[RickDeckard]

Acquiring and installing new BioWare and cyberware can be both expensive and difficult to come by if you want the good stuff. So my question is, can I try and locate som BioWare myself, e.g. a Synaptic Booster in gammaware grade and then stash it until I find a doc who can install it? Seems like a character with good black market connections may be able to find the ware, but how sensitive are these things to long term storage? Can you just get a professional organ cooler or similar storage device and keep it there, or how do you guys play it? Do you have to find a doc who will then sell you the ware and operation as a package, necessitating a gammaware clinic, which is hard to find as a shadowrunner, or can you mix and match and BYOW?
If I locate an organ myself on the black market it seems I’d be able to negotiate a good price myself rather than going to a professional clinic that may not be open to negotiations. A lot of this is probably up to the individual GM, just curious how others do it.

[Kiirnodel]

"Cultured bioware must be tailor-made for the body in which it will eventually find a home." (Core Rulebook, pg 460).

Where are you just "finding" your own high-grade bioware organs? Generally speaking, the 'ware and the implantation are a set match. In fact, there aren't any rules for paying for these things separately, they don't list implantation costs, and there is no standardized cost for providing your own parts.

In fact, if you are just stumbling across bioware (or cyberware), chances are it isn't going to be high-grade stuff. Taking parts out of someone else immediately makes those used grade no matter what they were before.

[Fedifensor]

You don’t stash the organ...you stash the doctor.


A doctor in a high-end clinic has access to all the tools needed to custom grow a piece of BioWare tailored to you.  Make sure the doctor has sufficient authority to authorize the use of the equipment, and you’re golden.  A good way to do this at character creation is getting a clinic doctor as a contact.

[Ajax]

And make sure the Doc is has a pretty high Loyalty rating. You don’t want to be anesthetized and under the knife when you learn that the surgeon is compromised.

It was about a totally different kind of “runner,” but if you remember the New You scene from Logan’s Run...

[Seras]

@ RickDeckard.

Do not forget payment options. It is mentioned in the backround that corps love to pay with gear. Evo loves to pay its runners with Bodytech including the necessary surgery.

That probably where most runners get their highend gear 

[Wakshaani]

Generally, bioware goes bad QUICKLY. Even in refrigerated conditions, the lifespan from donor to receiver is measured in hours, not days. Like, the sturdiest organ, kidneys, have a little under 48 hours to go from "Removed from living host" to "Successfully installed in receiver" … transport is in there, but alo medical prep, the actual procedure, time to adjust, etc.

As a rule of thumb? You have 24 hours from cut to cut, assuming you keep the implant properly stored for that entire time.

There's a reason that "Walking body banks" are a thing in the 6th world, where a group (Like Tannamous) keeps files on people and, when a request comes in, they go fetch the organ, rather than just keeping slabs in freezers. As long as the organ's hooked up to a working body, it'll be there when you need it.

Trying to get the part first, then find a way to store it, THEN find a doctor that can squeeze you in and do the job AND that won't ask questions? Yikes.

[Ghost Rigger]

@ RickDeckard.

Do not forget payment options. It is mentioned in the backround that corps love to pay with gear. Evo loves to pay its runners with Bodytech including the necessary surgery.

That probably where most runners get their highend gear 

As a general rule, do they pay more in 'ware than they would in cash, or do they let you just skip acquisition checks?

[Seras]

@ RickDeckard.

Do not forget payment options. It is mentioned in the backround that corps love to pay with gear. Evo loves to pay its runners with Bodytech including the necessary surgery.

That probably where most runners get their highend gear 

As a general rule, do they pay more in 'ware than they would in cash, or do they let you just skip acquisition checks?

It is mostly a roleplaying/ negotioations roles thing. Evo has everything available to them, they make the stuff after all. But it goes without saying the more expensive the ware, the more dangerous job. You wont get 10.000nds of Nuyen worth of ware for a milk run.....

[Ajax]

But Mr. Johnson will tell you it’s a milk run... Simple in’n’out! You’ll barely face any opposition. Trrrusssssst meeeee.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

This shadowrun will be Safe, Easy, and Fun!

[neomerlin]

You don’t stash the organ...you stash the doctor.

I'm not sure it can be said any better than this...

But here's my piece anyway: in my campaign, the players have just pulled off a heist of their own making (no Mr Johnson) to score some cyberware. For chrome, a certain amount of "off the shelf" product in the world makes sense, something that's ready to tweak and adjust before attaching to a person, but otherwise it's standard issue and manufactured in bulk. I don't see that being the case for bioware. Compatibility is a real issue for biological transplants in today's world, and the book is explicit that bioware in the 6th world is custom made for the recipient.

So, I don't see runners knocking over a bioware clinic or bioware delivery truck in the hopes of scoring some new eyes. But put the screws into the guy who knows how to grow and install the ware, and give him a place to do so? That'll work.

Mind you, it's probably easier and safer just to pay for it. Try stealing and selling military helicoptres. That's a quick way to make some cash. What could possibly go wrong?

[Ajax]

I'd say that bioware, especially Basic Bioware, is somewhat mass produced: vat-grown and half-finished, until a patient sets up an appointment in which it will be installed. At that point, the clinic takes the vat-grown "blank" out of storage, adds the appropriate [insert medical techno-babble here] and does the appropriate [insert medical techno-babble here] process. This will "finish" the bioware and it can then be implanted.

This is mostly because I love the Hannibal Chew scene in Blade Runner: "I just do eyes." The idea of using a similar bioware vat-farm as a set piece for a Shadowrun mission is just too cool to pass up. Picture something like the meat-packing plant from Rocky or Predator II, only instead of frozen sides of beef, it's rack upon rack of 3/4 grown human arms that are destined to be turned into replacement limbs... and then in the next room, its nothing but sheets of vat-gown human skin stretched out on racks while robotic WALDO arms flit around the room spraying them with mists of medical gunk to keep them fresh until they can be used for orthoskin implants... and then in the next room, we come to the jars of half-grown cerebellum boosters...

[Overbyte]

"Cultured bioware must be tailor-made for the body in which it will eventually find a home." (Core Rulebook, pg 460).

This makes it pretty clear (to me anyway) that non-cultured bio-ware is NOT specific to the recipient.

Where are you just "finding" your own high-grade bioware organs? Generally speaking, the 'ware and the implantation are a set match. In fact, there aren't any rules for paying for these things separately, they don't list implantation costs, and there is no standardized cost for providing your own parts.

This to me is the real question. And I guess the answer is: most likely at the place where they are making them or from the body of someone that has one.

In fact, if you are just stumbling across bioware (or cyberware), chances are it isn't going to be high-grade stuff. Taking parts out of someone else immediately makes those used grade no matter what they were before.

I'm not a fan of this interpretation. It just doesn't make sense to me. If the ware is not cultured then it is "generic" and being "used" would not change the fact that it was high quality. So IMO you would have a "Used Deltaware" implant with 1.25 * 0.5 = 0.625 multiplier.

[neomerlin]

Picture something like the meat-packing plant from Rocky or Predator II, only instead of frozen sides of beef, it's rack upon rack of 3/4 grown human arms that are destined to be turned into replacement limbs... and then in the next room, its nothing but sheets of vat-gown human skin stretched out on racks while robotic WALDO arms flit around the room spraying them with mists of medical gunk to keep them fresh until they can be used for orthoskin implants... and then in the next room, we come to the jars of half-grown cerebellum boosters...

I did picture it and I freakin' love it and I'm convinced both by the point you're making and to yoink that set piece for myself. Think I'll throw in some bug spirits (the big bads of my campaign) for extra creep factor.

Kudos and thanks.

[PiXeL01]

The grade for implants isn’t just the quality of the materials used, it’s also the level of the doctor, the clinic, the aftercare, everything rolled into one.
My personal interpretation is that the higher the grade the more tailored each implant is for the client, with more cloned organic parts which is why the essence cost go down. It’s a combination of quality, care, and procedure.

So no, I would never allow used Delta grade implants as you need a Delta clinic for everything Delta in the first place and they do not deal in used implants to begin with.