Can you run utilities at lower than their ratings?
For example, if you have rating 6 or 7 utilities on a CMT Avatar (MPCP-7), and then get a CMT Babel (MPCP-5), can you run the higher rated utilities?
Are their functional ratings capped by the MPCP, so you could run a rating 7 on a Babel, but it would effectively only be a rating 5?
Or would the higher rated program simply not work in conjunction with the lower MPCP?
Full Version: Utility Ratings
No, buts its a programming option. Adaptive I believe. I highly recommend it.
Yep, Adaptive, p83 Matrix.
Personally I never ever use it. It's a +2 Design Rating Modifier, I hardly ever change decks, and when I do it's only to upgrade!
It could be useful in the right situations, but if you're half-decent at programming and are mostly talking about lower-end utilities, it's just about as quick to write two seperate utilities without the design modifiers. Plus if one gets trashed you still have the other!
Personally I never ever use it. It's a +2 Design Rating Modifier, I hardly ever change decks, and when I do it's only to upgrade!
It could be useful in the right situations, but if you're half-decent at programming and are mostly talking about lower-end utilities, it's just about as quick to write two seperate utilities without the design modifiers. Plus if one gets trashed you still have the other!
Thanks. I have this unnatural fear of most of the sections in Matrix, but I finally managed to glance through the Programming Section (after I started the thread, naturally).
Another question: How do you repair damage done by Cripplers/Rippers to Persona Ratings? Is it just temporary and go away the next time you log on?
Another question: How do you repair damage done by Cripplers/Rippers to Persona Ratings? Is it just temporary and go away the next time you log on?
If I recall corectly you have to spend time reloading the program from storage memory. Or it will reboot fixed at your next start-up.
Of course I could be wrong
Of course I could be wrong
Works well for an emergency back-up deck, that feature.
the nonpermanent (cripplers i think) just stay in effect until you reboot the deck (goes offline for a moment). the rippers are a diffrent story as they damage the level of the actual chip, forceing you to replace them 
You can also use the Restore utility (p74 Matrix). Although you'd need it at a pretty high rating and even then you'll only shore up a point or two at a time.
Crippler and the like are, in my opinion, somewhat like certain spirit powers in the real world. That is to say, they're somewhat unfair and really hard to resist (or impossible, in the case of some spirit powers).
But hey that's how it goes.
Crippler and the like are, in my opinion, somewhat like certain spirit powers in the real world. That is to say, they're somewhat unfair and really hard to resist (or impossible, in the case of some spirit powers).
But hey that's how it goes.
Cripplers aren't that bad to beat unless you GM is just tossing out high rated ones left and right. I used them in the test runs (usually have Markers right after a Probe) and couldn't even hit the deckers.
Depending on the colour of the system you're on and whether you're a legal user or not, they may or may not be a problem. But if the ICs target number is, say, 4, and yours is, say, 8, and you're both rolling the same number of dice, well...
Admittedly I do run against high end systems, where the problem is exaggerated, but still, not a fan! But hey, who does like IC other than shady GMs, right?
Admittedly I do run against high end systems, where the problem is exaggerated, but still, not a fan! But hey, who does like IC other than shady GMs, right?
On a Red Hard, it doesn't matter if the IC is a Crippler or a Blaster; you're in trouble.
Okay. It's my understanding that Rippers don't do permanent damage unless they crash the Persona Attribute they weaken. If they do, then they get a chance to hurt your MPCP, which requires replacing the MPCP to fix?
I'm kinda new at this Shadowrun stuff, and especially weak on the Matrix. I just noticed today that you locate paydata with Evaluate and not Browse....
I'm kinda new at this Shadowrun stuff, and especially weak on the Matrix. I just noticed today that you locate paydata with Evaluate and not Browse....
Oddly enough, while the target number is MPCP and the damage is to the MPCP you have to replace the persona chip to fix the damage. I've always thought it was a typo myself but I play it as is.
| QUOTE (Zeel De Mort) |
| Yep, Adaptive, p83 Matrix. Personally I never ever use it. It's a +2 Design Rating Modifier, I hardly ever change decks, and when I do it's only to upgrade! It could be useful in the right situations, but if you're half-decent at programming and are mostly talking about lower-end utilities, it's just about as quick to write two seperate utilities without the design modifiers. Plus if one gets trashed you still have the other! |
Why do you fear having a program trashed
They are copy able, usually delivered with there source code so they can be maintained
If you wrote it yourself you can copy it as much as you want.
I would always keep a copy on my deck (for use) a chip containing all my programs in my pocket in case of tar pit of similar and a copy at home and in my safe house in case I need to ditch what is on me.
As to running an adaptive program on a lower rating deck the adaptive option makes the program bigger, aside from the expense and time of writing it will your backup deck have the storage and active memory to hold a higher rating program with the programming options added.
There may be cause to use adaptive if you have 2 programs running both rating 8 and can only have 10 rating points running without giving your location away (the icon bandwidth rules I only skimmed them), this probably will give you the ability to change from 2/8 to 8/2 faster than loading separate programs
Edward
| QUOTE (Edward) |
| Why do you fear having a program trashed They are copy able, usually delivered with there source code so they can be maintained If you wrote it yourself you can copy it as much as you want. I would always keep a copy on my deck (for use) a chip containing all my programs in my pocket in case of tar pit of similar and a copy at home and in my safe house in case I need to ditch what is on me. |
I'm thinking more if someone was planning to have an adaptive utility then that'd be the only one they'd have on them. Whereas if you have two seperate ones, you'd logically have to have them on two different chips.
As I say, I never use adaptive utilities so haven't really thought about it much. You can of course, as you say, just carry around a bag with a spare copy of all your utilities in it. So at least if one gets totally fried you can physically load another one in afterwards. Although a couple of my handier utilities are object only, since they were "acquired" rather than purchased.
Utilities getting trashed is generally more of a problem during a matrix run rather than anything to worry about long term though, which is why I favour the huge deck memory/lots of utilities loaded/spare copies of the important ones online approach.
| QUOTE (Edward) |
| As to running an adaptive program on a lower rating deck the adaptive option makes the program bigger, aside from the expense and time of writing it will your backup deck have the storage and active memory to hold a higher rating program with the programming options added. |
Actually, a CMT Babel has more memory than the CMT Avatar, despite it's MPCP being 2 less. Also, I believe Adaptive only affects the Design Size; which only effects the base time to program, and the nuyen value, not the actual Mp needed to store and run the program.
'sides, storage memory's pretty cheap. even active memory isn't horribly expensive to upgrade.
and there isnt much of a upper limit 
rember that IC is based on a virus that was able to fry hardware, so seeing stuff like blaster and rips running around isnt that far off...
still, if i was to set up security on a host i would hold back to them until atleast passive alert if orange or red and active for green and blue. the chance of nailing some user that messsed up a backup session is just to big.
and it seems i was not remebering the way cripplers and ripper work. i belived that rippers burned the persona chips directly, requireing them to be replaced. i now see that cripplers cant take the persona ratings below 1 (makeing them harmless aginst the avarage termnal jokey, they only use rating 1 chips) and rippers burn the mpcp rather then the persona chips.
and necro tech, the sr3 says that rippers burn the mpcp and require the mpcp to be replaced (in my 6th printing of the 5 revision of the sr3 rules)...
rember that IC is based on a virus that was able to fry hardware, so seeing stuff like blaster and rips running around isnt that far off...
still, if i was to set up security on a host i would hold back to them until atleast passive alert if orange or red and active for green and blue. the chance of nailing some user that messsed up a backup session is just to big.
and it seems i was not remebering the way cripplers and ripper work. i belived that rippers burned the persona chips directly, requireing them to be replaced. i now see that cripplers cant take the persona ratings below 1 (makeing them harmless aginst the avarage termnal jokey, they only use rating 1 chips) and rippers burn the mpcp rather then the persona chips.
and necro tech, the sr3 says that rippers burn the mpcp and require the mpcp to be replaced (in my 6th printing of the 5 revision of the sr3 rules)...
depends on the host. nobody backs up data from a red-hard research host without everybody knowing about it who needs to know--in triplicate.
| QUOTE (Zeel De Mort) |
| You can of course, as you say, just carry around a bag with a spare copy of all your utilities in it. So at least if one gets totally fried you can physically load another one in afterwards. Although a couple of my handier utilities are object only, since they were "acquired" rather than purchased. |
On object only utilities can be copied, if they where originally distributed with sauce code then they wont have bothered with anti copying protections, this is also true for object only code disseminated threw a corporation with intent that it be used in every instance it is useful (why by 500,000 licences when you can commission the utility and disseminate it threw out your corporation)
Edward
Maybe in your game but, unfortunately, the rules say you need the source code to make another copy. Otherwise you have to crack the object code, which takes quite a while.
I didn’t think so but I could well be wrong, do you have a reference for that.
Not to mention that cracking the object code while non trivial would likely prove well worth the effort for most deckers.
Edward
Not to mention that cracking the object code while non trivial would likely prove well worth the effort for most deckers.
Edward
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| and necro tech, the sr3 says that rippers burn the mpcp and require the mpcp to be replaced (in my 6th printing of the 5 revision of the sr3 rules)... |
Thank you. Lousy first printing.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.