (like ejecting a clip without a smartlink, or any Use Simple Object).