Which is why you use a Nexus instead. Or build a Custom "Comlink" setup and place it in your armored Fairlight Excaliber Case.

lol that actually sounds kind of fun. Though if you had hardening that good on commlinks, I'd make a warhammer with the 'link built into the head, rather than using it as a shield.

Um. There *is* armor and stuff for the SR4 commlinks.

Yeah, and maybe if you have it attached to your belt it might hurt a little bit when you hit someone with it.

...

Actually, that's not a bad idea. A Troll Hacker pulling off his belt and going, "That's it, time for me to play Daddy. Where's the woodshed?"

Hell, install the commlink inside a baseball bat, if that's what you're dying for.

Sure, why not.

And the low end of Nexi is described as "laptop" size.

Yes, but the Response/Availability ratio on the nexi in Unwired is rather underwhelming.

Honestly that idea bends physics for me even more then a system with elves, trolls and magic.

One thing that SR4 did somewhat mess up on is the processing pwoer difference between man portable and terminal on that we absolutely agree upon. Of course in previous editions you saw the highly placed computer company ceo with a cyberdeck on his desk so the trend isn't new.

On the other having this idea that your going to invest constantly over the course of your career in your deck just to eek out performance increases just encourages hyper specialization and thereby encourages the hacker to stay in the decker bunker or die, or risk having their lifetime investment stolen when they are sleeping.

Not per se. There were 3 viable routes for deck advancement as I said up thread: buy it (which you are complaining about), build it, or steal it. The second two cost no money and none of the three cost you Karma. Then there is also favors from contacts and we had warez rules at our table long before SR4 was around (we'd often release programs to the community in exchange for access to other programs). So the only advancement option above that actually stunts your growth is if you are spending all your cash on upgrades instead of augmentations/upgrades. You still earned karma and could spend that wherever you wanted (decking was largely 2 skills -- Computer and Electronics -- so you could be more versatile). And with no realistic skill cap you could hyper-specialize and actually aspire to beat Captain Chaos or Fastjack.

I'm not saying hyper-specialized deckers didn't exist but I felt that SR3 allowed for more versatility for deckers than SR4 does. And deckers only stayed in the van after Matrix was released (wireless rules) before that they were in dumpsters, sewers, elevator shafts, storage closets, etc, or the frontlines.

I disagree with this somewhat.

I have yet to have any of My Hckers not be onsite (the alternative just seems boring to me, so yes, it is a personal choice). The technomancer tried that, but gave up on it when he kept getting shut down/jammed/disconnected (Sucks to have a poor Signal Range). Some things you can do remotely, for everything else, nothing beats being there (in the Dumpsters, sewers, elevator shafts, storage closets, etc).

Why would anyone connect their "paydata" to the matrix? Did the future lose the technology that allowed them to have closed networks?

They wouldn't. And No.

No, but when you're running a distributed network of researchers, developers, and engineers the world over, you need them to be able to access the information they all need at the same time, especially with updates happening by the hour.

Thus, IC.

Are you saying the information they need to be able to access the world over includes "the good stuff"?

If I'm hiring shadowrunners, I want someone who can get the private data, not their mail and timecards. Those updates happening by the hour shared across the world is just business as usual. Next week, no one cares about that stuff. Let IC protect that from the script kiddies.

For some reason, SR4 dropped some of the "tricks" used by corporations to keep their private data just that.

One trick was to only connect their corporate net to the matrix at various dates and times, and at a new "location" each time.

The latter bit likely only worked in earlier editions because of the very strict system of LTG and RTG routing. With SR4 the routing is more internet then phone network (another indication that SR4 have distanced itself from the 80s phreaker and BBS sub-culture), and as such any connection is "local".

Another was the use of what in essence where virtual machines. There would look like the real thing, down to holding what appeared at first glance to be paydata, but was basically a elaborate program running on top of the real target. Why this did not make its way into Unwired i have no clue about. Closest seems to be decoys found on page 72 of Unwired.

Reported for insult. Also, Moore's Law ignores some fundamentals of physics, but to his credit he acknowledged that a year back or something. Nothing about mobility in it, of course, unless you interpret it the way you want to.


"Accessability". The same reason why there are people who have their guns run in open wireless so they can be hacked. It's a meta deal to make a combat hacker who can hack everything viable, and has nothing to do with ingame logic. By that, anyone who puts sensitive data on a node connected to the wifi network without a glacier-like chokepoint could just as well not bother keeping secrets at all.

This still works. The SR4 BBB states that all that infrastructure is still there. That's how your signal is able to reach across the mostly empty wilderness of SSC and Sioux to reach the East Coast. The writers just didn't offer it as a security measure in anything I remember reading (at work so AFB). Corporation just has to program a signal repeater to power on every so often (regular intervals or algo based) and crawl-bots to reach out and snag updates from distributed workers. They don't formally call the phone company and ask to be connected to individual modems -- they just fly through the clouds.

Accessibility is a huge thing. Technically if the whole team (runner or corporate R&D) is dialed-in to the network they should be running bonuses. Unfortunately the people writing the rule books didn't seem to want to step in and tell GMs what appropriate bonuses should be for doing so. This is what drew me in to SR4. Unfortunately the rules weren't up to snuff for stopping hacking attempts by anything but a greasy, wet fart so they lost me there.

Someone woke up cranky today. More's law actually was a around a lot earlier then I recall reading about it, but the idea is sound, and he made no predictions past the ten year mark. To say that as computing power increases past the benchmark's it needs to fill it's function yet portability is not going to increase is just silly. Now we're in an age of resource bloat so a slow down threshhold is being hit, but I think it's safe to say that if you asked a computer or electronic engineer in the eighties if they thought cyberdeck style personal computers would be the apex of our tech curve. I mean what, the star trek communicator debuted in the sixties, a radical bit of technological guesswork that not only was born out but actually influenced the way technology developed.

More pre-1982, Fell free to report me as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook (yay, Alan Kay and smalltalk references)

http://oldcomputers.net/trs80pc1.html - I actually owned one of these. Humor note, the tape deck I stored my software on was much larger and heavier than the computer the software ran on. I still have the thing in a box somewhere. - Note: July 1980.

Shrinking portable computing power wasn't a "theory" in 1982. It was a market.

Uh, yeah, it's the stuff they're working on right now, remember? More than just being feasible, actually, things like that happen in RL, with VPNs/cryptotunnels/whatever connecting the remote points. With SR decryption revolution, those are just not safe any more, but it's not like the corps have any choice (or rather, yeah, they could build their own world-spanning data transmission lines, for example, through their private commsat constellations, but you can always say you can cut into those lines, too, and mechanics support that).

Choose program rating. Then find program multiplier. Then consult a table to find program size in mp. Then consult another table to find cost per megapulse by rating. Then multiply size by (cost per megapulse) to determine program cost.

Yeuck.

Of course they have a choice. They can co-locate everyone on the project.

As an example:
1) Purchase a missile base. http://www.missilebases.com/properties
2) Install guards, computers, research facilities, etc.
3) ???
4) profit

As a more serious example, co-locate everyone in an archology.

If the financial risk of having things on the matrix exceeds the value of co-locating and running a local wired network, then yes, they have a choice. Running your secrets through communications not under your control strikes me as a major security risk.

Decking third ed was more interesting from an artistry point of view/playing the game long term.

SR4 is more accessable, streamlined and less brain ache in the mass cluster frag of a session.

Both have flaws, mostly with common sense/game world reality failure.

I still play SR3 and frankly never understood the problem with intergrating decking into the game, mechanically or visually. The only time it was an issue was when a player was trying to deck everything/ignoring the ettiquette of share the ref. Which is true of any character type.

SR3 decking is bit like go/chess/ma jong. You need to think about it, like it and to get good takes effort. To become great, a lot of effort and in some cases, maths. That kind of commitment is off putting for starters and some veterns and for (of course) the refs, who really need to know more than the PC.

But this complexity makes it interesting and evolving long term- with more tricks and perzazz and all that brings

The decker bunker, like the impregnable rigger tank, or the astral only wizzer or pornomancer should be and clearly advertised before game start/PC creation going to fail as viable at some point if you actually want to play that character.

Should these concepts exist in the game, yes. You think your going to dictate to the rest of the group of people your playing with how they are going to spend their evening, no.

SR4 on the other hand, does the job and makes it easy. Easy gets boring like maddeningly difficult, just the other way round.

But I still think a Jack is better than trodes . Try it, add jack to any other word and it becomes cooler, even its self.

In addition, never underestimate the "Ease of Use" argument that Execs who never worked a day in their lives will use to override security experts, IT experts, and white hat hacking experts.

Because, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many years of experience someone has, it doesn't matter how many problems they staved off before they were issues, it doesn't matter how much IC they wrote and update... It's the guy in the corner office with the 750¥ haircut, the 5000¥ suit, and the low golf score that makes all the decisions.

OK, probably letting a tiny little of bitterness come out in that post... But I think you get where I'm going. It's not the experts who are in charge of the Wireless Matrix and what goes on it.

If the suit in charge has pull and knows what he's doing, he'll have it in a Wi-Fi Sealed Room with Hardline connections only, bring the scientists and engineers, and their families, to the R&D site, and so on. Keep things secure.

If the suit in charge is more interested in fast and cheap, he'll have it put on the matrix with a lot of online security and leave the eggheads at "Home" where they can work in better conditions prevalent to their mindsets to ensure proper creativity. (The fact that the people are more comfortable probably never even entered into the equation, but might have, as that would drive up sick days.).

I never understood the argument about deck size being too big because nowadays we have smart phones. The internet and the matrix are 2 different things, you can;t say hey I got this internet capable device with some computing power, over there is a device that borders on magic it is so far advanced from our technology, the magic device should be smaller it only makes sense. I am not saying they need to be the size of a full keyboard, but having them that size makes just as much sense as having them the size of a comlink because the matrix and matrix capable devices just don't exist yet.

Anyways I don't miss the deck per se, I miss the name deck and deckers, I miss the awakened being at a penalty in the matrix(SR1-2 only I think). I kind of miss that they were expensive so a bit more exclusive, but I can see a price drop over time.

The high-end CommLinks should be a lot more expensive, I agree. But the low-end ones? Yeah, they're mass produced by the millions so are dirt cheap. Disposable CommLinks are a 'Runner's Godsend as well.

As long as you have a nice little piece of Thermite waiting for it at the very end.

MetaLinks are what most people use as they're pretty much all that's needed just to surf the Matrix. Anything more and you're looking at business applications, or decking/hacking.

why not a Compromise(a Kind of Houserule) ?
Comlinks rating 1-3 are the usual Comlinks (wristphone sized, Smartphone sized ,maybe even just Blue Tooth Earpiece sized)
Comlinks Rating 4+ are Keyboard sized and the Cost is x2
those Hackers(general Term to be used for all that enter VR) that use a Cheap comlink are Script Kiddies and those that use the better ,bigger ones are called Decker because they use a Deck

HeyaHeyaHeya
Medicineman

Moore's Law was formed in a time when computers were expected to get bigger and more powerful, not smaller and more powerful. It says the complexity of components doubles at no change in price every 12 months (not that their size stays the same, because that was not the way it was in the 660s). This 'Law' was changed by Moore himself repeatedly to stay ahead of the time, however - he claimed he meant integrity sometime in the 80s when everyone but the Soviets had realised computers actually would never be HAL 2000, he went from 12 to 20 months, and recently acknowledged it probably would not last very long anymore, changing it's due date every other month. Because futurology is not science at all.

Also, since now it's about miniaturisation, it's going to have to stop with current, transistor-based chips fairly soon because structures can get only so small and still work by the laws of physics we need them to work with to work at all (and that's assuming there will be some ultra-shortwave lithography that sofar refuses to work). There's other computer concepts that can and will take over and make computers ever more powerful, but those will not be covered by Moore's Law anymore.

Moore's Law says nothing about smartphones.

Use the higher device ratings from W! across the board, problem solved

Yeah, Medicineman, that's probably the easiest way. Except change 2x.

I was under the impression that the matrix stuff really broke down at the War! level of ratings.

One of the "Old farts who started in '89" here, and a dedicated lover of Decks over the new Commlinks.

"But why?" you ask?

Well, in part, because I'm an old fart... we're always reluctant to change. Hard for me to admit that as a tech-friendly wide-eyed child of the 80's, what with "Th efuture is NOW!" and such, but, decks and Shadowrun are just linked in my head.

For one, there's the old fashioned "Bigger is better" idea, where a celphone < tablet < netbook < laptop < desktop < servers < supercomputer

Something as powerful as a Rating 6 commlink needs to be bigger than a flip-top phone. It just *does*. As mentioned upthread, when you see a water-cooled Frankenstein's Monster of a machine, with blue tubing pumping who knows what, a set of six LED monitors networked together, running Crysis like it's nothing, you go, "Wow. That's a MACHINE." You don't expect an iPhone to do that, nor should you.

There's also the cinematic side ... I was roleplaying a decade before Shadowrun, after all, and being able to make movies inside my head is kind of important for that. Having Stubbly McActionGuy grimacing, knowing that he has to shut down the reactor or they're all going to die, he reaches into his pocket as the music swells and ... pulls out a Blackberry. His thumbs then start tapping away as everyone waits nervously to see if he can pull it off. But that darn auto-correct keeps getting in the way of his coding! Noooo!!

...

Ahem.

At any rate, commlinks just feel ... dinky. It's like a .22 instead of a .45, or prepainted plastic miniatures instead of old-school solid metal ones... weight, heft... these things lend gravitas. Even if the other items work just as well, mass is reassuring in a primal way.

And a hacker whose most important tool sometimes flops off his belt and into the toilet? *bloot*?

It just doesn't feel right.

But that's just my opinion.

I have yet to see any p&p system that can handle a linear scaling from here to infinity without breaking down.

Hell, even some kind of logarithmic ones break down. They only take longer to do so.

The only systems that have the appearance of "working" are those where the GM can move the goal post as the characters progress. Or they basically stop rolling for anything less then world destroying events, as the mundane tasks are so beneath the walking gods the characters have become.

I'm not talking about infinity. I'm talking about a published rulebook that takes a system originally intended to go up to a 6 rating out to 10, and the problems I've seen talked about on this board.

Apply AR for what it is, allowing you to carry that super computer on your belt. The IO are now floating in mid air, the character sitting lotus in the center of a vast array of control panels, displays and whatsnot, playing the whole thing as some kind of insane pipe organ. But at a moments notice he can have it all fade and be reading to high tail. In much the same way that a mage gets that odd look over his face when he peers into the astral, the hacker gets when he deploys his AR interface to full effect. He may be physically present, but his mind is somewhere else entirely.

Sure, it is not the GITS scene where the major visits some fat guy holed up in a basement along with sex dolls and weird computing solutions, but much of the awe comes from presentation. And AR allows this presentation to not be limited by the physics of having to lug it all around.

Oh and if you want to show off to the technophobes of the group, add some hologram emitters

IMO having matrix ratings scale from 1-10 is one of the few good things that come out of war. It provides a larger range of options, and costs based on R^2 make sure that everything above 6 feels sufficiently "epic".

Hm good to know, thanks.

Just don't let the PCs get mil-spec gear. It's for making *challenges* actually exist.

A lot of the gear they have already would be called milspech. I don't see how milspech programs are suddenly any different.

Yeah, I learned the hard way that having a contact of theirs with a "Improvised Fuel-Air Explosive" is not something that causes them to fear the guy... Just go, "COOL!" and want to use it.

Yesterday's MilSpec is today's Gutter Guns.

Who said it was different? They shouldn't have tanks either.

What about MPUVs? They're MilSpec, but not overpowered.

I was talking more about stuff like MBW, Military armor, and F4+ Power foci. I don't see how rating 7-10 programs are worse then these.

Like I just said. And it's not just programs, it's Response, System, etc. The Ares Alpha is bad enough.

Command 10 is an AR rigger's wet dream.



-k

And you can't take your HMG, your mil-spec hardsuit, your tank, etc. everywhere. You can take and use your programs and matrix gear *everywhere*, from anywhere, with every device you encounter.

isn't software limited by the device rating any more?

usually Yes, but there is an option in Unwired that gets You a bigger/higher Prog that can be run on a smaller Comlink

with a bigger Dance
Medicineman