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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Costs of Cyberware (was: some good ideas)
Date: Sat Feb 24 10:15:05 2001
Alfredo B Alves writes:

> Am I understanding this correctly? If you remove from the equation the
> cost of the ware and the doctor's fees, all that's left is the hospital
> lifestyle costs? (or is it Serious wound outpatient services?) Assuming
> two successes at each stage (a bit generous, I know), it would take 15
> and half days to heal completely. Lifestyle requirements would be ten
> days at High, 5 at Middle, and 12 hours at Low. That comes to a total of
> 3,333 (333.33 * 10) + 833 (166.67 * 5) + 17 (33.33 * 0.5) = 4,183.

Something that I've often wondered about, and which was (I believe) hinted
at as far back as the 1st Edition Street Samurai Catalogue, is that some
cyberware just can't be removed easily, or at least certainly cannot be
removed and reimplanted into somebody else. Wired reflexes, for example,
places many fine conducting filaments alongside most of the users nervous
system. It presumably has some processors and other system control
components on chip, as well, I suppose. But I couldn't see it being
particularly easy to strip out all of that cyber, let alone find somebody
with the same body size and shape to install it into. This line of thought
applies even more to bone lacing.

Also, I have always personally considered (I believe that this is backed up
by Shadowtech), that many items of cyberware are not "implanted" by
conventional scapel surgery. Could you imagine implanting skillwires using
a scapel? You'd have to open up every nerve and muscle in the entire body.
Shadowtech explains that nanites and other micro-tech tailored proteins and
such are used for implantation - that they are doped with appropriate
elements, positioned using techniques such as magnetic fields, and then set
into place to form the actual cyber.

This makes me think that the 55,000 nuyen cost of wired reflexes is probably
not in the value of the stuff actually implanted into the recipient, but
more so in the cost of the nanotech and associated "surgery" to put the
stuff in. Thus, such items of cyberware are essentially irrecoverable, and
even if they can be removed, are certainly not implantable without 90% of
the difficulty and expense of originally implanting the stuff anyway.

What I'm saying here, is that I cannot really see a viable explanation for a
second hand cyberware market for anything that isn't pretty much self
contained and very generic. ie, things like cybereyes, cyberears, cyberarms
(probably), and cyberlegs (maybe). Most other items, or at least most other
bodyware (headware is debatable) are just too customised to the user to be
viably recycled.

Anyway, just my thoughts, and not entirely (or even much :-)) backed up by
the books.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Alfredo B Alves)
Subject: Costs of Cyberware (was: some good ideas)
Date: Sat Feb 24 12:55:01 2001
On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:13:02 +1100 (EST) Damion Milliken
<dam01@***.edu.au> writes:
<SNIP>
> This makes me think that the 55,000 nuyen cost of wired reflexes is
> probably
> not in the value of the stuff actually implanted into the recipient,
> but
> more so in the cost of the nanotech and associated "surgery" to put
> the
> stuff in. Thus, such items of cyberware are essentially
> irrecoverable, and
> even if they can be removed, are certainly not implantable without
> 90% of
> the difficulty and expense of originally implanting the stuff
> anyway.
<SNIP>

Well, I would say that the 55k covers the "consumables"; the raw
materials plus any disposable med equipment (ie, the nanites are probably
used up in the implantation). However, not all of that is irrecoverable,
though it may be practically irrecoverable. Let's assume that when you
buy the wired reflexes 1 boxed set for 55k you get a "processor" unit,
superconducting filament, and a pack of nanites (which are destroyed in
the implantation process). The processor would be installed by "hand",
while the nanites would install the filaments. To retrieve the wires, you
can yank the processor easily enough, but would need nanites to retrieve
the wires. Considering that nanites should (IMO) be a significant chunk
of the 55k and the cyberware retrieval nanites should be rarer than
installation ones (thus more expensive), secondhand wired 1 wouldn't be
worth it.

Now, assuming that all grades of wired reflexes use the same amount of
superconducting wires, then, the difference would be the processors (and
how much that processor taxes the nervous system). If that's the case,
then ripping wired 2 or 3 out of your neighbor would work fine for an
upgrade from wired 1.

Hmm, some interesting thoughts I hadn't considered ... Thanks, Damion.

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.
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Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Costs of Cyberware (was: some good ideas)
Date: Sun Feb 25 05:40:01 2001
Alfredo B Alves writes:

> Well, I would say that the 55k covers the "consumables"; the raw materials
> plus any disposable med equipment (ie, the nanites are probably used up in
> the implantation).

Ah, yes, that's a much better way of putting it. Thanks!

> Now, assuming that all grades of wired reflexes use the same amount of
> superconducting wires, then, the difference would be the processors (and
> how much that processor taxes the nervous system). If that's the case, then
> ripping wired 2 or 3 out of your neighbor would work fine for an upgrade
> from wired 1.

Alternatively, the difference could be the thickness of superconducting wires
(and thus the current they can carry), the quality of the wires (the
conditions under which their performance degrades), the extensiveness of
placement of the wires... (Or a dozen other differences.) Perhaps wired
reflexes from different manufacturers use different techniques to achieve
what is, in game terms, the same final result. Those Fuchi Lightning Mk 2
Rev 5 Neural Impedance Reducers might have top quality superconducting
fibres, an average processor, and a medium distribution of filaments. OTOH,
Renraku Hyper Alert Reaction Senseware Release 2 may have a processor 6
times faster, but have normal quality wires, the same distribution, and the
same game effect. I'm sure that we could come up with a host of additional
different reasons for differing performance, and combinations of such that
make up a game effect of wired reflexes 1, 2, or 3.

I suppose that different wires from different manufacturers might be more or
less usable second hand, and have a higher or lower proportion of their cost
in consumables vs implanted items. (Extra detailed cyberware quality rules
anyone?).

OTOH, this line of thought is of little use unless one is thinking of
running an organ/cyber/bio legging campaign... <grin>

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject: Costs of Cyberware (was: some good ideas)
Date: Sun Feb 25 13:30:00 2001
>Well, I would say that the 55k covers the "consumables"; the raw
>materials plus any disposable med equipment (ie, the nanites are probably
>used up in the implantation). However, not all of that is irrecoverable,
>though it may be practically irrecoverable. Let's assume that when you
>buy the wired reflexes 1 boxed set for 55k you get a "processor" unit,
>superconducting filament, and a pack of nanites (which are destroyed in
>the implantation process). The processor would be installed by "hand",
>while the nanites would install the filaments.

Thats essentially the model I came to when writing the M&M cyber implantion
rules. {Actually, for "wires", I think you wouldn't bother with running
pysical wires- chips situated near nerve bundles could easily send radio
signals through the body, without much risk of interferance, but it matters
little- the chips would need nanite constructed nervous connections.}
It would obviously have been pretty impracticle to specify how much of which
cyber items cost was "tools" vs. hardware- you'd need a list several pages
long. The surgical options were supposed to make up for that some- when
implanting used cyber like wires, I had an option that simulated having an
isufficient supply of worker nanites on hand and having to make do with
older techniques, but a lot of such stuff got cut. On the other hand,
implantiong a used spur would mostly be a matter of cleaning it nicely, so a
different negative option (like maybe ugly scars) would be more appropriate.

-Seb Wiers
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Alfredo B Alves)
Subject: Costs of Cyberware (was: some good ideas)
Date: Mon Feb 26 23:45:03 2001
On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 21:38:12 +1100 (EST) Damion Milliken
<dam01@***.edu.au> writes:
<SNIP>
> Alternatively, the difference could be the thickness of
> superconducting wires
> (and thus the current they can carry), the quality of the wires
> (the
> conditions under which their performance degrades),

Degrading wires ... I hadn't thought of that. IThat's a brlliant way to
explain cyberware SOTA. It's not that tech is advancing, it's that the
installed cyberware is degrading and can no longer keep up. Cool. :)

<SNIP>
> OTOH, this line of thought is of little use unless one is thinking
> of
> running an organ/cyber/bio legging campaign... <grin>

In my first Shadowrun game, we had a rat shaman who was a cyber/organ
legger (among other things).

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.
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