I was having a discussion about decking with another player in my playgroup, mostly about Otaku. Eventually the conversation became a look what was good and bad about decking and otaku. It eventually came down to "Otaku don't need to worry about active memory, and that alone makes them so much less of a headache." This got me to thinking: isn't there another way they could simplify that process of handling a cyberdeck's active memory?

One way to do it is to simplify the active memory into a smaller number, and say that only a total rating of programs equal to the active memory can be run simultaneously. For instance, instead of the KraftWerk having a 1000 AM, it might have a 70. The problem with that is that this makes all programs equal, from the hardly useful ones to the ones used all the time. Maybe programs with multipliers of 3 or higher are effective rating x 1/5, and above 6 is effective rating x 2. It's not simple, but it's simpler.

The simplest way to do it is to presume all decks have an active memory equal to their storage memory. This might make deckers more like mages, as they constantly have every program running, a la sustaining foci. I forget if there's an IC that looks for programs in Active Mem rather than when the program is run, but if there is, I'd apply it much more in this case.

One potentially less drastic way to simplify active memory is to make the entire Swap Memory operation a free action, rather than a free to drop and a simple to add. It won't let deckers get caught with their pants down as much, but since Attack is a Simple action, it might let players 'quick draw' their battle mode and get blasting faster.

I can't think of any others, but I bet someone must have. Any suggestions or additions?
One potentially less drastic way to simplify active memory is to make the entire Swap Memory operation a free action, rather than a free to drop and a simple to add. It won't let deckers get caught with their pants down as much, but since Attack is a Simple action, it might let players 'quick draw' and get blasting faster.

Active Memory/Storage Memory isen't that hard to understand.

And, y'know, you can always just upgrade your active memory, to keep your combat mode always loaded.

Unless you use the optional icon bandwidth rules. Then you want it slim.

I'm guessing, by simplify, you just want smaller numbers, correct? why not just reduce everything by a nice divisable number across the board (say 10 or 100, including total active memory). I don't get why you want to "simplify" it though, just add up all the software you have, if it's greater than your active memory, set up packages of programs, starting with the "minimum", your essentials that you want loaded all the time, and then look at what you have left, and how much space is left, build the rest of your normal package from there, and then determine you're swaps.

Eh. It's just another way in which the Matrix lags behind real-world computer science. I mean, even Apple has figured out how to implement swap... how hard can it be?

heh, given that the action for replacing one program with another is called swap memory i guess its allready there, only its not automated

one way to automate it would be that to run a program directly from storage you increace the action "class" one level, from free to simple and from simple to complex. still, what to do about those complex actions?

well, one possibility, i guess, that may only be useful if you're doing wholesale changes, would be to expand on the idea of having the list of programs, and for a complex action, you can swap out one list for another, like a template, or workspaces in some current design programs. The caveat to this is that you already have to have the programs you want load programmed as a list, and this list should only take up a minimal amount of storage memory (1/10th of the total ratings, off the top of my head?) You don't have the ability to say i want to load, x,y and z programs on the fly like this, however.

Or maybe (although now that i think about it, i'm not sure they exist in the matrix) make this swap an exclusive action, and while i'm thinking of it, you could do the same for the complex actions to try and run them directly from storage.