[Rainslicker]

Right so this is a potential bashing of me thread.
But never mind that, we will give it a shot and see what people say.
I have been working a bit on seeing how you could make custom decks in SR5 since I personally think that it does not make sense that you only have the stock decks with their array, I want to be able to get a custom deck that I can specialize a bit more, so I have done so as well.
I will try and take you through my thoughts on pricing and why I have done as I have done.

Right lets start with the simplest deck we can find. Lets take the Erika MCD-1, this is the worst deck in the game right now 4/3/2/1 with 1 program and a device rating of 1, its total junk to be plain.
So lets break it down a bit.

Rating	Attack	Sleeze	Data	Firewall	Programs	Availability	Cost
1	4	3	2	1	1	3R	49,500¥

Well as we can see its a crap deck but its easy to start with to explain how I did my calculations and thoughts.
So the first things I did was to calculate the total number of attributes plus programs. That for the Erika is 21, you count each step meaning that Attack that is 4 have a total of 4+3+2+1=10 attribute points in it.
So with the total of 21 attribute points I did a estimate of what each attribute point cost and I came up with 2000¥ so for the Erika that is 42,000¥ but I also modified it by multiplying with the rating of the gear rating 1 meaning 1,1. So the cost of the Erika's attributes are 46,200¥ leaving 3300¥ for the motherboard of the deck.
I have some small variations in the motherboard costs for the different decks. and its most notable on the rating one decks, Erika being 3300¥ and the Microdeck being 7400¥ so I did a compromise and settled for 5500¥ for a rating 1 deck.

The attributes are very clear, maximum on a standard deck is rating +3 as the highest attribute. So I added +2 for a custom deck since it is supposed to be better if you spend a lot of ¥ on it. But to be able to enhance the deck over its usual limits you need a custom motherboard. They cost the base cost for the motherboard times 1,rating. So a rating 1 custom motherboard would cost 6050¥.

But lets just show you the table.

| Rating	| MB	| Aug MB	| Max Att	| Max Aug Attr	| Progs	| Aug Progs	| Att Cost	| Aug Att Cost	| Threshold
1	5500¥	6050¥	4	6	1	3	2200¥	3300¥	10
2	23000¥	27600¥	5	7	2	4	2400¥	3600¥	12
3	52000¥	67600¥	6	8	3	5	2600¥	3900¥	16
4	110000¥	154000¥	7	9	4	6	2800¥	4200¥	18
5	204375¥	306562¥	8	10	5	7	3000¥	4500¥	24
6	340050¥	544080¥	9	11	6	8	3200¥	4800¥	30

| Rating	| MB	| Aug AB	| Att	| Aug Att
1	3R	6F	3R	6F
2	6R	9F	6R	9F
3	9R	12F	9R	12F
4	12R	15F	12R	15F
5	15R	18F	15R	18F
6	18R	21F	18R	21F

Right so lets to to explain this.
When you but a deck it comes with 0 in all attributes. If you want to increase them then you pay [Att cost * the new rating] so it gets more and more expensive to upgrade a deck, if you have a standard motherboard you can continue raising it until you hit the [Max Att] limit and you can not raise it anymore. If you want to augment it even further then you need a Augmented Motherboard so you need to buy one and replace your old one then you can buy the Augmented attribute raises. They follow the same progression [Aug Att Cost * new rating]. To install it you need to make a Hardware+Logic extended test with a 1 hour time and the Threshold listed next to the rating, the better tech the harder to install it. A critical fumble will mean you destroyed the upgrade you were putting in.

A fully augmented rating 6 deck will cost you 1,662,480¥. Its a total off 201 attribute points + 99 augmented attribute points.
(201*3200)+(99*4800)+544,080 = 643,200+475,200+544,080 = 1,662,480¥

The cheapes deck you can buy would be 5 attribute points so that means:
5500 + 5*2200 = 16,500¥ For a rating 1 deck with a 1/1/1/1 and 1 program.

This is just an idea and its something that I would like to know your opinions on as well, since I am not sure how well this will work.
If you like it then I will post the followups where I have done comlinks and RCC's as well as customizable.

MB: Motherboard
Aug: Augmented/Custom
Att: Attribute
Progs: Programs

The maximum difference between the previous number can be -1, if not the 2:nd and 3:rd number are equal then the 4:th number may be -2 lower then the 3:rd.
So 0/-1/-2/-3 or 0/-1/-1/-3
4/3/2/1 or 4/3/3/1 are the lowest decks that you can have.


Oh and these are my initial thoughts on the same system for comlinks.

| Rating	| MB	| Aug MB	| Max Att	| Max Aug Att	| Att C	| Aug Att C	| TH	| Avail	| Aug Avail
| 1	| 45	| 50	| 1	| 3	| 28	| 31	| 10	| 2	| +4R/3R
| 2	| 520	| 624	| 2	| 4	| 20	| 36	| 12	| 4	| +4R/5R
| 3	| 610	| 739	| 3	| 5	| 22	| 43	| 16	| 6	| +4R/7R
| 4	| 1800	| 2520	| 4	| 6	| 35	| 49	| 18	| 8	| +4R/9R
| 5	| 1875	| 2813	| 5	| 7	| 38	| 57	| 24	| 10	| +4R/11R
| 6	| 3320	| 5312	| 6	| 8	| 40	| 64	| 30	| 12	| +4R/12R
| 7	| 5620	| 9554	| 7	| 9	| 43	| 74	| 35	| 14	| +4R/15R

For comlinks the second attribute can at most be 1 lower then the other.

[Michael Chandra]

Just to be sure: You are aware those stats do not directly translate to the four attributes but that the wielder can decide, right?

By the way, it may be a crap deck, but it still means I can apply Virtual Machine, Exploit and Stealth to have a Sleaze of 7, and get right in with sneaky stuff. Just got to make sure not to get caught.

[Rainslicker]

Just to be sure: You are aware those stats do not directly translate to the four attributes but that the wielder can decide, right?

By the way, it may be a crap deck, but it still means I can apply Virtual Machine, Exploit and Stealth to have a Sleaze of 7, and get right in with sneaky stuff. Just got to make sure not to get caught.

I am very aware that it does not translate to that array since you can change it around as you wish, its just easier to explain if you show it that way.
I could just have written Att1, Att2, Att3, Att4. But I just wanted to represent it that way.
And indeed you can but if you are caught you are in some serious trouble but its cheap thats the good thing.

[Michael Chandra]

As long as you don't get livelocked at once, you can just pull the plug. Being able to sleaze well at 50k nuyen is quite marvelous, it means I can make a specialized Decker who puts little resources in it, or even better, gets heavily augmented and performs well in combat.

[Rainslicker]

As long as you don't get livelocked at once, you can just pull the plug. Being able to sleaze well at 50k nuyen is quite marvelous, it means I can make a specialized Decker who puts little resources in it, or even better, gets heavily augmented and performs well in combat.

Well fi you use my rules for building your own Deck then you can get away with it even cheaper.
You could even build a highly specialized deck.

Rating 1 6/1/1/1 and 3 programs.
Cost for the base 4/1/1/1 and 1 program: (4+3+2+1+3+1)*2200=30800+5500=36,300¥
Cost for the upgrade to 6/1/1/1 and 3 programs: 30800+ (6+5+3+2)*3300+6050 = 30800+(16*3300)+6050 = 30800+52800+6050=89,650¥

[Michael Chandra]

Uh... Yeah, I'm gonna pass there. I can understand letting someone customize their deck to be a bit better, but the ability to build a one-trick pony seems bad. Besides, I don't intend to houserule much, so no need for this myself. And I'm talking about an official Missions concept anyway.

[Rainslicker]

Uh... Yeah, I'm gonna pass there. I can understand letting someone customize their deck to be a bit better, but the ability to build a one-trick pony seems bad. Besides, I don't intend to houserule much, so no need for this myself. And I'm talking about an official Missions concept anyway.

Well its just an option for those of us who played back in 3rd and such and liked to customize our decks.

[Michael Chandra]

You're talking custom decks, though, not customized decks. It's an important difference, since you're not improving existing ones but making entirely-custom ones, which is the only reason a 4/1/1/1 one-trick pony is even possible.

[Rainslicker]

You're talking custom decks, though, not customized decks. It's an important difference, since you're not improving existing ones but making entirely-custom ones, which is the only reason a 4/1/1/1 one-trick pony is even possible.

I am talking both.
You can build an entire custom deck or you can customize an existing deck. its all up to you.
I would for one never go with a 4/1/1/1 deck but its a possibility to build. The "rules" I have provided for building a deck is very very close to the books, I am not far off on the costs if you use my system to build the existing decks.
I am right on the newyen for the Fairlight and the Cyber-5.
200 off on the CIY-720, 1,7k off on Tsurugi, 1,1k off on the Navigator, 1,6k off on the Chariot, 1,55k off on the Azteca 200, 300 off on the Summit and ~2k off on the Erika.

You can use this to customize an existing deck if you like or build a deck from scratch if you prefer.

[spuwdsda]

Great work.

Any thoughts on availability ratings for the motherboards and components?

[Rainslicker]

Great work.

Any thoughts on availability ratings for the motherboards and components?

Yes sorry forgot to include that I will update the post with it.

[Rainslicker]

Will add the rules for RCC, Comlinks and something I have been working on for programs.

[Michael Chandra]

Was it possible to build completely custom decks in earlier editions? I vaguely recall decks had stats that limited what upgrades you could make on them, just like you couldn't upgrade the hardware stats on a comm more than 2 steps in SR4. It's exactly this that concerns me, building custom decks opens too much space for munchkins, it's better to simply have rules for customizing and not use completely-custom systems. I believe that a 4/1/1/1 deck should never be possible to obtain, just like a 7/7/1/1 deck should never be an option.

[Rainslicker]

Was it possible to build completely custom decks in earlier editions? I vaguely recall decks had stats that limited what upgrades you could make on them, just like you couldn't upgrade the hardware stats on a comm more than 2 steps in SR4. It's exactly this that concerns me, building custom decks opens too much space for munchkins, it's better to simply have rules for customizing and not use completely-custom systems. I believe that a 4/1/1/1 deck should never be possible to obtain, just like a 7/7/1/1 deck should never be an option.

I will be honest I fail to see your concern, if you want to go for a 4/1/1/1  deck then why not? you will suck on everything and one hit will most likely fry your deck and might kill you. I dont see that as a problem.
Same as that I do not see the issue with building your own deck, its very simple for the GM to stop you from building a munchkin deck.

And if you just want to use this to upgrade your deck then thats ok, I dont mind. If you want to use it to build a deck from scratch then go ahead.
I am not forcing anyone to use this I am just providing something that I think the system lacks. I want to be able to get a better deck if I were a decker. Cyber Sams can get so many upgrades with cyber and bio ware, mages can initiate and get meta magic and adeps can turn unstoppable, not to mention mystical adepts. But a decker all it can hope for is to get 100k newyen so it can buy the next deck, this is a system that allows that decker to progress more naturally in my eyes.

So if you like it use it if you dont then just skip it, this is houserules so...

Oh and these are my initial thoughts on the same system for comlinks.

| Rating	| MB	| Aug MB	| Max Att	| Max Aug Att	| Att C	| Aug Att C	| TH	| Avail	| Aug Avail
| 1	| 45	| 50	| 1	| 3	| 28	| 31	| 10	| 2	| +4R/3R
| 2	| 520	| 624	| 2	| 4	| 20	| 36	| 12	| 4	| +4R/5R
| 3	| 610	| 739	| 3	| 5	| 22	| 43	| 16	| 6	| +4R/7R
| 4	| 1800	| 2520	| 4	| 6	| 35	| 49	| 18	| 8	| +4R/9R
| 5	| 1875	| 2813	| 5	| 7	| 38	| 57	| 24	| 10	| +4R/11R
| 6	| 3320	| 5312	| 6	| 8	| 40	| 64	| 30	| 12	| +4R/12R
| 7	| 5620	| 9554	| 7	| 9	| 43	| 74	| 35	| 14	| +4R/15R

[Michael Chandra]

Well, if you fail to see the concern, then you're right, the problem is non-existant for you. It's not traditional but you appear to realize that you're not exactly following tradition so no problem there, as long as you realize that.

(Of course it's silly to state "The GM can prevent it" since if you design the system to specifically be able to do exactly that, then it's wrong to punish the player for doing what you're deliberately allowing them to do.)