[Xenon]

What I'm wondering is how things work when you turn it back on.

If you reboot your smartgun you can still use it to fire like a regular firearm, but you don't get any benefits from the smartgun system or wireless bonuses until it come back online at the end of the next combat turn. When it come back online the hacker will no longer have any marks on it (but it will keep any matrix damage taken until someone sit down and repair it)

[MachineGunBallet]

First... not to be picky, but why not augment a little?  You can easily recoup what you loose in essence.  Get some vat grown muscles, a few reflex recorders, some platelet factories, dense bones, and some cyber eyes.  Lets face it, you can do a lot with that 1 point of Essence.

Second... on topic... your comlink will give you 12 defense dice.  I'm not saying that bad guys can't brick it, but it will last long enough for you to do some serious harm.  You can reboot at any time if its a concern, you can shut off if its a concern, you can slave to your Decker's PAN if its a concern.  Wireless is just too cool to give up.

Trodes give you AR, and mental control over your devices.  You can put a Smart Link in contact lenses, glasses, goggles, or helmets.  There are a lot of other enhancements you can put in goggles.  MAD, low light, thermal vision, or cyber scanner can all be really useful.


And you know what... have fun with it.  There is no shame in your character being the way you want it to be.  You don't have to optimize if you don't want to. Heck, go throw back if you can!   "I don't trust that new fanged sh*t.  Besides, can't hack me!"  Next time one of your pals bits gets hacked... you know what to say.  In the mean time, ski goggles, trode bandana, and cables, power off the com link.

[Critias]

First... not to be picky, but why not augment a little?  You can easily recoup what you loose in essence.  Get some vat grown muscles, a few reflex recorders, some platelet factories, dense bones, and some cyber eyes.  Lets face it, you can do a lot with that 1 point of Essence.

Because someone's priority might not include ruthless min/maxing (instead staying a purely magical character), but also because augmentations cost money, and having enough money for those augmentations is likely to re-shuffle someone's priority chargen chart pretty significantly?

[Poindexter]

Trodes give you AR, and mental control over your devices.  You can put a Smart Link in contact lenses, glasses, goggles, or helmets.  There are a lot of other enhancements you can put in goggles.  MAD, low light, thermal vision, or cyber scanner can all be really useful.

THIS.

And you know what... have fun with it.  There is no shame in your character being the way you want it to be.  You don't have to optimize if you don't want to. Heck, go throw back if you can!   "I don't trust that new fanged sh*t.  Besides, can't hack me!"  Next time one of your pals bits gets hacked... you know what to say.  In the mean time, ski goggles, trode bandana, and cables, power off the com link.

No shame at all, just know that if ya go that route, you'll be that one guy everyone knows who wont get an email account or a cell phone. Worse, you'll be a member of a criminal conspiracy who refuses to use all the tools of perception and communication at your disposal. At best, you'll be a drain on your friends, at worst a corpse or ward of the state.
Just spend the 70 bucks and getcha some trodes.

DNI is SO worth it.

[Mirikon]

Actually, Poindexter, going low tech for everything you can, especially if you're, say, Awakened, really doesn't have that much in the way of downsides. You're eliminating potentially fatal liabilities in going with throwbacks for as much gear as you can. For everyone who isn't a rigger, hacker, or heavy-cybered sammy, you can go a long way with low-tech options, or things with wireless off. I'd rather have 12 dice and no glaring weaknesses than 15 dice and vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited. DNI can be worth it, if you have the setup to use it, but really, you only need a commlink to keep your fake SIN on and for people to call you at, and then everything else you can go low-tech or wireless off without much issue. If you're a melee/archery type, you don't really need wireless for any of your stuff. A face can benefit from a few wireless things, but really almost all their stuff is non-wireless. Mages and Adepts can go completely without wireless gear, and be as good or better than the sammy, depending on what they focus in.

You work on eliminating your weaknesses, and you're far from a liability or a drain to your team.

[Aranador]

If I an on a run and worried about hacking, I'd rather fork out for a rating 7 commlink and rating 6 area jammer, and have a decent will of 3 or more.  Now I have 10 defence dice and hacking my shit takes 6 noise penalty plus 2 public grid penalty.  If the enemy decker has the pools needed to laugh at that, then I should have brought my own decker.  If I am not on a run - my good stuff is wireless off and my rating 1 commlink has nothing interesting on it.

[Mirikon]

The problem with that, Aranador, is that having an area jammer running in any public place is like screaming to everyone around "HEY! NOTICE ME!" Area jammers are great for when you're setting up ambushes, or clandestine meets, or when you need to make the enemy rigger's life hell, but walk around any sprawl today with a cell phone jammer and see how much of a disturbance you make. And that's just today, not the everything's connected world of Shadowrun, with omnipresent AR in some places.

To put it another way, you know why stealth planes don't use radar jammers? Because they scream "Someone's coming to mess your shit up!" Then you have people scrambling fighters to intercept. Or to put it in yet another frame of reference, see what happens when you throw up a Shadow spell and walk around with it. Sure, people can't see YOU very well, but it makes it obvious that someone is there, because of the whole darkness covering the area bit. All you're doing with area jammers is drawing attention to yourself.

[Xenon]

not many items or augmentations that have a wireless bonus you can't live without and you can turn them all wireless off with a free action... and you can take free actions out of order as long as you are not surprised or already used it for this initiative pass.

the "wired reflexes + reaction enhancers"-combo depend on a wireless bonus.
smartgun system and laser sights are good to use wireless, at least during combat.
but most items wireless bonus just let you do things as free actions rather than simple actions....

[Medicineman]

the "wired reflexes + reaction enhancers"-combo depend on a wireless bonus.

only if You want a Bonus of +5 or +6 REA
If you stick to +4 REA you're fine without WiFi !

HougH!
Medicineman

[Xenon]

the "wired reflexes + reaction enhancers"-combo depend on a wireless bonus.

only if You want a Bonus of +5 or +6 REA
If you stick to +4 REA you're fine without WiFi !

No, the bonus to your reaction attribute does not stack between the two augmentations unless you go wireless ON.

Reaction Enhancers are incompatible with all other enhancements to Reaction including Wired Reflexes and Wired reflexes are incompatible with augmentations that affect Reaction or Initiative. You can have both items if you want, you just have to pick what piece of gear to use at what time.

[Medicineman]

No, the bonus to your reaction attribute does not stack between the two augmentations unless you go wireless ON.

Yes ,You're right (I just reread it) by RAW the two are compatible only with Wifi on Which makes absolutely no sense to me (not only because they didn't work like this in former editions and I don't want to retcon Technologies especially if the Reason for Retconning makes no sense). 

with a Facepalming Dance
Medicineman

[Xenon]

Fluff wise it had something to do with more computing power iirc
Behind the scenes-wise it has to do with creating an exception to let you break the +4 augmentations limit.

Personally I would use Synaptic Boosters II over Wired Reflexes II + Used Reaction Enhancers III.
If i was really desperate for high initiative I would probably just go PhysAd and Improved Reflexes III.

[Aranador]

The problem with that, Aranador, is that having an area jammer running in any public place . . . . . All you're doing with area jammers is drawing attention to yourself.

Let me emphasise - If I an on a run and worried about hacking I'll pull out my good stuffs.  Assault rifles, trolls with combat axes, fireballs, steel lynx with heavy machine guns, all of it screams "look at me", so why not add an area jammer to it all.  In a crowd that might react poorly to any of that, all I need to do is wireless off my good stuff, and run under my cheapo commlink with my latest fake SIN, and be happy knowing that any decker that wants to sift through the sea of icons present in such a place will run up against GOD long before they even have the chance to find nothing interesting on me.  Or they actually are GOD, in which case I was already in waaaaaaaay over my head to begin with, and toting an active jammer is the least of my worries.

To use your convenient stealth plane example - once there is a missile inbound despite being sneaky, no pilot is going to sit there and eat it when they still have options like chaff, decoys, and jammers to use.

[Mirikon]

You should ALWAYS be worried about hacking. ALWAYS.

[Aranador]

There is a difference between being smart and informed about the risks and taking appropriate precautions, and building up your paranoia to the point of true insanity.  I am as safe from hacking as the hundreds of other people in the crowd - and you had better believe that they are afforded a level of safety - if they weren't, and hackers could just run rampant, no one would use the matrix at all.