[Michael Chandra]

I myself always read Type O System as not including Cultured, but I noticed that HeroLab, Mirikon and All4BigGuns all think it should include ALL bioware. Is there anyone who strongly disagrees with that or should I inform my players it works fine?

[mtfeeney = Baron]

It specifically says basic bioware.  Basic bioware is a specific category of bioware.  Cultured bioware is specifically grown from the person's own cells.

[Michael Chandra]

I noticed a claim in that other topic: "Carefully read Augmentation. While SR4A uses basic to refer to a type of bioware (rather than a grade) and the FAQ confirms that the terminology is supposed to work that way in SR4A (the core book and books coming after), Augmentation was written before SR4A and did not use this standard terminology. Augmentation used basic to refer to grade and standard to refer to type."

However, given the "Only basic bioware can be found second-hand—alpha or better grade and cultured bioware are by definition protein-matched and cannot be implanted in another body" line, that's not fully the case.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

I don't know about book release schedules, but it doesn't change the fact that cultured bioware is called that because it's cultured from your own cells.  This quality gives you the effect of taking delta-grade bioware due to it closely matching your own cells.  You're so close to the standard cell that the impact on your body is halved.  This does NOT mean that they are exactly your cells.  The cells they use didn't come from someone of your race, height, hair and eye color, ethnicity, and whatever else is hidden away in our cells.  There are no off-the-shelf cultured bioware implants.  They go in your body, get cells, grow the part, then pop it into you.  It's the same process for everyone.  Being Type O would give absolutely no benefit in this process.  So what if your cells are the standard for basic bioware?  It doesn't mean your cultured bioware will match you any better than the cultured bioware of the ork down the street.

[Ympulse]

Purely by RAW, Type O allows all Basic (As in non-alpha, beta, etc) Bioware to be treated as delta for essence purposes. If YOU as the GM want to punish your players for taking a 30BP positive quality, then it's your choice, just understand that your interpretation is a houserule.

And Feeny, your assumption is incorrect, else you wouldn't be able to find betaware cultured bioware, which is an option.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

Which assumption?  That there is no such thing as off-the-shelf cultured bioware?  It's not an assumption.  The book states that cultured bioware is exactly that.  Cultured from your own cells.

[Michael Chandra]

You can still get higher-grade cultured bioware, but it's still cultured for you specifically no matter what the level.

And Ympulse, I have to ask: "as in non-alpha, beta, etc", where is that in the RAW? Isn't that just Standard, or does Augmentation use Basic instead of Standard? And where they use Basic, how do you know it counts as Standard and not as non-Cultured?

You claim it's a houserule but honestly reading it, it doesn't strike me as a houserule. So since there are indeed disagreements over, I need an argued picture, not a mere statement. Also, please don't act as if I'm a bad GM for wanting this clarified. I don't even have a single player using this right now, my own character concept is the only one using it.

Edit: I should note that character concept aims for development into ~2.5 essence worth of basic bioware with Type O System, at a monetary cost of >300k nuyen instead of >3m, so which heavily benefits from those 30 BP.

[All4BigGuns]

It's plain and simple. With all Bio-ware being covered, it is actually worth the cost. If it only covered the small subset, then it might be worth 10 points.

[Michael Chandra]

Small subset? My wishlist in basic bioware alone is nearly 5 essence without discounts at a monetary cost past 300k. It saves me 2.5 essence without costing >2.5m extra. And that's even excluding Enhanced Articulation.

[All4BigGuns]

Small subset? My wishlist in basic bioware alone is nearly 5 essence without discounts at a monetary cost past 300k. It saves me 2.5 essence without costing >2.5m extra. And that's even excluding Enhanced Articulation.

Okay, you think a few more are worth taking (doesn't mean they are, but you can think it). It doesn't change that putting the arbitrary limiter on there makes the quality completely worthless when compared to its cost. Period.

[Michael Chandra]

Honestly that's an opinion though, there are plenty of qualities considered more or less valuable. However, what I'm interested in is not whether it's considered worthless and not even in opinions, but in interpretations of the rules. I'd love for this to work on Cultured, but I can't read it in there and so my stance is it doesn't work. However, with both HeroLab and Mirikon assuming it does, I want to know the arguments.

[All4BigGuns]

Honestly that's an opinion though, there are plenty of qualities considered more or less valuable. However, what I'm interested in is not whether it's considered worthless and not even in opinions, but in interpretations of the rules. I'd love for this to work on Cultured, but I can't read it in there and so my stance is it doesn't work. However, with both HeroLab and Mirikon assuming it does, I want to know the arguments.

Honestly, the only argument for making the quality useless too is opinion. All interpretation is opinion. So, it comes down to one question: "Do you want to screw your players?" If the answer is no, then the quality applies to all, and if the answer is yes, then the arbitrary limit is in place.

[Michael Chandra]

Alright, that's it. If you start calling me a bad GM for screwing over my own character concept that I still want to play one day, you can get out of my topic. If you only contribute that kind of negative attitude, I don't need your opinion on my questions.

[Thrass]

there are 2 stances on this:

1) basic refers to grade as in: basic/alpha/beta/delta
2) basic refers to type as in: basic/cultured

you got most of the arguments like:
different books use the same term (basic) for different meanings, you can hunt down occurences crosscompare them and check for release dates and everything to make up your mind on this one
cost: there is, purely math wise, a point in it being very expensive when comparing to other qualities or not comparing and just measuring the effect (maybe too expensive but that is an opinion and can't be fact)

you won't get an official ruling on this one and you wont get a consens on this forum
it's been debated often enough

additional info:
I'm personally really on the side that it should cover all bioware for gameplay reasons, but in the german books
"standard-bioware" which is the term used in the quality description is the same as further down when listing "standard-bioware","orthoskin upgrades" and "kultivierte bioware",
as well as the tables in the newest core-book which have the tables listed as "standard-bioware" and "kultivierte bioware"

so the german rules kinda state it is like you handled it in the past

[Michael Chandra]

So basically I should take the description (off the rack, basic), take the idea of Cultured, read through Augmentation for some terminology and then make a judgement call. For my own concept I'll assume the worst.