[fourstrifes]

1. Can you program Activesofts yourself? Can you program them to ratings higher than 4?

I know that you can buy skillsofts with a max rating of 4, often taking the personalized program option to get an extra dice when using it. But can you program your own to a higher level or is this beyond the capabilities of player characters? Can someone tell me where in the rules it establishes a hard limit on skillsoft program ratings?

2. Can you emulate a Tutor sprite's activesofts?

Does this count as "storage accessible to the technomancer"? Because then you could compile a tutor sprite with whatever linguasoft you would need for the situation and emulate it with biowire. And because a sprite's CFs are equal to their rating, they have skillsofts beyond the purchasable rating 4. What is stopping a TM from compiling a rating 10 tutor sprite and emulating gunnery 10 (assuming they have 10 submersion grade and 10 resonance)? Or permanently learning it for 10 karma? Is there a rule or errata somewhere that makes this explicitly possible or impossible? A tutor sprite's activesofts aren't programmed or bought so would they have the normal limit of 4?

3. Can you learn any normal CF from sprites?

I just want to make sure of this. Can I learn normal program CFs (that don't require emulation or skillwiring) such as Browse or Edit from sprites even if they don't normally have it for their own use? Could I learn Data Bomb from a registered machine sprite with a Study Aid task?

4. Do blur and flexible touch echoes stack?

It seems to me like they would but it is a little ambiguous. The normal MPT thresholds are 3 to detect and 5 to determine type. Blur increases both of those by submersion grade. Flexible touch increases the threshold to determine the technomancer's real signature by submersion grade.

Flexible Touch p148
"Apply a modifier to the threshold for Matrix Perception Tests equal to the technomancer’s submersion grade to determine the technomancer’s real signature."

The way I see it, with both echoes, the threshold to determine the technomancer's real signature would equal submersion x 2 + 3. For instance, my technomancer has 6 submersion grade. It would be 9 to detect technomancer presense, 11 to know the type of CF or sprite, and 15 to know my real signature. Is this right?

[spoiler]Matrix Signatures:
   Equal to CF rating or RES stat or Sprite rating
   Lasts hours equal to rating
   Matrix Perception (3) Test (only possible by other Technomancers or Sprites)
   Threshold of 5 to know what kind of CF or sprite created signature
Matrix Signature Thresholds:
   Matrix Perception (9) to detect
   Matrix Perception (11) to determine CF/Sprite type
   Matrix Perception (15) to determine real signature[/spoiler]

5. Can flexible touch be used to forge a real technomancer's signature?

Could I make a file while forging a real technomancer's signature to throw people off the trail? Also, if I don't specify, does flexible touch make your signature look like no one's in particular? Just different from yours, sending technomancers and sprites on a wild goose chase for someone who doesn't exist? Or does it HAVE to look like an existant technomancer's? What if I don't know any other technomancer? I think I could probably specify how I want to use the echo to my GM. But that also opens up the possibility that technomancers who know my real signature could frame me for actions if they have the echo, right?

6. I just started playing and I love this game. This is my first ever character for Shadowrun (I have echoes because of karmagen system). 4th edition rules with all the books (basically just read core and unwired but our GM says any 4e book is okay). Our GM admittedly has more experience in 3rd edition matrix rules. She said that you can't hack cyberlimbs because you pay for it in essence, but you can spam stuff like cybereyes. Is this a rule that was in 3rd edition? I know you can hack cyberlimbs in 4e (although  they may not have nodes themselves but be peripheral devices controlled by a commlink node). She will probably just house rule it if it comes down to it but is there a 3rd edition rule that leads her to say that? You can indeed hack cyberlimbs according to 4th edition rules, right? What cyberlimbs can and can't you hack?

[UmaroVI]

1. There's no rule explicitly saying you can't, and no rule saying you can, either. "It doesn't say I can't" is the path of madness for SR.

2. As above, except moreso.

3. Yes.

4. Yes.

5. It looks like a specific other person's. It's not clear if you can make it look like a nonexistent person's, or if it must emulate another technomancer whose signature you know.

6. You can hack cyberware, but only if the person running the cyberware is a complete idiot. You can run cyberware in wireless...but if you do, you are stupid, because you can also run it in DNI so it is unhackable. See "turning it off" SR4A 314.

[fourstrifes]

Thank you. Your answers are pretty much what I expected. I will ask my GM about those things. Can you also answer this question:

Would the resonance signatures left by sprites count as my own resonance, getting bonuses from blur and flexible touch? Or do sprites have their own resonance signature that could identify the sprite but not me?

Edit: Actually, I think the rules are pretty clear that sprites have their own matrix signatures.

[UmaroVI]

Yep, sprites are their own thing.

[Makki]

I was under the impression, Activesofts are (modified) recordings of people doing things. If this isn't explicitely in any text, then it's just my interpretation.
So, I think they're not programmable.

[UmaroVI]

Whoops, actually, Unwired 118 says you just can't program Skillsofts. My bad.

[Mirikon]

1) Actually, no.

Software Coding
The basic rules for programming are described under Coding your own Programs, p. 240, SR4. All a programmer needs is Software skill and a device (a basic commlink will do) on which the program can potentially be run.
Note that due to the recording nature, format, and specialized post production techniques used to create simsense programs, neither skillsoft nor BTLs can be programmed and updated in the standard software sense. Simsense options have to be bought together with the “mother program”.

2) I would have to say no. Sprites don't actually have storage, just as agents don't. Any data they gather or find is dumped elsewhere. Their CFs are an inherent part of them. It is like saying that the person sitting next to you's teeth would be available storage to you, without using cyberware.

3) Same guidelines as a magician learning spells. You either have to get a copy of the formula (base program) or you have to study with someone who has the spell (technomancer/sprite that already has that complex form). You couldn't learn a CF from a TM or sprite that doesn't have that CF.

4) I would say yes.

5) Yes. Just as the similar metamagic can be used to mimic another magician's signature.

6) If someone has their cyberlimbs operating in wireless mode, they deserved to be hacked. Your best bet is to hack their PAN, and control the limbs from there.

[fourstrifes]

3) Same guidelines as a magician learning spells. You either have to get a copy of the formula (base program) or you have to study with someone who has the spell (technomancer/sprite that already has that complex form). You couldn't learn a CF from a TM or sprite that doesn't have that CF.

The core rule book doesn't say that you can learn CFs by having access to the normal software. It specifically says you need another technomancer or a registered sprite. I don't think that all 22 original CFs would be covered by the original 5 sprite types. Do you really think they intended for Sprites only to be able to teach the CFs they have access to? This fits the idea of tutor sprites. In Unwired there is a section called "Adopting Software" that implies you can learn complex forms from normal programs.

In theory, a technomancer can adapt any piece of software by mimicking the program with a complex form that he shapes (by threading or learning) based on the original. Since a number of programs such as Sensor software (p. 60, Arsenal) or tacsofts (p. 125) require connections to sensors, databases, and/or other auxiliary data, a technomancer can only use complex forms based on that software if he has a connection to such sensors, databases, or auxiliary components. Individual gamemasters may choose whether to allow this in their games.

Does this mean then that you can buy (or write) rating 1 programs and then learn them as CFs and then improve them normally? You can't improve skillsoft CFs, I know for sure. But wouldn't that make it way easier to learn CFs than to find and pay a technomancer or to register a sprite? You can still thread a CF you don't have without the analogous program, right? Are there any rules about what CFs you need a program handy to thread and what CFs you can just simply thread?

Also, can someone make it clear whether you can use the Flexible Touch echo to disguise your matrix signature as no one in particular? I think you could but is there a rule that would make it clear? It's reasonable enough, right? I don't know anything about how the magic version works but I should be able to disguise my matrix signature to just be different from my own if I can go so far as to make it the same as someone else's.