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Cyber/bio Penetration into General Population

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elrikthebastard

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« on: <05-16-14/1320:54> »
Afternoon!

You guys have been pretty amazing in your assistance so I thought I would just keep asking questions.

Because my wife does not read these posts, I will blame her for this question... yes, I am that brave. I also apologize if this is a tad disjointed, I am currently writing propaganda for my corp and getting and endless stream of email.

I am trying to figure out the penetration of cyber/bio in the normal population. By normal I mean None Shadowrunners. I may have just missed this in the books or I don't have that book yet.

For example; A large percentage of Urban dwellers must have datajacks. A surprising number of rural dwellers may have datajacks (many may be lowrent riggers). People who have had accidents and ended with a replacement (many would opt to try and look as normal as possible). Professional Soldiers, Mercs, Corp Security and Professional Athletes and the like may have had major work done. People doing complex repetitive task may get mnemonic enhancers.

What about Joe Average? If there are 100 average Middle Incomes on a street, how many have cyber or bio beyond the datajack? How many gangers have "dangerous" cyberwear? How many Lone Star or Knight Errant Cops have cyber?

I figure a fair bit of this is my gaming interpretations. I just want some baseline to follow up with.

Thanks everyone!


Kincaid

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« Reply #1 on: <05-16-14/1541:17> »
Datajacks are pretty ubiquitous, even among middle-class wageslaves.  For random folks, I generally keep their Essence 5 or higher unless there's a story reason, but that would make it pretty easy for rich folks to have Tailored Pheromones, Cerebral Boosters, Clean Metabolism (older edition, but an example of what mass-market bioware would be), and so forth.

Gangers might be more willing to have implants, but unless they can find a corporate sponsor or are part of a major gang like the Ancients, they're generally strapped for nuyen.  Low-light and hand razors are probably my default, but if I'm designing them, I'll give each ganger a budget (say 6k nuyen and an availability cap of 8 ) to make them a little distinct.

Lone Star beat cops are generally portrayed as not having a ton of cyber, although there are loyalty incentive programs to purchase cyber at discounts for these sorts of agencies, so more veteran guys will have slightly more.  With all due respect to the lieutenant in the 5e book, the first piece of cyber any cop would get is an internal commlink.  I imagine a commlink, 2 levels of reaction enhancers, and cybereyes(smartlink, image link, low-light) would probably be as cybered as it gets before the HRT shows up.
« Last Edit: <05-16-14/1548:19> by Kincaid »
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #2 on: <05-16-14/1542:48> »
Internal commlink actually sounds like a bad idea to me, since it means you can't as easily switch. Agree on the rest though.
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elrikthebastard

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« Reply #3 on: <05-16-14/1653:23> »
Thanks for taking the time Gents

I have to step back and think of all the variables that are involved. When my wife brought this up my head hurt from the effort of rationalizing this. Last game session we started to muse over who would do what. For sanity I want to keep it as general as possible.

I like the idea of ESS of 5 or more. I am trying normalize my game. When I started to run Shadowrun back in the day I wanted everyone to have cyber/bio. Now that I am into my mid 40's I sit back and say, "They are just like us." I say that loosely of course. I am trying to set an almost jarring difference between areas.

For example the Rigger, in our party, owns a mechanics shop in central Tacoma, and I want to it clear that a good percentage of the people are pretty average. The crazy cyber they see is on Trideo and BTLs. You may see someone with a replacement limb because of an accident, and that individual is the exception to the rule. Late night incidents will be noted and possibly reported by the locals or other businesses. To some of these locals the idea of Shadowrunners is as much mystic as it is real.

Big thing for me is to not over think it =-)

Thanks again guys!!!








Tenlaar

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« Reply #4 on: <05-16-14/1728:34> »
I know that I have read people posting about it being at least not out of the ordinary for wageslaves to get skillwires provided by corps. A more reliable workforce with interchangeable skill sets and what not.  I couldn't give you any book references or anything myself though.
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elrikthebastard

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« Reply #5 on: <05-16-14/1739:47> »
Thanks Tenlaar.

It makes sense. Sometimes you pay less for employment but get the same level of service. End of the day the employee has to hand over their chips and go home. Can't leave till they fully pay off the Skillwire system.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #6 on: <05-16-14/1820:38> »
There are weaknesses, though. Since the wires are wiped after work, to prevent the workers from using the wires for a second job, they have to be reloaded each morning. If you secretly swap the softs for bugged ones, that's gonna cause quite a bit of problem.
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elrikthebastard

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« Reply #7 on: <05-16-14/1824:51> »
A mean company could plug the ports, or set a timer on the service periods. Or set them so they only work within a certain range of the company WAN. Sort of an override of the PAN. And the Chips can have transponders set to a certain cycle, creating a PWAN/PLAN depending upon your ideology.

Anyone with the skill will find away.

Kincaid

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« Reply #8 on: <05-16-14/1835:23> »
In previous edition, skillwired (or at least chipjacked) employees made a lot more sense.  Need a guy to know about Chinese/Filipino shipping lane disputes (a HUGE file)?  Slot one into his expert driver chipjack and you're good to go.  In 5e, everything has a price and the price is probably too high.  You're looking at a 60,000 nuyen investment to give someone the ability to have a KnowSoft at 3.  If it goes to Active Skills, you're well into six figures.  And that's for a skill level 3, which is pretty fungible when it comes to the workforce.
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elrikthebastard

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« Reply #9 on: <05-16-14/1851:00> »
Presuming you are buying each one. My guess is a company would invest in their own Skillsoft dev and clone the chips. They are poor quality or even high. They could buy another companies licence on a going out of business sale or even co-invest on initial dev and then clone off at a fraction.

I would think if Google and Apple can make a deal for cents on the dollar, other companies can, no matter how much they hate each other.