Skillsofts (Or more specifically activesofts) are expensive, giving you a rank per ten grand you spend to a maximum of four ranks. They require skillwires to use, though these are relatively affordable in both essence and nuyen if taken at character generation, and cannot be improved by edge unless you've purchased an expert system. They also cannot take specializations.

Are they worth the expense? Let's analyze that.

Assume (for the sake of arguement) that we have a 5 man runner team, with all but the mage cybered mundanes: A Face, A Street Sam, A Mage (without any cyberware), A Rigger, and A Hacker. They do four runs per month which net them 5 grand per run each after expenses, and are all living on a middle lifestyle. Each run also nets them 6 Karma. Each augmented runner has rating 5 skillwires or equivalent.

this means that they're earning about 15,000:nuyen: per month each, along with 24 Karma. Now, the greatest strength of Activesofts is that if you have a decent hacker on the team to overcome the copy protection then buying it once gives the whole group the skill. Let's explore some situations where this can be really useful:
First Aid: If each member of the group were to buy the first aid skill up to rank 4 with their Karma would cost each member 22 of their 24 Karma for the month, ignoring training costs, or about 91.6%. If instead each team-member with skillwires were to chip in 10 grand for the skillsoft then they'd be spending a total of 40,000:nuyen: of the mundane group members' net 60,000:nuyen: earnings, or 66.6% of their cash for the month.
Gunnery: Suddenly the Hacker is a backup Rigger, the Face and Street Sam are able to make use of vehicle mounted weapons.
Ect.

If the group has enough members with wires then in my view it's worth considering splitting the cost of a couple of activesofts, particularly in skills where it's desirable to have most of the group trained to a high standard.

Take:
Restriced Gear.
MBW-2 on alpha or Beta, depending on what you can reasonable well afford.
Get enough BP for the Money needed for this.
Get enough BP for the Money for a REALLY tricked out Comlink maximized only for the purpose of SEARCH.
Get enough BP for the Rating 4/4 Warez-Network Group-Contact.
Get every single Skill-Soft in the Game for 10% List-Price in 3 Days In-Game-Time.
Combine with good Attributes and you are good to go!

Isn't that a tiny-little-bitty exploitative of the nice GM?

What about a character generation?

A rank in a skill costs 4 BP per rating or ratingx2 karma. Each rating level of an activesoft costs 2 BP or 4 karma of starting resources, plus a 0.4 BP or 0.8 karma in resources for each level of rating for the skillwires. The skillwire expert system is 0.6 BP or 1.2 karma.

Assuming you haven't already maxed out resources or essence expenditures, you will save BP by buying a skill you want at rank 4 or less with skillwires. Even with the expert system. In karmagen skillwires are a losing proposition until rank 4 (for 1 or 2 skills), and are cheaper at rank 4 even with the expert system.

Personally, I don't think there's any point where skillsofts are worth it in karma gen. Even at R4 you are essentially comparing that against a rank 3 skill with specialization for the same expenditure of karma. For some skills that value of a specialization may be lessened for that overall +1 die but I suspect those are less prevalent.

how/why?

it's just as abusive as the pornomancer or agent smith script kiddie or the ultimate mundane climber.
you don't even need anything apart from the core book to do this.

Also, you have to factor in Skillgroups, which make activesofts more expensive than buying the skill. Thats one of the reasons my group uses the old SR4 prices for Activesofts and Knowsofts.

The whole reason active skill costs went from 3,000 to 10,000 was that 3,000 was too cheap. Even under karma gen that means a R4 activesoft would cost a tad under 5 karma which is only 125% of the cost of raising the skill to 1. At the costs you're talking the downsides from taking activesofts was basically nonexistent. The prices needed to be increased. The cost should be somewhere between 5,000 and 7,500 with 6,000 probably being the sweet spot. 3,000 is too low and 10,000 too high.

This is called 'answering your own question'.

And don't forget Pluscode. A +1 bonus for really cheap.

One big bonus of skillwires is the option to get a skill while you are on the run.

Bye
Thanee

No it's not, it's perfectly rules legal, just like a mage that summons spirits left and right.
Or a Drone-Rigger.
Or a Sorcerer overcasting stunball all the time without taking any drain.
It's a perfectly valid and rules legal concept. You don't need a nice GM to exploit.
You don't even need to exploit the GM at all. You are using exploit on the Rules.
So yes, technically, you are doing exactly what a "Hacker" *shudders* is supposed to do.
The fact that this works better for a non hacker-character is somewhat mentionable though.

As for maintenance on eroding skills: let them erode if you don't need them all that much.
Otherwise figure out wether or not it costs more to do maintenance than it would to simply get a new copy.

I am not sure wether or not plus code actually works with warez.

'Rules legal' is not the opposite of 'exploitative'. I didn't read his comment as meaning 'doesn't this *require* a permissive GM?', but I see what you meant.

In SR4, like all RPGs, everything is subject to GM-approval.

I played a decker in a group with only 3 players. Skillsofts enabled me to fill a couple of the necessary roles that we just didn't have the bodies to fill otherwise.

Thanee: I think you mean "Personalized" - but this is actually a handicap. You cannot share or pirate personalized Activesofts.



I think you are right, i will bring this up at the next session.

The problem seems to be the increasing prices for skills with karma, and linear costs for software. The linear costs only make sense with BP, not with karmagen or improving a character in-game with karma. There is also the problem that any cost that works for karmagen and in-game increases with karma will be too cheap for people using BP, because low-end skills are relatively cheap with karma.

As it is, the savings in BP-gen makes it an interesting choice. In karmagen the small savings only if you buy them at the maximum rating probably isn't worth them not being upgradable without re-buying everything, no ability to use specializations or groups, the essence cost, and inability to use edge without buying more equipment. It seems strange that a piece of equipment would be made so inefficient by a metagame consideration (BP vs karma) that it would probably have effects on the game world (whether or not people would want to have skillwires installed). Having different costs for BP-world and karma-world would be at least as strange.

Having the price for activesofts be rating squared times some number of nuyen and the skillwires be a linear cost would only help some people, but would probably be a reasonable houserule. The exact cost would have to be determined based on the karma:nuyen given after expenses in the individual game.

Stahlseele also does not mention the perpetual upkeep costs at that point (since they are cracked software), nor does he remember to mention that the search for something that costs over 10,000 Nuyen is measured in 2 Week Increments rather than days.

EDIT: I see that he tangentially mentioned the Upkeep in a post further down...

i don't really see why one would ever pay upkeep on something gotten through illegal means in the first place . .
especially, if said upkeep is more than the 10% of listcost for a brand shiney new one too.
if the upkeep goes down to 10% of that of list-price stuff, then that's another matter entirely.
as for the 2 weeks: that's what the tricked out 20 dice in search comlink and the Warez-Network 4/4 Group-Contact are there for, if i understood that concept correctly.
remember, i don't do SR4, this was not my idea, else i could explain it a bit better. It's just one of those ideas that stuck with me, like the ultimate mundane climber or pixie-punch or riposterboy..

If you use the piracy rules, you only pay 10% and just need a search test - which has IPs as interval length.

Let's say a hacking software which normally has prices of 500/1000/1500/4000/5000/6000 for each rating.

To get a cracked copy you would pay 50/100/150/400/500/600 to acquire it.

After 1 month the rating of the program degrades by 1. The cost to upgrade is 10% of the difference between the street costs of ratings. That means the upgrade costs are 50/50/50/250/100/100.

So you can either pay 600/month to keep getting new cracked copies or you can pay 600 + 100/month to update it. After 4 and a half years you would have paid more than if you bought the damn software in the first place.

Ahhhh... Got it.

Yes... Which is why I tend to Code my own software as a PC Hacker.

@StealthSigma
*shrugs*
That's a timeframe magnitudes above what i am used to dealing with concerning in game time . .

4½ years is longer than the average life expectancy in the shadows, so there shouldn't be a problem there.

Exactly what i meant.

It works out to 4.5 years for R1-3 and R5-6 software.

R4 software is a whole different story. You pay 400 upfront and 250/month in upkeep. Which means 1.25 years until you pay more than if you bought a new copy.

That's why I love them. It means that you aren't hosed when the Johnson says "oh, and the grotto is protected by ancient Mayan riddles that trigger nano bees covered in poison." No worries, I know all about ancient Mayan riddles now!

Oooooor:

Neo: Can you fly that thing?

Trinity: Not yet [pulls out cell phone] Tank I need a pilot program for a B-212 helicopter.

[Tank inputs the pilot program into Trinity]

Trinity: Let’s go!

Right.

Bye
Thanee

I think the degradation rules for software has nothing to do with activesofts. The program doesn't degrade, but other programs get better. A big deal with hacking programs, but not in anyway related to active softs.

Even better: buy one, SINGLE, legit copy on a fake SIN whose sole purpose is "buy software and keep it updated".

Then, as a PC Hacker, crack it yourself.

It degrades? OH NOES, delete the cracked copies, and crack the legit copy all over again. Remember, you actually own a license for that copy, you get the updates legitimately.

… But then you already bought it. The point is to not buy it. Your solution only addresses the paranoia/tracking issue.

And also, the "we want more than one copy" issue.

Oh, did someone ask for that? I guess you *could* supply your team. The only point I saw talked about was 'avoid buying it'.

If you're actually after pirated R4 software (though I don't see why you would be, when it's so easy to start with an R5 commlink), you're probably better off just running with R3 software every other month, and getting a newly pirated copy when it degrades to R2.

Please.

If you're going with Skillsofts, the best thing you can do is take Black Market Contacts, a Software dealing contact, and Negotiate discounts on legal skillsofts.
Datatracking and user profiling isn't even an issue if you setup your skillwires to not be networkable. There's also the Missions Standard for software.


The main benefit of skillwires is the ability to raise your skills with money instead of karma.
If, say, you're a combat mage - you buy fighty skills with money, and spells with karma, and come out ahead. Because, lets face it, 22 karma for a skill at 4 is better spent on initiating. And if you can get a skill at 4 for half off because of your contacts, 20k sounds like a pretty good deal.

@Halin: People usually go for R4 Skillsoft because most of the time, this is done with Level 2 MBW which doubles as Level 4 Skillwires, if i understood this correctly.

The price points we mentioned, where there's a large jump from R3 to R4 is only for programs, not skillsofts (which have linear costs)

Exactly. Mainly autosofts work this way. That single die isn't gonna cut it compared to the expenses...

But the topic was about skillsofts. I'm currently thinking about outfitting both the group face/infiltrator and my own rigger/mage with useful skillsofts, as both sport skillwires. Maybe even with the "Adaptive Scale" program option, as the face's skillwires have a rating two levels higher. Per rules, these copies will only degrade every two months. Only problem so far is to cover skills that are useful, but not taken by either of us Maybe some hacking stuff...

I disagree.

Yes, they were cheap enough so you COULD make a character concept out of it and take a 'backup' skill.

At 40K a pop per singular skill that damn expensive. At chargen it means ONE rating 4 skill is 16% of your total starting cash and 4BP.

That means you can have a total (not counting the skillwire system) have 6 skills at rating 4. That's not very impressive.

They should at least had a sliding scale.
1: 1000
2: 2000
3: 4000
4: 8000

Se, slightly more flexible.

SR4A pretty much killed Skillsofts. The only times people use skillsofts now are:
1) The group awards vastly more Nuyen than Karma. As in, completely out of scale, e.g. 50.000 Nuyen per person and 4 Karma for the run.
2) Piracy shenanigans
3) Biowire+Tutor sprite shenanigans
4) Hardcore Stormwind fallacy players who will pursue a given concept (in this case, someone with skillwires) despite them being a less than optimal choice.

Not anymore, you cracked it.

Yeah, it is a bit stupid, but that is how it works (I think ).

You cannot make copies from it, unless you crack it. And when you crack it, you cannot auto-update it anymore.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, the cost of skillwires in 4a make taking them at CharGen not such a good deal, especially as noted when you can get cracked versions at 1/10 the price. Even if you have skillwires from MBW, you are probably wanna wait until in-game before you start forking out for skillsofts galore.

I can see their uses in-game though. A hacker or rigger could get some of the more exotic Pilot skills via skillwires, or as noted a mage who is taking a bit of cyber anyway can get some of his secondary non-magic skills up to scratch without having to "waste" that karma he has earmarked for initiation. And in-game you can get betaware (or perhaps even deltaware) level 5 or 6 skillwires and an expert system for a reasonable price and relatively cheap essence cost, without having to spring 5BP for Restricted Gear ...

Also, Freeware doesn't cost a dime. And max. rating 4? Guess that's ok.

Involving a mage in this brings another possible benefit: They can summon spirits, and some spirits have the "Guard" power - which makes you basically immune against glitches. Sure, only works as long as the spirit is present on this plane and may create additional problems with wards and magical security in general... but you don't want to glitch on that first aid skill check, do you?

Not a problem, you use an Expert System so you can spend karma to re-roll failures.

Technically you would need Augmentation for the MBW and Unwired for the 10% of the list price. SCNR.

If you have skillwires anyways (from an MBW) the extra skills are nice. I would not bother on characters that get their extra IPs from a nother source. I would not bother with an expert system either. While cheap it does not really do much.

And with high attributes, your pool is probably good enough to not do so in the first place either.

As I understand, the Expert System only gives the option to re-roll all the dice.

Bye
Thanee

16% of your start cash and 2% of your total BP compared to the 4% of total BP for an equal rating skill. Part of the lower cost for activesofts is the fact that normally you don't get the benefit of edge on tests made using them. The problem is that expert skillwire systems are so trivial to get that the penalty is more or less a "dumbass" tax than anything else and doesn't justify such a huge price discount on the software for the effect gained.

Remember that with the expert system these function identically to a skill of the equivalent rating with only the limitations of a lack of specialization or ratings higher than 4.

I still think 6000/rating for a linear cost is the right point.
R1: 6000 (1.2BP/2.6karma) vs 4 BP vs 4 karma
R2: 12000 (2.4BP/4.8karma) vs 8 BP vs 8 karma
R3: 18000 (3.6BP/7.2karma) vs 12 BP vs 14 karma
R4: 24000 (4.8BP/9.6karma) vs 16 BP vs 22 karma

Yeah, as always, creep quickly started eating away the actual tradeoffs. :/

You are a you-know-what