[Marcus Gideon]

Chrome Flesh pg 146, Nanoware Ratings and Degradation

All nanoware has a Rating that represents that specific nanite colony’s hardiness, versatility, and level of performance ... the Ratings of nanoware systems permanently degrade over time, at the rate of 1 Rating point per week. A functioning nanohive (p. 151) counters this nanite loss by providing a safe environment for replenishing feedstocks and colony numbers—regardless of whether the system involves hard or soft machines.

Chrome Flesh pg 151, Nanohive

When the nanoware supported by a nanohive has its Rating reduced, the nanohive returns its Rating by 1 point per week, up to the nanohive’s Rating.
Each nanohive supports one nanoware system at a Rating equal to its own.

Hard nanohives can ... reprogram the nanite system it supports—its Rating is the number of different hard nanite systems to which it can convert its nanites.

Now...

The way I'm reading that, Soft Nanohives have a Rating which measures how high the single Colony rating it can support. So a R4 Soft Nanohive can support a single R4 Colony. If you purchased a R5 Colony, it would start to degrade, and the R4 Nanohive would only bring it back up to R4, meaning you wasted some money in the long run.

Hard Nanohives work the same way, supporting a single Colony at their Rating. However, they can also store Rating's worth of programs to change that colony to do something else. So an R4 Hard Nanohive can support a single R4 Colony, but it can program that Colony to do 4 different things. The Colony can only do one thing at a time, but there are 4 options to choose from.

So...

You could purchase a single R4 Hard Nanohive, and a copy of Anti-Rad, Control Rig Booster, Implant Medic, and Nanite Hunter. Then you decide what you want them doing most of the time. But later on, you can change to another of those 4 choices if you want. I'm not seeing anything in the book that says you can or cannot swap out the software in the Nanohive later on. But since it already stipulates a limit of 4 stored, and only 1 running, then I'm inclined to think you need to choose the 4 programs from the start and you're stuck with those choices. Otherwise you could swap them out all the time, and there's no point to saying "only 4".

If you wanted Anti-Tox, and Carcerand-Plus, and Nanosymbiotes... you would need to purchase 3x separate Soft Nanohives. Each one would be factory set for that single function, and could not be changed.

[Kincaid]

Ah, missed that sentence, thanks.

[Rooks]

If I have skill wires 4, go wireless and load in gunnery, piloting ground craft and piloting walker my piloting aircraft heavy weapons throwing weapons arent being used unless I swap them out much like my neocortial is only being in use until I swap it out for limbic or control rig booster nanosystem or o cell or oxyrush one system can only be active at a time for nanos

I do believe though that your statement about neocortial, o-cell, oxyrush and limbic is incorrect. those are soft nanites and therefore cant be reprogrammed. They are either active or inactive. And requires a soft nanohive rating 4 at least (since you have 4 different soft nanite systems). (page 151. each nanohive supports one nanoware system at a rating equal to its own.)

If neocortial, o-cell, oxyrush and limbic are soft nanites then why are they in the hard nanoware systems chart?

*edit wait does  "each nanohive supports one nanoware system at a rating equal to its own" mean that a rating 3 nanohive can support up to three different systems at the same time, at any rating. Or does it mean a nanohive rating 3 can support ONE system at up to rating 3?

Because if its the second one, then a nanohive cant even maintain rating 7-9 at all  and it seems to be crazy expensive then.
 

Who the heck knows. Im not Catalyst, they over there too busy counting money to put out a halfway decent errate or 25 anniversary edition of Shadowrun with 50% more fixed ruling systems clarifications on obtuse rules better table of contents and index and tables that are organized

[DigitalZombie]

If neocortial, o-cell, oxyrush and limbic are soft nanites then why are they in the hard nanoware systems chart?

Well, I think the best answer to that would be

Who the heck knows. Im not Catalyst, they over there too busy counting money to put out a halfway decent errate or 25 anniversary edition of Shadowrun with 50% more fixed ruling systems clarifications on obtuse rules better table of contents and index and tables that are organized

Because why would they have a hard nanoware systems table on page 148 and a second hard nanoware systems table on page 150? but no soft nanoware systems at all? If those on page 150 arent soft nanites that means there is only one soft nanite colony in the entire book, namely smart corrosives on page 154, and they dont even need a soft nanohive.
Back in 4th edition most of those systems on page 150 were actually listed as soft nanites, but my guesstimate could of course be wrong (again).

I really dig the idea of nanites, but the rules are quite odd and not very well communicated to the reader. I also dont get why a hard nanohive costs 0,25 essence per rating, but only 2 capacity no matter its rating? It would be better for a character to have his hand chopped of and get a cheap cyber hand with a nanohive, instead of paying 1,5 essence for a rating 6 system!! thats more than a complete limb? actually you could get TWO nanohives at rating 6 in your cyber hand and only loose 0,25 essence OR you could get them implanted in your flesh body and loose 3 essence!?
The description even says that the liver, kidney and spleen, amongst other organs are modified to accommodate the nanites... apparently not when they are in a cyberhand?

[Kincaid]

The table on page 150 is mislabeled--those are soft nanites.  The in-text description of soft nanites begins on 149 and includes anti-tox, etc.  The actual table for hard nanites is on page 148 (also labeled hard).

[Rooks]

4th edition:
Some nanoware systems are available in soft or hard machine versions
depending on the corporation manufacturing the specific augmentation.
Nanoware systems are considered to be always active,
unless a nanohive implant is present. Amongst other functions,
nanohives allow for controlled activation of nanoware systems or
colonies, recovering them, and storing them during “downtime.”

5th edition
For the most part, hard and soft nanites are interchangeable
in game terms.

Hard nanites are designed with modular
code, allowing them to be reprogrammed to a certain
degree.

[Rooks]

Character buys a hard nanohave rating 2 for 24,000 nuyen
and implant medic rating 6 for his datajack for 600 nuyen.
Aaaand andother rating 6 implant medic for his second datajack for 600 too.

Now the character can have both active at the same time

They CAN except last paragraph page 151 before hard nanohive states as such
Each nanohive supports one nanoware system at a Rating equal to its own. so you could have two hard nano hives in say a cyberhand running two different nanosystems

[Marcus Gideon]

Character buys a hard nanohave rating 2 for 24,000 nuyen
and implant medic rating 6 for his datajack for 600 nuyen.
Aaaand andother rating 6 implant medic for his second datajack for 600 too.

Now the character can have both active at the same time

They CAN except last paragraph page 151 before hard nanohive states as such
Each nanohive supports one nanoware system at a Rating equal to its own. so you could have two hard nano hives in say a cyberhand running two different nanosystems

You could... however, I already quoted a section earlier which says that Nanohives can support (Rating) worth of separate colonies AND they regenerate those colonies up to their (Rating) worth.

So even in that example of a Rating 2 Nanohive, and 2x different Rating 6 Colonies, they're going to degrade over time until they get down to Rating 2. At which point the Nanohive will kick in and maintain them at that Rating 2. So really... having bought them at Rating 6 is severely overspending.

[Novocrane]

Each nanohive supports one nanoware system at a Rating equal to its own.

Rating is the number of different hard nanite systems to which it can convert its nanites.

When hard nanites are reprogrammed, they change their type, becoming a new kind of hard nanoware. Reprogramming itself requires the hard nanites to suspend whatever operation they were performing and receive their new instructions. A hard nanohive does not reduce the Rating of its nanites.

These quotes lead me to believe that it's one nanohive, [hive rating] nanite systems to convert to (all of which must be bought or programmed separately), but only one active nanoware system at a time.

Which would mean that a rating 2 nanohive & it's nanite colony could have a rating 6 nanoware system active, suspend the active system, and then activate either of the two stored systems.

[Marcus Gideon]

No, you're right. I was kinda off from what the entry had said earlier.

Hard Nanohives can only support 1 Colony at a time. But they can store (Rating) worth of programming for that Colony. A Rating 2 can store 2 programs, and switch the Colony between those 2 functions.

So if you wanted to have 2 active Colonies operating at the same time, you'd need 2 Nanohives.

But it does also say that it can only regenerate the Colony up to its own Rating. Which means if it's a Rating 2 Nanohive, then it will only recover a Colony up to Rating 2. So if you originally bought them at Rating 6, they will degrade for 4 weeks until they get to Rating 2, and then the Nanohive will keep them at that level.

[Rooks]

ok so what if you have say 3 nanohives at rating 3 and have o-cells rating 9 could that make it so that you could house rating 9 o-cell nanites without degrade?

[Marcus Gideon]

ok so what if you have say 3 nanohives at rating 3 and have o-cells rating 9 could that make it so that you could house rating 9 o-cell nanites without degrade?

Umm... no, but "A" for effort =)

Each colony of Nanites is assigned to a Nanohive. That's where new programming and replacements come from. And each Nanohive is only capable of producing nanites up to its Rating, which means even if you had assigned those Rating 9's to the Rating 3 Hive, they would degrade until they could be properly maintained at Rating 3.

However, while it could be hidden somewhere and I'm just not seeing it... I don't see anything that says you can't have multiple Colonies doing the exact same thing. Neural Amplifiers are the only one that specifically says only 2 colonies can function at a time or else they just make matters worse.

So presumably (until errata says otherwise) you could get 3x Rating 3 Hives each programmed to make Rating 3 O-Cells. Each colony would go after the pathogens and reduce the effect by 3 points each. So in essence it would be a Rating 9 colony... but it's really just 3x Rating 3 colonies working on the same problem.

[Novocrane]

RAW, I agree ... but each of the possible options just feels wrong to me. Real flustercluck.

[DigitalZombie]

Alright, so one hard nanohive can only have ONE nanosystem active at a time. And that the nanohive would have to be at least the same rating as the nanosystem, as to not suffer nanite degradation.
And a character can acquire several different hard nanosystems for his nanohive, thus enabling it to reprogram them into whatever has been bought for hard cash. Got it.


And how long it would take for one system to be reprogrammed and work actively as another is still a bit unclear RAW. As is what constitutes as hard and soft.

[Marcus Gideon]

Hard Nanosystems are listed on CF pg 148. Soft Nanosystems are listed on pg 150 (the table itself is mislabeled, but the prior pages describe all of those as Soft systems).

According to pg 146, freshly introduced Nanites take about a minute to become active. Presumably that's mostly a delay for getting properly circulated throughout the body, but it may also be "boot up" time for their programming. So until errata says otherwise, I'd probably use that for the reprogramming time as well.

One minute after you issue the command to "Change Places!!!" they start doing the other thing. But during that minute, they are not doing anything at all. "Reprogramming itself requires the hard nanites to suspend
whatever operation they were performing and receive their new instructions." And remember that a Combat Turn is only 3 seconds long. So unless you want to wait out 20 Turns, best not reprogram in the middle of a fight.