Do I need a headware radio with a transducer to stay in touch with my team? Or, is there a better/cheaper/easier way?

Telecomm programme is another option ... don't know if I would call it "cheaper" though ...

Um, I don't know, coulden't you put a radio on your deck. I don't think there is any rules for it, but it would make sence that a decker could do it with a little creativity, some radioshack bits, and a relatitivly simple program. Maby the GM could let you. Wait a minute, don't deckers get multable turns for every turn in the meat world? That would be a problem. Maby you could send them messages, that would be played back at a slow speed so they could understand them, and their replyes could be recorded and played back faster for you. We are talking major lag here.

wagnern> I think you've got the right idea. I'd still need a transducer, but the radio itself can be on the outside. A multi data jack should take care of that. It's way cheaper to buy radio and scramblers outside of your head. Not to mention how much cheaper it is to upgrade what you've got

just pick up the matrix sourcebook and look for the tranciver option in the cyberterminal construction chapter. no need for anything else as it allow the user to communicate via radio...

It is so strange that such an important topic has not been so exploited by Shadowrun authors.
Sometimes ago I asked the same thing and it came out a woderful topic called "Matrix & Reality".

You can find it in

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...=7219&hl=matrix

You can resurrect it, put another answer and continue the discussion from the point we left it.
Numerous solutions appeared: radios, drones with cams, telecoms, videocams, simsense like in Neuromancer, etc...
Enjoy it

My decker had a fliptop video screen on his deck that displayed a checklist of things he was trying to do. When he'd do one, he'd put a checkmark up.

If he needed to talk, he'd scroll words.

I plug a personal radio into my deck and have a pissy little program that translates the physical radio plugged into a deck port into a logical radio icon I carry around in the matrix, this is not in the rules but it makes sense.

Alternatively I use a com call program to call the team on there hands free cell phones and we use a conference call to stay in contact threw a run.

The problem is that you loose initiative in the matrix if you chat with the meat world however

Edward

Hmm, how are you dealing with this wrt differences of cost for equivalent equipment? What I'm thinking about is the differential in cost of computer memory between desktop/pocket/wrist/headware: which ratio, I'm thinking, might be appropriate to adapt to any kind of electronics within the context of game balance.

according to Matrix, you can modify just about any piece of electronics to interface with your deck. i would actually assume that most consumer electronics come with built-in FUP adapters.

According to what I have read, about 90% of all communications in the 6th world utilise the matrix. Why then would your decker, allready in the matrix, divert his communications outside of the matrix?

Answer: He wouldn't. The cyberdeck is allready equipped with everything needed to interface with the virtual reality of the matrix. It is a simple matter of having a utility installed in his deck designed to interface with the matrix directly.

As an example, a virtual phone, a program that emulates the signals a regular phone in the real world sends through the matrix, allowing the decker to call people inside and outside of the matrix via the regular networks.

Hence, telecomm programme. But that's apparently not the focus of interest here.

there is one problem with the telecom utility, and that is that it can only be used on RTGs, go fig...

Um, twitches and drools a lot?

Seriously though, they use either a transducer or text on a flip up screen.

If your team members are in the room, hook speakers up to your deck and talk to them that way. No extra stuff needed. Now waiting for your meat to move.

Long distance get a radio or telephone and make it DNI and plug it into your deck. If your deck is already DNI then you can skip the transducer and have your deck talk through the radio with some two bit text-to-sound programm.

personaly i would not go attack multiple hosts at the same time, multitasking the human brain is bad. just try working on 2-3 diffrent documents while having a conversation over im and maybe by phone at the same time. things will slow down to a crawl as your wasting most of your time jumping from one task to the other and trying to remeber what the hell you where doing.

the only real problem with the comcall utility is that it specificaly states that it can only be used to place calls when on a rtg. locate calls that the decker wants to trace i can understand but placing a call? nothing that cant be houseruled tho

i think this is one of the things they will try to solve with the new matrix in sr4. they are finaly dropping the gibsonian view of the matrix for one that works more like the real world.

and another reason for going after multiple hosts at ones, ICE. its the same thing that killed the germans in two world wars. multiple fronts. basicly your hit with multiple amounts of everything. having 3-4 attack ice at ones can play havoc with your status monitor (and lets not start talking about the rules hell it will be )...

Meh, I just let the comcall utility do it and keep track of the memory used. I think it is a significantly small issue when it is difficult enough to have a decker interface with the team while in the matrix.

I would not want to fight at 2 points in the matrix ither but being able to look arount would be very usfull.

For example, I am performing over watch for the team and a question comes up,, what dose the international chemical code RJ428 mean, so I want to look up the national chemical register (quite willing to be a logged guest on this publicly assessable site) and also look up the same data on shadow land. (in case somebody has some interesting unofficial experiences, again I have access codes and wont need to worry about IC) while I look up this information I don’t want to log of the current host because I don’t have a postcode for re-entry.

Another reason would be when the teem is going to go threw arias controlled buy 3 d9ferent hosts and wants overwatch on all 3, you go into the hosts one at a time and create pass codes, after that you shouldn’t have to worry about IC and if you do you probably want to pull out anyway.

Edward

keep a smart frame or agent around loaded with search ability. tell it to go fetch and forget about it

as for keeping overwatch on 3 diffrent hosts, call in some favors on shadowland

doing overwatch is a bit more then keeping 3 browser windows open. its more like trying to watch 3 live video feeds (onsite cctv systems) at the same time, while listening to 3 diffrent audio sources (security radio coms, hidden mics) and maybe trying to read some braille (tactile feedback from asist traffic interpetations) at the same time.

and who knows what sr4 will include? given that they are tossing out the current matrix wholesale and trying to put the "decker" back into the onsite team i dont think so. but one will never know.

I don’t know about yours must my computer can play 3 videos at once (ok the sound doesn’t work but that’s because the sound card is dead).

It would be more like being in a CCTV controlled room with 10 monitors displaying your system of current concern and one monitor displaying each of the other systems so you get the critical updates (security going on alert) and can change over quickly when the team moves into the next aria (especially useful where your infiltrating the target and a surveillance satellite), trying to run active overwatch on more than one sight would be a fulls errand. Not because your deck couldn’t do it but because you couldn’t.

Edward

i didnt say it could not be done. but i would apply a negative modifier to the deckers skill tests as he is distracted by other things happening. cctv isnt one man sitting and watching 10+ screens most of the time. if so the chance of discovering something while it happens is slim (alltho depending on the time it takes). what its realy about is the ability to go back after the fact and look at what happend.

yes your computer can play 3 video streams nicely but i wonder if your able to watch them all at the same time and get some useful facts from them.

ie, its the decker thats the problem, not the deck.

ras override. pop the textbook on a chip and presto you have access to it.

still, im guessing that the basic programing skill test covers stuff like having basic documentation at hand. if you go programing suite then you have something similar to ms visual c++ or other tools that give you inline help for what your coding and the mainframe system is able to generate large chunks of code for you when you just define the parameters and then add small tweaks here and there.

mail heck, well thats a dffrent thing. it seems you cant access mail from a deck at all. but then mail have never been the big thing in sr it seems (atleast its never realy coverd anywhere).

the thing still is that your not trying to do it all at ones. try playing 3 soundtracks at ones and write down some of the text (if there is).

when you program and need to look up something you stop programming, look something up and then continue to program. what if the code you where writeing where changing while you where watching the documentation?

and downloads are background operations, ie, start and forget about it.

the thing here realy is that hosts dont allow you to access material on the host without a active icon on said host. ie, rather then now where you have all content streamed to you just by knocking at a port on the server in the matrix you create one connection between deck and host, log in if needed and then have the data streamed to you as asist traffic.

i have seen it again and again, trying to compare modern day internet with matrix basicly fails as there is a totaly diffrent concept to data flow. matrix seems to be closer to agents (small bits of code that float from server to server and hand your system data that match what its looking for) ratehr then what we have now. and even that isnt 100% correct.

the thing is that matrix tryes to make gibsons visions work scientificaly. but to do that one have to drop everything one knows about modern networking.

everything is prosessed on the host, the only thing the deck does is handle the icon (the interface to the host) and the datastream going to the asist. you do not get the raw sculpture data or the raw text file, what you get is the asist signals generated based on this data. sure one could in theory reverse this and get a working text document or similar but that would probably require another host.

experiencing multiple hosts would probably be like experiencing multiple places on earth at the same time. and that may even explain the crash of a reality filter and a hosts metaphor.

it may in the end be that the deck can only handle one asist stream at ones. i wonder what level of prosessing power one would need to merge the multiple asist streams that would be generated from accessing multiple hosts...

I know I wasn’t actually paying attention to all the things I was doing all the time. but when somebody sends a message the icon in the task bar starts flashing and there is a boing sound to inform me I have a message.

In SR just to know if there was a message I would need to log of the host, travel across an LTG (possibly several RTGs) and visit a different host.

I generally accept the limitations of the matrix but it would be nice to be able to do these things in the new version.

Edward

and we may be able to do so, in fact i would be surprised if we cant given that total rewrite that they seems to be doing.