From:	Seth Fogarty aravthamis@*****.com
Subject:	SOTA
Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 1999 17:48:05 -0800 (PST)

---Mongoose <m0ng005e@*********.com> wrote:
>
>
> The bigger advances are in sports / performance, military, and
> industrial or other special purpose vehicles, not ordinary civilian
> models. Civilian vehicles today do almost universally handle better
than
> in the past, and produce less pollution, but the changes are obvious
in
> other fields.
> Old vehicles do not get WORSE, however. Since vehicles and
characters
> interact, you can't make a old vehicles stats worse without making
them
> worse compared to human average. So unless human average advances
(which
> happens slowly if at all), most vehicle stats would not be affected by
> SOTA.
> Where SOTA does apply is when an item operates in a technological
> environment- decks in the matrix, electronic equipment in a more
crowded
> frequency spectrum, and tools in relation to materials and tasks.
This
> was a problem with the SOTA rules in the SRC- many resulted in reduced
> effectiveness for old items, when in fact it was just that new items
would
> be even MORE effective. SR stat changes are also not often well
suited to
> modeling advances.
> One likely result of SOTA advances is that tasks would take less
TIME-
> for example, a SOTA medkit would make first aid treatment faster,
but an
> old one would still heal wounds just as well. One problem with
non-SOTA
> vehicles might be that parts for repairs would be hard to find.
> Similarly, non-SOTA cyber would still work just as well (unless it
> interacted only with other tech)- but old wired reflexes, while still
> fast, would be hard to get maintenance and repair work done on, and
might
> even interfere with certain new medical treatments.
>
> Mongoose
>
I disagree...first on vehicles: While it occurs much more slowly and
not as noticably, vehicles are affected by SOTA, as are computers. A
car that WE use gets a higher handling after six years...the steering
isn't as tight, the acceleration isn't as smooth, the engine is less
efficent, etc. Think about how much more this applies to vehicles that
are going to be used in COMBAT! Every nanosecond of acceleration is
important, every inch of a turn, every bit of horsepower from an
engine could be that edge between life and death. Think of the
archtypical 17 year old in the 1970's and 80's (Talking VERY
archtypical here) with a car: They would constantly be improving and
fine-tuning the car to get everything they could out of it.
Likewise..cyberware degrades unless it is TOP-notch. Anyone remember
Fast Eddie from Changling? It's an extreme, but still. There is an
actual degredation of performance...slow but steady.
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