Lots of good ideas in here so far but a lot of complaining about the set-up for TM’s in the core rulebook. That won’t change and the TM book isn’t going to errata the core to do things like adjust fade, give out free abilities or change the priority system.
Basically any fixes we want have to come from additions in the form of:
New complex forms
New qualities
New echoes
New sprites
Other new stuff
Also imho the design space that TM’s occupy is that what Deckers do with tech, they do with their brain. There’s a connection between their meatspace body and the matrix that nobody else experiences and so they should sort of blur the world between matrix and meatspace more. So rather than more ways to be better deckers, which just steps on the deckers design space, I’d like to see more extrapolations of their abilities in new and creative ways.
New complex forms
I’d like to see TM’s be able to use the matrix to boost their skills and intelligence. Basically they thread some code which feeds information on a subject directly into their brain. The way I envisage this working is the techno threads a script that say, searches out how to speak Italian and inputs it into his brain’s language centres directly.
This would easily work for languages (learning the CF lets you know every language but you have to thread it each time you need to speak a language you don’t inherently know) and seems to make sense for knowledge skills but I’m not sure how you’d do that mechanically.
I also think it would work for certain active skills. Not the matrix ones or things like climbing and swimming but definitely the social skills and even things like unarmed combat (Woah! I know Kung Fu). You can argue something like unarmed combat requires muscle memory and training rather than purely knowing intellectually what to do but I think it works and lets Technos do something Deckers can’t, cast complex forms to buff their meat world activity.
From a balance perspective it would work similar to a mage’s increase attribute but is inherently weaker since you’d need a form per skill rather than having an attribute that works with many skills.
I’ll echo others in wanting to see some kind of smartlink CF and a CF that makes you invisible/inaudible to devices.
We also need some CFs for interacting with drones although I’m sure what you’d give them that doesn’t step on a rigger’s toes.
A CF that lets you turn wireless on/off from devices close to you in meatspace using the resonance seems appropriately scary and fluffy.
Some kind of gremlin CF that lets you brick devices you’re touching.
Ways to do biofeedback and link lock.
A CF that works similar to assenssing, but for cyberware. Letting a TM looks at someone and just know what kind of cyberware they have fitted.
New Qualities/Echoes
A lot of the ideas people have given in this thread for fixing fundamental TM issues could be implemented as either qualities or echoes. Things like having some ability to sustain more complex forms, immunity to hotsim addiction, reducing fade values, skinlink as a quality at chargen rather than a karma expensive echo.
I will echo the people that want to see the TM able to make passes in both meatspace and on matrix initiative during combat. Again it really fits the fluff and gives TMs something deckers can’t do without just straight up making them better deckers. I think this makes most sense as an echo.
New Sprites
Some kind of piloting sprite to possess and operate drones seems like something everybody wants. It lets TMs interact with drones (which we all want) but in a very different way to riggers.
Other new stuff
So TMs work a lot like mages, draw inspiration from mages and give them TM equivalents of foci and magical lodges.
Foci (lets call them widgets) lets you fix So Many TM issues. Both the direct fix of reducing fade, having more dice to thread forms/compile sprites and more options for sustaining forms and the indirect issue that TMs have nothing to spend Nuyen on. Like mages, TMs need Karma and have more money than they know what to do with. Widgets would let them spend that money to offset some (but not all) of the karma issues.
The main widgets I’d like to see would be; more dice for threading, more dice for compiling/registering, a way to sustain forms and a way to reduce fade. A general power widget would also work.
The tricks with widgets are how they would work fluff wise and to give them the same disadvantages as foci to prevent abuse (briefly, they cost karma, they can get lost, they form a link back to you, you can get addicted and there are hard limits on how many you can use).
Fluff wise I’d envisage these widgets as things made of the resonance, permanent bits of code that can’t be copied directly by anything except the most powerful TMs or A.I.s (you could give PC TM’s this ability as an echo) because of their complexity and because of their nature as seemingly part of the matrix itself. Powerful TMs set themselves up copying/growing these widgets and sell them to other TMs in illegal TM only hosts.
I’d also give TMs magical lodges or tiny hosts made in the same fashion. They can pay money to buy a small private host that’s weaker than the ones you’d normally go up against but which the TM has a safe space to compile sprites in, thread forms and keep his widgets.
Because as a balance I’d make it so that if the TM reboots his persona, he loses his widget unless he first stored it safe in his host. Say he goes on a run, gets mobbed by IC and reboots to escape. He leaves behind a bit of code which is linked to his living persona, so when he goes back into the matrix he knows straight away where his widget is to go and retrieve it but any IC or spiders that find his widget know exactly where he is the moment he reappears.