Heh conversion guidelines 1.0: Divide all skills and attributes by 2. If any of them are still above 6, then divide by 2 again (Always rounding down of course). Continue till all are below 6.

Add up value for all cyber and gear. Take 40% and buy all new stuff. eliminate half of your spells. - randomly.

Taker away all adempt powers. re-purchase new powers.

Riggers? Kill 'em - they don't exist anymore. Or merge them with your groups decker - now both players get to share a character.

All brought to you by the power of sarcasm

Yamaha is actually a musical instrument company that started up a sideline of motorcycles to take advantage of the high quality machined metal technology they developed making organs.

The musical parent has also developed a lot of electronics techonology which i always assumed had then been spun into the Pulsar, and from there i guess they moved into other sidearms. *shrug*

Nah. It's a miniature grenade launcher, similar to the MGL.

Obsolete due to superhuman stats.

Much like about any pre SR4 module that gives an NPC stat. The meanings behind the stat levels is similar if not the same.

Here are some examples from the book:
Halloweeners Street Gang (Professional Rating 1) - Body 3 Agility 3 Reaction 3 Strength 3 Charisma 2 Intuition 2 Logic 2 Willpower 2, Skills: Clubs 2, Etiquette (Street) 3, Pistols 1, Unarmed Combat 2, Cyber - Hand Razors

Sec Guard (Professional Rating 2) - Body 3 Agility 3 Reaction 4 Strength 3 Charisma 3 Intuition 3 Logic 2 Willpower 3, Skills: Dodge 2, Pistols 1, Shortarms 3 (?? This isn't an actual SR4 skill... I'm guessing it's "Automatics"), Unarmed Combat 2

Lone Star Cop (Professional Rating 3) - Body 3 Agility 4 Reaction 4 Strength 3 Charisma 3 Intuition 4 Logic 3 Willpower 3, Skills: Clubs 3, Law Enforcement 3, Perception 2, Pistols 3, Unarmed Combat 3

Triad Posse (Professional Rating 4) - Body 3 Agility 5 Reaction 4 Strength 3 Charisma 3 Intuition 4 Logic 3 Willpower 4, Skills: Blades 3, Dodge 3, Intimidation 3, Pistols 3, Shortarms 3, Unarmed Combat 3

Red Samurai (Professional Rating 5) - Body 4 Agility 5 Reaction 5(6) Strength 4 Charisma 3 Intuition 4 Logic 3 Willpower 4, Skills: Athletics Group 2, Blades 3, Dodge 4, Etiquette (Corp) 3 (+2), Firearms Group 5, Infiltration 3, Perception 3, Unarmed Combat 4, Cyber: Wired Reflexes 1, Cybereyes with Flare Comp, Smartlink

Tir Ghost (Professional Rating 6) - Body 4 Agility 6 Reaction 5(7) Strength 4 Charisma 5 Intuition 6 Logic 4 Willpower 5, Skills: Athletics Group 3, Demolitions 3, Dodge 4, Firearms Group 5, Perception 4, Stealth Group 6, Unarmed Combat 5, Cyber: Wired Reflexes 2, Flare Comp, Smartlink, Commlink

Well, they are only examples of possible "generics" that you can use, obviously. Just give them a hit of Kamikaze or Jazz, if you want to boost them up a bit.

Well, I can't say much for other mods, but smartlink contact lenses are just as good as having a smartlink component in your eye. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be any reason to have a cyber smartlink other than convenience and the fact that they'd have to rip out your eye to remove it. Then again, it only costs 0.1 Essence and it's an Eye accessory now.

Do implants have an old hardwired option, ergo avoid wireless attacks? That would be the wireless/wired trade off to help explain the benefit to wireless.

All versions of the smartlink except for the contact lenses have a wired option (p323). You can also use a skinlink to transmit the data between your Smartlinked weapon and the smartlink display (p318). Using a wired device is secure, but conspicuous, and high security areas will probably flag you for using a wired device, similar to the way you are flagged if you turn your commlink off in such areas.

Couldn't tell ya. It says in the gear section that "assume everything has wireless capability". Including the disposable syringe on p330 or the chisel on p327. *cheesy grin* And lord help us all if you have a wireless Monofilament Chainsaw (p327). If you can't tell, this has become our gaming group's running gag and we've only had the book for 3 days...

Humor aside, I'd assume most pieces of cyberware have SOME sort of wireless component to communicate with WANs, but if the manufacturers were smart, it would probably all be routed through the Commlink device (if one exists) as the central hub for the PAN.

You are correct about the whole Big Brother/security thing, but remember, this is only conspicuous in High Security zones in urban populations. If you were out in the wilderness or a rural town, wireless devices that are turned on would probably be just as conspicuous. It's all about blending in, and you can't blend in if you are doing something different from everyone else.

But said corporate worker/researcher is NOT going to be working on the research while going through a high security zone (like walking through a metal detector or a security checkpoing), or if he/she is, then it's a private workspace which is shielded from outside WAN interference anyway.

Mr. Coogle walks up and thinks, "I'm going to bumble through this security chokepoint with my PAN off, because I don't want those sneaky guards to look at my very confidential file that I'm going to flaunt about, even though they are supposed to record every face and commlink that passes through this area..."

Again, remember that I said High Security in an Urban Area. If you are just walking down the street, you might get hassled by an overzealous Lone Star (the equivalent of being pulled over for having a broken tail light), but for the most part no one is going to care if your PAN is off.

Apparently someones' twinked out SR3 decker broke into Fanpro's mainframe and did a little data update?

And does it then tell you to call them "Kobolds" and "Goblins" and "Orcs"?

But wait, what if the Red Samurai takes a level of Hacker?

~J

Then the world explodes because you put a Sphere of Annihilation into a Bag of Holding while throwing it into a Portable Hole.

This sounds ass-stupid to me.

But then I don't think any npc's should be "just grunts". Are those suggestions there to make them easier to whack? My guess is they suggested those things to speed up gameplay and reduce GM paperwork...which to me is irksome for some reason I can't quite articulate.

I find it irksome as well, but remember that the target audience is the new GM/new player. Any way that they can help reduce the amount of complexity and paperwork is a welcome addition for those folks. Besides, with a high enough Armor rating, it's all going to be Stun Damage anyway. *evil grin*

I suspect it's a page borrowed from Exalted (much like some other mechanics which shall not be named), as Exalted has a definite "Grunts and Big Boss" theme in their game layout.

No kidding. This is the polar freaking opposite of my NPCs.

Cripes.

Am I alone in thinking it weird that the archetypal Tir Ghost is a cyber warrior and not an Adept? Must be because the Tir hates magic.

So you like to, or at least are willing to do the paper work created by putting all NPCs in the "prime runner" catagory. It is the proto-typical GMing style choice what you include as mooks and what you fully flesh out. *shrug*

I think you misunderstand having a single condition box. It, as i'm reading his post, is talking about each guard having both their Stun and Physical damage applied to one set of monitor boxes.

It doesn't mean 3 guards sharing a single condition monitor.

.... which is controled by the GMing style. *shrug* The GM, hopefully with player feedback, sets the mood. The book just layouts out the slider to push up or bring down the NPC stat detail.

EDIT: BTW this isn't terrible different from what i did with on the fly NPCs that came into play when the players went off on one of their infamous tangents. Only some of them didn't even have that much detail.

Oh, no. Each individual NPC has their own condition monitor, you just don't bother with determining Stun or Physical damage... you just mark everything in Physical. It cuts out several steps (including the armor penetration check) from the equation.