Wow. You completely missed the point.

The point is that no final product should be that poorly written.

so far as i can tell, boosted reflexes is the only reaction enhancer that stacks with anything anymore. But I cant find anything that it can stack WITH. The other two reaction enhancers are Wired Reflexes, and Synaptic Booster, which are both exclusive.

Synaptic Booster used to be the Synaptic Accelerator, which DID stack with other things - but that seems to be gone now. not that im complaining.

but are there actually two reaction enhancing systems (in the rules as printed) that can stack together? Or do we just have to wait for the release of the 'ware sourcebook, before we can fully utilize the stackable enhancements?

Or does it mean that it can stack with magical or adept enhancements?

AFAIK, you can stack (most?) things that boost Reaction, but you cannot stack anything that boosts Initiative.

oh, i get it then. reaction boosters can stack with initiative boosters, but you cant put two initiative boosters together.

makes sense.

Someone asked about Flechettes a few pages back. In answer, Flechettes are now better than standard ammo, even against armored targets.

Flechettes now increase armor by two, and increase damage by two. they are defended against by impact armor, which is generally two points lower than ballistic. So they effectively just increase damage by two.

even compareing a Slivergun to other heavy pistols (which reduce armor by 1, with standard ammo) the flechettes still come out slightly ahead.

but that brings up another question.. If I put flechettes in a gun that normally has -1 AP, is the total modifier +1 AP? if so, why does the remmington roomsweeper have a damage code of 5P -1 / 7P(f) +2?

Possibly it's a mistake on the part of the editors? Maybe it's errata?

Would I be right to assume the grenade launcher attached to assault rifles use the automatics skill to fire? Or do they use the Heavy Weapons skill like a regular grenade launcher? It seams like a bit of a stretch to use automatics for a grenade launcher, but I can't see getting another skill for a weapon that is attached to your assault rifle.

They use heavy

you used to be able to do synaptic accelerator and boosted reflexes to get a total of +4d6 to inititive and like + 4 to reaction?

Hello cheaper (much cheaper) and much more essence friendly move by wires without weird side effects! hehe.

On the combat subject, it seems to me like 'aim for the head' is still a very good idea, even without the smartlink-2. My example street-sam chucks 18 dice to attack, and unless his opponent is using Full Defence he'll be defending with 9. So taking -3 dice for a called shot will still almost certainly hit, and is three times more effective damagewise than using them normally (rolling 3 dice normally = 1 hit, +1 DV. Taking 3 die called shot = +3DV). Anything I'm missing or misunderstanding?

The balance is meant to be the fact that the +3DV won't come in to the equation if you miss in the first place, which is easier to do with less hits

Unless of course you didn't spend the 20BP on Dodge 5, in which case you're pretty screwed even with Full Defense. Hell, if you're untrainned at dodging it doesn't matter if you're trying not to be hit or not; it's no harder to hit you than if you're standing still. Diving for cover just ain't what it used to be.

Yeah, that defaulting part for full defense is a little dumb. Everything is harder to hit when its moving, even if its stumbling. But I admit, I don't see many ways to fix this beyond dropping defaulting for defense. Oh well.

question about commlinks:

can firewall be above system/response? i know that system cannot exceed response, and no program can be above system. is firewall limited to response?

i see where you can get non-standard programs, what about hardware? or are we limited to the listed off-the-shelf commlinks for now?

As far as I know, Firewall is not limited by either System or Response.

Are vehicles in general and drones in particular far far easier to kill in SR4 than SR3? Looking at the vehicles section it notes that vehicle armor works exactly like character armor, only hardened. The toughest drone in the book, the Steel Lynx (which was all but immune to small-arms fire in SR3) has an armor value of 9, only just higher than an armor jacket and considerably weaker than full body armor. Am I missing something?

look at weapon DV. the predator IV is DV 5. that means you need +5 from DV/AP in order to hurt an armor 9 drone. a called shot (+4 DV, -4 dicepool) with the -1 AP of the gun would allow this. so the drone is more vunerable, but not an easy kill by any means. the 6 armor of the doberman will stop a predator IV unless it uses better ammo or a called shot by 1 point.

what this means, is you can survive a run with only a pistol, making the drones more balanced. you just need skills to blow em up. remember, you will face corperate drones, and have your own hijacked from time to time.

But I can wear armor considerably stronger than that available to a Steel Lynx (full body armor + helmet = 12 armor), and it certainly doesn't weigh 180kg. A Steel Lynx isn't exactly a 'small drone' either, it's at least man-sized.

Consider all the SR4 BBB drones to be the baseline models with the sensor/weapon upgrades as typical dealer upgrades (like bolting on a spoiler or swapping the CD player). Odds are the gear book will include standard variant packages, similar to the way cars tend to come in an STandard, LXury, or EXtreme version.

Armor upgrades are non-trivial on stats since there's a weight/mass trade off. Were I them I'd include one "combat" variant with thicker traditional armor and one "performance" variant that has increased speed/maneuverability. Add a general option to upgrade vehicle armor by +x with exotic materials for +y% base cost to give a bit more gradation. Going that route would eliminate the need for an RBB but still provide a decent range of vehicles with different performance specs without a huge amount of work.

Magic.

something i just noticed....

look at the sensors, on p. 325. they all have a listed capacity. logicaly, this means you can put them in cybereyes/ears/limbs as appropriate.

now, a smartlink already has a laser rangefinder in it. options like camera and microphone are pointless as well. the laser microphone and cyberware scanner, however, are usefull. being able to notice concealed weapons and cyberware within 15 meters is a good ability to have.

I assumed that capacity was exclusively for putting into the sensor packages listed immediately above. I suppose it doesn't say explicitly that they're only for the sensor packages, but I'd probably require at least GM approval before sticking them in a cyberlimb.

Yeah, better not load up on exexplosive for that....Costs too much...

Now I have an odd question. I have to admit that I am a gun-toting NRA member with shotguns (and have shot many different types).

I dont understand why the Remmington 990 can shoot slugs (Regular ammo) where the Mossberg AM-CMDT cant. Combat shotguns are designed for all sorts of ammo. Take the M-1012 (M-4 is the civilian version) shotgun that the Army/Marines use. It uses regular shotguns shells (flechette rounds in SR), slugs (regular ammo), mini-flares (tracer?? or miniflare? in SR), etc. As long as the round is not overly packed with powered (and no one in their right mind would do that) then it can handle anything upto a 3.5" shell. damn that is everything on the free market.

I am confused.
dog

I just needed to chime in on all this armor discussion:

I agree that flechette is extremely effective against present day armor. Flechettes have much the same effect against modern armor as APDS would in SR's version of the late 21st century.

However, as a geek who's into materials science, I have to agree with the interpretation of 2070's armor. In Shadowrun they have the ability to manufacture bucky-tube sheets, arachno-fiber weaves, plasteel, dikote, and impact absorbing gel packs. They even mention some of this stuff in the new SR4 book, BTW.
So, what you can create out of this stuff is relatively normal looking clothes and jackets that are the equivalent of present-day bomb squad armor. The strength of this stuff would make fletchettes bounce off because fletchettes don't have enough mass and energy to penetrate these new-material armors. The technology of APDS (I'm assuming) is to drive a single narrow teflon-coated penetrator round through these kinds of tougher materials. (The answer to better armor is to deliver more energy to a smaller point.) Shotguns and fletchette casters tend to spread their energy among multiple projectiles. With APDS or a "standard Shadowrun bullet", all the energy goes into one good poke. Likewise, I don't think "standard" ammo in Shadowrun are normal FMJ or unjacketed rounds. I think they are what we would consider penetrator rounds today. (Like those 7.62mm Soviet tungsten cored things.)

As for vehicle and drone armor, please keep in mind that the changes to the drones and vehicle stats is based on the new system where 5+ is the only TN. In SR3 an Ares Predator III, with the right ammunition, in the right hands, could blow up a Patrol 1 in one shot. Easy as pie.
It seems a little sketchy to me that a pistol could blow up an armored police car in one shot, BTW.
In SR4, an Ares Predator with good ammo and in capable hands could very likely damage a Patrol 1. But, it would take Edge or some seriously amazing luck to actually destroy it in one hit.
Going from that, drones are not armored like beer-cans in SR4. Quit worrying.

The term "roomsweeper" does evoke images of, say, sweeping a room with buckshot.

Here is a new questions for yall.

Sammie with 7 Agility, 6 firearms, +1 Enhanced Articulation, +2 smartlink gun & ambidextrious. So that is 16 dice (if my math doesnt fail me now). If I want to fire two guns (one in each hand) then I split the dice pool. Understood. But do I add teh +2 for the smartlinked gun prior to spliting the pool or after? What happens if I have 1 smartlinked gun and 1 that isnt?

What do you think?