i'll concede the UV thing. i still think that the graphic level should be higher than it's generally represented as being. maybe it's just because my first real Matrix experience was in the SR Genesis game.

Also the graphics level is limited by the artists they use for the Matrix related books. It sounds funny, but it's true. Like you said, in the SR video game the graphics of the Matrix were pretty unimpressive.

On Shadowland we usually treat the graphical level as being fairly mutable. One man may have a low-res icon that is bland and nothing more than a blocky figure from a video game. Another may had an icon that looks almost real like rendered characters from the best computer animated scenes of today. Environments can vary as well, depending on how much system time the host wishes to spend on the physics and icon interaction and how much of a budget they had when they bought the sculpting.

Why would a system be sculpted? The same reason corporations of today take pride in new, nice-looking places of business. Much work is done entirely inside their system. Their workers will be more productive if operating in a professional, impressive work environment.

i hate to say this people, but i cant say i have a problem with any of the rules in sr. vehicles? a open test at start and then the normal combat rules pluss some extra actions for the drivers.

magic? select power level (upto max known), select target(s), boom...

matrix? roll computer vs host stat modified by the correct utility.

as for the original problm of this post, i have allready stated my belife: either use the sr3 system or the matrix system. but for the its the matrix system that should be used as matrix expands on and at times overrides sr3s rules for decking...

and to mutch realism makes for a boring game. the first thing a host would do to a suspected decker under realistic rules? kill the connection...

hackers where is fact kinda correct. they flooded the server with obvius attacks so as to mask the one man trying to go in by stealth. the sysadmins where then occupied trying to fight of all the viruses and whats not going haywire in the system without shutting it down totaly. sure they wrapped it up in cute animations but when you look closely you will see stuff like them going over hex dumps (if you know your asembly and binary its better then looking at a decompile) to try and figure out what the worm was. hackers was in many ways fairly correct. its just that a lot of people see the cool grahpics and go "oh shit, not another flash based hollywood gui!". swordfish would be a better example then hackers...

the problem that i see in the original post on this thread is that there are 2 conflicting texts when it comes to multiple users and the belife that they both have effect. i say that the matrix text is the one to follow if you have matrix as its more up to date. sr3 is written from the pov of one decker, one host.

and whats complex about the vehicle rules? only complex bit is vehicle design. as for normal reaction enhancers being void when driveing a car, well im not surprised. raction enhancers bypass the concious mind (as seen by people drawing guns and shooting based on a sharp noice behind them). a driver on the other hand have to react by commanding the vehicle via pedals and wheel (or similar). this require a extra layer of conversion. the vcr tho makes one able to react to dangers subconciously as if it was a danger to ones body and the vcr converts that to a vehicle command automaticly. its a question of natural responses vs trained responses.

That doesn't answer why a passenger's bonuses disappear though.

And how is jamming a foot down on a pedal and jerking a wheel any more unnatural a reaction than reaching to the holster on your back, drawing a gun, pointing it, and pulling the trigger? Are you saying that guns are a more natural extension of a person's body than a steering wheel? I beg to differ. I was just in a car accident last Thursday, and I'm certain that if I hadn't hit the brakes and turned the wheel when I did that idiot who ran the red light would've slammed into the driver's door and killed me instead of just hitting the front wheel and knocking me around a little.

im saying that it takes longer for the brain to prosess as it have to convert intent into control. with a gun its reach, grab, point, squeeze, most of those are body movements generic enough to cover most anything. a panic brake like what you did dont depend mutch on thought, just pound the brake and keep it down. what im talking about is navigating in and out of traffic, converting split second decisions into input to the car. the normal reaction enhancers are not designed to do that, the vcr however is. in many ways it can be seen as a comboed wired reflexes and a special black box that converts the riggers virtual body movements into control commands. he dont think about how far to turn the wheel or how mutch break to apply. he just virtualy leans over and slows down running and the vcr converts that to break and steering commands...

All of which still doesn't explain why a passenger would limited in initiative to that of the driver. He can still try to draw, shoot, use a Patch, load a clip, or whatever independant of whether or not the driver hits the brake or speeds up.

The idea is that a passenger is limited by the driver in terms of when things come into view, when the car is in a proper position for whatever the passenger wants to do, etc.

It’s implemented horribly, but the basic idea makes sense.

~J

Despite the fact that the thread has wandered, perhaps I can yank it back on track. I've always run multiple deckers as follows:

• Every decker gets their own tally
• Alert status, however, is a host-wide problem so even deckers with a tally less than an alert status suffer the effects of an alert status trigged by a different decker (see example below)
• IC is similar to object-oriented programming (OOP). In OOP you have one object but many instances of objects. Similar to having a utility in storage memory but also having a copy of that utility in active memory, I suppose. So, there is one object for a specific piece of IC and when a trigger step is reached an instance of that IC object is dispatched to deal with the attacking decker. So, yes, the same IC object could be using more than one IC instance to attack more than one decker (see second example below). Crashing or suppresing IC is really crashing or suppressing instances of IC so if one decker crashes IC it doesn't crash IC for other deckers.

Example One
Two deckers are infiltrating a system: PCMCIA and Scuzz-z. Passive alert for the system is triggered at step 10. When PCMCIA reaches a tally of 11, Scuzz-z is only at a tally of 6. However, since PCMCIA triggered a Passive Alert status on the host, Scuzz-z does have to deal with the increased subsystem ratings due to Passive Alert.

Example Two
At trigger step 11, PCMCIA is also attacked by Killer IC. While he's dealing with the IC, Scuzz-z starts a browse operation that increases her tally from 6 to 12 before completing. Since PCMCIA already triggered Passive alert, this doesn't happen again. However, the Killer IC is instantiated again by the host and attacks Scuzz-z even though it was previously instantiated to attack PCMCIA. Scuzz-z crashes her instance of the Killer IC with ease and moves on. This has absolutely no effect on the instance of Killer IC which is attacking PCMCIA.

and this is basicly what the text in matrix is setting up...

yeah, that's how it works. the question, however, is what happens if PCMCIA logs on and racks up sec tal, and then Scuzz-z logs on? by the book, the system magically notices Scuzz-z and slaps him with the same sec tal PCMCIA has. that only happens if Scuzz-z logs on after PCMCIA has racked up sec tal, though--if they log on at the same time, PCMCIA can rack up as much sec tal as he wants, and the only effect it will have on Scuzz-z will be the alerts.

Not quite. Scuzz-z only gets nailed if PCMCIA logged off first.

~J

eh... it says "if any decker logs on to the host/grid illegally before it finishes its reset..." i think that if the decker who racked up the sec tal hasn't logged off yet, then the host/grid can be said to have not finished its reset.

not that it matters, since i ignore this rule in my games, anyway!

I would like to put in my vote for 'Matrix rules aren't that bad.'
Matrix does have more crunch bits than guns, BUT...most of the crunchy bits in matrix are for program design and deck design. Take that away and they're really not that complicated. You MUST MUST MUST print out copies of those tables at the back, though, that sum up system operations and what utilities are used for each.
There are lots and lots of crunchy bits in the matrix design sections, much more than firearms. But the firearms design rules are absurd anyway!

Decking is a lot all at once. If you're having trouble learning it, I advise you play an Otaku. Seriously. It removes operational utilities, deck construction, active memory management, SOTA (if you use it), Tar IC, deck repair from Gray IC, and a bit more. Once you've got a handle on an otaku, it's easy to play a decker since you're only adding a few things.