Which would make powdered metals really darn expensive... Well, I guess those nanobots need a lot of seldom minerals and metals to replicate themselves...

Oh, and I did not want to emply, that I agree with the idea of chemistery reducing the cost of the stock...

I think here is a NPC in one of the Mass Effect games that claims WMDs were unavailable to the masses thanks to strong DRM.

You can buy a little CNC unit that can work aluminum and make AR-15 receivers for well under 10K. There are various other steps you should take after you cut the raw metal to get it to last a long time (anodizing, possibly heat treatment), but you should be able to make one that goes bang and lasts thought at least hundred of rounds without that.

Yeah, it seems like 'nano' 3D printing might be the wrong tool for this job. Their strength is that they can make 'anything', but if you just want to make guns? Cheaper things.

This stuff always makes me think of the anti-genocide kits in Cryptonomicon.

INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE!!!

Actually: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." - Stewart Brand

Oh, and just to to things back to the AK at the start, AKs don't require machining to make the receiver. They are a flat piece of sheet steel with some holes (a "flat") that are bent into shape and riveted together. Now making a stamping press or the die for the press to make the flats is a big deal, but you can order flats through the mail, they are not controlled items. Without heat treating they won't last a huge number of rounds (the pins and rivets will tear out), but they will work.

$35, apparently.
(Didn't find an AK-47, but I found a few other flats, including a 9mm).

Mixing chemicals is chemistry. Making plastic is obviously chemistry and as to making the metal feedstocks for a 3D printer its ground up metal mixed with chemicals to make it stick together which is chemistry.

You're not 'making feedstock', you're buying it. Neither does simple, non-hazardous 'mixing' count as value-added labor. The point is that you're not getting a discount. That (crazy) suggested discount is for things like creating chemical compounds, from ingredients. There are numerous examples in the book: extracting opium, making black powder, synthesizing plastic (yes), or "creating advanced synthetic drugs".

That's not adding a cup of sugar and a cup of flour to your 3D printer (even if you could mix your own feedstock, again). You're not saving 90% off the cost of just buying the sugar and the flour pre-mixed, mostly because you're not making feedstock. This is that same as Pax said at the beginning:Feedstock is not a Chemistry product option. Making it is not possible for players in the first place. I was just saying that, even if it were, feedstock seems to me to be manufactured, not synthesized (using Chemistry).

Why wouldn't it be possible for players, Yerameyahu?

I didn't say wouldn't, I said isn't. It's not in the rules. You can buy it (with difficulty). You can't say, 'I use Chemistry to make some feedstock' and claim a 90% discount (possibly including the 500% markup for untagged). People can change the game with house rules, but that's not saying much.

Seriously metallurgy to make the appropriate alloys needed IS chemistry and making particular plastics IS chemistry. You are right in that mixing metal fibres with plastic dust and shaking it in a bucket is not chemistry but since I wasn't talking about that it is kind of irrelevant.

Ah. That's I thought how Pax framed it ('a blend'), and no one disagreed. I guess you were presenting a house rule in which players can make feedstock from scratch.

Let's just say shadowrun needs more detailed and coherent rules for all forms of manufacturing/modding.

No argument here. Of course, that's not really the job of shadowrunners. I feel like the rules try to minimize 'crafting systems' because the (shadow) economy is mostly NPCs. Some PCs have secondary (or lower) skills and things, and certainly *could* have world-class primary skills in such fields, but the point of them is to be enjoying the action… not playing FarmVille. I'm not saying a runner can't or shouldn't do his own mods, armorer work, whatever, but just that it's not 'running the shadows' in the same way that using those products is.

I believe that just like today people who are really into computers with customize their deck/commlink, people who are into guns will customize them and people who love cars will do the same and the rules should support them.

Edit: Also every group needs an Alfred.

Yes. I'm saying that I understand that elaborate crafting (esp. manufacturing, etc.) could be a lower priority from the game designer's perspective. It's the same old 'why aren't runners just car thieves?' issue.

@Shortstraw
The point here is, that costomizing something yourself does not really improve performance on the big scale. Of course you can clean your computer and it will run a lot faster.
But really modding anything is kind of though. (Sure in the good old days you could overclock and I am sure it still works...)
But the point is, the gain is quite limited and the possible fallout makes more than often up for it.

It is the same with guns. Of course you can modify the trigger mechanism so you can squeez it fast. But for that you pay with the possibility that your gun may go off if you do not want it to go off...
Looking at the modifikation rules from SR it is to say, that they are really, really, really mod friendly.
Realistic rules would hurt a lot more.

And again the same with cars. Of course I can make my car go faster. Mostly by replacing parts. Yes, I can also change some settings to get more power. But as soon as I do that, my fuel consumption will probably go up and my engine will probably not hold as long as it would under normal parameters.
And so on.
Mostly it will be very expensive for little gain.

I'm not asking for realistic rules - it's consistent detailed rules I would like.

Bah! Chaos all the way!!!

Come on, CanRay. You can't say that without addending "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne," or "Exactly as planned," or "FOR CHAOS!"

Armok would be happy to take your offering.

MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!

^^ Win. ^^

I guess we do have a bit different understanding of "consistent". The simple way to make consistant rules is the: Nothing stacks approach.
You have two boni on the same thing (out of the same source), the higher one counts.

You suggest SR should copy the other game?

Everything stacks would be just as consistent and even simpler. You would not need to hunt for different or unnamed bonuses as in The Other Game.

Here are two TED talks I recently viewed. Marc's talk is more SR related (criminal cellphone network, printing weapons, etc). Anthony's is just fascinating from a medical perspective.

Marc Goodman - A vision of crimes in the future
Anthony Atala - Printing a human kidney

Enjoy!

Nope. The point is you will run into problems, if you increase the size of the system. (As a matter of fact, there is NO System of which I know, which works like that. And no, shadowrun does not. Shadowrun tells you quite often what would stack, and what would not stack)
And of course you have to rule not not everything stacks with itself...

The other game has brought it to an extrem by using hundreds over hundreds of sources....

The problem with using Chemistry to make feedstock in order to cut cost is that feedstock is essentially just raw materials. The reason you save money making things with chemistry is because you start with raw materials to make a refined or specialized product....

your suggesting you take raw materials and make....raw materials....

You could still use it if for some reason you had a bunch of it but in a form that you couldn't use...for example if you have a bunch of Iron III Chloride and Zinc for some reason, you could combine them and get Iron as a precipitate. Which when you remove it from your Zinc chloride, you'll be left with powdered Iron! Hurray for Iron feedstock!


But otherwise, you won't be saving a whole lot on making your own feedstock. The only reason you would do it is for tracability.

Hence my post about a tag eraser-slash-giant electro magnet.

Understood, I just wanted to make it clear for the conversation as a whole "why" chemistry would not be a "cost saver" regarding feedstock

Just to haul things back (sort of?) on topic, to the idea of 3D printing and awesome technology and the SR future getting closer every day? Custom exoskeleton printed for little girl.

Free Iron Will for some.

And it even uses erector set parts