I suppose I get it. In some cases I can see why a wireless bonus might be applicable, but as appropriate, there are also some devices/cyber/etc that don't really have any reason to be wireless other than a desire to link everything to a common monitor or somesuch.

If my cybereyes are requiring a fricking adobe or java update every fricking day, that's a bad thing

SR4 has never been the descendant of SR3 it used completely new Rules and with these new Rules came other results
BUT SR5 is continuing SR4A (SR4A Ends in December 2074 SR5 starts January 2075) it uses the same Basic Frame orf Rules
So it makes no sense that Cyberware is suddenly 3 times, 5 Times or even 10 Times more expensive,
or that Suddenly there is no more Skin Link
(one of my converted Chars bought some packages of Skinlink in August 2074 I wonder why and how they suddenly disappeared)
Raised Skills (up to 12),different Modifiers, even different Initiative is ok (ImO) but some of the Rules Mechanics make ab.so.lutely. NO Sense (to Me)

HokaHey
Medicineman

You can't say this for one edition transition and not say it for another when you're talking about expectations shifting from edition to edition.

It wasn't me but CGL who said that

But I do agree with them though

HougH!
Medicineman

Because he never buy them in the first place ? Because august 2074 in SR5 is different than august 2074 in SR4A.

Cyberware is not 3 to 10 Times more expensive... That the price it always was in this new world.

Stop trying to mix timeline continuity and game continuity, they choosed to change the setting and thoses alterations apply retroactively. If you play a scenario from 2060 with SR5 rules then you use SR5 rules.

About the Tacnet, I think the players already benefit from the advantage of a Tacnet at the gaming table, they can talk, coordonnate, are fully aware of the status and health of their teammate and gears, they can pin point target and coordonate fire with an incredible precision, never surprised, no friendly fire, no wasting ammo on an already geeked target... No need to provide them with more benefits.

But, but, but my Decker want to rule the combat as well as the Samouraï or the Mage. Sorry kid, but this is an élite team operation, everyone have his job to do, but Decker one is not to coordinate combat operation while sitting in the middle of the firefight. The Samouraï wont cry because he have nothing to do during the legwork, the face wont cry when he cant do anything to hack security cameras, the mage wont cry when he cant go fish the paydata from the claws of the IC. So stiffen your upper lips and concentrate on doing your job. Tacnet is a reality... But it is specialiste job, military specs, and runners are just singles individual assembled in Rif Raf teams by fixer. They dont work nor fight as well as truly professionnal soldiers.

Which is completely wrong
I played exactly this Char in August 2074 when he bought them.Now I'm playing exactly the same Char a few Month later

For me its something like this
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html
only in the possibly worst way
It was never like this with the Change from SR3-->4 because the Ruleframe was completely different and it was a Leap in Time also 2063-->2070 so there was a Leap in continuity and I could easily accept the chnages
Now , the Rules-Frame is nearly the same and there is a continuity in Time
So ther is NO Change at all !!


Well, I see it in a different light for me its a continuity of the two "Shadowrun-Worlds"
In a way its like in the Movies. I never liked Alien Part III because the Alien Queen in Aliens(Part II) was without Eggs and I always wondered where those two eggs came from (and howthe Facehuggers could sense Ripley,Higgs and Newt in their Stasis Cocoon, how they came to cross half the Suleiko, how they could bypass half a dozen Airlocks and why the face Huggers were activated at all.)
Yes, now when I think about it SR5 has at least as many inconsistencies as Alien III
And I would like to "activate" my Suspension of disbelief, but SR5 is not cool enough for me



No, thats quite wrong
CGL definitely said that they continue the Timeline and History. And they did NOT change the Setting !
its not a Star Wars setting or a Deadworld setting, SR5 is still the same Shadowrun setting as in SR4A , what are You talking about ???

With the same Dance as last Year
Medicineman

It is still the same Global setting. But there is fine adjustement in balance, economics and game ambiance.

For once, as you noticed, some things that exist in the SR4A never existed in SR5. Thus when you port you character you have to take into account the fact the world is different in this area. The things doesnt´t disappear on New Year Ève, they just never existed in the first place.

Same goes for the Cyberware price... It doesn t change, the balance of the world change and cyberwares are more expensive in the SR5 settings that there was in the SR4 setting. The date you set a scenario in doesn't set the game system and setting you use, the ruleset you use do. You can keep using SR4A rules to play up to 2080, you can use SR5 to play before 2070, but in both case you have to adapt to each game peculiar balance, especially economical.

So what a character buy or did in SR4A need to be Retconned or modified to be compliant with the new settings. Your items dont disappear, your character version in the SR5 world never buy them in the first place... Probably using the money to pay for the costier Cyberware.

Just do what I'm going to do... NOT play SR5!

I may take a look at some of the rules and "back port" them into SR4, but as a whole, the rule set, IMO, sucks. For those of you who like what CG did... good luck

He doesn't have much choice.
As far as i know he is more or less official Supporter for Pegasus.

not more or less, I AM a Supporter of Pegasus Games
And I always have choices
In my private rounds I'm sure that we're gonna be playing SR5 with (lots of) Houserules some Day
(I 'm not gonna convert and create 10 Chars for SR5 when I'm not sure that I'll be playin' it some Day)



HougH!
Medicineman

Do you plug your computer straight into the internet? Or do you use a router like a smart person? Why would you plug your cyberware straight into the internet with no protection? Does that seem wise?

apparently people in the shadowrun setting do that sort of thing all the time. not that it would make a difference, because every single device is specifically designed to pass along everything sent to it anyways.

of course, devices *are* designed to deal with undesirable commands. that's why everything has a firewall rating too.

In this metaphor, the commlink you slave it to is the router.

and the fact that deckers can hack your cyberware proves my point of view is the correct one.

And the fact that your Point of View proves correct thoroughly shows how insanely stupid the idea of Wireless Bonuses for Cyberware is. *shrug*

Oh, so putting something behind a router is now some sort of perfect protection?

Your point of view is based upon a fundamentally invalid notion of security methodology.

hacking my computer won't let you make me blind, or deaf, or turn off my central nervous system (and the aspect of which i am most fond regarding my central nervous system is the part where it works, and, you know... transmits useful messages like telling my lungs to breathe and my heart to beat and my arms and legs to do something about dangerous situations, that sort of thing...)

so yeah, i'll readily admit that i'm prepared to accept less than perfect protection for my computer. the loss of my computer would be quite inconvenient, moderately difficult to replace, but ultimately, isn't likely to render me unable to function.

i am, however, somewhat more dependant on my central nervous system, eyes, and ears, and am inclined to feel slightly more concerned about the possibility of something happening to them.

And guess what? Literally nothing in the game makes your CNS hackable, so that's not a concern. Wired Reflexes do not replace your CNS, and having them hacked doesn't do anything to your CNS. As for the eyes and ears, if you could obtain a serious improvement to the visual and aural acuity of the technological replacements you were using in exchange for a 1 in a million chance of it getting hacked once, I'm pretty sure you'd do it - and even if you wouldn't, 99.9% of people would.

This came to mind reading your post, Jaid: Ever get the burning sensation just behind your eyes?

From page 228 on Bricking: "Devices that are bricked never fail non-spectacularly. Smoke, sparks, pops, bangs, sizzles, nasty smells, and occasionally even small fires are common features of a device in the process of becoming a brick."

So just what happens to the meat when one's cybereyes, control rig, or commlink that's in your brain gets bricked? Or your whole nervous system throughout your body when your wired reflexes is bricked? Or your spine when your reaction enhancers is bricked?

Nothing in the rules. Perhaps an oversight, or perhaps there's a mismatch between the intent of the fluff and the intent of the rules.

and what happens if You Brick a WiFi-ed throwing knife ?

with a smouldering Dance
Medicineman

funny

"By replacing specific, isolated
vertebrae of your spinal column with segments of
superconducting material, your reactions to events become
quicker. Add the Rating of reaction enhancers to
your Reaction attribute (and remember to adjust Initiative
and Physical limit accordingly). Reaction enhancers are
incompatible with all other enhancements to Reaction,
including wired reflexes."

that kinda sounds like it's replacing parts of my spinal column.

"Skillwires are a system of neuromuscular
controllers that overlie the body’s natural nervous system"

as was pointed out above, it seems like the logical result of sparks, smoke, and searing hot metal and melting plastic being applied to my body's natural nervous system just *might* have some drawbacks.

"This highly invasive, painful,
life-changing operation adds a multitude of neural boosters
and adrenaline stimulators in strategic locations
throughout your body"

oh great, so it was painful for them to put it in, and i bet when they put it in it wasn't on fire, either. i'm sure this won't paralyze me for life when it goes up in smoke, though. who knows, maybe having melted plastic and metal dripped onto your nerve endings is good for your health, right?

but yeah, in any event, reaction enhancers specifically do replace parts of your spinal column. brick them, and there goes most of your ability to move. granted, it's not your entire central nervous system, but it's certainly enough of it that i for one would think twice about putting it online if i was the kind of person who actually stood to gain any benefit from having it online (ie, if i was the kind of person that actually had both wired reflexes and reaction enhancers, that being the only reason either of those two implants would ever be online).

and incidentally, the only function of cybereyes that is superior to having the right set of glasses is a smartlink. yet another device that puts me rather outside of the group that can expect to have a 99.9% chance of never being hacked.

and the cyberear abilities that aren't available in headphones? none of them need wireless either.

so no, i don't imagine i would be putting my eyes and ears online.

Yeah, the logical result in some cases of the presented fluff might be paralysis, but that is not and should not become the rules as they are written. Reaction Enhancers may not provide any benefit over and above the norm, for example, if they've been bricked, but much like a katana is still sharp the enhancers are still generally conductive.

Let's not pretend the actual written consequences are worse than they are. As for cybereyes/cyberears, I very rarely see ANY reason to take them in the first place because in almost all cases glasses and contacts are just as good. Might be fair to suggest that they need to have some sort of general boost in the first place. And as far as things to slave to the decker's deck go (to get the best protection you can), wireless 'ware is a prime candidate.

Cybereyes and ears win on capacity. Glasses and earbuds just can't fit every upgrade.

Ah, but you can combine multiple options (goggles and contacts, earbuds and a microphone...).

Contacts are always wireless -- they don't have a universal data port to support a wire, and there's no skinlink. The only way to control their visual modes is to have them wireless-enabled. If you want to get really technical, they have to be wireless-enabled all the time as they have no actual controls that would allow you to turn the wireless on and off.

The microphone + earbuds idea is a neat trick to get around capacity, but also note that only cyberears get Dampers, Balance Augmenters, or Select Sound Filters rated higher than 3.

You could use Contact lenses for Low Light and Flash Compensation as they won't need WiFI for these Enhancements .

HougH!
Medicineman

Depends on your group tho. Some might like the Ghost in the Shell aspect of hacking a cyber person and making Batou punch himself in the face with his own cyberarm. On the other hand, turning PCs into NPCs due to 'haha possession!' or stuff is really dependent on knowing your group and what their tolerances are. If they start feeling you as the GM are trying to WIN, and can obviously do so by crafting a world full of cheap-shots, they may not respond well. They might, but as I said, know your group.

It seems a little unfair to single out the cyber-guy for raaaaaape, or make them feel like they're forced to limit their playstyle cause 1)no one in the group decided to be a decker, so 2)no one can protect them from a near-level or equal or better NPC decker intent on messing with them.

Other than Vision Enhancement, every other vision mod does NOT have a wireless bonus! So you don't need to frag around with having things on the Matrix.

EDIT: ninja'd by a few people

Problem is that is you want to use your smartlink online, and you have an image link in your eyes, your eyes are just as susceptible to being attacked as the smartlink is. This is Stupid on so many levels it is insane. As many people have also said.

Bust out the data jack

I just thought of something else, how is hacking your cyber eyes with high powered cyber deck fundimentaly any worse than me using a $20 laser to hack your real eyes?

Which still does not protect you if your smartlink is still wireless, and it is communicating to your Datajack (via a wire or wireless). So now, not only is your smartlink still at risk, your Datajack and Eyes are now vulnerable, instead of just your Eyes. See the issue yet?

Considering I can avoid the laser, it is very different.

SPEED OF LIGHT!!! Good luck, chummer. Invest in IC and Agents.

Your Aim is not speed of light, nor millimeter perfect. So, who cares how fast the laser is, it is irrelevant. Bullets are effectively faster than you can dodge, and yet, how many rounds are expended in a combat? What is the ratio of hits to expended ammunition? *shrug*

No its not, if you are ducking and dodging to avoid a laser in your eyes I still win. and if you say its not powerfull enough I'll invest a 25k, a fraction of a good cyber deck, and still blind you. Invest in some cyber security. at least enough to give you the time to turn off wireless capablities of all of your equipment. What sort of action was that again?

You are obviously under the mistaken assumption that I endorse Wireless Bonuses. I can see no reason to EVER have wireless capabilities turned on, for any character in SR5 (Save a Decker, using his Deck, or a Rigger using his console). Talk about sheer stupidity (wireless being turned on, natch). Now, had they actually put together something that would truly incentivize having wireless on, then maybe I would consider it, but as it stands now, it is jut dumb. *shrug*

You can avoid hacking, too. What's the difference?

now the wireless bonuses making sense, and the wireless bonuses being useful are two diffrent things. +1 to dice pool on perception checks per level from vision enhancment? yes. Stacking wired reflexes and reflex enhancers? yes. +2 too me shooting? yes. using my com to comunicate wordlessly with allies? yes. Might be marginal advantages, but marginal advantages are life and death in a fight. And if you have enough security to find out that some one is hacking you have enough to turn off wireless.

As I said, I don't agree that all of these bonuses should be wireless but thats a diffrent can of worms.

Difference is the stated design goals of the developers. They wanted to make Hacking universal (How the hell they came up with that idea, while eliminating almost all hacking is well beyond me, based upon their logic/Implementation for the matrix) so that Hackers (Deckers/Technomancers) had "something to do" in combat (which is just silly, since Hackers ALREADY had plenty to do in combat - Said from years of actually playing a fairly powerful hacker over the course of several years). And then they give us a half-assed, ham-handed system to implement that design goal (with Wireless Bonuses even the Author said were picked randomly, with no thought to how or why, because they were cool, rather than making sense). And if the solution is to just not go wireless, then they have failed at their stated design goal.

See, that is a HUGE difference.

And my issue is that NONE of these make any sense. They are a random selection of things the author thought would be cool, (his own words) with absolutely no thought to what was actually being implemented. And the fact that the implementation does not make any sense when considering the ramifications (and actual rules/text in the book) of Bricking (Sparks, Melting metal and plastic, etc.) internal ware, well it is just that much more ludicrous. They say one thing, then when confronted with the actual rules they wrote, backpedal and say "well, that is what happens, but for internal ware, that does not actually mean anything." I call BS. *shrug*

so what you are saying is that you think the bonuses are worth taking but don't like it because it makes no logical sense to you?

No... I am saying the bonuses ARE NOT WORTH TAKING, and they MAKE NO SENSE (which even the author admitted... He was going for Rule of Cool, rather than making Sense).

and let's not forget that the author thought it was enough to slave the things to the comlink and you'd only need a PAN-Connection, not a Matrix-Conncection for them to work . .

That too... Left Hand not talking to the Right Hand. Epic fail all the way around. *sigh*

Shit, I think they're only marginally useful bonuses and they don't make any logical sense. It's no sweat for me to ignore them.

No, that is a HUGE non-sequitur. I have the ability, right now, to burn out someone's meat eyes with nothing more than what I have sitting on my desk IRL. So how is it such a heinous crime for a game system to allow for the possibility of a hacker to burn out your robot eyes?

Your ability to TRY and burn someone's eyes out with your desk implement is irrelevant. I could stab a letter opener through someone's eye. That does not impact the argument at all.

A HACKER should NEVER HAVE ACCESS TO THOSE CYBER EYES. They should never be online in the first place. And even assuming that they are (which is a massive assumption, because no one would put their ability to see at such risk - because it IS a significant risk), they should far take more than an action or two to completely destroy, which is what Bricking actually does per the book's Definition and effects (look em up and see... Dev's/Writer's protests notwithstanding). Yes, if you have been captured, and someone hardlines your cyber through your Datajack, well, you have more problems than being bricked. But that is a risk. Just walking along and having someone screw you over because they can, on a whim (and in SR5, it is exactly that, a whim), well, that is just asinine. The counter argument that a low-lifestyle wage slave is going to invest in 5,000-8,000 Nuyen worth of electronics to keep it from happening is just ludicrous. Hell, the fact that cyberware costs increased so much makes the assumption just ludicrous. Goes to show that the developers really did not understand Economics (or chose to ignore it so they could get the Retro SR2-3 feel back into the game).

now imagine i could do that, to you, from my bed, without you knowing how, why, from where, when and being unable to defend yourself against it.
i don't have to restrain you. i don't even have to be on the same continent as you. not even on the same planet technically speaking . .
because you have to wear glasses that will allow me to focus them in such a way that the light hitting them will be enough to burn out your eyes.
and you can not take these glasses off at all either. or make them inaccessible to me. all that and so much more. and all that and so much more why?
because the makers of your glasses decided that it needs to be this way so they can send advertising your way and to inform you that you need new ones because your eyes are degrading further, neccessating stronger lenses.