And that somehow makes distributed processing MORE necessary for simple tasks?

Of course. Distributed computing is a means of extending the computational power of a system to include non-local resources, and comes at the expense of a number of other things including transmission latency. It is therefore beneficial in at least two cases as related to computational power:

1) The cumulative benefit of distributed systems to calculate a given problem exceeds the cost of transmission.

OR

2) The benefit of distributed systems eliminates the need of a local system to 'reinvent the wheel', and query and receive existing data sets faster than they could locally produce that data.



The premise is certainly true, though the conclusion is not a given. Perhaps you could build a case that natural functions of the body are less reliant on complex computational power because the mind and body are already largely capable of bridging that gap. A Cyberlimb extends a natural function of a metahuman, a function which has been optimized for a few (hundred?) million years.

Maybe when people have organic stun batons coded into their DNA, such an interface won't carry the same degree of overhead.



False. When matrix connectivity cannot be achieved, wireless functionality ceases.

When even minimal matrix connectivity is achieved, wireless functionality is retained.

Therefore, the correct conclusion is that the transmission component of the distributed computing may itself be a lightweight and efficient process, even if the computational component is not.

This is obviously supportable in a number of cases where even minimal sets of data, with very simple answers, create devilishly complex problems that must first be solved before arriving at those answers.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

I do believe we have a smilie for this.

Ah, yes. We do.

Sure. Bear with me, I just got my PDF last night! I'll whip up the page I thought I saw that on.

Edit: Page 421, Wireless Bonuses:



-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Take all the time you need.

In the mean time, stop trying to say that it's true when you have no proof to back it up with statements from the book saying that it's true. Because otherwise, you're just spouting bullshit.

Sure.

It's in the post above yours.

Edit: I didn't realize that was a controversial claim. I'm pretty sure a number of the Dev's had verified that well before the release of the book.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

So for most of the gear a runner is carrying, he's frakked 30 different ways from Sunday in a Zero-Zone.

Looks like it.

Really, at any point matrix connectivity is interrupted you can expect to be looking at your awakened counterparts with envy.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Thanks for posting this, Neurosis. Looking at the poll makes me realize that I'm in the minority here. I suspect this is a case of grognard-ism, in which the old guard is upset that the Matrix is changing and becoming less easily countered by pressing the OFF button. That OFF button is still there, but now you have to forgo your shiny bonuses to get it. What is this--a real choice, with consequences? "Not in MAH Shadowrun!!"

If Shadowrun was written like this in the beginning, nobody would complain. However, sci-fi changes with the times, so Shadowrun is stuck in an awkward position where it needs a new Matrix revolution every edition to update its sci-fi.

Again, in case you missed it, it is not that the Matrix is changing, it is that it is changing in nonsensical and stupid directions. I have no Issues with Online Bonuses, AS LONG AS THE BONUSES MAKE SENSE IN THE WORLD, which they currently do not. It is not about Grognardism (I LIKE some of the Matrix Changes), it is that the ramifications of some of changes were not thought through, nor do they make a lot of sense.

Again, the Matrix Rules were changed due to an erroneous decision that Hackers just did not have anything to do in combat, which has been shown to be a fallacy. *shrug*

Welp.

I know what I'm house ruling.

Because that is utter bullshit (thanks Catalyst!). I'd blame Neurosis, because he made the bonuses, but I won't because he knows full well that it's bullshit and has, effectively, apologized for it.

That was a new low right there.

/slowclap

While also being an insulting troll towards a good deal of the dumpshock community (see the OP).


I'm think that it might be time to start a thread about house-rules, so people can compare the ones they've come up with and get inspiration/criticism from others? It might even be a more constructive way to address the problem than continuing criticism.

Oh man, almost like how awaken characters have to deal with background count.

Super unfair for some archetypes having to worry about Matrix connections while others have to worry about background count, am I right?

If only there was a satellite uplink that allows some characters to be online even in wireless dead zones, while other characters just have to deal with background count screwing their archetype.

Unfortunately you are not right. Backgroundcount does not get you detected by the authorities, attacked, your items destroyed or damaged, killed, tracked, nullified by cheap equipment (jammers) ... and of course BGC is not build upon illogical who just ignore the world before them.
SYL

Sorry, but no. Streetsams have been receiving the short end of the stick lately, and there's already a great deal of stuff where they just don't work that well/can't compete with the Hacker or Awakened character. There's no need to add even more to that. One of the point of Streetsams was that there weren't really locations that could really disable them - they were as efficient in the desert, in the site of a past slaughter, in the Renraku Arcology or in a basic Corporate Facility.

I already chewed him out for that.

Wireless brought up a concept which I hadn't considered; that the cloud supports an ongoing model, and the wireless model is just to provide real-time 'nudges'; additional data to keep the model current, and in exchange, the model provides updated direction. In the case of wireless reflexes, the model might be a physiological 'body simulator'. You feed it current updated medical data and in return it optimizes the system and feeds those optimizations back to you. This is the sort of computational complexity where the cloud proves its worth.

The downside of course is that now you're paying for hosting, plus you're uploading you're physiological data to the cloud. So makes perfect sense for corporate security, but not at all for a runner. It also doesn't make a lot of sense for simple functions like said baton.

If we accept this premise, then logically the action 'cost' of cyberware in previous editions is suffering from time inflation. What was a Simple Action in SR3 is now a Complex Action in SR5. The issue here is twofold;
1) There's nothing in the rules to indicate this is the case (I ASSUME! Like I said, I haven't read the rule-books. But I feel okay going out on this limb.)
2) The inflation shouldn't be limited to cyberware. If cyberware is 20% faster, then either magical spells, physical adepts, and normal people are also going faster for some reason, or, well, it's all just one giant retcon and cyber was never comparable in speed to magic in the first place.

The cloud model also brings up a lot more potential plot hooks. After all, this data is there, on a server somewhere. Renraku's rockin' cyberzombie is fully modeled, and a hacker can access that server, download the information to determine vulnerabilities, implant logic bombs, even remote control the zombie.

Again: could we please stop to turn to an Tactical Computer /TacNet as an attempt to explain the new monopoly-matrix?

SYL

As I'm envisioning such a system, it seems like there would need to be a way to make data calls anonymously, and that the system would implicitly trust that such calls are valid, and would respond to them. Now, it turns out that in the real world a number of our networking protocols do have a degree of implicit trust...

...Unfortunately, this is also a headache that has created numerous opportunities for malicious actors to compromise our real life distributed systems. I don't think I'd need to innumerate them for you, Nezumi, but for the benefit of additional posters such attacks would include things like the venerable SYN Floods, or various resource exhaustion Denial of Service attacks.

That said...

...this does sort of play into the theme of a Grid Overwatch Division, and a running Tally that deckers accumulate.

For instance, while the system may temporarily appear to extend implicit trust, it appears that there are heuristics which allow the subversion of the system to be identified over time, which prompts GOD intervention. Without a great deal of scrutiny, and sidestepping the obvious choice of automated, coordinated DDOS, it seems like such system architecture is possible.

...Or at least, possible in so much as 60 years of technological advancement may provide.



I haven't seen anything in the rule book that explicitly states that there has been a time inflation, though there are a number of possible implicit nods in that direction. Perhaps the most notably is new ranged combat rules, attack actions, and simple/complex actions.



"And where shall I go now?

The net is vast and limitless." -Closing line, Major Motoko Kusanagi, GITS

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Matrix packets are anonymous, so authorities can not track you by only your cyberware. Unless you've been hacked, then they can icon trace you, but that'd be like being spotted in astral or physical and having someone shadowing you, except easier to get rid of because; losing someone shadowing you can be difficult, but turning off your wireless is pretty easy.

Awaken characters have to worry about their foci being destroyed from astral because an active foci is dual natured.

Deckers can't kill a Street Sam from the Matrix, unless that Street Sam is in hot sim VR. So that's a mute point.

And while jammers might be "cheap" they are forbidden, so not exactly readily available to your average ganger or starter shadowrunner. And while the awaken don't have to worry about it yet, but they will have to worry about FABIII and mana static in supplement books. Which means they will have to worry about similar threats, but they have less ways to counter it then a Street Sam does, because a sammy could always have some ECCM, while awaken character's don't have something equivalent for astral space.

Sure they do...
Just don't be in Astral Space.
Or take the Cleansing and Filtering Metamagics.
Or use the Aspected Mana Static Spell.

See, Easy Peasy, Problem Solved.

Does SR5 even have background count? Background count is another thing I was not fond of. The penalties were too severe (especially for adepts), and instead of a rare anomaly to make things like bug hives even more fearsome, it was ubiquitous. If an entire city can be background count 1 or 2, it is like flat out lopping off magic points from characters for no reason whatsoever.

I hope if they do reintroduce it, they tone down the penalties and make it more rare. Assuming it isn't already in the core rules, that is.

While 'Background Count' does appear in the text of one of the Qualities, it does not appear anywhere else in the Core Book.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

I haven't read the awaken chapter yet, but doing a quick search of the pdf, it does look like there is no rules for background count. There is some fluff mention of it with Assensing tests, but that's about it.

I imagine they didn't want to swamp new players with too much, so this will come up in the Magic splat book.

Good insight. Also, I wonder if it will act on limits, rather than dice pool.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

So Awakened become even more powerful since they are much less likely to be sporting cyberware.

But if they're going to min/max their character they'll probably get some chrome, since there is some diminishing returns on submersion.

That's my observation as well, yes.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Show of hands: Does anyone have a major problem with cyber becoming less important

Hey, I was just looking through a friend's book and saw that there was NO WIRELESS BONUS for cybereyes and Ears. So the Awakened can get them, LEAVE THE WIRELESS OFF, and still get the bonuses without ANY drawbacks.

The word CYBER is a core component of the genre. I'm not sure how anyone could NOT have a problem with Cyberware becoming less important.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Yet with all the crap that was done to cyberware there is going to be a whole lot less of it. I mean why run cyberware at all? You were defending that "wireless bonus" crap and because it is so easy to replace all the cyber with bioware/gear, you're going to see a lot less cyberware. Bio is cheaper Essence wise, can't be hacked, is mostly undetectable to scanners, and heals if it is damaged.

Also with Catalyst getting rid of the half-of-the-lower-amount WRT cyber/bioware, then you are going to see a lot more bio-sammies than razorboys.

Don't confuse my exercise in defending some futuristic system from half-baked assaults on how it must operate, with some implicit endorsement of reducing the importance of CYBER in CYBERPUNK.

I just saw a lot of silliness flying around about how a system must, or must not, operate. I weighed in because it's not something I'm unfamiliar with. Not because I think that killing the Samurai is a good move. That said, I do happen to like the 'Everything has a Price' deal that SR 5 is pursuing, even if I believe that some prices appear to be higher than others.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Except with your "everything has a price" defense kinda falls flat when you look magic. Sure it is going to take a higher level of magic to do the same damage it use to do in 4th edition, but magic is one thing you can get more of. Without having to run the upgrade 'ware rat race, mages are becoming more important. Let's also add in Mystic Adepts, they make the Sammie... Obsolete.

I haven't run the numbers yet, but I'm pretty sure that a cyber sam will beat out a bio sam any day of the weak in a one on one fight.

And if we bring a team into the mix, with both sams having a decker for support, I'm pretty sure that the decker that is attacking the cyber sam will lose to the cyber sam's decker, since one will have to be distracted by trying to brick gear while the other is busy trying to just kill the other decker.

Dude, you're preaching to the choir.

Like... I've been whistling that tune for decades, brother.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Cyber sam can get a higher bonus on reaction than a bio sam. End of story.

Excuse me, but WTF? With an agent going after the cyber sammie's 'ware and the decker going after the decker he's going to have some problems. Also the Bio-sammie can squeeze in more upgrades than the cyber sammie. Let's look at reflex augmentation.

Wired 3 has an Essence cost of 5 (4 if you go with Alphaware) while Synaptic Booster has an Essence cost of 1.5.

The Wired 3 costs 217,000 for the base version, 260,400 for alphaware. The Synaptic Booster costs 285,000. So for 25,000 you get 2.5 more Essence.

I'm inclined to agree that in the end magic will beat out cyber, however with out the constant karma drain of magic, I've always been able to up stats and skills much faster than any of the magic characters. Specialization is a strength, but so is diversity and flexibility. Besides, it all comes down to who has the higher edge pool anyways

Literally the only reasons I'm currently finding to run cyber are :

Stacking Wired Reflexes and Reaction Enancers

Cyberlimb armor.


That's it.



You are seriously, seriously wrong here. The bio-sam is going to be down, at most, 2 points of reaction out of chargen, and possibly some armor if the sam had enough essence left to get cyberlimbs with armor.

That's it. Everything else cyberware does right now can be duplicated by bioware or gear, and bioware's lower essence cost means you can pack more of it in.



That said, the mystic adept will school either of them until the nerfbat gets to him.

The problem with that is the time to transmit the data and get it back will have you lagging behind the events you are trying to react to. The point is to be going faster not slower. and there is absolutely no way for the data to be radioed away and back and processed. Those are precious nano seconds wasted. where you could be reacting. It does not matter how fast the processing is. The round trip adds too much lag.

This is the future, there is no lag. Unless you are trying to hack the moon, then there are rules for lag then. But sending data around the world? No lag. Impossible? Literally, yes, but in Shadowrun tech has moved beyond our understanding so it does all kinds of weird things we don't understand, like the Resonance Realms.

So they have broken the speed of light limitations? I don't think so.

Lag is not of sufficient scale as to be rules relevant unless dealing with extreme situations. This has been the case since the very start of SR4, where there very fastest possible characters were those in hot-sim VR with the right upgrades.

So, it's faster to go from a to b to c instead of going from a to c in a straight line then?

"Because Magic!"


-k

Well...

...Precious Nano seconds can be wasted in a lot of places. It really depends on where you want to waste them. In some cases, you'll be wasting precious nanoseconds by not sending a call for a distributed resource.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

In SOME cases, yes. But in ALL?

Afterall, that's what you've been arguing isn't it?

Nope, the opposite actually. A system with undetermined requirements, design, and implementation is impossible to define. We can determine how it may behave in one way, or another, but there is no requirement that it must operate that given way.

That determination is really made by whoever built it in the sixth world.

(Consequently, this is why I have put 'may' and 'must' in italics so many times over the last 30 pages of this thread.)

-Wired_SR_AEGIS