Is there any explanation why cyber radios cost so much essence in Shadowrun?

As it is, a radio costs .75 essence and isn't even half as useful as most other kinds of cyberware. In order to get the ability to broadcast silently, you have to get an additional piece of cyberware; in order to scan channels, you need something else that's also additional. A cyber-forearm costs less essence and you can stick a micro-transceiver or a personal comm in it, link it for mental control with DNI, sure it costs more money but it's much more essence-friendly.

A cyberphone costs .5 essence -- why? Cellular phones use the SAME technology!

I know that the radio's been .75 essence and the phone's .5 since the first edition, and I know the technology is based on 1980's concepts of the dark future (and not the advances in wireless technology that we know today), but my players aren't from the 1980's -- they're children of the twenty-first century, and they want to know why they need to spend more for a radio in their head than they do cybereyes which can see in the frickin' dark, display an image inside your own field of view and even more stuff.

Has anyone ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for this? (Besides what I said above, I mean.)

There was a thread on this not that long ago, iirc.

I can't offer an explanation.

I can offer a house rule. In the spoiler for those who want it.

I have absolutely no idea if it's what the designers were thinking of, but one possibility is the Essence cost covers RF shielding and the like. Sure, talk of brain-damaging rays may be silly now, but try sticking the transmitter into your skull and see if that's still the case. If that's accurate, the difference in Essence cost could be explained by the fact that cellphones frequently have a lower range to the tower than radios are able to operate at (lower power).

~J

So put the antenna far away from your head, and put the shielding around that, and connect to it with a router or datajack. No problem for your brain.

Oh wait, that would make sense.

Essence cost for radios is clearly based around the transmitter - which is about as powerful as a none-too-powerful thing (max flux of 0, if I remember aright), and that doesn't sound like a lot of brainfry waiting to happen. Not compared to...a transducer, say. Or a high-powered eye laser...

No, the internal remote deck had a flux of 0, the cyber radio has a normal flux iirc.

It would make a bit too much sense. I mean, god forbid you run a wire to the brain instead of sticking the whole damn thing in there! IIRC the radio is the same Rating*1.5 Flux as externals, though.

~J

behold, cybercommunications which do not suck.

Get a DJ, a transducer and an external router. Hook up a standard tac radio to the router and you're golden.

remeber that when the rules where written the radios where bricks. basicly the essence cost is a anacronism from the days of SR1. hell, only recently did the consealability for stuff like the pocket secretary get errataed so that it makes sense with todays tech.

allso, the basic headradio works on subvocalisation. basicly you talk so that you barely hear it yourself. its kinda like the strap on throat mic's the marines and similar use, only in your body rather then on the outside.

When we first started to question the cost of the headware radios my only explaination was for game balance, but arguably so a weak one. My only offering would be that you effectively remove the need for a team to utter a single sound and be in constant communication.

Personally, and as others have mentioned numerous times, I don't see why a headware radio cost so damn much even with proper shielding and all that. I've considered offering Headware radio and related items at Delta cybeware essence costs, but only at regular prices and I like the DNI-cyberlimb approach as well.

/boggle

It's grandfathered in from SR1. That's the only reason I can come up with.

I dropped essence cost to .35. It made all my Lone Star beat officers much happier

tbh, I'd drop it even lower; I don't see why a cyber radio would cost more than .2 essence. The cybercomm link, meh, not sure about that; it was a new tech in 2056.

Just make it satellite radio... XM straight to the brain, baby.

i want one of those pills.

Same here.

Although I'd prefer they were permanent.

OTOH, nanotech in SR might be able to produce one (especially if someone has bone lacing) "sometime" in the future.

So here's the sixty-four dollar question... could this be fixed?

Just a little side-note here. For anyone who has/does work with a radio on a regular basis, you know how annoying they can be. Who would honestly want one surgically implanted into their grape?

I think the implanted headphone would be much more practical than a radio, anyways.

Meh, you have to be somewhere with a cell network and trust your connection to the 'Trix. Either way the Essence cost if high, and you still need a transducer or microphone/speakers. With deckers I usually get radios, scanners, and cyberphones.

I need to create a v2.0 of my commo headset that replaces the speakers and vibration microphones with an external transducer and 'trode rig. The only problem is that a regular trode rig messes with the hair.

But, K10's right. Other than an errata or someone at FanPro having a stroke which makes them redo all of the commo cyberware (It's not just radios and phones. It's all effed), you're SOL.

Well, my advice is to get a subdermal induction datajack in the arm or leg and strap on a transducer and radio.

It's for a non-cyber rig to provide the interface. The actual radio or phone or other communications media generally sit in pcokets or in the vicinity of the character and routed through said datapad or other computer.

Like I said, I already use WK's commo cyberware, and that works just fine.
For some reason I just felt like sharing about the non-cyber rig.

Get a DNI linked device in a cyberarm or body compartment. Same trick, a lot less essence.

Why do they suck in cannon? The security helmets cranked up with all the bells and whistles are quite cool. Except for the trode rigs, they always suck.

Yeah, helmets are cool; 'trode rigs suck. Helmets with biomonitors, radios, orientation systems, built-in computers and transducers. And air conditioned. But 'trode rigs shouldn't suck.

i allow trode rigs to be concealed in bandannas, hats, etcetera. the drawback is that they cost twice as much. (though, with no listed price, that's not as much of a problem as you'd think !!)

Trode Jacks: 500 always, legal.

There you go.

I think there should be some disadvantage when not using purely cyber stuff. Using a 'trode rig should never be quite as good as using a datajack with DNI'ed gear.

From what I understand, trodes are fine. That is, provided you aren't moving about, dodging bullets and flipping out to kill the ninjas. They work not quite as good as hot assist, cost no essence but they are prone to shifting and screwing the connection. That's what makes a helmet mounts version good, it's secured.

Well, for decking... Yeah. I'm not saying that a trode rig is ever going to be as good as a decker (or God-forbid, Otaku) screaming through the Grid using a pure DNI Hot ASIST interface.

But it should be pretty close to near-indistinguishable to DNI/manual decking with Cold or Hot ASIST (I'd prefer hot for the hjigh-end trode rigs.)

Of course, this assumes decent quality trode rigs: Stuff you'd pick up at a good electronics shop, and not something they have behind the counter at Wal-Mar... Stuffer Shack.

The intention being, ultimately, a means for them to not even have to subvocalise or expose themselves to anyone listening in on their communications just by standing next to them. Plus then the switch and even the datapad interface would become more of a redundancy.

Of course, one of the ideas I was toying with recently was linking a Tactical Computer, BattleTac, and Snake-Eyes cyber into a team, and how that would work under the rules to achieve maximum tactical effectiveness (i.e., the bonuses to Init and CP).

Which brings me back to the cyberware communications systems.

Indeed, I think they suck as written. That's why I use WK's system. But I think that some point down the line, his system could be better. Of course, this is me as a flight of fancy. I don't know anything about electronics, whereas WK does know more than I do.

I've tried not to think about the antenna(e) structures that the headware radios and phones possess, although when I have it's usually passed across my mind as a network of antennae spread subdermally across the skull (which is, IIRC, getting close to the Transmet phone), and I assume shielded to some extent if for no other reason than, assuming no major change in technology, talking on a headphone is going to make it warmer, like talking on a cellphone for 45min. The difference being that an unshielded headphone would literally start cooking the user.

It also cuts down on the sheer invasiveness of installing a phone/radio, and the resultant essence loss (cutting slits between the skin and skull vs. screwing with the brain), whereas the actual phone/radio itself does not need to be installed in the brain pan to be effective AFAIK. The transducer would probably look something like the antenna structure, and I doubt it would have trouble working over bone because... there are external transducers.

Installing the radio further down in the head where there is more space would make more sense, since (in WK's system) the subdermal speakers and subvocal mikes are going to be in the same area, and the base unit may as well be, too.

Customized cyber would probably entail the replacement of some parts of the skull with replacement pieces which incorporate the commo system to reduce, at the least, the actual physical invasiveness of the technology by not cramming something where it doesn't really belong.

OTOH, even standard cyber could do that, too, depending on to what extent you consider RL metal/plastic plates "custom." I don't know, personally. I'd have to check. It's just an idea.

Indeed. I should have remembered that.

Back to the drawing board.

Who's to stop you from setting up a phone to work from multiple numbers? Only reasons you can't are because phones aren't programmed to and networks don't want to let you. Theoretically, a phone that could accomodate multiple SIMs could switch between them as you liked. Or, for the blacker hats, just fake multiple SIMs on the fly.

Anyway, as it is, all kinetic energy imparted to the helmet still is entirely transferred to your head (subtract a bit for real world stuff like fluid dynamics and lost energy through hear). A fully solid helmet, assuming perfect rigidity and elasticity would still be useful because it would take all the energy in that tiny, fast piece of shrapnel and transfer it to the helmet, which is far bigger and far heavier. End result is a larger surface area for your head to absorb the impact and a longer time (lower impulse) to absrob it due to the helmet's inertia.

What is important about internal webbing is not that it lessens the amount of energy absorbed by your head but that it greatly increases the amount of time over which your head absorbs impact. This, in turn, dramatically lowers impulse (force/time).

Erm, I think decking in general is assumed to function very far away from current mobile SIM architecture. I don't think I understand your point.