one of My current characters thought it'd be a great idea (seeing as he is an adrenaline junkie) to get a SimRig installed (at creation)

But I'm a total n00b and haven't the faintest clue as to how it plays out in IC and OOC.

for example, I don't have cyber eyes so how is visual or other sensory input recorded ?

how is ANY of it recorded ? does it include any memory in the package ?

How do you get that from your body and into some form of transferable media (for sale) can you EDIT it first ? for cinematic effect etc.

and finally, what's to stop someone / anyone (Lonestar or corporation) buying my simsense BTL or whatever it's called and recognising the faces and actions of my crew ?

cheers
Mach

A SimRig is full sensory recording. If you look at the description of a TACnet, an otherwise-unaugmented metahuman still counts as three "tactically useful" senses for the purposes of counting as sensor devices for a TacNet.

If you have a SimRig and look at something and record it, it records what you saw, as you saw it with your Mark 1 (meta)human eyeballs. If you hear something, it records the sound as you heard it, if you smell something, it records the scent as you smelt it, if you touch something, it records the sensation as you felt it. (So obviously, porn simsense is popular. You may not be able to get Kat 'O Nine Tails in the sack, but thanks to the wonders of Simsense, you can experience what it's like to fuck her.




Storage space is not considered a problem in Shadowrun unless you're like, dealing with plot-device levels of data. Simsense recordings are not that, so I would call it safe in saying that the Simrig itself has an acceptable amount of storage space to store something like a fortnight's continuous recording of all senses, and you can, of course, zap that to anything you want at any time; your commlink, your CHN, your toaster... Whatever. Hell, it's all gonna be clouded anyway.



For physical media, you'll need something with which to write. A datajack can read and write to optical chips, so there you go. Any commlink can do it, and so can your implanted datajack. Now, you might have a bit of a harder time burning it into media that can't be copied from, but really all that means is that you need to attach the "Copy Protection" program option (from Unwired) to it. The really hard bit is making the ones that self-destruct after one use, you probably need special media for that. I doubt it's too expensive, but organized crime is going to be angry if you're peddling homegrown BTLs to their buyers. (On the other hand, you can sell your recordings to the crime family and let them worry about the distribution and all that.)




Absolutely fucking nothing, which is why this is a retarded idea. Even if you make extensive use of the Edit program to alter the people involved and all the logos, etcetera, to be unrecognizable, anyone who has the details of what you did (such as the people you did it to) who sees the recordings is going to know that the source of the recordings is also the source of their problems. And worse, if they don't know you've done it and some employee gets the recording and sees it, he's likely to share it around, saying "Hey, did you see this fantasy Shadowrun simfilm somebody made? It's kind of low production value, but I swear it looks just like our office, right down to the broken coffee pot on the top shelf of the break room." Then the boss watches it and shits a brick because that is their office, and they know something is up.

Yup, thought so, just thought I'd missed something, but go easy on my RETARDED ness man please .. I'm only askin'

and actually, if it's all "Cloudy" for storage unless you are uber-decker and have encryption and firewall up the wazoo, any old goon can warchalk up to your node and "YOINK" all your recordings and jobs have gone !

That scares the bejeezuz outta me, let alone my character ... so ... My next question is "WHY in the name of all that is shadowy and mean, would anyone install this stuff ? other than including it for fluff and bunraku parlors (I'm not going there) WHY does it even exist ?

are there any uses for this that I am missing ?

Molly Millions Effect.
Have your hacker 'ride' you into combat while he's staying at home, for better overwatch capabilities.

Solution is simple, though: Disable wi-fi on the implant, and only write on chip once your storage is full. Record all your favorite memories! (Maybe only the porn stuff, not the run stuff.)
You can also just ... NOT record, so there's nothing to hack and steal.

Because it's a near-standard for athletes, entertainers and artists. All the SimSense in SimDreams has to come from SOMEWHERE. Plus, it's probably common with better military units and corp sec units too, where the recordings are stored for archiving, debrief analysis and intelligence gathering purposes. And think of the applications in espionage! It has a ton of uses, just maybe not for Shadowrunners. Unless they have a background in media, security, espionage or the red lights business, and took it with them. Then it probably has fringe uses, like the Molly Millions effect Bannockburn mentioned.

On a side note, I've long wondered if live SimSense broadcasts via Matrix are a viable affair. If so, that takes reality TV to an all-new level, as it does reporting and surveillance.

Hey, CanRay! There's material for SimDreams 2 here!

cheers

so for a runner it is more a liability than a boon .. other than for re-living that last run. and as long as you have wifi disabled
(is that a RAW option with stuff ? or does it need to be hardware modded in game?... my GM WILL ask )

Actually ... this gives me a Whole New Idea.

anyone see that recent TV Show UNFORGETTABLE ? (it was ironically quite forgettable)
well that is a perfect use of SimRig ! no ?

you can go back and re visit that last run and go "Holy shit ... I missed that piece of stuff before , it's right there on the desk I only briefly looked at"

and then go back and get it a REALLY Expensive way to get "Photographic Memory" without getting the PQ

Speaking of Simsense and its uses...

Shameless ! utterly Shameless .. lol you could at least give me something for "free" and add your bare faced plug

Obviously the recording would be edited before being released

And there is at least one canon reference to this happening, the events in Queen Euphoria were recorded by her implanted Simrig and then sold as a slasher flick (of course it was marketed as fictional).

Rather than me ask the GM to handwave the removal of my SimRig as it is redundant.

I'd like some examples from you guys please, what would your runners buy it for other than self aggrandisation and "pr0n"

Maybe I can get some inspiration from you

A tag team with a hacker or technomancer who don't leave home or even an AI without a physical body, like a ghost in the machine spirit pact. They live through your eyes.

Other than that: Someone who may be obsessed with learning from his mistakes. Records all his runs, then watches re-runs and thinks about what could have gone better. Maybe coupled with OCD negative quality

Also, background 'ware. Maybe the character _was_ once a meat puppet (see again: Molly )

Same reason people watch police reality shows. If there is a market for series which show nothing but customs officers searching suitcases, even recordings of the most uneventful shadowrun should find an audience.

LOL .. judging from my current run .. I'd probably appear on UCAS Dumbest Criminals trid

Yeah, that would be a major genre, too

As long as you're not recording yourself going against LS/KE then you're a little safer. The corps most likely will not go after you because they might use you for a job later on. That is the in-universe explanation on why Shadowrunners don't get squashed by the corps all the time.

There was something in the Manadyne section of Corporate Guide about this - the shadowtalk suggested that Wuxing and Horizon might be looking into the company for developing exactly that.



The only thing I can think of that your average runner would use a simrig for (as opposed to a sim module) is the tacsoft mentioned above, assuming you're using the rules for those from Unwired. Even then, anyone that wants to link into a tacsoft would probably already have other implants to do it with (cybereyes/cyberears/etc.), and anyone that didn't have those implants probably doesn't want them (Awakened and TMs).

Also, with the ideas of stuff like "UCAS' Dumbest Criminals" and recording entire shadowruns being tossed around, as much as most runners would look at that with a big ol' "DO NOT WANT", the Los Angeles section of Corporate Enclaves makes a point of describing how people are hired to do exactly that. Some megacorp (usually Horizon, but possibly Ares like in Toxic Hunter) hires runners on as company ops, implants them with a simrig, then either stages something for the "camera" or records their runs and puts an edited version into a trid show.

if you think about it, the typical shadowrunner team is probably running around with at least one character (quite possibly several or all) who can record audio and video of all their runs anyways, just from cybereyes/ears and goggles, earbuds, etc, and if you have a rigger, quite possibly much more beyond that including radar and such things...

is it really that much worse to have one running with you that can also record smell, taste, touch, and (their own) emotions?

Making money. From porn.

Red team operations is the only one that really makes sense on the runner.

I can see reasons to attach it to someone who isn't the runner as part of a kidnapping or terror plot, and simrigs in SR4 don't have to implanted IIRC.

Very good point !

what kind of test are we looking it to obscure "the Teams" faces
OR completely replace them with the appearances of someone else ?
oh and voices too,
I feel an awful second language dub would be best, where the lips move for 30 seconds but the voice says "Hello!"

to the point I want it (the underlying data that contains their faces and persona) to be completely unrecoverable in the sellable versions.

I'll use my contacts to sell the things, as mentioned above it is risky, but the trick is in damage limitation.

I approve, especially if the recording in question involves martial arts!

Regarding what's actually needed for editing, one of the books (not Sim Dreams, one of the older ones) gives some information about what it takes to edit a simsense/ASIST feed for the purposes of producing a simsense trid. I'll look it up to be sure, but I THINK the system is essentially an Edit + Computer roll.

Edit: The sections on simsense in Unwired and Attitude don't have anything about actual production, neither does the appendix about simsense in The Twilight Horizon, and the LA section of Corporate Guide just makes an offhanded reference to "a hacker with a good Edit program" (as fluff, not crunch). If it were me house-ruling it as a GM, I'd probably go with a combination of Edit and either access to a simsynth (mentioned in Unwired, but no specs are given for it) or at least a commlink with a sim module (although you'd basically have to edit it by using yourself or another viewer as a guinea pig, IMO, which could be interesting). Hope that helps.

It'll be a Computer + Edit test, but I'm not sure how to handle it beyond that. I would suggest perhaps a threshold to recover equal to the hits on the Computer + Edit, but I'm not sure that would be adequate.

Edit: ACK ninja'd by Freya

Sorry DMiller, probably doesn't help that I write a post, then forget to click "Add Reply" for twenty minutes while I'm reading something else.

So, we have the crunchy bits sorted for doing it .. now for some fluff.

How much would you sell your last run for, not per chip, I mean ... just sell the rights and distribution to someone

once the anonymising has been taken care of, of course

Contacts and negotiations...

If you don't have the contacts, start going to Sim-release parties, find some of the scouts and reps, give away some samples, until someone shows interest.

Alternatively, if you don't want to sellout, release free samples on the Indie scene, with full recordings being cheap enough to tryout. Go with the micro transaction model--with discrete scenes and broadcasts, then serialize your life.

Relevant text is in Shadowbeat...

good to know, THANKS

but I'm not about to go out and buy the shopping list of about 5 sources now ... Including Canray's recent plug, just for this one idea

That's the GM's job

True, but Shadowbeat is an amazing resource, even if it IS from 1st Edition. Oh, and they now have it in PDF Format, from what I have seen.

Fluff wise, if you have a sim rig and want to sell recordings, its worth considering that you need not sell the full raw recordings. You could strip out just the emotive track and sell that, for example. Some sim producer making a high-stress sim then mixes a bit of that emotion in the editing room, or patches it through the star during the (relatively safe) perfromence to create the required emotional intensity. Similarly, the pain you suffer from injuries might be of interest, both to movie producers, and makers of black ice, and maybe even darker types.

That ... is quite disturbing ! ... but I like it

Comparing the two, Unwired has pretty well the same fluff and mechanics information for simsense production as Shadowbeat, just updated for 4th Ed. There aren't any equipment lists for it in Unwired, though.



Interesting idea, it kind of reminds me of selling individual recording tracks from a music production instead of selling the whole piece. The thing is, wouldn't you still need the simsynth to actually isolate that emotive track?

Yeah, I wish they had included Shadowbeat's equipment in Unwired. Oh Well.



Yes, you would need the Simsynth for that, to my knowledge. Have to go back and re-read up on it, but I am pretty sure.

there are rules for toolkits, shops, and facilities that you use to make stuff using skills. just decide what equivalent you need for this task (i would think a shop is adequate), and there you go.

mind you, i would add that these would more likely be software, rather than a physical location... but still basically a toolkit (something you run on your commlink for basic stuff), shop (more powerful tools, fine for fuzzing out faces or separating out specific tracks i would think), and facility (might actually be physical, in that it's probably used to actually mass-produce chips, probably necessary if you want to handle multiple simsense inputs at a time, probably also necessary for working up anything from component parts and such, making multi-POV simsense recordings, etc).

it's a bit of an abstraction, but i see no reason it wouldn't work to some extent.

Probably, although given the raw sim recording is just another data file, I can't see why a special piece of hardware is needed to extract those "tracks". Early SR often under-estimated the utility of general purpose computing (see "cyberdeck"). Probably the sort of thing you'd do through a middle man either way, which means there's somebody you are trusting with those raw recordings... potentially a nice excuse for a negative quality.

This is how we have handled it in 4th Edition, as well.

+1 to this idea, kind of embarrassed it hadn't occurred to me before.



I agree that general-purpose computing has been underestimated, but there are times where certain specific hardware or software can make a pretty big practical difference. I have a few friends who are audio engineers (which is about the closest analogue to multi-track simsense recording I can think of), and although they COULD just record it all as one track and manually separate each source with a digital recorder and a PC, it's a lot faster and cleaner to just record everything as separate tracks. You don't HAVE to do it that way, but the difference in quality is noticeable in the end product.

A better parallel might be video. At the top end, you have the Red Epic. It spits out the raw signal from each of its three color chips, each of which goes to a special recording unit and is recorded with loss-less compression. This kicks you average high res camcorders ass because there's no firmware mixing going on; you can perform what would normally be an in camera function in post processing. Working with data that's closer to the actual hardware sensor source signal results in cleaner production.

Given unlimited storage and transfer speeds plus programable firmware, there's no reason not to record anything you can on a "as close to the hardware sensor level as possible" basis. In fact, having better hardware sensors is probably the main reason to use an implant simrig, so NOT recording individual tracks would be a waste of its potential.

TLDR - I'd say the Implant Simrig is the "Red Epic" of the simrig industry.

ty, Mongoose, that's exactly the point I was going for. (Also cool to learn how video processing works!)

As for the "why bother getting specialised equipment", one point that I forgot before: if a character regularly records and sells simsense tracks, it's going to save them a lot of time and energy to use tools built for the purpose of editing that data, the same way that movie producers use dedicated software instead of a hex editor. That's not to say you couldn't do video work with a hex editor, just that it's probably not the best use of your time to do so. (I think there's also a penalty for "inadequate tools" on the Build/Repair table that would apply in this case, assuming that's the set of rules you're using.)

I toyed around with a simrig once. I built a shadowrunner who specialized in wetwork (I guess dampwork in some cases, as a kill wasn't always required). His specialty was revenge kills/beatings. He would take a contract and provide the Johnson with a chip of the sim recording so the Johnson could relive the experience of beating the Hell out of/killing their enemy. I thought it was a niche that would likely exist in the Sixth World.

Good point; there's nothing saying a specialized suite of software can't be your tool set (although I think they normally take up space?) and it would almost certainly be needed. On the other hand, a lot of what is used in modern day audio-visual production is essentially specialized input and visualization equipment. I'd expect the simsense equivalents of those would go the way of the dodo (at least by the times of SR4).

why would the specialized equipment go away? it might be something that you don't need access to the physical location for (ie you just run everything over the matrix) or something like that, but if you get better results using specialized equipment now, even when the raw power behind it is not necessarily any greater, why wouldn't get better results in the future for using specialized equipment of equivalent power?

i would still expect to need to own the specialized tools. you might not need to physically go to them, but you probably still want to have them if you want good quality.

Exactly...

My chars personal skillset is purely hardware, so would be utterly useless in this respect BUT, anything to stop me buying the suite and getting a "contact" setup to be a studio engineer? for want of a better phrase

I'd say that is a very legit option, and a great contact concept. Any time you have reasons to trade more then nuyen with a contact, its good for the story.

I did that with my infamous Mr. Tso. As he was retired to NPC status early, I didn't get much use out of it... but the theory is sound! Do it, and bring us back the results!! (I'd be interested in just how well it actually works). Just make sure, Loyalty 5 or 6 to ensure no backstabbery.

I ran into a Missions character that had the whole SimRig setup. Ostensibly to provide sensor channels for a TacNet.

If you play Missions, and run into a cephlopoid (squid-headed) pixie, do NOT let him jack his sensorium into your network. He likes to... taste things.



-k

Yet another reason Old Man Jones runs his own personal TacNet using a set of FlySpies, instead of joining the team network.