You do know that we generally used fibre optics for data transmission in the 60's?

It's a pity how the second crash threw us all back to copper age...

Perhaps the bonuses from gear being wifi enabled should simply be reversed. By which I mean have the offline version grant DP while the online bonus grants DP and +limit.

Of course that's only relevant for a couple pieces of gear. I'd generally agree for the Smartlink at least.

The jammer acts as a equalizer with your opponents. Instead of just you and your chummers being offline for security, your opposition (and innocent bystanders) will also cease to benefit from their matrix bonuses.

More significantly, however, rampant use of jammers will negate the developers' intended purpose of matrix bonues, i.e., enhancing the hacker archetype's combat effectiveness. If everyone is now using jammers to even the odds in combat, the hacker is back to eating his soy cheetos in the van.

BTW, I happen to think the new matrix bonus rules and DP limits, in theory, have a a great deal of merit. Access to vast amounts of additional computer power and/or information could provide some advantages and I like the limit framework on equipment as a representation of the quality, capabilities and features of a device or weapon. Given the previews, however, I'm somewhat skeptical that these new ideas have been properly implemented in a manner that maintains the verisimilitude of the Shadowrun setting.

The most obvious and discussed example is the Smartlink, a device whose primary function is improve your aim by placing cross-hairs in your field of vision and therefore ability to hit a target. Raising the accuracy limits on the Smartlink clearly fails to achieve this goal. A proficient gunman with a attribute and skill DP of 12 will very rarely exceed the limit and gain no benefit. A Smartlink would be virtually useless for a poor marksman who needs the assistance of the device the most. It appears obvious that the Powers That Be are only willing to provide the more common sense DP bonus with a matrix connection in order to ensure that this ubiquitous piece of equipment may be hacked in combat. I would offer that a reasonable comprise would be to give a non-Matrix enabled Smartlink a DP bonus to aimed and called shots, and while Matrix-enabled, a DP bonus to all shots and/or a range extension to account for the increased data that the Matrix might provide.

Despite the foregoing, I'm definitely looking forward to picking-up my copy of SR5 and holistically reviewing the new rules and fluff. I also assume that many of these new rules might very well be supplanted by even "better" "optional" rules and equipment bonuses in the anticipated equipment and weapons supplement. I believe there is no reason as this juncture to act as if the sky is falling due to the new rules.

Lastly, as a newbie to the forum (but long time lurker), I want to thank Patrick, Bull, Aaron and Critias (and anyone else affiliated with SR) for answering questions and participating in the forum. Your great patience, understanding and emotional stamina is most impressive. I do not envy you.

And there is that one simple question which can only be answered by rules:

Why is ware with wireless enabled not affected by noise, while comlinks and decks are affected by it?

The rules might say: because gear doesn't perform matrix actions. But how can noise know which signal carries matrix actions and which carries a wireless bonus?

Noise is only a factor if you're trying to access a specific device over a kilometer away. Most ware wouldn't need that.

Maybe as a matter of performance. Let's say the gear is operating at a certain speed and generally updates via wifi. If it takes a few extra milliseconds to update itself due to noise interfering it is not so bad and you probably wouldn't even notice.

When your in the Matrix, that same bit of lag is a huge difference while in the middle of a matrix fight.

Think of it like playing any online mmorpg. If your crafting an item and the server is laggy you still craft the piece unless some really unusual circumstances demand otherwise.

But if your on a raid with your group and you have to perform a particular way on a boss fight with tight timing, lag can mean the difference between victory and wipe.

Just a thought, may or may not apply.

Noise is generated not only by distance, but also by environment: You get noise from crowded places, events, static zones, spam zones and so on. Distance surely is irrelevant between your wireless wired reflexes and your wireless reaction enahncers. A noisy environment should be relevant, if you want to stay in tune with what the matrix rules say...

Except that the human mind is incapable of actually differentiating a few milliseconds.

True, but I was just using milliseconds as a rough example. The hardware may well operate at a different pace.

Plus the question was about gear being affected by noise. Will the extendable claws be slower to extend due to noise by a discernible level? Probably not. Will it take a little longer for said claws to send off its nightly performance report to the manufacturer (Wildcat Claws™, bring out the beast in YOU!) due to the noise? possibly, but it will still eventually get sent out.

I think that's a rather good explanation (thinkig of things liek a nanosecond buyout). Thank's. Let's hope we see something like it in the book...

I'm not technically at Catalyst, but I can tell you that I'm not. Like Rusty said, you've read the book; you've got a basis for your criticism. This doesn't happen all that often.

1: Because COMBAT HACKING and because RESONANCE. >_<
2: Because RESONANCE!
3: Because RESONANCE.
4: It doesn't work that way anymore. What, you specifically say you have gear bought before 2074? It never worked that way. No, not even if your character is an old hand who got his gear in 2070, 2060, or 2055. Why not? BECAUSE RESONANCE!
5: We acknowledge not the existence of the things you speak of. BECAUSE RESONANCE! And COMBAT HACKING!

(Sorry. I think I was channeling Catalyst Game Labs there.)




They might be able to push this shit to market by selling it to the average joe as "newer, shinier, better," but they can't retcon all of their older gear out of existence, and Shadowrunners aren't going to voluntarily report to have their existing, working stuff replaced with stuff that doesn't work as well. That Ares Predator you bought in 2072 and tricked out to the max with a skinlink isn't going to have the skinlink melt off its handle. And more importantly, the corps certainly aren't going to move all their own security forces onto the "we made this specifically so it could be hacked" standard, because they don't want their guys being hacked. Militaries sure as shit aren't going to do so.




Extract your head from your hindquarters and take a good look at what they're saying are "bonuses."



We have a system for hacking devices, and could it be better? Yes, doing away with the Extended Tests could make it better, but ramming this nonsense through is asinine. Hacking to gain an immediate combat advantage should be limited to things that make sense (usurping the other guy's drones, screwing with his TacNet, messing with environmental factors like doors and lights,) and if the hacker wanted to be combat-effective, he already had options such as drawing a gun or directing a drone.

It's doubly pointless because there are two entire classes of character who does not give one explosive shit about you hacking him: first is the Awakened character. At absolute best, you may be able to screw him for a moment if he's wearing AR glasses. But you can't hack his spells, you can't hack his focuses, you can't hack the PhysAd's Power Points. This game already has a MagicRun problem wherein players seem stupid to make anything that isn't Awakened, now you'd have to be flipping suicidal! Running teams are going to consist of one hacker and a mess of PhysAds and Magicians.

The second is the Emerged character, so even odds that "hacker" will be a technomancer.




That actually could cause Ares to suffer, by completely tanking their reputation as producers of reliable, effective and powerful weapons and weapon systems (including their defense contracts) at a great price, because now their shit is coming pre-installed with massive security vulnerabilities that can only be "patched" by removing massive chunks of functionality.




1, 2, and three out of the park. This is a bullshit gamist-induced concept that was clearly "Let's turn the hacker into an MMO debuffer character so he can make things easier in combat for his pals by making things harder for the other guy and his pals" without any exploration of exactly what kind of nonsense this would indicate about the game's setting.

They don't need to issue an open apology or admission of having screwed the pooch. Those of us without Astral-Space shaped Matrix blinders on our ears can all hear the poor dog's wailing from here. They didn't just screw the pooch on this one, they had Bubba the Love Troll do the screwing.

So, since they as a company can't admit they made a massive fuck-up which is so glaring and massive that their biggest, most dedicated and most hard-core group of fans and experienced players caught it and revised it before the system is even available for purchase to the general public, it falls to us, that aforesaid biggest, dedicated and hard-core group of fans and experienced players, to issue the rules patch that CGL obviously cannot without admitting their fuck-up, which is for some reason not an option to them the way it is for normal people. Perhaps Peter Molyneaux joined CGL while we weren't looking, though were that the case I'd almost expect statements that SR5 core books would be shipping with AR glasses or datajacks.




Look, CJ, simple physics are at work here. If you have a device which is emitting radio waves to enable wireless communication, even in bursts, it's emitting radio waves. If you have a corporate facility which is this highly secured, you have every object which is within the facility and emitting radio waves registered. You know what it is, you know what its radio sequences look like. You likely also have wireless-inhibiting wallpaper, to screen outside noise out and away from your gear. Suddenly, you, with you being either an agent or a hot-sim VR security spider, detect a burst of radio noise. It doesn't match any of the devices that are supposed to be in the facility, and it doesn't appear to be in the visitor registration center, rather it's on the other side of the building. You also notice there's a lot more devices.

If the shadowrunners entering your facility are good, then every one of those devices is at least loaded with its own encryption algorithm, so you don't know exactly what they're carrying. If they're not, then their commlinks are encrypted, but your pattern-recognition suite takes an instant to determine that several of those are wireless smartguns informing their owner of their status, some of them are cybereyes communicating with those smartguns, and all the other things that are detected.

If you're the spioder, you vent your virtual bowels, if you're the agent, you take a split instant to determine the proper course of action. Either way, the following gets done, because you are loyal and value your job, or because you are well programmed: you call back to corporate security, telling them you have a huge problem, and they detail an agent swarm and some remote security spiders to asssist you. They all log on to the facility's node essentially instantaneously. About a quarter of them go to work actively searching for the enemy's hacker or technomancer in the node, so they can gang-bang him in cybercombat, a general alert is issued, critical functions are locked down, and the rest of the swarm go to work identifying enemy devices (which may take a few moments if their traffic in encrypted,) prioritizing them (disabling cyberlegs to immobilize people is priority #1, with disabling smartguns as priority #2, subverting vehicles and drones is priority #3, and disabling cybernetic sensory devices is priority #4.)

This all-out cyber-assault begins just as the on-site security team begins to notice that the red alert klaxon in their lounge is flashing and grab their guns to head out and deal with the attackers. By the time they physically arrive, assuming the runners haven't successfully managed to bug out the moment they noticed the cyber-assault and did so before the cyber-swarm could stop them, they will find a team of criminals in complete disarray, with only the Awakened characters fully capable of fighting, while the Street Samurai - who was once the very thing that corporate security guards shit their beds during the course of terrifying nightmares about - flops about on the ground like a guppy, trying valorously, but futilely, to stand on a leg that won't move, aim a gun that won't shoot with an arm that won't move, all whilst blind and deaf, while the hacker lays on the ground with his brains pouring out of his ears, and the enemy team's drones marked on your HUD as friendlies, this distinction backed up by the fact that they're suppressing the enemy PhysAd with long bursts.

All because no matter how hard they try, the Shadowrun 5th edition authors don't get to rewrite the laws of physics. Radio-Frequency Triangulation is a thing, and anything which is "wireless" is emitting radio waves. No matter how "hidden" it is, in a secure facility where the local security measures are non-trivial and include Matrix security, it stands out like a sexually-flamboyant Christmas tree with Santa Claus perched on top at Hanukkah.



You know what happens when a jammer is active but is avoiding jamming certain devices? It leaves specific frequencies unjammed.

You know what any half-way competent electronics warfare-trained human, or EWar agent will do when it scans the airwaves and discovers those facts? It will determine which frequencies are unjammed, and hence, which frequencies the enemy devices are on. Having narrowed its search considerably, it will have (a) more or less automatically detected the wireless signals of those Runner's gear, and (b) inform every device to which it still has contact to switch to those unjammed frequencies, thus unjamming everything.

Alternatively, if they have some kind of complicated random-walk frequency shifting set-up in play wherein their devices all shift frequencies seamlessly to "slide through" the jamming cycles, that EWar operator/agent will simply enact broad-scale jamming, thus jamming all of your shit anyway.

Okay, so DNI. Or having wireless on inside a building that has WiFi blocking paint or whatever. Or any of the other ways you might have a connection between your PAN and your device, but not the rest of the matrix.

Actually, the induction recharge is kind of cool, and I can see how it would work too.

1) Object sends request for recharge to Matrix.
2) Matrix requests serial number / make / model / etc.
3) Object transmits information.
4) Recharge sequence begun. Matrix sends advertising or what-have-you while object is recharging.
5) If there's an adblock involved, or if the object refuses to transmit information, recharge doesn't happen.

Makes sense to me.

A couple of the Bonuses are actually cool and actual Bonuses. It's just that their intention is so clear and it is so forced, and many of tehm are downgrades on baseline function from SR4 (the framework of which SR5 still uses, apparently) that makes them so ... badly received.

And elite prerelease copies of the rules book were a pretty bad idea too. Feeds enough information to make many people angry, but not enough information to get out one decent review. Frustration about this probably does not help any.

Evvviiillll

I like it.

I stand corrected.

Huh. Even some academic review literature on this subject (i.e. Olgun et al. 2012) . Doesn't work like I thought it would. Cool.

My head's not in my ass thank you, i just happen to have a different idea of what is fun than you.

The book is going to cost less than a bad meal at Chilis, no need to blow your gasket over some rules someone wrote to tell you how to play pretend.

Fingertip Compartment: It's locked. It takes a bit to unlock it, because you don't want it popping open when it's inconvenient. So, sure. Makes sense.

Hydraulic Jack: Because math. Calculate stress and release, how much force to apply for the type of jump you're doing, etc. Sure. I can see it.

So far, none of these seem to be a problem for me.

In fact there is, because these rules are godawful, they are obviously godawful in a way that serves only to force a mechanic nobody wanted in the first place, they subtract directly from the setting without explaining how or why, they involve retconning the game's history and the laws of physics, and involve everybody abrogating sense and experience with the subjects at hand.

So yes, they are gasket-blow worthy. Also, did you really feel a need to come into a thread that was specifically about houserules to get rid of the insane "wireless bend-over-and-take-it stickarrots" (that is, sticks disguised as carrots) to say you loved them just as they were and were eagerly lining up to bend your street samurai over and hope the opposition hackers are gentle?




And can be unlocked just as easily by DNI.



And that math power should be included in the hydraulic jack. If for some reason it's not, your commlink, cyberdeck, or maths SPU should do "because math" without needing to google the cloud and broadcast your exact position, both now and after you jump, to all and sundry.

I don't know if a fingertip compartment should have a DNI. That would require connecting the thing to your nervous system, which takes more medical work than just attaching a micro-transmitter. In theory, you could pay a bit extra for such a perk, but I don't see it as standard.

As for the hydraulic jack - less software if you just have the processing information 'in the cloud'. It might have some basic 'math' in with the implant, but it might get a bit of a boost and do more complex things while connected. Again - the cyberware is built for people who use it for legitimate reasons, it isn't built with shadowrunners in mind, so why would corporations build it for shadowrunners? When in doubt, go with corporate greed and need for control / information as an impetus, over 'what runners want'.

This is properly one of the funniest think i have read in quite a while.

A. the statement that nobody wanted them in the first place is false. I and many others arguing with you here wanted them.
B. the term godawful is your personal opinion, not fact.
C. Laws of physics are broken in RPGs everyday.
D. there was not retcon of history to my knowledge. Please point out how that was done if I am wrong. Please use specifics and avoid opinionated arguments so we can rationally discuss it.
E. It has been said by multiple individuals that the rules mechanics do not make every street sam and open book to hackers. Please wait to SEE the rules before assuming they are broken. (If you have the book then I apologize for the last statement, but please share so we can all see specifically what you are looking at instead of taking your word for it.)

Boat load of gear magically started working completdly different then before and have infact now been working(or not working at all) like that always.
Also a lot of technology never ever existed at all.

If you have wireless wired reflexes and wireless reaction enhancers and go offline, they are no longer compatible.
What exactly happens when you have those incompatible pieces of ware? Do the WWRS stop working, do the WRE stop working? Or both? Or is it subject to GM's decision, or player's choice? Or does common sense have to decide?

As the bonus is that they stack, then when you lose matrix connection reaction enhancer magically stops stacking with wired reflexes and you lose the bonus reaction it provides.

Do note that a shift in edition does not mean things 'worked differently', it means the mechanics behind the game changed. For example, bioware took up body slots in earlier editions, but cost essence in later editions. This doesn't mean bioware suddenly 'worked different' in-setting.

In addition, with the shift in the matrix, corporations can (and probably did), alter their products to work using the new matrix - which has already been declared harder to hack and much more secure. This is the same thing as the PS3 / PS3slim event - they release a new product, and stop support of the older product. A shift in technology as it is being purchased in the present.

All in all, I'd say none of this breaks suspension of disbelief for me.

I'd not say 'magically'. I'd say the software for coordination is in-matrix, rather than implanted, is all.

But why do the enhancers have to give way? Couldn't the reflexes be turned off?

If I had to make a guess? I'm certain you can choose which to 'turn off'. I always presumed you were able to willingly deactivate certain cybernetics.

Well. I guess we just have to wait and see. Thanks anyway.

Smartlink no longer make shooting easier(even thought that has been their main function always), having a medkit no longer actually help at all on trying to patch some one up and so on(and do note these changes are retro active)

except that hasn't been the case before.

Needing to download wind speeds from the cloud is at least plausible. I'm willing to accept that as the in-universe explanation and then consider the rule on its own merits for that item.

Yeah, and again, bioware used to not take essence.
As for the smartlink technology and such - again, the corporations may have shifted how the technology works. I'm fine with that.

So corps have acces to time-travel now?
What the heck do they need runners anyway anymore

Well i quess if you absolutely wanted to do that for some reason you could.
its just that wired reflexes are so much better then reaction enchancer(they give both additional initiative die and reaction as opposed to just reaction bonus)[I'm slightly guessing on the SR5 effect those wares have as i dont have the book, so if those are wrong please do correct me people] i cant really see reason why.

And yet, that's exactly the sort of medical work they did for every fingertip compartment installed between 2050 (actually, probably 2037,) and 2075, and you bet your patootie it's going to have the same Essence cost as the fingertip compartment from SR4.



If the processing information is "in the cloud," then it's not doing its fucking job when its user isn't connected to the cloud. This doesn't just mean Shadowrunners - though corps damn well do build for Shadowrunners, because the operational requirements Shadowrunners have are pretty much exactly the same operation requirements their own corporate hit teams have, and the same requirements that their military contracts have - it's also not doing its fucking job for the weekend rambler who likes to take hikes down in the prettier, safer parts of the wilderness, it's not doing its job for the forestry rangers and the spelunkers, it's not doing its job for anyone whose job description involves leaving places where "the cloud" is fucking accessible!

Also, don't forget that corps have a very love-hate relationship with Shadowrunners. When they're doing your work, they don't hate you, they fucking love you, and they want you (at your expense, of course,) to have the equipment you need to succeed to perpetrate criminality on your competitors. That means that Horizon doesn't want your Horizon-branded cyberware to draw Renraku Corporate Matrix Assrape Squad "Nolubungo-bungo" down on your head the moment you try to penetrate that Zero Zone.




Indeed! Because you HAVE to contact the National Weather Service to get granularly-relevant atmospheric conditions that will affect your shot over 20 meters of overhung back alley in Loveland or you don't get that +2 dice bonus!



A: Everybody who said "this is bollocks" and turned off the wireless on all their cyberware in SR4 disagrees. While the statement that nobody wanted it may be technically speaking a falsehood in that there is someone, somewhere, who wanted this, their voices are drowned out by the vast majority of people who think this is dogshit.
B: It's an opinion shared by most of the posters here. This should be the weather-vane for the owners of the Shadowrun IP: if something sets Dumpshock aflame with a clear bias of condemnation-to-praise, it needs to be revised and posthaste.
C: Yes, but in most of those RPGs, there are reasons for those violations of physics, ranging from "it's a fantasy setting where the laws of physics are subtly different to ours," to science fiction "we have unobtanium that makes things work this way." Shadowrun occupies a unique niche in that it takes place in the world we live in, plus a mere better half of a century, but adds magic. Now, when you add magic, the rules of physics can be violated - but only, repeat after me, only, when magic is actually at work.
D: Okay. My Shadowrun 4 character lives in 2072. She has a very expensive gun, that, among other things, includes a skinlink in the grip so she can connect to its smartgun link and make use of its smartgun features without exposing her gun to the wireless Matrix. She's very old (one of the members of Echo Mirage, in fact, who was promoted from "technical assistance" to "Operator" after they started taking losses,) and while her skills may be rusty (or rather, somewhat out-of-date: put her in a conflict with 2030s-era cybertech and systems and she's as good as FastJack is today,) she is very well aware of the broad and finer points of information security, and thanks to the wonders of Leonization, is very young as well. Barring violent death, she will still exist in 2076, and will still be Running the Shadows. Barring her losing that gun, which is unlikely as she very much likes that gun, in 2076 - the tick-over point to SR5 - she should be rebuilt as an SR5 character. What happened to the Skinlink on her gun?
E: Nope, only the cybered ones. The PhysAds aren't the golden they used to be, now they're actually platinum. I'd very much like to have one of these mythical prerelease books so I could shred this apart in detail with the full text of the rules to back me up, but I don't need the full text of the rules to know that any exposure to wireless hacking is 100% pants-on-head moronic when talking about things like your cybereyes, cyberheart, adrenaline pump, wired reflexes, and gun.

Now, to elaborate on Point C, allow me to let Cpl. Burton "Nick" Nicholson, ret. (at the time) lately and again of Tagon's Toughs mercenary company, illustrate my point with an argument he is getting into with a woman who once used him to perform recon on the company, and with whom he is now vaguely friendly and allied with.

Nick comes from a science-fiction future where the laws of physics as we know them are obeyed, excepting in places where they are excepted by advanced technology. Specifically, he's from the 3300s. His mercenary company's warship - any of them, including the dropship they once used as an escape shuttle after their larger ship was destroyed and which became their main ride for a while - could utterly annihiliate the Shadowrun setting if it wanted to, and nothing all of the Megacorps nor all of the Great Dragons could do could stop it. They simply have that much energy at their disposal, which is effectively wielded gravitically into both defenses and offeses, and thanks to their possession of the Terraport technology, they could materialize their troops anywhere they wanted. But that's not germane to the topic at hand. All of the exceptions to the laws of physics as we know them in Nick's world are the result of postulating sufficiently advanced technology, most of which is backed up by the real scientific knowledge of today. (We simply lack the practical tools and knowledge required to apply them. But that's okay - we don't need to know what sort of device is required to project a gravitic gradient capable of repelling a railgun shot, we simply need to know that it is capable of doing so, and we can crunch the numbers ourselves to determine if the power plant it has at its disposal is capable of so doing!)

Nick is also not a smart guy. Though he is possessed of a great deal of cunning and not an imbecile, metallic metaphors work best for him: Sinews of iron, heart of gold, mind like a steel anvil, attention span of Lawrencium-258.

Thus, Nick has no problem accepting that a G/G Pistol - that is, a Gauss/Gunfoam pistol capable of magnetically accelerating a projectile or detonating a chemical propellant (for when you don't want electronics in the projectile fried by the "gauss" function) which has been equipped with white gold grips is capable of propelling a projectile that hurts immaterial ghosts. He is unfamiliar with the rules for ghosts, having not encountered any actual ghosts in his service with Tagon's Toughs (a few fake ghosts, though, but no real ones.)

He is familiar with G/G pistols, he is familiar with basic armory functions and can readily grasp the concept of custom grips which can be made of nonstandard materials, even if he has never personally seen a white gold pistol grip. It falls within things he can relate to, and he can easily imagine it. It wouldn't be very practical on a combat weapon, but it would be very stylish on a weapon which is more intended for show than combat.

Nick is also familiar with police-issue palm locks of his era, which are devices contextually presumed to involve locking a weapon so that only authorized users may discharge them, most likely biometrically. He is familiar with the fact that these devices require a standard pistol grip, which presumably incorporates the readers and possibly the electronics required to support them.

Nick is also familiar with the salaries issued to police sergeants of his era, and has the working grasp of economic transactions required to estimate the approximate cost of a pair of custom white-gold pistol grips that incorporate police-issued palm locks, and he cannot reconcile the simple facts that the cost of having a pair of white-gold pistol grips which have been custom engineered with the required police-issue palm locks vastly exceeds the salary presented to a police sergeant, and reasonably concludes that it would be economically infeasible for a police sergeant to afford such customization. He certainly could afford the pistol, assuming it wasn't issued to him; he could afford the palm lock standard grip, assuming it wasn't issued to him, and if he stretched his budget, he could afford to have an armorer fit his pistol with customized, fancy white-gold grips. But he could not stretch his budget to afford having an armorer and an engineer collaborate to create and then fit his pistol with white gold pistol grips that incorporate the police-issue palm lock.

Thus, the problem Nick has with the movie he and Kathryn, (and presumably Karl Tagon, the father of the eponymous Tagon of Tagon's Toughs,) have recently viewed. He can accept Sergeant Hatchett's pistols having white gold grips, or standard issue palm locks, but not white gold grips custom-engineered with the standard-issue palm locks. He's familiar enough with everything he needs to be to estimate the function and cost of those devices, and because he is not personally experienced with the occult, can suspend his disbelief enough to accept that pistols equipped with white gold grips fire projectiles that harm ghosts. But he cannot suspend his disbelief around subjects he is familiar with - police salaries and firearms - to accept that Sergeant Hatchett's weapons have both, and it sets off Nick's bullshit detector loudly.

This is illustrative of our problems with hackable cyberware, skinlink, etcetera. We are already familiar enough (through a combination of real-world actual factuality and the mythos and setting built-up by prior editions of Shadowrun, which all built atop one another,) for this "either on or off the Matrix" shit, and the majority of the "Matrix Bonuses" to pass muster with our suspension of disbelief. It violates our suspension of disbelief by asking us to accept things which are not congruent with what we know about the physical laws of our world, which, excepting where they are specifically abrogated by Magic or Resonance (and neither principle is at work here,) are also those of Shadowrun, and asking us to accept things which are not congruent with prior editions of the game. We can't accept that, and we cannot accept that so strongly that I became so so irritated by it that I felt the need to issue house rules for a book I do not even own.

... That's ... a ridiculously convoluted implementation of power harvesting. So it fits right in with the new rules.

It's convoluted, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
"While recharging your taser, why not look into buying these add-ons? For a limited time, there's a 20% discount on the new Extenda-Clip!"

It is only plausible for sniper shots on the extreme range of weapons. Then of course you don´t need a milli second precise wind calculation, because wind does not tend to change every milli second. What you need are sensors for several kind of inputs and a connection to these sensors. Which mean, no, the forced matrix connection is not plausible at all for a smartlink, except of course that 2075 there is only 100m handshake range and then unlimited matrix range. The people seem to have forgotten how to a signal range of 1km or to link their sensors via cable.

SYL

Then a finger compartment would not cost essence if it is in no way connected to your holistic body (the same reason why a cloned, normal arm or a cyberheart would not cost essense).

And again: why can´t I have this incredible necessary processing power needed for ... jumping ... with my hydraulic jacks inside my cybernetiv legs? Or my high speed commlink? Or, God beware, in my 800 00¥ cyberdeck?

It would be the same question I asked earlier:

1) Either the corps have supercomputer power distributed through the cloud and the entire physical world (with superfast, no-delay transmission routes (but then again why is there noise) and everyone can control it and access it. However it has been stated that the matrix hates you and is totally controlled, so why can runners access this distributed cloud supercomputer processing power necessary for ... jumping ... in the first place? After all this cloud power should be defended and watches 24/7 ... but as long as I don´t try to hack something my security tally does not go to 40 and I can use this supercomputer power all day.

2) Or the distributed computer networking cloud blablabla is not as fast and consists of third class "minor" computers, like the one in your microwave, home terminal or dust cleaner drone and is part of an adhoc mesh network ... but then again, why do I have to access to computer power of a microwave and a dust cleaner to calculate my ... jumping ... things and why can´t I use my 800 000 ¥ cyberdeck to perform these ... jumping ... calculations. Because just some seconds before the same cyberdeck was able to generate hyperrealistic images to fool SOTA cameras and was able to crack military grade encryption in a matter of seconds.

3) Why do extremely sophisticated items, like a medkit with a sensor unit and an expert system on board does not help at all when it comes to medical aid (it only increases the limit) and if your argument is the worldwide computer cloud blablabla, why can´t I run a medkit diagnose program on my 800 000 ¥ cyberdeck?

"A shift in technology" should be a little bit more stable than the next question.




#############################################################





What´s wrong with the entire discussion?

It is based on J. Hardys blog, that stated that hackers were not that useful in combat. Which is either an complete lie or simple incompetence. Now, these are very strong words, but the proof is just the next sentence

JHs Blog: http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/05/s...reless-bonuses/


But consider this just for one second:

Hackers and Deckers both on the NPC and the PC side in previous editions (SR1234) were incredible useful outside of combat. Information gathering, legwork, hacking, security device manipulation, faked data ("yes, we are the maintenance team, check your data again") and often (not always) drone control and general tech gagdeteering. Even high power super professional black ops blablabla groups in SR4 who would use wifi darkness (strong encryption, hidden mode, random access ID, wifi devices disabled, skinlink etc) to cover their activities would use the following often (not always and everyone, but often enough to be important).

1) Radio communication for the enemy team / online commlink (usually encryted and hidden with an agent running)
2) TacNets (in SR4 low rating tacnets are extremely cheap and easy to set up)
3) Remote drone control (especially with the cheap drones in SR4

4) Unprofessional, inexperienced, stupid teams (as today with wifi on, 1234 as passkey for locks and admin/admin as factory standard for login)

5) The rest was indeed skinlinked and offline - at least in theory. Often enough, people were using dummy links and skinlink their items for DNI control to the nanotrodes and the comlink/SIMmodule. And through #1 even these items became hackable, but with greater involvement of time and resources (and luck and opportunity of course)

These were established routes of attacks. By stating the contrary (the tool hacker started to disappear) JH made clear, that he either knows SR4 and lies ... or that he doesn´t know SR4, but still make judgements on SR4.

Regardless, both is simply bad for Shadowrun.

If you really had a clever hacker on either side, the points 1-3 become serious risks vs rewards. Yes, you can use killer drones and lay waste to a small city block. And you can use rating 3 tacnets to boost your entire team to the max. Then again, with a hacker on the enemy side this could turn into a nightmare every second you spend fighting and it would not be the first time in SR history to have hacker/riggers fighting over the control of a drone during combat. I, at least, had such hackers in my groups. They were, with a little bit of dice luck and creativity and knowledge on the side of the player, the most powerful character. The only problem the tool hacker faced in SR4 was the extended test (which was removed in SR5, which is a very good thing).

These 5 points provided the exact wish of J. Hardy of risk vs reward in SR4 ... and they were almost completely disregarded in SR5.

a) Why can´t every character / archetype have a micro/mini drone? Especially for a futuristic setting a "personal life companion drone" would have been far more plausible (and it was already established partially in SR4 for some drones), just like a personal life administration agent (aka muse or agent in Eclipse Phase or Cyberpunk v3).

b) Why can´t a low level tacnet be the standard for every runner like a smartlink is standard for every professional shooter? "Boy, if you want to run the shadows, you need the following three things a) Guts, b) a fake SIN and c) a good old Pred with a smartlink and a tacnet on your commlink".

c) Why was it not possible to build upon 1-5 to clarify these points, to make rules for hacking and manipulating 1-5, like having specific rules for tacnet manipulation (like giving negative dices instead of positive dices for x marks, giving wrong movement directions for y marks and being able to redirect targeting information so that the enemy shoot at each other for z marks just as an example). Of course this would mean that you have to define the sixth world as such where the tacnet is standard. Which is not really that hard, given the dice bonuses and the price. A sentence or two in the world description and new entry for every archetype and police/soldier/firefighter/athlete in a team/hitman/blackops team NPC entry would have been enough.

d) Why was it not possible to open up new ways to attack 1-3? Like a nano tag cloud bursting from a grenade, sticking to your (skinlinked) skin or even moving nano bots trying to interface with electronic items (even if they are not skinlinked or connected via cable)? Or bullets with nano cutters who are injected in the body and try to activate the wifi interfaces or attach to cyberware and become wifi transmitters itself. SR4 Augmentation had several nano systems for that, however they were still rare and expensive. But I am quite sure if a nano-tag-magazine would only cost 200 ¥ it would have been fun times for the hacker as well (or for the hacker/street sam team, one tagging the enemy group with nano-tags bursts and cutters and the other getting time restricted access while the enemy defense nanobots try to hunt down the nano cutters in your bloodstream).



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Image just for a second if the "wireless blog" of JH would ended in "yeah, you can still go completely skinlink and wifi dark if you want, but if you want drone control, tacnets, radio communication, matrix access ... if you want to use all these shiny gadgets you love and you use as a runner, prepare for race against the decker clock and for risk vs reward" and not in "well, now your ... knife ... can phone. And your DNI cyberware is slower than the manually typed wireless matrix command. And boy, we sure love to screw these dirty sams over if they want to use wired reflexes and reaction enhancers".

I would rather think that the new hacking rules (no extended test, marks etc) would have been enough to make a decker far more enjoyable than "ooahaha, I can hack the reaction enhancer". I firmly belive that the problem of the "missing / disappearing" hacker or decker in SR1234 was rather the "uncool" description and the basic rule system (from security tallys in SR2 to mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-multi rolls in SR3 to extended tests and a rather confusing description of certain parts of the SR4 matrix (yeah, the 2005 release of Fanpro LLCs Shadowrun 4 was not really that ... helpful in that regard).

Do you really think we would have this discussion if the risk vs reward discussion would have been "How can I protect my Tacnet from being manipulated"?

SYL

Actually, it was. There was a nanite type in one of the books that would infect a character and start opening up the wireless on his shit, like his 'ware and stuff.

And that? I have no problem with, unless you've gone to a lot of extra trouble to actually burn out the wireless in your 'ware, rather than setting it to "not an idiot" mode. At some point, your PAN is going to have a device with wireless enabled, though, and the nanites will be able to open that up.

Now that is a VERY Shadowrun way of opening up the Cyberhacking!

Indeed. You could also use a microdrone the size of a fly or mosquito whose whole job is to fly up to a character, land on a patch of skin (or land on clothing and extend a probe into the skin, or burrow into the skin, or inject an RFID tag,) and open up a wireless connection with a Signal rating. Congratulations, now you have access to the other guy's skinlinked PAN, and your connection sits between his commlink/cybereyes and his smartgun, so you can now execute a man-in-the-middle attack and attack his smartgun's device ratings directly, choke-point of his commlink no longer need apply.

As an SR3er never cared for skin link... But those FibreOp cables, DataJack routers and indeed skull-spinal colum key nerve cluster look nice and inviting for a micro DataTap drone plus transmitter for much the same effect!

So... nanotechnology-viral grenades forcing WiFi intrusion...

Signal-broadcast dart rounds

Data Tap&Transmit drones

And perhaps...

Wifi-link Slap Patches

A bunch of new uses for called shot!
When I get the PDF I'm writing this stuff up!

Yes.

But yeah, everything was totally ignored and now we have online laser sight which gives +1 dice

SYL

Yes, i wrote, that there was that type of nanoware in SR4 Augmentation.

SYL

Yep, that's one way to do it. The only countermeasure is blue goo or a full enviroseal suit; blue goo is expensive, a full enviroseal is not subtle.



Ooooh, nice. A dart would be easy to yank out with physical, but it could dig in in such a way that it requires a complex action to yank it out and causes physical damage. A transmitter dart would have a lot of range, though, probably like Signal 3. Or the dart could be used to inject a Signal 2 RFID chip, which you'd have to cut out with a knife or have someone with First Aid extract.



Expensive, but they already exist, drones with a fiber tap. Easy to notice, though, but hard to pull off - and they can be rigged such that if you just yank them off your fiber cable, they sever the cable.



Not at all subtle, but with the right kind of adhesive (or a gecko patch,) they wouldn't come off at all unless you were willing to whip out your knife and carve off some skin, taking actions AND damage.



Congratulations, Moirdryd. You, an SR3 player who never played SR4 and didn't like the wireless matrix in the first place, have come up with three avenues of entry to open the PAN of someone who operates in properly paranoid mode up to Matrix attack which bypasses his commlink choke-point, which may itself be behind the hacker's dedicated, IC-loaded commlink chokepoint.

You are more creative and more sensible than the people at CGL who made the executive decision to tell players to wear their shiny pink suits to gain a +3 bonus to initiative! I hereby award you +1 Karma. If it were possible, I'd nominate you to have your post-tag upgraded from Moving Target straight to Shooting Target.

Aye... For the last one I kinda had visions of the Kungfu Adept diving between the two Truad Cyberfiends after going into the casino "unarmed" pulling the patches from his forearms and slapping them onto their faces/necks/Cyberlimbs and he dives between the hail of gunfire in bullet time.... Of course the Adept could as easily be a Sam wired and running hot

I beg your pardon? I am afraid that you are now confusing two different players.

SYL