The problem is the rules are ignoring a real problem that's increasingly cropping up. It's the same reason why wireless devices don't work in my house.

Part of the reason why the whole wireless world won't work is a simple case that electrical currents produce a small yield magnetic field. Your average modern house has enough of a magnetic field to show up on passive scans for magnetic activity. Fast forward to 2060 and you have a world where your average house should have a magnetic field equivolent to a small modern power plant. With 2070, the wireless world is only going to make these magnetic fields even stronger. What you have, in effect, is a simple case that all of these wireless devices should produce a magnetic field powerful enough to cancel them out. In other words, by 2071 people surfing the Matrix 2 should be facing the danger of dumpshock on a regular basis, and by 2075 the entire wireless system should collapse.

Now, you may stop and try to point out that these devices are likely protected against EM. Well, we already know from what happened in 2064-2065 that it doesn't work. Besides, the fields are not affecting the devices themselves, but the signals being sent out.

To get an idea, go to an area with extremely high voltage and try to use a cell phone today. Assuming you don't end partially electrocuted (depending on how close to the high voltage you are), you should notice the cell phone doesn't work. Now, with SR4, that high voltage area should be equivolent to your typical arcology, industrial area, etc.

Now, why did I ignore this for SR3? Because most items in it are wired, and the signals can be strengthened to account for that. However, with SR4, you have fields that are simply too strong to ignore. In order to get around them, you would have to alter the laws of physics or find some entirely new type of signal to use.

A GM is free to drop down dead/static zones whereever.

I'm curious what you base this increased amount on? Power consumption is likely to decrease, if anything, from current levels. The extra noise from all the processing power can be shielded.

As was explained, by DE or Synner, somewhere else on this board in the last week or so, they created surges on the power grid to trip breakers to start a cascade. The EM wasn't designed to harm the computer systems directly.

The increased amount of equipment involved that needs power, as well as increased complexity of said equipment. Your typical 2060 house may have reduced the amount of power usage per item, but now it has more items.

Which contradicts what I said in what way?

Bull, I've been reading your post and now I'm sorry to say that I really feel it is time to ask you double/triple read what you are saying here. Get past the text mechanic and into the background mechanics if you will.

While I agree that "Dead Zones" should probably exist, I do find it interesting that there are potentially very large areas (whole countries for instance) of the potential SR4 gameverse that not only a particular character type would find themselves ... "limited" it too light a word, how about "useless"? I mean, even in our games the mages when working in space found/worked their butts off to stay active, but now with the advent of DZ's not only are certain skill types rendered useless, but so are the core components to the technology a new SR4 character is reliant upon.

I'm sorry guy, but you're toting the party line a little much this time. I know in previous editions "Warps" and "Mana Dead Zones" existed, but at least things like "Filtering" and "Centering" were around (or came around) to get the mages back on their feet. A Tech DZ isn't something a character can work around so easily ... that's a societal/infrastructural limitation. If a character (Technomancer or just a guy/gal with gear) has that kind of capability as to work around those kinds of limitations then send 'em down here to our games. At least then the "Epic" caliber can fit in.

And yeah, I know people are going to say that "skill diversification will keep anyone from being useless". I'll cautiously then point out the cost (karmically) that such diversification now comes with.

With all due respect, I find it likely that your lack of knowledge in no small part generates your ability to trivially overlook this during play.

~J

That isn't the case at all. They'd just have to physically plug into the network. Technomancers may not appreciate the resonance loss from getting a datajack, but those who suck it up will be thankfull when they don'y have any wireless access.
Hackers should have datajacks.

But if this increased equipment has lower power consumption? All this new stuff you are talking about, how much of it do you expect to be clunking, mechanical in nature?

Err, the control computation equipment was NOT affected by the pulse. Basically the EMP was a power surge done Tesla style. So the stuff Winternight did doesn't really enter into the picture in regards to equipment.

Certainly. It sure as hell helped in all past iterations of SR Matrix rules.

Possibly, but I'm also just as likely to overlook something that I'm intimately knowledgable about as well. It's probably a personal style thing... I was just talking to AH about this, actually. I'm very story oriented. As long as the world has a base logic to it and I can tell a good story, I'm not concerned with the little background details.

In this case probably just a matter of different gaming styles.

Yeah, I know. I'm just used to saying Datajacks because of the "played a decker forever" thing. About 50% of the time while posting I have to stop and delete "deck-" and replace it with 'Hack-'

You do still need some sort of hardware to view the full simsense as a Technomancer, IIRC. There's a limit to how deep they can go into the VR, I think. But I'm not 100% positive. I'll have to look that up when I get home.

Bull

Very, very little. Less of a percentage than the modern home, really. Still doesn't change that more of it would have probably the same amount of power usage, but more wires and electrical fields to generate EM fields.

Which really doesn't contradict what I said about it not working. The idea of the EMP protection was to protect the equipment itself from damage caused by an EMP. They never bothered to consider protecting certain items, thus allowing the devices to be indirectly damaged by EMPs.

Thus my comment about shielding.

Umm, you are glossing over the part about 10's of orders of magnitude difference in EMF generated between those nukes and a freakin' door bell, and that the nuke's indirect path of effect is not applicable to this subject.

Unless you're shielding all of that stuff from emitting those, the shielding doesn't matter. I'm looking at how it affects the transmitted signals, not the equipment.

Actually, it's very applicable, as indirect path of effect is entirely my point. I'm not looking at the devices themselves being affected by these EMFs. Hell, the modern cell phone isn't damaged by them, so I know for damned sure stuff in 2070 won't be. But, I am looking at how it affects the signals transmitted, which is an indirect effect on the equipment itself. If the smartgun equipment in your gun and contact lenses cannot talk to each other because of signal interference, it doesn't matter if both are undamaged.

Couldn't you just, y'know, plug a device into the wired terminal that creates a short-range wireless network? That you could then interface with normally?

Basically just carry your AirPort or wireless server with you... I know that my wireless Access Point on my desk is darn near small enough to fit in my pocket.

For what it's worth, I also make a small modification to the game canon: I assume that Wireless interfaces are ubiquitous, but most bulk and/or long distance data transfer actually travels through a wired infrastructure that isn't visible to the end user, in much the same way that mobile phones work. You can use your interface anywhere, but traffic within a network still travels through fiber spaghetti in my world.

It makes precisely 0% difference to the way that people interact with the Matrix, whilst simultaneously solving near 100% of the technological impossibility! I recommend you try it!