[RHat]

We need a rep score, like the actual Shadowland/grid!

Happened once before I joined the forum; I understand a lot of people complained about it and thus it was removed.  Besides, while the website seems to have like at least 60 people viewing it at all times, the number of especially active posters is small enough that you can recognize posters and form your own opinions easily enough.
In an attempt to bring this thread's discussion closer in line with the title, I wanna ask something.

Since it seems the Device Rating of gear is largely software-based, would you allow players to spend money to upgrade the device rating of things like smartguns?  Cyberware's Device Rating goes up with its grade I believe, but most miscellaneous electronics are just kind of set at 1 or 2 I think.  Would it be worth upgrading their DR if it were possible?

I'm really not sure about the idea that DR is just software; it seems to me that, for example, the increased DR of alpha/beta/deltaware would be due at least in part to better and more expensive hardware.  Same with better commlinks...

[ZeConster]

It's called debate for a reason. If you can't support your side, then their is a flaw in the logic for your side. Knowledge is the key to any logical discussion. It isn't "a blunt weapon," and seeing it that way is probably why it bothers you. Please, put me on ignore if logical discussion is going to make you sick and annoyed.

Debates and discussions are two entirely different things.

List of those that have fallen beneath the battering of your "debate":
ImaginalDisc, RIP page 4
MaxKojote, RIP page 5
Mithlas, RIP page 5
Xenon, RIP page 7
ZeConster, RIP page 9
Insaniac99, RIP page 10
ProfessorCirno, RIP page 11
Agonar, RIP page 11
firebug, RIP page 11
RHat, not dead yet!
Kincaid, RIP page 10 (and with a miraculous comeback on Page 13 he's back in it, folks!)

Actually, in my case it's mostly due to a disagreement with someone else in another topic reaching a level where even reading other topics requires a lot of willpower on my end. I didn't even notice Wells's semantics response to my page-9 post until just now (but it does remind me of the whole "Initiative vs. Initiative" argument, and that's not a good thing).

[WellsIDidIt]

In an attempt to bring this thread's discussion closer in line with the title, I wanna ask something.

Since it seems the Device Rating of gear is largely software-based, would you allow players to spend money to upgrade the device rating of things like smartguns?  Cyberware's Device Rating goes up with its grade I believe, but most miscellaneous electronics are just kind of set at 1 or 2 I think.  Would it be worth upgrading their DR if it were possible?

It would be significantly hardware and software based. Theoretically, there should already be a pretty large gap in device ratings. An off the shelf hunters grade smartgun should be a different rating than a military grade smartgun. I don't think it would normally be worthwhile to actually upgrade a device rating, given how cheap the systems are, but it shouldn't be hard to buy a better version of the system. Using the table from p. 234, I'd say a 50% markup for every boost in DR until it hits 5. So, a military grade Image Scope (DR 4) would cost 600.

Then again, I would automatically boost weapons up by their design (personal, CorpSec, Military, Black Ops) automatically like vehicles and other devices are stated to be.

[Mithlas]

Since it seems the Device Rating of gear is largely software-based, would you allow players to spend money to upgrade the device rating of things like smartguns?  Cyberware's Device Rating goes up with its grade I believe, but most miscellaneous electronics are just kind of set at 1 or 2 I think.  Would it be worth upgrading their DR if it were possible?

You can't quite do this in 4E where we have the expansion books for this material, but you can get close. Given that device rating is a little more important in 5E, I would expect such options to be in Data Trails. I personally don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible (at least in limited extents), but I'm not sure it would be worth the expense.

[Agonar]

Since it seems the Device Rating of gear is largely software-based, would you allow players to spend money to upgrade the device rating of things like smartguns?  Cyberware's Device Rating goes up with its grade I believe, but most miscellaneous electronics are just kind of set at 1 or 2 I think.  Would it be worth upgrading their DR if it were possible?

You can't quite do this in 4E where we have the expansion books for this material, but you can get close. Given that device rating is a little more important in 5E, I would expect such options to be in Data Trails. I personally don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible (at least in limited extents), but I'm not sure it would be worth the expense.

The expense of it is a large factor.  I agree that it should be feasible.. but, I know my character would rather just have a second Ares Predator waiting in case the first is bricked, than spend who knows how much money one or two extra defense dice in hacking tests.

A Determined Hacker won't be stopped by an extra die or two, but imagine when their look of victory turns to horror as you pull out a replacement Predator and have at them.

[ProfessorCirno]

We need a rep score, like the actual Shadowland/grid!

We had one.  Bad things happened.

Yeah, in my experience, rep scores or "EXP systems" or being able to give comments "likes" inevitably just leads to extreme cliques and terrible cheerleading.

Also I stopped posting because frankly I'm too busy doing other things (which include two SR5 games, though both online.  I think I just launched an Americar into orbit in one.  Wanna talk about stuff that's broken, try bringing up Speed and the Momentum power!)) to beat my head against this brick wall any further.  I've said my share, the response was to ignore it and continue spouting the exact same things.  That's my signal to do something more productive.

...Like turn getaway cars into deep space exploration vehicles.

[Insaniac99]

Since it seems the Device Rating of gear is largely software-based, would you allow players to spend money to upgrade the device rating of things like smartguns?  Cyberware's Device Rating goes up with its grade I believe, but most miscellaneous electronics are just kind of set at 1 or 2 I think.  Would it be worth upgrading their DR if it were possible?

You can't quite do this in 4E where we have the expansion books for this material, but you can get close. Given that device rating is a little more important in 5E, I would expect such options to be in Data Trails. I personally don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible (at least in limited extents), but I'm not sure it would be worth the expense.

The expense of it is a large factor.  I agree that it should be feasible.. but, I know my character would rather just have a second Ares Predator waiting in case the first is bricked, than spend who knows how much money one or two extra defense dice in hacking tests.

A Determined Hacker won't be stopped by an extra die or two, but imagine when their look of victory turns to horror as you pull out a replacement Predator and have at them.

I'd allow it if a player asked and offer a mark-up, but I'd encourage they just invest in a top of the line commlink.

[firebug]

A higher device rating on something also gives it more matrix condition boxes.  Plus they DR to resist matrix damage.  Their own, too, I don't think you can use the Master's device rating, since you're not making a "defense test" and it's not one of it's matrix attributes.

[martinchaen]

SR4 had the option to upgrade a commlinks stats (Response, System, Firewall, and Signal) independently. While the same mechanic might work for a device in SR, to my mind it'd have to be something like upgrading data processing and firewall, and as a result of that having the mechanical device rating of the device rating increase if both stats were upgraded.

Given how expensive decks are, however, I'm not sure it's going to be possible to implement without unbalancing the decks (i.e. I think it'd have to be balanced in such a way that a decker can't just buy the cheapest deck there is and upgrade all of the stats to 6s for far less than the best deck out there). That might be a tricky proposition; somewhere between 10 and 100% of base cost * new rating, or * rating increase?

So upgrading the cheapest deck we'd be looking at 4 3 2 1 stats. To bring it to a device rating 2, upgrade the lowest stat so that all stats are two or higher. In the extremes proposed, that means 2 * 10% * 49500 = 9900 or 2 * 100 * 49500 = 99000. The first puts the total cost of the device at 59400, which is slightly more than the second cheapest deck which has 4 3 3 1 stats. If the latter suggestion was used, it'd be just 4950 for the one rating increase, which definitely seems too cheap.

Bringing an Erika MCD-1 (4 3 2 1, base cost 49,500) up to the level of a Fairlight Excalibur (9 8 7 6, base cost of 823,250) would mean raising four stats by 5, which in the first example presented above would be the equivalent of (9 * 4950) + (8 * 4950) + (6 * 4950) + (7 * 4950) =  44550 + 39600 + 34650 + 29700 = 148,500, for a total investment cost of 198,000. To me, this means that new ratings needs to be more expensive than 10% of base cost * new rating.

Using the same example, at 20% of base cost * new rating the total investment would  be 301950, so closer, but not quite there.
At 30%, 495000
At 40%, 643500
At 50%, 792000

Using the same logic for, say, an Ares Alpha with base device rating 2 (meaning data processing 2 and firewall 2) and a base cost of 2650, the same logic could be applied. Upgrading to device rating 3 would mean upping DP and FW to 3, or 2 * (3 * 265|530|795|1060|1325), depending on percentage used.

At 10%, 2650 + 795 + 795 = 4240
At 20%, 2650 + 1590 + 1590 = 5830
At 30%, 2650 + 2385 + 2385 = 7420
At 40%, 2650 + 3180 + 3180 = 9010
At 50%, 2650 + 3975 + 3975 = 10600

At first, 10 grand might seem like a lot for a measly Ares Alpha, but this puts it in line with the cost of upgrading the most basic deck in the world to a state of the art supercomputer. You'd essentially have a DR6 rifle, which is pretty unheard of.

Based on my math above, I'd allow upgrading Attack, Data Processing, Firewall, and Sleaze rating (leading to an increase in device rating based on the lowest common denominator) for cyberdecks and Data Processing and Firewall for all other devices (with a similar DR increase) using the  50% of base cost * new rating system.

[Kincaid]

For the sake of simplicity, I simply have "alpha" guns and "beta" guns, using the same availability and cost modifiers as the cyberware.  The chart on 234 mentions rating 5 being "black ops-level," so if my runners ever went up against a SF team (which would be terrible and messy), I'd probably have them using "delta" weapons.

[martinchaen]

Elegant, Kincaid. I like it.

The availability is a nice way of doing it, though the ubiquitous Ares Alpha would still be F, just a little harder to get. Alpha (DR3) would be 13F, Beta (DR4) would be 15F, and Delta (DR5) would be 19F.

At average intelligence, you are in fact not getting through that firewall without some difficulty - and part of the rarity is that the gear isn't at all freaking common.

(Edit:  I've corrected a typo, but I just want to leave this here as a monument to the irony of my misspelling "intelligence")

I've been reading through the thread, and while I didn't want to respond to any of the earlier posts this one just has to be highlighted.

Owning one's mistakes. LIKE A BOSS! I salute you, RHat, that was cool...

[ImaginalDisc]

It's not logical.  And it's not a debate.  This is a discussion about how wireless works with weapons.  And you are using your knowledge as a blunt weapon because if you'll notice the number of people that have dropped out of this thread since you started up on Page 4 is staggering.

List of those that have fallen beneath the battering of your "debate":
ImaginalDisc, RIP page 4

I'm here, I'm just eating popcorn.

[ImaginalDisc]

For the sake of simplicity, I simply have "alpha" guns and "beta" guns, using the same availability and cost modifiers as the cyberware.  The chart on 234 mentions rating 5 being "black ops-level," so if my runners ever went up against a SF team (which would be terrible and messy), I'd probably have them using "delta" weapons.

That's rather elegant.

On the other hand I may err on the side of as little deviation from the rules here as possible. Unless a new weapon is exceptionally sophisticated I'll leave it device rating 2. A navy vessel's point defense gun, a laser, or something else exotic may qualify for a 3 device rating.

Anything with sophisticated guidance equipment I will handle as a drone.