Quick question folks. I'm stuck here away from my books, and I need to know about how long it takes to load skillsofts. Active and non. I think I remember it having to do with size of file and few other things, but not the specifics. Anyone know?

K, thanks.

Got a player that made a PC with few real skills and chips the rest.
Yes, I am aware of the downsides. I'm also aware of the skillwire limits (has skillwire plus 6). It hasn't been a problem yet, I just needed to know if it was going to be one.

Oh, yeah. we are doing 2nd, and it was in shadowtech.

How did he make that economical. My assessment showed you needed over 20 skills on chip before the wires were worth the expense (as apposed to just going to an expensive trainer to describe your cash for karma).

Edward

I think I'm playing things the right way, but I've got one character with skill wires at four, plus an Expert Driver 3. When he slots a rating four combat skill, that lets him roll seven dice to attack, and still have his full combat pool for defense (he's an infiltration/impersonation specialist, and uses chips to round out fill out the active and knowledge skills he needs).

Remember that if he's got a multi slot chipjack, he needs an expert driver for each slot if he want to get the bonus to more than one chip at a time.

So if the PC has rating six skillwires, an expert driver, and cash to burn for chips of that high a rating, expect to see him rolling a lot of dice for a lot of various tasks. It can be overpowering, and the problems I've enountered have been largely related to roleplaying. You can't always go walking around with a chipjack jukebox plugged into your datajack, he really needs a different chip slotted in that expert driver slot, he doesn't have access to his case of chips right then...

you dont gain access to pools using chip jacked skills, this came up when i was considering making a chipjack rigger and DSF informed me of such. I can double check my book though and get the page if you want me too Sandoval

With A Chipjack Expert Driver, you do get access to a special Task Pool of up to Rating 3. That leaves your Combat Pool available for use in defence. You would not get access to the Control Pool when using chipped Vehicle Skills.

but then, even if he's got a pistols 6, with the expert driver he can only throw 3 dice for shooting, corect? not 6 for the skill, plus 3, plus combat pool, correct?

Body compartment, jukebox inside it, install chipjack inside it as well, now he can go walking around everywhere with his chips plugged in. Tada!

Oh man, the old SR2 Skillwires rocked, especially the Plus version. In 3rd Ed it costs way too damn much to make Skillwires worthwhile if you want a decent rating, unless you go like previously mentioned with the Expert Driver, but still, just a base Rating 5 system costs you over half a mil, and you can't even get base Rating 6 even with Priority A Cash.

But with skill wires costing MP*rating*500
And MP being rating * rating * 3
The base implant for rating 4 skill wires becomes 96000.

This will allow you to have one skill at a time and no options can be used. If you want to be able to run 2 skills at the same time each at rating 4 you need rating 8 skill wires and the package will cost you 384,000 nuyen. and having 2 skills active t the same time is often necessary.

I just see it as being far too expensive to be worth the effort.

Edward

Remember that the task pool is a pool like any other, it refreshes at the beginning of the combat turn. If a character never gets a second action then it doesnt matter, but if he's fast enough to get 2 actions he has to divide those dice among them, making this very unattractive as a substitute for a real skill level.

If he goes more than once in a turn someone with skillwires 3 and a CED of 3 can roll 6 dice for the first time he shoots, then only three for each subsequent shot. Those dice are gone. Same goes for melee. If attacked he could toll 6 dice the first time to defend then he only gets 3 for all the remaining attacks and defenses.

EDIT: for noncombat skills though, it kicks ass.

Typically, I just give the character with the chips a 6 in their combat skill of choice, this lets them consistantly throw 6 dice for that weapon (pick something broad like pistol or smg), as well as have chipped skills for anything else.

I made a character with Rating 6 wires and CED 3... his combat skills were real, and his other skills were chipped. Throwing 9 dice into ettiquette rocks.

JaronK

Just wait until you get ahold of chips with the DIMAP option. Pistols skillsoft: 6, Chipjack Expert Driver: 3, DIMAP: 6 = 15 dice.

I don't have the book on hand, but is DIMAP compatible with the expert driver?

*looks over the description in Cannon Companion and Errata* Says nothing about not working with CED.

@Mortax

If you still need the numbers - Skillwire/SSLD = MpL/100 while headware memory SLD = MpL/250.

Good to see some 2nd ed. players - very retro.
I'd probably make the skillsoft jukebox about MpL/50. I use the Shadowtech rules to slow skillwires (although now they've limited the CED to 3) and so players will get I/O ports and all those cool old bits of headware.

Of course, every improvement in your pistols skill would allow you an extra die, and another pool die. Up to 9 at least.

Somehow I got it confused with the price table where they go by Max rating. I was letting them run 2 rating 5 skillchips on a rating 5 skillwire, but was requiring enough Mp to run 2 at once. Overlooked the "total" in the description.

Problem with about all the custom soft options is Mp "bandwidth", price, availability and SI. Either you are paying a fortune for chips or a fortune for the skillwires. Plus the essence loss.

I think I'm going to have some new characters.

Well, if you are allowing Cash for Karma in unlimited amounts, sure. 3 million is also more than enough to retire with in the long run, and would be a ridiculous investment. Skillwires aren't intended to improve natural skills... they are there to give a quick fix for people who don't have the time to learn the natural skills. Sure it is expensive, but it gives you instant access to skills. Learning a rating 3 skill takes 1 to 2 months on average... Learning a rating 6 skill takes 3 to 8 months (depending on your learning rolls and trainers).

Meanwhile, for about 60,000 nuyen, I can have a Skillwires 3, a Chipjack Expert Driver 3, and Chipjack, and get Rating 3 Activesofts for about 2700 nuyen which give me 6 dice to roll for any activesoft. That's a great bargain, IMHO, and provides a lot of flexibility.
(note: You could also optimize the chip to half the MP rating, halving the cost of the Skillwires.)