Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Poindexter on <02-27-15/1526:24>
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Does one HAVE to have a hot sim modded commlink to view one?
Or can you JUST watch and listen to it with a regular commlink, just not feel the emotions and sensations and all?
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The Hot-Sim of a BTL is actually built into the chip itself.
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Can it be turned off?
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Hmmm, OK easiest thing will be to post the section on BTL chips.
BTL Chips
Better-Than-Life chips are still enormously popular in spite of omnipresent wireless technology. Some dealers prefer a hands-on approach with their customers, and many BTL users are poor or just set in their ways. There are two playback formats. Dreamdeck chips require an old-fashioned simsense deck or module that has been modified with hot-sim to accommodate the higher-intensity BTL signal. The other format is the direct-input chip, which contains all the needed electronics to play it back when slotted into a skilljack or datajack. Both formats are designed to auto-erase themselves after a single use, so that the customer has to keep coming back for more. This one-shot, self-erasing feature can be bypassed with a Hardware + Logic (10, 1 hour) Extended Test.
Could it be possible to tone down a BTL? Maybe... but then it would cease to be a BTL and be just a basic simsense recording.
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Clarification.
Yes, you need to have a hot-sim-enabled commlink in order to experience the hot-sim-level programming of a BTL chip. You can indeed run the chip on cold sim, and experience the sensations and emotions on the safe, 'bland' levels; those controls are on the commlink. While it is possible to have optional programming on the chip enabling hot/cold sim selection, since it's always going to be on the commlink, that optional programming isn't generally going to be found on the chip itself; programmers are simply going to turn it up to 11 and leave it there. In regards to the commlink, since hot sim is technically illegal, you can't buy it ... but it's generally been considered a relatively cheap and easy mod, and one that's always set up with an on/off switch.
Now, since BTLs are hot-sim, and BTL dealers want you to buy again, most BTL chips have a 'counter' that gradually turns down the level of sensation, enticing you to buy a new chip to get that great better-than-life 'high'. Running the chip on cold sim is still going to run the counter down, so you're blowing money (as it were) on sim sensations you aren't getting. But you can indeed run the chip on cold sim. As a note, you will experience the emotions and sensations encoded on the chip - it's a simsense chip, after all - but you won't experience it at the ultra-high, addictive BTL-experience levels that the chip is instructing your (hot-sim) machine to channel into your brain.
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Clarification.
Yes, you need to have a hot-sim-enabled commlink in order to experience the hot-sim-level programming of a BTL chip. You can indeed run the chip on cold sim, and experience the sensations and emotions on the safe, 'bland' levels; those controls are on the commlink. While it is possible to have optional programming on the chip enabling hot/cold sim selection, since it's always going to be on the commlink, that optional programming isn't generally going to be found on the chip itself; programmers are simply going to turn it up to 11 and leave it there. In regards to the commlink, since hot sim is technically illegal, you can't buy it ... but it's generally been considered a relatively cheap and easy mod, and one that's always set up with an on/off switch.
Now, since BTLs are hot-sim, and BTL dealers want you to buy again, most BTL chips have a 'counter' that gradually turns down the level of sensation, enticing you to buy a new chip to get that great better-than-life 'high'. Running the chip on cold sim is still going to run the counter down, so you're blowing money (as it were) on sim sensations you aren't getting. But you can indeed run the chip on cold sim. As a note, you will experience the emotions and sensations encoded on the chip - it's a simsense chip, after all - but you won't experience it at the ultra-high, addictive BTL-experience levels that the chip is instructing your (hot-sim) machine to channel into your brain.
Thank you. This is what I was hoping.
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Just as a note, since I assume this is for Tabula Rasa, the simchip was homemade. I doubt it has one of those counters that Wyrm mentioned. Although, that doesn't really matter if you run cold-sim anyway.
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Just as a note, since I assume this is for Tabula Rasa, the simchip was homemade. I doubt it has one of those counters that Wyrm mentioned. Although, that doesn't really matter if you run cold-sim anyway.
It is indeed Tabula Rasalated in nature, and since Sam sun even HAVE a hot sim mod on his commlink...
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Wyrm, what do you mean by "counter"? BTL-chips erase themselves after use, so where would they store the necessary data? They are already built to encourage new purchases by being consumed on usage.
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You're going by the (very) limited information given in the 5e book. I'm going by information in prior editions, including stuff that can still be used with minimal complications.
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SR4A has the same text for self-erasing BTL-chips and one-time-use BTL-downloads that SR5 Core uses along with the same Hardware test (identical threshold and time interval) to bypass the erasing for chips. But bypassing that feature doesn't claim to put your "counter" into play.
So care to indulge a N00b that doesn't play Shadowrun since First Edition?
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Interesting; you're going only by the main texts. In any case. I might indulge, if you actually asked a question. Since you don't, I'll direct you to Sim Dreams & Nightmares (4E) and ... I think the 3e version is in the cybernetics book, but I don't remember exactly. I'm sure Crimsondude will know for certain. Or is it CanRay? I can never track right ...
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Bit off topic but still related to BTL
Watch Strange Days http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/
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Interesting; you're going only by the main texts. In any case. I might indulge, if you actually asked a question. Since you don't, I'll direct you to Sim Dreams & Nightmares (4E) and ... I think the 3e version is in the cybernetics book, but I don't remember exactly. I'm sure Crimsondude will know for certain. Or is it CanRay? I can never track right ...
No need to get snarky mate, some of us here are only coming in from 5th Edition and have never read any of the previous material.
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Lucean clearly was not, and he's the one I was responding immediately and directly to.
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And playing in older additions automatically means owning and knowing each tiny splat book? Going by the size of Sim Dreams and Nightmares seems like it's digital only. Being only part-time GM focuses my interest mainly on sources with additional player options so until some time ago I didn't even know about the plethora of optional books that existed, let alone having the time/nterest to work myself through them.
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I've always enjoyed the idea of using a BTL as a murder weapon. Let's say a team gets a wetwork assignment, but the job can't actually look like a murder. The players would have to find out if the mark has a hot-sim enabled commlink, and if he doesn't they'd have to swap his commlink for one that does or modify his existing one. They would then replace the most commonly used sim-enabled program with a trip or mood snuff BTL with the intensity turned up to 11. Then, profit!
This becomes even easier in 4th and 5th edition where BTLs are available as direct download, which could presumably just be copied using the Edit File action. With a mark on the persona of the target, you might even be able to instruct one of his other devices to copy the file for you, making it look like he copied the file himself for all intents and purposes since he is now the owner of the file.
Here's a mechanical question related to direct downloads. The SR5 rulebook states that the normal simsense chips and the direct input chips both come with a security feature that erases the chip after a single use, and details how this can be disabled. Is it safe to assume that the download has a similar feature, and if so, can this be disabled in a similar way? Personally, I'd allow the same test as for chips, but using Software instead of Hardware. This seems like a fair compromise to me, given that it actually makes the Software skill more useful :)
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Here's a mechanical question related to direct downloads. The SR5 rulebook states that the normal simsense chips and the direct input chips both come with a security feature that erases the chip after a single use, and details how this can be disabled. Is it safe to assume that the download has a similar feature, and if so, can this be disabled in a similar way? Personally, I'd allow the same test as for chips, but using Software instead of Hardware. This seems like a fair compromise to me, given that it actually makes the Software skill more useful :)
I don't see how this could be a problem honestly. I just assume that either way it would rather hard to do. Them BTL dealers gotta get they money yo.[/size]
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And playing in older additions automatically means owning and knowing each tiny splat book? Going by the size of Sim Dreams and Nightmares seems like it's digital only. Being only part-time GM focuses my interest mainly on sources with additional player options so until some time ago I didn't even know about the plethora of optional books that existed, let alone having the time/nterest to work myself through them.
Honestly, I really don't understand how - or rather, why - you would then question someone who's known to have pretty extensive knowledge of those 'tiny splat books', who is providing you information. Instead, perhaps an 'oh, what's that in?' would be appropriate, instead? Then I can provide an answer, vague as it might be, and in this case was ...
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Honestly, I really don't understand how - or rather, why - you would then question someone who's known to have pretty extensive knowledge of those 'tiny splat books', who is providing you information. Instead, perhaps an 'oh, what's that in?' would be appropriate, instead? Then I can provide an answer, vague as it might be, and in this case was ...
It was more the "ohh well duh you're only using the core books not, this, this and this side book that only has limited splat info.".
Remember, people can't read tone over the internet.
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Selling these BTL is so Easy!
Somewhere I think it was ether 3rd of 4th, they had a discussion about the programs used to generate BTLs, which I think was basically like modern video/music editing software, with like mutisensory tracks add on, which were then boosted to BTL levels. I think it was related to brainwashing or something a long those lines, or maybe it was just in a mission.
If you can find that whatever that was you could look at the program without actually hotsimming it.