[Crunch]

So if we're in a place without Matrix coverage, it would become possible?

The rules at this point don't particularly have any place without wireless coverage. The net is so ubiquitous now that everyplace is in it, albeit some places are very noisy.

[Unahim]

Aha, but what about inside of a big faraday cage, with all relevant devices on the inside of it?

[Crunch]

You'll have to wait for the 5E Wired book I suppose, it'll probably be in the chapter heading under "ridiculous thought experiments."

[Unahim]

You'll have to wait for the 5E Wired book I suppose, it'll probably be in the chapter heading under "ridiculous thought experiments."

Hey, since Devices report back to their Owners when you temper with them, and the gear taken from corp guards is usually still under the ownership of the corp, having a faraday cage room where you can do your cracking of protected files in order to scrub those items clean is not at all ridiculous, but simply reality for a Runner team using every advantage they can get. It's not so much a thought experiment as it is something that could become very relevant the downtime after you stole three drones.

[brantlymedders]

It's kinda odd in-universe. Regular people are using wireless stuff too, strange that they're so unreliable.

And brantly: It'd still leave the grenades mostly untouchable in 0 noise zones, and it only takes one grenade to TPK :p

True. I'm curious now if jammers stack...

[Shade]

This is another one of those 'intent' things that I imagine was overlooked(there are many in the Matrix section). It seems very logical to me that a wireless device that is slaved would use the comm/deck's device rating against noise...

[Sendaz]

It's kinda odd in-universe. Regular people are using wireless stuff too, strange that they're so unreliable.

And brantly: It'd still leave the grenades mostly untouchable in 0 noise zones, and it only takes one grenade to TPK :p

True. I'm curious now if jammers stack...

Can't find anything specific, but I would imagine it would only count the highest rating jammer as it would basically override anything lesser.

[brantlymedders]

This is another one of those 'intent' things that I imagine was overlooked(there are many in the Matrix section). It seems very logical to me that a wireless device that is slaved would use the comm/deck's device rating against noise...

That's not a bad idea either.  Gives another reason to buy a good commlink.

However it does devalue RCC's since those devices give noise reduction as part of their Device Rating (though they tend to do a lot more).

[Unahim]

The use of an RCC in this respect is exactly why I think it's not intended. It also makes sense that it'd work this way; if it's truly a two-way process with handshakes and such to get devices to work, then drowning out the weaker devices's functioning should effectively put a stop to that, regardless of the strength of the commlink.

It does cause one very odd scenario: at no point are you actually disallowed to use the Master's stat for defense due to noise. Even in a Noise 6 environment with device ratings of 6 or less you'd still be able to use the master's stats, somehow.

[Aaron]

Don't forget that noise isn't just about signal attenuation, but also latency and the general availability of the local mesh network.

[Unahim]

Don't forget that noise isn't just about signal attenuation, but also latency and the general availability of the local mesh network.

Which can all make a two-way connection spaz out, so the point stands.

[GiraffeShaman]

Sounds like some of us, myself included, were thinking spam zones were more common than they are. It seems like a modifier like the weatther  that a GM may pull out of their toolkit, but not all the time.

It's possible advertising signals are  given some kind of priority, especially for larger companies. It's kind of like when you watch tv shows on websites now and they force you to watch commercials. (They rig it so you can't fast forward even) They know people will turn off ads if given a choice, so they give them no choice in certain areas of the city. Sure people can turn wireless off, but the normal citizen doesn't consider that an option, especially a bored commuter who is letting Gridlink drive him to work.

There's also probaly sleazy operators too who specialize in taking over bandwidth for advertising purposes. Kind of like the people that zombify and use computer resources without permission in order to send out ads.

[Mittop]

One thing I don't get about the Matrix is that you're seemingly incapable of having a wireless network between devices without those Devices being linked up to the Matrix.

I've thought about this. My "fluff" answer is that because of the mesh network nature of the Matrix, to get the kind of throughput you need radios that are on a really broad spectrum range. Basically all the stuff that right now is divided between tv, cellphone, 802.11, cb radio, fm radio, am radio, etc... has now been moved to a single standard and equipment now does something link CDMA over a huge, newly opened spectrum. Now add really cheap transceivers with really awesome power to weight ratios (after all, a transceiver is in just about everything) and it becomes simpler for manufacturers to use their standardized Matrix Transceiver Architecture to handle all the stuff you normally put on a dedicated frequency band.

BTW - These future electronics are awesome. They recharge from all the radio energy in the area, are super small, have great range, built in encryption, did I mention small?, built in firewalls, etc. Can I please have? I've got some projects in my lab that can use this stuff. 

[Shade]

Don't forget that noise isn't just about signal attenuation, but also latency and the general availability of the local mesh network.

Good point. I was thinking the slaves didn't talk to devices besides the master, but thinking about it...that's obviously not true for several reasons.

[Psikerlord]

i will mostly handwaive noise, similar to background count. its just needless complexity. i can see it asxsomething cool on occasion, but not most of the time.