Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Antique on <09-11-19/1658:04>
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Correct me if I am wrong:
Every device that can be linked to a PAN include info such as serial number, where/when it was bought and by whom. So any cops checking up on you see if the car you're driving belong to you. Same for that gun and cyber arm you got at a shady street doc...
So what do you need to do to change that?
First what is needed to get the device to broadcast something different.
Second I am Assuming that although each Corp keep track of each sale and registration they do not give access to this data to other Corp? So the cops cant double check that the device broadcast is legit?
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Illegally changing ownership on stolen/looted gear was a thing in 5e. It was an extended Hardware Test against a threshold of 24. 6we refers to changing ownership, but doesn't call out a specific mechanic. You could just carry over 5e's old benchmark, and of course the skill should be Electronics in this edition.
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"It's my cousin's, he let me borrow it."
"It's a rental officer."
Possession, still 9/10ths of the law.
Yes Matrix forensics is going to be able to dig down and give the game up. But most of a Runner's gear is going to have traveled through some shady channels already. Intense Matrix scrutiny of an item's history isn't going to go well for a lot of things in a Runner's kit.
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IRL every gun has a serial number. How do people get away with illegal weapons? There are a LOT of reasons. Research them. It’s pretty interesting.
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Another possible problem for this: in 5e, anyone could Trace the Location of any device they owned. So could anyone with the appropriate permission (IE enough marks). So, the owner of that car you stole could find out where it is, and let Lone Star/KE also run a trace.
I dunno about 6we, but I think it's safe to assume that if you're stealing something, you'll need to do something about its owner/their commlink.
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Turn off wireless. Take back streets. Fence it. 8)
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"It's my cousin's, he let me borrow it."
I think the main effect is that the device will immediately show up as stolen if it has been reported as such. But what if the original owner is dead or a criminal? Or both? It's not going to be reported, so it could be borrowed.
Of course if the police is suspicious and checks, and finds that the true owner is dead, they're going to have some hard questions for you. Avoiding that is where social skills come in, but at some point you're going to meet a cop who's not going to fall for it and check anyway.
So I think theft will work great for the short term, but won't be sustainable for long. (Please FBI, don't read me saying this.)
Yes Matrix forensics is going to be able to dig down and give the game up. But most of a Runner's gear is going to have traveled through some shady channels already. Intense Matrix scrutiny of an item's history isn't going to go well for a lot of things in a Runner's kit.
That's another issue: how much of your gear will stand up to that kind of scrutiny? Is it registered to one of your fake SINs? Is it the one you're currently broadcasting or one of the others? The police might think you've stolen it from yourself. Stumbling into an overly diligent cop at the wrong time could end up costing you two fake SINs, and not just one.
Disabling a device's wireless so it's not broadcasting any ownership info will work very well for easily concealable items. Not so much for a car, though.
May players err on the safe side and don't loot anything. Well, nearly anything; they just killed a serial killer who happens to have a slightly more upgraded version of the same rifle that the street sam had shot from his hands by an APDS round in the same fight, so they're going to see if they can combine both of them into a single functioning rifle registered to the right SIN again. Also, the killer had expensive ammo which would be a waste to just leave lying there.
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Turn off wireless. Take back streets. Fence it. 8)
According to 6e 50% of all bullets sold have RFID tags in, so it seems unlikely that items as big and expensive as, say, guns, or cars, or someone's commlink don't have them. And you can't turn wireless off on those.
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Looting has always been a bad idea, so I don't mind it. 8)
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Looting has always been a bad idea, so I don't mind it. 8)
Oh for sure, my goddamned PCs would take anything not nailed down if it weren't for the threat of stealth RFID tags. I'm OK with RFID tags being everywhere - or even in just enough places to put the fear into them.
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I would just create an admin hack program loosely based on a VPN. The major difference is that the hack would attack the computer of the stolen vehicle or device, steal the proper identification of the owner and broadcast it over the matrix to anyone that might be watching. Kind of like how a VPN broadcasts a server location from somewhere you are not. An extended test would be appropriate but a threshold of 24 seems a bit high.
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Another tactic of note is to use an EM shielded container to hold your stolen loot in. Even if it's broadcasting a tattletale signal, at least it won't go anywhere while you sit on the hot loot.
And other point that's rather important is it's important from a meta-sense that stolen gear is hard to assume "legit" ownership of. You're supposed to make your money at the pleasure of Mr Johnson, not by murderhobo-ing. It's a feature, not a bug, that you earn nickels on the nuyen when you sell looted cyberware and cyberdecks.
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Another tactic of note is to use an EM shielded container to hold your stolen loot in. Even if it's broadcasting a tattletale signal, at least it won't go anywhere while you sit on the hot loot.
And other point that's rather important is it's important from a meta-sense that stolen gear is hard to assume "legit" ownership of. You're supposed to make your money at the pleasure of Mr Johnson, not by murderhobo-ing. It's a feature, not a bug, that you earn nickels on the nuyen when you sell looted cyberware and cyberdecks.
Personally don't have problem with acquisition of loot. Think there should be reasonable consequences for the attempt, though. If you're in the middle of a high-sec corp facility, trying to drag along that corp-sec corpse to have one of your contacts chop up his ware for resale....probably not going to end well for you.
If you geek some gangers in low-sec area and one or two of them have some chrome, along with any weapons they're using, wouldn't see a single thing wrong with them throwing the stuff into a GMC Bulldog to take to a Contact to turn in for a lil extra nuyen. Of course, that means added risk if they happen to get stopped by Knight Errant or Lone Star (depending on location), but I wouldn't artificially bump up the odds of them running into a patrol, any more than normal play.
This also goes into the territory of player versus character. For me, if someone wants to play a face, but lacks social skills in real life, I will not penalize them for not being able to RP the faces knowledge and stats. I will allow them to state they want to do a negotiation check for more money, if that is the extent of what they want their Character, who is max charisma and influence out of chargen, to do. Same with loot. If players want to loot a corpse, and their character would know that it incurs additional risks, I may remind the player that, "Hey, given that your character knows this guy is Knight Errant, you would have fairly high level of confidence most of his gear is traceable via matrix or sporting stealth RFID tags. There are ways around it, but your characters would want to account for it unless they wanted a visit from KE."
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Also, given the prices of most ware out of chargen, and given the payout of most runs, not against using a contact to migrate ware form one body to next, or a talismonger giving a discount on a foci of an appropriate tradition in exchange for one found on an enemy. I mean, there are in game rules, in lore contacts SPECIFICALLY for fencing gear and buying bodies with ware in them. That's not even accounting for selling the raw meat to go to Ghoul groups.
The real question for me, is if you managed to do all the legwork, fry the RFID, change owner at Admin level, of Delta grade cyberware....does it immediately degrade to Used when transplanted?
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does it immediately degrade to Used when transplanted?
Isn't that the definition of Used? That it is second hand....? That it was configured and customized for someone else's body. And this is the reason why it cost less resources but more essence.
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does it immediately degrade to Used when transplanted?
Isn't that the definition of Used? That it is second hand....? That it was configured and customized for someone else's body. And this is the reason why it cost less resources but more essence.
Yeah...part where I get cognitive dissonance is, I assume fluff wise, materials and components in Delta > Beta > Alpha > Standard, if that is the case, shouldn't there be an used (Alpha), used (Beta), used (Delta), and then just used (standard), or would it be that they're already made from higher grade components and processes, they could be 'reattuned' to your specific biology?
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does it immediately degrade to Used when transplanted?
Isn't that the definition of Used? That it is second hand....? That it was configured and customized for someone else's body. And this is the reason why it cost less resources but more essence.
That's my take.
To further discourage my players from breaking down every corpse they make for parts, I also say:
1) all cyberware becomes Used immediately, regardless of previous normal/alpha/beta/delta status. What makes alpha/beta/delta special is how well they are engineered and customised for you, not anything inherent (and transferable) in the 'ware itself.
2) the listed price for cyberware is partly parts and partly labour. You're only getting fence value on the "parts" part. For invasive whole-body ware, like wired reflexes, the labour is a lot of the cost.
3) it's illegal stuff anyway, so even before the above you're only getting pennies on the dollar as it has to be rendered untraceable, stealth RFIDs eliminated, etc.
For example, they took out someone with ~1.25 M¥ of alpha/betaware, used a chop shop to dispose of the body, and walked off with maybe a few tens of k¥ in extra money for the cyber the chop shop took off her.
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I would absolutely not allow a PC to bypass acquisition rolls for high grade cyberware by implanting looted ware.
You killed a guard with Deltaware and had it implanted yourself? It's used grade now.
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Unless you find a guard that's genetically almost your twin it would never work. And that's assuming it's not too assimilated to not get damaged in extraction.
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So, lets play with that scenario of Delta-Ware from a corp goon.
Agreed, unaltered, it would be used, based upon the discussions we've had. Is there no precedence for realigning the 'Ware to a different genetic profile? You're telling me the corps wouldn't reclaim their operatives remains and try to recoup the investment of the ware from the body? That a procedure to 'recycle' or 'realign' the Delta Ware had never even been considered by the corps?
Given the fluff on the corps, seems very wasteful given their strong profit/power focus.
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I’m suggesting the process of “realigning” it - in terms of effort and expense - is no different to what makes deltaware special in the first place. Hence, if you strip deltaware out of someone and want to put it in someone else and it still count as deltaware, then that process is no easier and no cheaper than if you took brand new off the shelf ordinary grade stuff and put that into someone as deltaware.
Think of it as: the secret sauce in alpha/beta/delta ‘ware is the install and customisation process, not the thing itself.
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I'd imagine anyone who's ever used a refurbished smartphone understands the peril of using refurbished cyberware.
And judging what the Corps would do only goes so far. There's no reason to believe that if a given piece of deltaware costs X hundred thousand nuyen for a shadowrunner to get, that it costs that same amount of resources for a corp to get. Heck, a megacorp can just use in-house brands of cyberware at whatever cost it is to manufacture. Of course they'd still bill MSRP against their employees' salaries...
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If you buy sensors you pay more than some drones cost even if they have them included. So yeah the corps usually are cheaper off themselves. Especially since they already own delta clinics for the elite management so they have some spare slots and resources for their elite forces.
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Hmm, thanks for the responses. Haven't gotten to read a lot of lore/fluff around Cyberware and it's grades. What ya'll say makes sense, though. Any splat books or lit that kind of delve into the specifics of Cyber and Bio?
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An old 2e SB called Shadowtech has the seminal lore about bioware, and it's got a lot of good background info on cyberware too.
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An old 2e SB called Shadowtech has the seminal lore about bioware, and it's got a lot of good background info on cyberware too.
thanks, chummer
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What ya'll say makes sense, though. Any splat books or lit that kind of delve into the specifics of Cyber and Bio?
I will add the caveat that -- unless MC or SSDR know better -- I don't think what I wrote above is exactly canon. I don't think it contradicts canon, but it does extend it a little bit to curb looting.
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What ya'll say makes sense, though. Any splat books or lit that kind of delve into the specifics of Cyber and Bio?
I will add the caveat that -- unless MC or SSDR know better -- I don't think what I wrote above is exactly canon. I don't think it contradicts canon, but it does extend it a little bit to curb looting.
According to Man and Machine (3E), deltaware implants are always custom built, and literally get wired as they are implanted "to ensure perfect compatibility and flawless construction". It goes on to say that secondhand deltaware is considered beta grade in its new host.
Also (at least as far as 3E went), removing a cybernetic implant from it's owner incurred automatic and permanent damage to the implant. It seems rather dubious that a corp would have an operative important enough to give delta grade implants to, but use a damaged implant. Would they try to pass it off onto a runner that managed to negotiate access to their facilities? Hmm...
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What ya'll say makes sense, though. Any splat books or lit that kind of delve into the specifics of Cyber and Bio?
I will add the caveat that -- unless MC or SSDR know better -- I don't think what I wrote above is exactly canon. I don't think it contradicts canon, but it does extend it a little bit to curb looting.
According to Man and Machine (3E), deltaware implants are always custom built, and literally get wired as they are implanted "to ensure perfect compatibility and flawless construction". It goes on to say that secondhand deltaware is considered beta grade in its new host.
Also (at least as far as 3E went), removing a cybernetic implant from it's owner incurred automatic and permanent damage to the implant. It seems rather dubious that a corp would have an operative important enough to give delta grade implants to, but use a damaged implant. Would they try to pass it off onto a runner that managed to negotiate access to their facilities? Hmm...
I think that was kind of what I was poking at from the corp greed angle, I'd imagine reclaimed delta ware would be resold as beta ware, then. Also, if they did act upon that, wouldn't a corp want to research how to make the ware more durable for their agents, so that upon recycling it, it wouldn't necessarily degrade?
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I would imagine they have researched it, and it's either currently impossible or extremely unreliable.
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According to Man and Machine (3E), deltaware implants are always custom built, and literally get wired as they are implanted "to ensure perfect compatibility and flawless construction". It goes on to say that secondhand deltaware is considered beta grade in its new host.
Also (at least as far as 3E went), removing a cybernetic implant from it's owner incurred automatic and permanent damage to the implant. It seems rather dubious that a corp would have an operative important enough to give delta grade implants to, but use a damaged implant. Would they try to pass it off onto a runner that managed to negotiate access to their facilities? Hmm...
I think that was kind of what I was poking at from the corp greed angle, I'd imagine reclaimed delta ware would be resold as beta ware, then. Also, if they did act upon that, wouldn't a corp want to research how to make the ware more durable for their agents, so that upon recycling it, it wouldn't necessarily degrade?
I don't think it degrades, but rather that it's been custom built and tuned for someone who is not the new recipient. If you want it to be delta grade, you need to put in the extra work (and cost) to tune it to the new recipient.