[kirk]

So JoeNapalm,

Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? 

[Chrona]

So JoeNapalm,
Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? 

No reason my non-Rigger Street Sam can't do it, but even at ¥2000 with my smaller dice pool, that's more than I want to spend risk on something that another teammate should be covering.

[JoeNapalm]

So JoeNapalm,

Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? 

Reductio ad absurdum.

That said, our Mage, Rigger, and Hacker have not yet needed a firearm, though they own them for a rainy day. (Our Rigger has used the point-defense system mounted on our main vehicle on one occasion...it wasn't really necessary but he's a rogue Air-Defense AI and the bad guys had a sniper team leaping from one roof top to another while he had the point defense powered up and he felt like a little skeet shooting.)

As Bull said - other archetypes can use these things, but then why have a dedicated Hacker or Rigger? My Merc is there to handle the bang-bang - if the Rigger wants to play with his Drones so I don't have to, that leaves me free to do my own job...and if I'm doing my job right, the Rigger shouldn't have to worry about anything but doing his.

[EDIT - Chrona +1!]

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Chrona]

[EDIT - Chrona +1!]
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

Thank you =P

[kirk]

So JoeNapalm,

Shooting is the street sam's job. Does that mean only the street sam should buy guns? 

Reductio ad absurdum.

That said, our Mage, Rigger, and Hacker have not yet needed a firearm, though they own them for a rainy day. (Our Rigger has used the point-defense system mounted on our main vehicle on one occasion...it wasn't really necessary but he's a rogue Air-Defense AI and the bad guys had a sniper team leaping from one roof top to another while he had the point defense powered up and he felt like a little skeet shooting.)

As Bull said - other archetypes can use these things, but then why have a dedicated Hacker or Rigger? My Merc is there to handle the bang-bang - if the Rigger wants to play with his Drones so I don't have to, that leaves me free to do my own job...and if I'm doing my job right, the Rigger shouldn't have to worry about anything but doing his.

first, another +1 Chrona - nicely phrased. And ironically though unintentionally supporting my point.

I've lost more things to single points of failure, especially SPoFs that were the responsibilities of others, than I care to think about. My nominally non-combat characters carry guns for those times. There are a small handful of drones that get me enhancements my rigger may think unimportant or further down the priority list. I don't want to be the rigger if I'm the mage or the street sam or the face or ...  I DO want to use any tools that make me better (first) and that cover what I think are SPoFs (second). And there are drones that do exactly that.

Unlike Magic, I don't need the specialist to use them, or at least most of what they bring to the party. (Which makes my TM sad, by the way.)

[UmaroVI]

You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?

[JoeNapalm]

You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?

Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.

Saying that Street Samurai don't need to used Drones, as Drones are the primary role of Riggers, is not the same thing as saying that only Street Samurai should have firearms. Riggers are still Shadowrunners, and Shadowrunners tend to be armed.

I never said that non-Street Samurai characters shouldn't carry weapons, and therefore I'm not even going to take that bait. No one is saying that but Kirk, who is trying to imply that I'm saying it so he can argue against that, rather than my actual comment.

Kirk, fix your quotes. You're making it look like I'm arguing with myself (which I do, but generally not out loud  ).


-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[kirk]

You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?

Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.

Saying that Street Samurai don't need to used Drones, as Drones are the primary role of Riggers, is not the same thing as saying that only Street Samurai should have firearms. Riggers are still Shadowrunners, and Shadowrunners tend to be armed.

I never said that non-Street Samurai characters shouldn't carry weapons, and therefore I'm not even going to take that bait. No one is saying that but Kirk, who is trying to imply that I'm saying it so he can argue against that, rather than my actual comment.

Kirk, fix your quotes. You're making it look like I'm arguing with myself (which I do, but generally not out loud  ).

But it's so FUN to watch you argue with yourself.    (fixed - PIMF, TGFE)

And while you never said non-street samurai characters shouldn't carry weapons, you did use the argument that if you have someone to do a role there is no need to do anything or get any gear that is perceived as being part of the other guys' job.

Since my core argument is and was that some of that gear is individually useful, I'm claiming your argument is somewhat congruent with the absurd no guns unless a street sam position.

To rephrase, this is what it looks like to me.

Me: This gear will get you bonuses; this gear will help keep you alive when things go pearshaped; this gear lets you get things done even when you're not there.
[general response]: But it's Rigger gear.
Me: So?
[general response]: The rigger can get +4 or +5, but I can only get +1 or +2.

As Fastjack said, we've agreed to disagree: I think +1 or +2 can make a difference, he thinks that if you can't get the +5 don't bother. (Note, using those as sample numbers, not actual.) Everything else in this thread since that statement is a variation on those four statements.

If you don't want to use them, it's your character.

[Crash_00]

Personally, the entire time I've played shadowrun, I've failed to accept the normal "team" feeling that many groups adhere too. My characters tend to be live fast and trust no one types as the genre and job requires in my opinion. As such, if I can use a bit of gear to better myself, I do. Ya, mr. rigger may do it better, but I'll be damned if i'm going to rely on him or trust him anymore than I have too.

Given, I also have tendency of making characters that can solo many encounters with little to no problem, but I always felt that shadowrunners would strive to be at the top of all their job's aspects (not just their role in a team oriented job).

Every rule-of-thumb measure we use has been "this doubles in that amount of time." Exponential growth, not linear. Theoretical limits keep getting pushed back as they're reached in practice.  An iPhone G3 has more processing power and more memory than a Cray I, an iPad outdoes the 1985 Cray 2, and both do what was theoretically impossible back in 1985.  We do things in cheap games today that were, well, science fiction less than a generation ago.

You have to be careful when refferring to computers because their are two major areas of interest: Hardware and Software. Hardware development tends to grow exponentially at a very fast rate (usually six months to a year), but Software tends to develop at a much slower rate (seven to fifteen years for true advancements).

A lot of what we have today with hardware was seen as impossible by people back in the sixties, but most people that were leading the industry expected hardware to develop as fast as it has been by the eighties. (Many modern wristwatches have more power in them than the first moon landing shuttle).

Software advances would have been impossible in the eighties, only because of the processing power they would have required. Much of the algorithms used in modern software was around in the eighties, just not useful because it was so expensive.

AI has developed even slower than most software fields. That said, simulating AI has boomed with the video game industry. I've coded bots for many hard collision games, and giving the character a "path" to run and telling it to avoid any obstacles that crop up is simple. Its not even hard to have the bots fix the "paths" for efficiency as they avoid obstacles.

Now, that said, by the 2040s (when I would assume drones would start cropping up in SR and be physically controlled) we should see to software cycles at least. I really don't think anything that advanced should have to roll at all to avoid an obstacle along a set path.

[kirk]

Personally, the entire time I've played shadowrun, I've failed to accept the normal "team" feeling that many groups adhere too. My characters tend to be live fast and trust no one types as the genre and job requires in my opinion. As such, if I can use a bit of gear to better myself, I do. Ya, mr. rigger may do it better, but I'll be damned if i'm going to rely on him or trust him anymore than I have too.

Given, I also have tendency of making characters that can solo many encounters with little to no problem, but I always felt that shadowrunners would strive to be at the top of all their job's aspects (not just their role in a team oriented job).

Every rule-of-thumb measure we use has been "this doubles in that amount of time." Exponential growth, not linear. Theoretical limits keep getting pushed back as they're reached in practice.  An iPhone G3 has more processing power and more memory than a Cray I, an iPad outdoes the 1985 Cray 2, and both do what was theoretically impossible back in 1985.  We do things in cheap games today that were, well, science fiction less than a generation ago.

You have to be careful when refferring to computers because their are two major areas of interest: Hardware and Software. Hardware development tends to grow exponentially at a very fast rate (usually six months to a year), but Software tends to develop at a much slower rate (seven to fifteen years for true advancements).

A lot of what we have today with hardware was seen as impossible by people back in the sixties, but most people that were leading the industry expected hardware to develop as fast as it has been by the eighties. (Many modern wristwatches have more power in them than the first moon landing shuttle).

Software advances would have been impossible in the eighties, only because of the processing power they would have required. Much of the algorithms used in modern software was around in the eighties, just not useful because it was so expensive.

AI has developed even slower than most software fields. That said, simulating AI has boomed with the video game industry. I've coded bots for many hard collision games, and giving the character a "path" to run and telling it to avoid any obstacles that crop up is simple. Its not even hard to have the bots fix the "paths" for efficiency as they avoid obstacles.

Now, that said, by the 2040s (when I would assume drones would start cropping up in SR and be physically controlled) we should see to software cycles at least. I really don't think anything that advanced should have to roll at all to avoid an obstacle along a set path.

The disparity (and others such as bandwidth doubling rate and memory measures doubling and...) is why I didn't use actual numbers. However, I'm not sure I agree with the seven to fifteen year rates.  I'd buy three to seven, however. I'm also going to beat you to the punch by noting "it depends on your definition of advance".

I'm going to repeat one specific drone-related item, though.  Airliners have had autopilots that would land their aircraft without the pilot touching the stick for a few years now. I know there've been more than one test of gate to gate by autopilot. I know also that the truly frightening test is soon (or maybe already done): landing on an aircraft carrier.

Pathing is easy. It's the vague commands like "Count the number of live enemies in the room" that'll stump the box.

[UmaroVI]

You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?

Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.

First, if that were true, you should accuse him of presenting a false dichotomy - not a reduction ad absurdum.

Second, I don't think you meant to say it was a false dichotomy, either, because there really are only two options - either non-SS characters shouldn't carry weapons, or some of them should, and correspondingly either non-rigger characters shouldn't have drones, or some of them should. I think you mean to argue that it is a false analogy.

[Crash_00]

However, I'm not sure I agree with the seven to fifteen year rates.  I'd buy three to seven, however. I'm also going to beat you to the punch by noting "it depends on your definition of advance".

Anything more notable than minor graphical updates. Software seems to advance faster, but most of what makes it appear to be advancing faster is really just better hardware and minor updates to the systems to make use of the newer hardware. Yes, it can happen faster, but when it does get rushed faster there are usually consequences to pay (remember the Vista memory leaks).

You'll also see software advances spread out across several years as well (which likewise makes them seem to occur more often), but most often the spreading is to cut costs by waiting for better hardware to become common place in order to save the time it would take to make the software more diverse (able to run on much slower builds than it was meant. Again, look at Vista for an example that failed to do so). For instance, most of the advances in Windows 2.0, 3.0, and even 3.1 where already designed when Windows 1.0 was released. They were just waiting for the common user to have the hardware to run it before releasing it, after all the common consumer thinks if it doesn't work, its the publishers fault, not their subpar systems (again, I can reference Vista for an example).

I'm going to repeat one specific drone-related item, though.  Airliners have had autopilots that would land their aircraft without the pilot touching the stick for a few years now. I know there've been more than one test of gate to gate by autopilot. I know also that the truly frightening test is soon (or maybe already done): landing on an aircraft carrier.

Pathing is easy. It's the vague commands like "Count the number of live enemies in the room" that'll stump the box.

The airliner would be covered by a Pilot 1 on that type of drone. Takeoff and landing are both simple parts of the drones maneuvering, unless its very bad weather, I wouldn't see their being an issue in any case. However, a Pilot 1 can also fly the plane very well in most circumstances (doesn't usually need to roll even) and has a chance in tricky circumstances. I wasn't arguing that we don't have this today, I just believe it wouldn't be an exponential increase in the software aspect so much as a slow linear one. It would be better, but not by a truly expansive margin.

Pathing is what I was arguing for. All drones should be able to easily do it, as we have the technology to do collision pathing expertly today and it has been advancing fast with its applications for the gaming industry.

As for the "count the number of live enemies", that would largely just determine on the drones list of terms. What are enemies? What is considered live? I think a combat drone would have these terms loaded in automatically, but a recon drone may not depending on whether its a civilian/news model or a military/law enforcement model. I don't have Unwired yet, but I know in the old Rigger 3 book they had a section devoted to writing macros and setting terms for your drones. With AR help and practically limitless memory, I think any "rigger" could easily sit down and program out definitions for terms that he'd be using on a regular basis.

[JoeNapalm]

Now, that said, by the 2040s (when I would assume drones would start cropping up in SR and be physically controlled) we should see to software cycles at least. I really don't think anything that advanced should have to roll at all to avoid an obstacle along a set path.

2040?! There's autonomous pathfinding drones, now. The DARPA Grand Challenge, for example.

You do realize that reductio ad absurdum is a logically sound form of argument, and not a fallacy, right?

Unless it is founded on a false dichotomy. Which this one is.

First, if that were true, you should accuse him of presenting a false dichotomy - not a reduction ad absurdum.

Second, I don't think you meant to say it was a false dichotomy, either, because there really are only two options - either non-SS characters shouldn't carry weapons, or some of them should, and correspondingly either non-rigger characters shouldn't have drones, or some of them should. I think you mean to argue that it is a false analogy.

If you seriously still want to discuss this, technically it's the Fallacy of Four Terms, which is a syllogistic fallacy.

Street Samurai do not need to use drones.
Street Samurai have guns.
Therefore, people who are not Street Samurai do not need to use guns.

It is also a false analogy, but false analogies are not a formal fallacy, and I was attempting to point out a flaw in the logic of the argument, not in the substance.

All of that aside, I would gladly throw myself at the mercy of the court and plead guilty to the maximum sentence for misuse of Reductio ad Absurdum on the basis that the argument was, in fact, a  syllogistic fallacy rather than a false dichotomy, as well as personally nominating you for the Nobel Prize for Winning the Interwebs, if you will agree that A) the initial premise in question was based on faulty logic and therefore an invalid argument, and B) that we get back to talking about something related to Shadowrun and stop splitting hairs over my improper use of obscure Latin phrases (which is my right, under the 14th Amendment.  ).

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

[UmaroVI]

OK, lets get back to arguing about pretend elf games.

[FastJack]

OK, lets get back to arguing about pretend elf games.

Agreed. We're treading dangerously close to going off-topic in a bad way.