[firebug]

They've done that.  You can be upset with it if you want; you can knock a 0 off the price for your table if you want.  Go ahead; nobody's gonna stop you.  But the equipment is balanced perfectly well with previous editions except for the only one you are used to.  Your broken toy (and it WAS broken) went away; sorry.  Realize that and you'll play better with the rest of us.

I feel like you're having a bit of rose-tinted glasses yourself here, no offense meant.  The fourth edition one was ridiculous.  Hands-down, should have been part of every runner group from the beginning, hardly a reason not to, regardless of your team's expertise.

But the issue isn't really that the 5th edition one is weak...  No, it's quite good (beyond Level 1).  But the issue is it's acquirability is where it starts to fail.  And it's not like we haven't seen a similar kind of thing in 5th, where something too powerful in 4th was nerfed to stupid levels.  Technomancer PANs.  In 4th, they were completely unhackable to could run an untouchable TacNet all on their own.  Now in 5th they can't even slave devices, despite that their PAN issue wouldn't even be possible with the new matrix design...

I think it's very likely that, after bringing the power-level of the PI-Tac to a reasonable level, they went overboard and pumped up the price and availability too far.  I mean, the first level is completely rediculous.  It gives a minimum bonus for a ridiculous amount of money and is completely illegal to own.  The second level is where it starts providing actual bonuses and would at least be useful, a +1 to a combat skill, the leader shifting around 5 initiative...  +2 to someone's Firewall.  It's not massive, but it's there.  But the price...  It's probably more money than all of a Rating 5 Elite Corporate Security Lieutenant's gear (including his cyberdeck) combined.  That is just so much money for a comparably small bonus.

Sure, you say, the bonus is good because it is not unbalancing.  But please, no one here, including either Wyrm or Mithlas, should be just comparing it to 4th edition's TacNet.  The PI-Tac may be more balanced in terms of effect than the old one, but in terms of price-to-effectiveness, it's not worth it.  Even for corps, you could probably fund the training of another lieutenant for the price of that bonus to one team.  Even if you just go "Oh the corps have infinite money", which I don't think anyone would, I was of the understanding they're supposed to be

I always figured gear like this was miltech and for the opposition to use. You can't really make it payment for a run because a smart team won't trust the security on a gifted system.

-g

That's a really good point...  "You did good, now take this device that will plug into your deck and monitor your whole team.  What?  Oh, yes, it is worth far beyond the normal pay of a job like this.  No, no strings attached.  Just...  Be sure to use it."  The inevitable backdoor installed on your must-be-wireless-to-use device that records everything your teammates see and hear, and has their GPS location will be of great use the next time the Johnson who hired you wants you to work for him for free.  And the time after that, and the time after that...

Man, I don't know.  It just really seems obvious that if the only way a player group will ever get this is by saving half their money for a year instead of buying better upgrades, or else the GM just finding a way to give it to them, that there's a problem when it's not supposed to be something that players should never ever have.  Or is that it?  Am I just being a dumbass and it's just clearly intended to never be available for players ever anyways?

[adzling]

I think you hit it man, it's a way to add some power to mooks, fodder and runner enemies without pumping up their skill level.
with a good tac net and a good commander a middling to average corp sec squad could put up some good resistance to a skilled runner team.
at least that's my take on why the cost (and benefits) are so high...

[firebug]

I think you hit it man, it's a way to add some power to mooks, fodder and runner enemies without pumping up their skill level.
with a good tac net and a good commander a middling to average corp sec squad could put up some good resistance to a skilled runner team.
at least that's my take on why the cost (and benefits) are so high...

I don't think you'd need a PI-Tac for that.  +1 to their rolls and an occasional 5 initiative to one guy in a team of six wouldn't make them much more effective.  The main thing would just be a good commander and communication.  Like the security spider actually being more than just the IT guy and commanding the corpsec while the security hacker protects the WAN.  'Cause that rigger can command the entire building's security and be in the host surrounded by IC while doing so.  He can already be tracking their movements, biomonitors, weapon levels, and on top of any image links they have, he can use the cameras and what not slaved to the host.  An ¥800k device for 7 of those guards isn't going to help much.

[Lusis]

Regarding Pi-Tac I think it's silly that what is essentially an extension of augmented reality, which is supposed to permeate everything in the game world, is poo-poo'ed by the developers, especially considering that we are at the threshold of the tech in RL2014. IMO they should knock a zero or two off the cost and embrace the concept.

[Mithlas]

I think there's a lot of presumptions and assumptions - possibly on the part of the developers as well as some of the players talking about the issue. I think that it was rather strange in its ease of accessibility relative to its benefit in 4E, in 5E I think it's strange in its lack of access relative to its benefit.

Although I think that the idea of it being a mook tool isn't a bad one, I think that its price is still rather high. Remember that the vast majority of the time the PCs' enemies are going to be corporate security. Corporations tend to care about the bottom line, and keeping costs down. Would you outfit your [target compound]'s security with a tacnet costing approximately a million nuyen for some slight improvements in their performance, or would you spend two-thirds of that installing Wired Reflexes into your security team for a known and certainly not insignificant benefit?

I don't mind that things change from edition to edition, what I mind is when there's a disconnect between the crunch and fluff and one is significantly different from before - particularly when there's no logical extension to bring that difference into being.