[Quatar]

This might sound like a stupid question, and maybe I'm overthinking this completely.

Converting NPCs doesn't seem that tough, I got Hero Lab to help me out with that, so that part might be some work but shouldn't involve too much headaches. And obviously the SR4 to 5 conversion guide will help here too, though I doubt i'll often have a need of it.
Weapons are maybe a bit tougher, but I figure just using the SR5 equivalent of a gun (or the next version of it, like the Ares Predator V instead of the IV) or a similar one might be the easiest solution to handle this problem.

There's two thing though that I'm not sure on how to deal with:
a) Thresholds.

In SR 4 the max rank for skills was 6, now it's 12. Which means in general dice pools should be larger too, correct? Maybe not at the beginning, but after a while at least.
So if it says "To do this, the players need to roll Electronics (3)" as an example, should that be increased to 4, or should I just leave it at 3?

I dunno, as I said maybe I'm overthinking this, and I should just leave it as it is.

b) Connection Ratings for contacts

I have to say, I'm confused here. Before max was 6 now it's 12 as well.
But it's certainly not a simple "multiply it by 2" equation. But it also doesn't seem to be as easy as "1-4 stays as it is, then 5-6 is now far more detailed in 5-12". (though that one's probabably closer than just multiply by 2)

I guess here I'll just have to handle each contact individually, and make a judgement call?

c) And while I'm at it, did I miss any traps and such when using SR4 adventures with SR5?

[Namikaze]

Weapons aren't too awful.  Just remember that the Accuracy is now a pretty big factor in adding to a weapon's utility.  Generally, I try to go off of what is already out there.  So heavy pistols rarely go above Accuracy 5 while sniper rifles can go up to an Accuracy of 10 or 11.  If you're okay with using the SR5 equivalent weapons, then that's certainly going to be a LOT easier than trying to convert stuff yourself.

Thresholds have gotten a little lower or stayed the same.  This is primarily because with the increase to skill cap, the limits prevent someone from blowing out a bunch of hits on every roll.  Even if someone rolls an 18 dice pool, if they have a limit of 5, they'll only get to keep 5 of them.  Social limits are probably the most flexible, but most of the social tests are opposed so thresholds aren't often something you set so much as it's something you just roll.

Connection ratings didn't change a whole lot in terms of what each number actually means.  You could easily justify a multiple of 1.5 on each Connection rating though.  So if a 4th edition contact had a Connection of 4, they might have as high as a 6 in SR5.  12s are actually absurdly rare and they won't really come up in any of the published content anyway.  As always though, a judgment call is never a bad thing.  Just stick to your guns with it, and make sure your players understand that there's some difficulty in abstracting this stat effectively.  They'll understand.

In general, most of the nuyen costs have gone down while Availability ratings have gone up.  This is in part due to the decrease in max starting nuyen with the priority system, and also just a rebalancing in the world.  Goods that are legal are incredibly common so the costs went down.  Goods that are illegal are no less common, but they are harder to find.  It means having a contact with good connections is more valuable too.

[Quatar]

Hmm, I didn't think Limits were such a big thing concerning thresholds. Certainly not enough to make the thresholds LOWER.

Yes, obviously if the limit is too low you can't succeed on the check (unless using Edge), but if your Limit is 5, then it doesn't matter if the threshold is 3 or 4, you can achieve it. And if you roll 18 instead of 13 dice now, you should still have a better chance of hitting the 4 successes even with the limit than you had of hitting the 3 in SR 4.

I dunno. Maybe I'm on the wrong track somehow, but it feels weird to me.

[Namikaze]

I apologize - I misquoted the books.  I stated the thresholds in SR5 were lower than they are in SR4, but I was incorrect.  Looking at the simple test tables from the two books, I found that the lower end of the difficulty spectrum stayed the same, while the upper end of the spectrum became much more difficult.

For simple tests, SR4 lists the following:

DIFFICULTY	THRESHOLD
Easy	1
Average	2
Hard	3
Extreme	5+

While SR5 lists:

DIFFICULTY	THRESHOLD
Easy	1
Average	2
Hard	4
Very Hard	6
Extreme	8-10

[Quatar]

Ok, that makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks a lot for those two tables, they'll come in quite handy when preparing the games.