It's a wacky idea, but, with the right echoes and complex forms could a technomancer have, say, dig out his eyeballs and stick a nifty set of fully loaded cybereyes into the sockets and hack them for full use? Perhaps even better with the skinlink echo?

The smartlink and simrig complex forms gave me this idea. If smartlinks in a gun can be accessed then why not some cybereyes? I'm sure you can all think of other great examples of this too-cool idea.

Yes, I am indeed a munchkin. I make no apologies.

I don't think the accessing is the problem. You'd still take the Essence loss because you're implanting a foreign object into your body.

I believe there would be no essence loss unless you actually set up a cyberware neural link. This is basically putting "glass eyes" into the sockets... just tech ones.

Or, in a playfully snarky response: did my fillings in my teeth cost me essesnce?

Do you intend to see normally? If so, DNI needed and thus, essence loss. You can't expect to hack your fake eyes, and use their camera feeds, and still function normally. After all, the eyes won't move unless you attach them to actuators, which need to know how to move, and again, DNI. So no. Bad munchkin. No biscuit.

Hmmm. You may be right there. I've been told that glass eyes kinda... roam a little.

The concept is still sound, though. Right? Like an implanted commlink? Or an orientation system (not put in the head, of course)? Or an auto injector? Or, heck, how about a cyberlimb?

You're describing wearing Cameras on your face. Anyone can do that. You can't break any of the cyber rules, though: cyber mods go/work only in actual implants.

The limb is very unlikely. If you could get a no-Essence limb (no DNI)—which might be possible—you'd have to control it action-by-action using Command (best case scenario).

You can indeed put a normal commlink under your skin, if you're okay gouging out that much flesh. It'll have to get recharged somehow, and you'll only be able to control it 'remotely'… which defeats the only purpose of the implanted commlink.

A number (most?) of cyber items exist as 'gear' equivalents already; just get those.

What rule makes you think it is possible to take no essence loss for cyberware?

You are taking away my fun here! If I wanna spend far more money than I need to for the sake of techno-dorkyness can't you let me?

And I do believe the smartlink and simrig complex forms and the skinlink echo, not to mention the bio-radar advanced echo shows that cyber rules can indeed be broken.

It's just an idea. I remember reading somewhere that it's the neural link or genetic alterations that cause the sessence loss. I forget where, though. Dammit, now you made me need to go look it up! Where's my Augmentation book?

I don't see the connection between gear-like CFs/Echoes, and breaking the cyber rules. You could maybe get a CF/Echo of something (GM approval, if it made sense), but that's got nothing to do with whether a cyberlimb mod works outside of a normal cyberlimb.

It's true that not all implants cost Essence. The question is whether those that *do* would function otherwise.

Hey, if it works for teeth.....

Kidding, kidding. In all seriousness, there ARE zero essence cyberware mods already in the rules. In the core book, even.

Well, it's not entirely unreasonable.

If your eyes get gouged out you don't take essence loss. That loss doesn't happen until you actually have cybereyes implanted and hooked into your brain.

If you just stuck cybereyes into the empty sockets without any DNI connections there should be no essense loss, anymore than strapping a camera to your head would.

But why gouge your eyes out when you can, in fact, strap a camera to your head?



-k

To become wiser? I remeber Odin did something like that. "Hey, I took my, now I'm wiser, now I know I shouldn't have taken it in the first place."

It is unreasonable if the rule says it costs essence.

AFAIK, there are no rules for 'non-installed' cybereyes, so they're not even an option. You can have cameras in your eye sockets (urgh). It's not that no-DNI cyber necessarily costs Essence, it's that Essence-costing cyber necessarily costs Essence to function (unless it says otherwise).

And while we're at it, is it possible to Initiate without spending Karma?
And delta-ware doesn't have to cost more than regular cyberware.

Use RFID sensors insteed of cybereyes. Cybereyes need to be linked to your body to have energy. RFID sensors don't.
So whit RFID sensors you don't have to pay essence. and you can have many of them on your body, clothes or else.

Also you can load your RoomSweeper with it, or mix them with glue in a slashing grenade, or wathever crazy thinks you can imagine.

Um. In what sense do 'RFID sensors' (= sensor tags?) replace cybereyes? Assuming they can even have cameras (the example sensors for these are like thermometers), they're limited to *bad* cameras (micro, Rating 1, no mods). Just glue a real Camera (6) to your head; anyone can do it.

The game doesn't really handle the difference between senses/sensors (eyes and cybereyes, versus Cameras). Theoretically, you have to make Sensor tests for everything, but I've never heard of people doing that.

The Evisceration task for submerging!

Hmmm. Let's say a technomancer creates the complex form of a program designed to run said cyberware. Is it truly unreasonable to say that smartlink and simrig are the only programs that can be made into complex forms for the purpose of running cyberware? I don't think so. I know things like muscle replacement and bone lacing are right out. But cybereyes I can see (pardon the pun) being made to work this way. If they were well made and worked with your eye's muscle groups for controlling where the pupil points I think it could make for an effectively fully functional item. I imagine spending the 2 karma for the complex form would do it.

But how is that not just a Camera? A Smartlink CF is not really replacing cyberware; you basically can pipe a smartlink feed through any DNI.

What's you're thinking of is not a complex form, but a Machine Sprite. Just as a Pilot program would run such a device.

It says it costs essence if they are installed.

If a pair of cybereyes are just stuck into empty eye sockets, without actually hooking any wires or nerves up, no essence loss. But it also means that they'd be useless lumps of plastic and metal. Unless you hack into them, much like a hacker could hack his way into a security camera.

It would be really no different than a blind technomancer hacking into a pair of cybereyes that are sitting on a shelf next to him, and wirelessly routing the visual data into his own brain.



-k

If you can do that at all, is the question. There's no indication that non-installed cybereyes do *anything* (and I still don't see why not just use Cameras), assuming they're even powered.

So what's the advantage in removing your eyes here?

Why not keep your eyes and put a sensor package on your clothing or armor... or just use goggles/glasses/contacts? Now you can see through your eyes, and via your technomancer abilities get access to the enhanced inputs in your sensor packages?

Sensor packages like goggles, glasses, sensor RFID tags, sensor packs gecko-gripped to the side of your helm or weapon, etc.

My Hacker character has a full set of various stick-on sensor packages for up to 5 people so that he can ensure enough sensor channels to maintain his tacnet inputs when the group goes full bore black ops.

Still, using a stationary camera and a non-installed cybereye end up with the same drawback. You can't direct them. You can't look left, or right, or up, or down. They stare in whatever direction they are set for. To move them, they need to be connected to the muscles of the eyes, and thus the body, and thus essence.

But, SR4A neither has facings nor particularly clear field-of-view rules, nor even visual focus; I think it's basically assumed the cameras have something approaching 180°. So it's not a practical matter, though it would be important theoretically.

To become wiser, like Odin.

A non-installed cybereye IS just a camera, more or less.

I think there is precedent for a cybereye continuing to work without a living host - I seem to remember one Shadowrun published adventure revolving around recovering a cybereye from a dead body that, unknown to the people that killed him, was set in "record" mode at the time and kept filming them after he was dead.

One of my pet peeves, though is that there isn't a whole lot of reason to USE most cyberware, rather than their non-implanted Gear counterparts. Aside from "they can't easily take it away from me", the external equipment works just as well if not better. There are a tiny amount of implants that actually provide a benefit that gear can't do. I'd like to see implants have a definite edge over external gear, if nothing else because it's more "cyberpunk" to me.


-k

If it makes you feel better, this is also a pet peev of no small amount of writers. I know it really bothers Critias and I think Mr. Goodman mentioned that it got under his skin too. I think it's something that's in the pipeline but WAY down the road. In any event, having things like bonuses to Perception for cybereyes and bonuses to Initiative for datajacks are some of the most common house rules I've seen.

Karma, I never count any of that 'implied canon' crap; the writers just make stuff up. But my point is merely that it's not in the rules, not that it's *impossible* (again, assuming there's a battery in the thing).

It's a tough balance between making cyber 'relatively better', and making gear plausible. It didn't make sense when there was a cyber-radar and no gear radar; that's just not logical. It *does* make sense for there to be cyber DNI and no gear DNI—but that happened anyway for other reasons. I don't think we'll ever see a gear (external device) item that gives you more meat IPs, for example, but many (the majority of?) cyber implants are a different category: things that started as gear and got implanted.

Well, Cram (or Jazz, or Kamikaze, or K10) in a Popper... There is your external device giving Extra Meat IP's. Been in the game quite a while, too...

No, drugs are internal. I specifically considered that. That's why I said '(external device)' so clearly for you.

And yet a Popper is an External Device. I hold it in my hand.
The effects of the drug may happen on the inside, but so what.

… So that's the whole point. The drug is what does it.

But drugs have an internal effect outside of their benefits. If you fail an addiction roll, you get a Negative Quality. Fail it enough times and you lose Essence. They also have a limited scope. It's not like carrying around a popper gives you extra IPs like a sustaining focus...

Oh yeah. Sustaining focus. But that's apples and oranges.

Again, the focus doesn't do anything. The spell does it, and that's again not an external device. Anyway, it was an example.

Yerameyahu, the reason not to just have a camera and to stick uninstalled cybereyes into your sockets is simple: it's freakin' cool! Yes, it costs more for no extra benefit... but then I can say, "Look what I can do 'cause I'm a technomancer! Can you do this? NooOOOooo! Nyah! " Or, if someone were to say something like, "If only you could see it the way I see it..." Gouge out his cybereyes, gouge out my meat ones, stick in his hardware, hack into it and voila. "Oh, look, I do see it through your eyes and it's exactly the same!"

you can do it whitout beeing a technomancer.
everybody can do it. last week i was thinking about a ghoul using camera googles, a comlink and trodes to see the real world without losing is magic point because of essence loss with cybereyes.

He's a ghoul. That Essence loss is temporary.

So, just so I understand this thread correctly, the point is that Essence shouldn't be a thing in Shadowrun, right? I mean, isn't the idea of the thread that instead of installing cyberware, people can just remove their arms or eyes or whatever and replace them with cyberware; onlyinstead of "installing" it, just have the cyberware work off of wireless?

Is that it? Do people just not like the concept of Essence in the game?

AFB right now, but I think that ghouls don't have drain essence.

ghoul don't have essence drain or essence loss, but they are blind. And they can change their blind eyes with brand new cybereyes, but they loose essence in doing that. And if you loose essence, you loose magic, so a ghoul could have the choice of rigging a camera to "see".

But a ghoul will never be a technomancer.

I guess I was thinking of vampires or something.

That doesn't answer my question, though. Is the point of this thread that people think Essence shouldn't be part of the game?

Not from my perspective. I absolutely love the Essence mechanic. I think it is great.
What I have issues with is powers like Essence Drain. Absolutely hate that power. Of course, when you have a drawback of Essence Bleed (Essence Loss?), you need to balance that out. But, in the end, Essence Drain has caused more problems than it has fixed, in my opinion.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Well, Shadowrun Vampires are not meant to be PCs.
With the dataprocessing and scanning technology available in Shadowrun, it should not be a problem to pinpoint a vampire. (And taking a look at the scanners, it is not)
And with the kind of infrastructure a hefty response would seem logical....

So vampirers end up to be munchkins choice, which will die if the GM really gives life to the world, instead of just railroading the plot.

Indeed...
We have yet to allow Infected as Player Characters at our table, though I have come up with an interesting Loup-Garou Vitke. I will likely never get to play him, though.

Besides, if you want to play a Vampire, NWOD Requiem is a better choice, at least in my opinion.

Agreed.

No, Fortinbras. The thread is about if technomancers can loophole their way out of essence loss with a couple of cyberware items. Not all of them qualify but I thought cybereyes might.

Ah, so the Essence mechanic shouldn't be applied to cybereyes.
To what should the Essence mechanic apply, as it no longer applies to cybereyes, and by default, arms, legs, torsos, or ears?

@Fortinbras
Yeah, thats the thing I do not get either...

There was the same shit with nanohives outside of once body...