This is a repost from reddit so if you have already seen it there, sorry. Seeing all the stories about players at Gencon leads me to think that maybe yall on Dumpshock might have encountered the reasoning here.

So I see the info about programs on page 228. It says as a free action a decker can swap a running program for one that is in memory--and since we have unlimited storage, you can load anything. So what is the business in the line after that?

Additionally, you can load a program you own into a currently unused slot, or unload a program and leave an open slot.

Is there any reason we would want to run a deck at fewer than max programs? Is there a reason we would want to remove and not swap a running program? The only thing that springs to mind is keeping only legal programs in your deck...but then you already have illegal hot-stim in there anyway, so...

Consensus on reddit is that the rule is just a holdover from SR4.

It could be, in sr4 you were able to load more than your maximum number of programs, but it would cause your commlink to slow down, if this is a hold over its unclear, but I am unsure if such an option might be available for the new decks as well.

You may not have a choice in the matter. Check out "Crash Program" on page 238.

there is one program which allows you to run an extra 2 programs (not sure if they intend for a net gain of 2 or 1, but it's nice either way) with drawbacks.

alternately, you could be running, say, a drone or an RCC, and experience a sudden urge (completely unrelated to that police checkpoint coming up, of course) to remove an illegal program from the active roster of programs and don't have a plausible legal replacement for it.

Which is perfectly legal as part of a deck if (and only if) you're licensed to possess the deck - convince whoever's asking that you are (fake license ho!), and you don't have to worry about the sim module. The legality of the deck overrides that of the module.

and, like i said, RCCs and drones can also run programs. and they don't have integrated hot sim modules iirc...

For that matter, you only need one mark to, say, forcibly unload the enemy's Biofeedback program.

Thanks SpellBinder! I completely forgot about this wonderful attack.

Thinking about it, unless we are talking about AAA systems I can't imagine many companies have the money to afford buying a million nuyen deck to protect their interests with. Hell, it is hard enough to wring money out of the financing department as is, just imagine having to put in a Capital Expense report for a couple of Fairlights...I can hardly imagine a company shelling out for a few Y50,000 decks, for that matter.

No, I think that most corporations who go past IC and want to have a spider in 24/7 will have 1 guy on an Erika doing overwatch in shifts. That guy will be a glorified security guard, running cold assist so he can't get croaked by biofeedback in case he gets jumped (hey it is only a job), and his role will be to monitor the systems and fire off an alarm as soon as something fishy is going down, then maybe try to rebuff access attempts, linklock the attacker, or make the hard choice and restart the system to prevent further loss. In the meantime, the security company that Vanilla Corp has subcontracted out to is sending out a pair of snarling badass, million-nuyen spiders to lay down the law...response time of course mandated by how much Vanilla Corp has been paying.

So as a decker the most direct opposition you are going to be looking for most of the time, is trying to crash that one guy and his one program before he starts anything too heavy, or gets the word out. If you are cutting up Ares or Horizon or someone, well, you can look for a much heavier response from the get-go.

at the very low end, a "security decker" could just be some guy with a high-end commlink and good matrix perception who has a panicbutton

Also remember that a deck is made up with the micronized parts to be portable.

A company can use a bigger, bulkier model using larger parts which will make it cheaper for the same level of efficiency and is probably not portable, ie a workstation.

really want to see the splat books covering more about the deck assembly and workstations.