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Better Than Bad Errata

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Luciferos

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« on: <11-28-18/1654:44> »
First Better Than Bad errata question: the Great Greyware Question.

Greyware specifically says in its description that it's "Cheaper, more available (for now), and costs less essence than alphaware."

The book then proceeds to list a chart that shows only Standard and Alphaware in which they seem to have forgotten what Alphaware's cost multiplier is (1.2x) because Greyware is listed as 1.3x.

Considering the meaningful but small essence savings and meaningful but small availability improvement in exchange for the laundry list of limitations and disadvantages of the 'ware grade, shouldn't it actually cost less than alphaware as was apparently intended by the writer's description of it?

Ixal

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« Reply #1 on: <11-28-18/1810:59> »
First Better Than Bad errata question: the Great Greyware Question.

Greyware specifically says in its description that it's "Cheaper, more available (for now), and costs less essence than alphaware."

The book then proceeds to list a chart that shows only Standard and Alphaware in which they seem to have forgotten what Alphaware's cost multiplier is (1.2x) because Greyware is listed as 1.3x.

Considering the meaningful but small essence savings and meaningful but small availability improvement in exchange for the laundry list of limitations and disadvantages of the 'ware grade, shouldn't it actually cost less than alphaware as was apparently intended by the writer's description of it?

It probably should mean betaware.

Luciferos

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« Reply #2 on: <11-28-18/2033:11> »

It probably should mean betaware.

That still doesn't line up with the description, as it costs more essence than Betaware. It's pretty clear they were talking about Alphaware. Greyware has a whole host of disadvantages, too - and you can't use it on stuff where one or more of those disadvantages don't apply. It should really be cheaper than alphaware from a balance standpoint, as well, because the downsides of it with a 1.3 cost multiplier make it relatively nonviable even with choices where it otherwise might be.

For example, Wired Reflexes seem like a good place to save some essence with Greyware. Except with the Wireless bonus off, you can never stack them with Reaction Enhancers, which are their main benefit - breaking the +4 augmax limit. Thus, a Greyware Rating 2 Wireless Reflexes (193,700 NuYen, 2.25 Essence, 12R, still needs to be turned on with a Complex action due to no wireless bonus) is worse in every conceivable way to a Rating 2 Standard Synaptic Booster (190,000 NuYen, 1.0 essence, 12R).

That's not to say there are NO pieces of gear where it's useful with the 1.3x cost multiplier (Reaction Enhancers without Wired Reflexes come to mind), but for the most part it prices itself out of many of its otherwise niche uses by being pricier than alpha-grade while being an inferior piece of equipment.

Opti

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« Reply #3 on: <11-28-18/2232:58> »
Author here. Original intent was to have it be cheaper, but through playtesting and talking, it became obvious a .75 multiplier was just too good. So there was some balance changes made, but the text change didn't happen as intended.

change text to: "It is cheaper and more readily available than betaware (at least for now), and costs less essence than alphaware, at the expense of having no wireless capabilities, being very obvious, and being incompatible with awakened individuals’ physiology. "

&#24525;

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« Reply #4 on: <11-29-18/0025:41> »
The writer chiming in? That almost never happens... :O

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #5 on: <11-29-18/0030:38> »
Why, I remember in the old days when SR5 was just freshly released and we had several writers chime up regarding things! *Feels old*
How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!

Luciferos

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« Reply #6 on: <11-30-18/0104:48> »
Author here. Original intent was to have it be cheaper, but through playtesting and talking, it became obvious a .75 multiplier was just too good. So there was some balance changes made, but the text change didn't happen as intended.

change text to: "It is cheaper and more readily available than betaware (at least for now), and costs less essence than alphaware, at the expense of having no wireless capabilities, being very obvious, and being incompatible with awakened individuals’ physiology. "

Curious to hear some examples of where the essence benefit became too good, to get a different take and perspective on it. When I was going through the list of ware, examining the cost/benefit analysis for every piece of Cyberware with this new grade, it didn't really seem especially good at that price point because of the downsides you suffer for having the extra 5% essence cost reduction. Cyberlimbs are an obvious example, and saving 0.2 essence on four cyberlimbs is neat, but permanently losing wireless functionality for all of the gizmos that go into limbs is not so neat, because gizmos in your limbs is one of their best features.

Reaction Enhancers are another one that benefit nicely from Greyware (assuming you don't plan on ever taking Wired Reflexes). There are a few others that are O.K. Dermal Plating gets a nice buff, but Dermal Plating is also a terrible, weak, awful mod in the first place. Internal Air Tank not being able to on/off as a Free Action (being a Simple instead) is a minor nerf. There'a also a handful of spots where it lets you niche in an item at character creation that you couldn't as Alphaware due to the +2 availability, but this is yet again a very narrow area of benefit.

But for the most part, my testing came up with a long litany of cyberware where either (a) you can't actually use it to get the benefit (Bone Lacing, for example) or (b) it hard-nerfs the cyberware because of the loss of Wireless bonuses that are the one big mechanical advantage of cyberware over bioware. Cybereyes seem neat until you realize that all the dice pool bonuses for the stuff you'd stick into cybereyes to save Essence are Wireless bonuses. Likewise, Attention Coprocessor loses its primary benefit. Control Rigs permanently lose the ability to jump in without using datacables and their Noise Reduction bonus. Skilljacks take a hard nerf, both in capacity and ability to interface with the Skillsoft Network. Wired Reflexes - the item that would theoretically benefit the MOST from this grade due to their base 12R - are completely pointless because Greyware WR are just flat-out inferior to virtually every other Initiative booster. (Even Boosted Reflexes stacks with Reaction Enhancers, and BR+RE is about equal to R1 Greyware Wired Reflexes in cost and essence while being vastly superior). All melee weapon-ware that had wireless bonuses to deploy as Free actions take hard nerfs because melee is a Complex action. Move By Wire Rating 1 Greyware can be nabbed at character creation which is neat except...Rating 1 is really a very bad item - and a Greyware MBW needs an Internal Router to be able to utilize the Skillsoft functionality at all. Internal Routers would really benefit from Greyware except.....they can't.

Furthermore, unless Greyware is immune to the new Zapper Rounds/DumDums/etc from Kill Code - which isn't stated, so I assume they still have Matrix Boxes + DataProc+Firewall attributes as they ARE devices - they can't even benefit from sitting behind a PAN's enhanced defenses, making you more vulnerable to getting the floor mopped with you by modern anti-cyberware weaponry.

And so on, and so forth. There are many, many downsides to Greyware and there are very few cases I could find where the upsides justify it costing more than alpha - and even in these cases, that nice niche boost for mundanes really doesn't seem game-breaking.

TL;DR: what I found when I went down the list of every cyberware is that while there are a few ware that slot really nicely with Greyware - under certain conditions - most of the ones where you can even use this new grade are generally worse items as Greyware than Alphaware, in spite of the slight essence gains, because cyberware is so reliant on Wireless bonuses to be good, and most of the cyberware that ISN'T reliant on any wireless bonus to be good is internal-only drek that doesn't meet the criteria to even be taken as Greyware.

Would like to see what I'm missing from the opposing point of view of the group who did the research and found the opposite.
« Last Edit: <11-30-18/0127:24> by Luciferos »

Crimsondude

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« Reply #7 on: <11-30-18/0129:25> »
There are more than 20 Aegis Cognito offices, but Praetoria was one of the first 20.