Delta Value - how much can you tolerate?

[absimiliard]

Oh no, I wasn't criticizing the strategy of focusing on early cash. I'd just never found a better source than the early game Los V. > Fairlight runs. So that was pretty much what I thought of when I thought of adequate early cash.

If that's not nearly enough cash for your plans I'm curious what your strategy is. In particular how do make that much more cash? And what do you do with it?

-abs

[fallen]

For runners, I consider Dermal Sheating X (III if possible) as the first thing I do. If the runner survives the trip to a nearby armor store, they get new armor. If they survive the first 15 minutes in my care, they get DS. Then we start the real kitting out.

I'm glad my poking got a pretty lively discussion going! Maybe it should have been more, "What are your starting kits for Knights / Runners."

grävling - there are tons of things we can do about pricing. I have the sheet right here =)

[Slide87]

I prefer to build up cash for several things:
1) buy safehouses
2)hire runners('cause i'm not good to keep them alive xD really)
3) buy cyberware
4) survival causes: backrooms,healing,ammos,taxis
I'm like old people,i want to have a good budget behind my actions,for any evenience(it exists?)
Ah,and obviously i accurately follow this strategy for hacker class,anyway i also move in this way with other classes,with some change ^_^

[blackgauntlet]

Jan 26, 2012 10:22:02 GMT -5 absimiliard said:

I'm very "meh" on the claws, getting an intrinsic weapon isn't better than any of the stunning gloves IMO and I'd rather fill my other hand with some kind of gun for range/lethal. Even a sword wants to be able to shoot out stuff every once in a while, if only to burn AP while you wait for the enemy to spend their AP in closing instead of attacking.

-abs

Dude, 1 fine day, we're gonna have encounters that rob everything we own. Including your pretty stun gloves, leaving you buck-naked in the streets. Now in this state, do you wish you're Ironman or Wolverine?

[Slide87]

yeah,well said,Exalt Wow =)

[grävling]

I want to start runners in combat dusters (5b 5d armour) which costs 1050. I generally want to start 2 runners at a time. And by the time I wantt to hire runners I have a Jaguar Armour or a Hades Hardsuit for me -- so I have one duster in my inventory. I just have to buy a second one from Mars Omni Tech. I do this before I recruit the runners since I don't want them to leave gang land until I get their athletics up to at least 6, with the exception of dash-and-grab runs to locations on the very south side of Copley Square. You can line yourself right up to directry south of where you are going in the Commonwealth, run in, do your business, and run back to Commonwealth. Aside from that, the secret to keeping runners alive -- like the secret to keeping yourself alive -- is to be patient and not go places that are too dangerous for you until you are ready.

The exception is the very, very, very earliest part of the game. Then the game engine hasn't got nasty enough that you cannot avoid all encouunters, so if you want to make your first mission an Escort-to-Mars one from the Bridge of Birds, for 1911 you nearly always get away with it. Which is why for my enjoyment, a 'quickstart' would be nice. But what I want in a quickstart is a 2 job computer much more than some starting cyberware.

[grävling]

As for cyberware pricing, what I think would make sense is if you had tons of cyberware in the very beginning of the game, when your stats are lousy. Of course, the more you get, the harder it is for you to go up in stats which would enable you to remove the equipment. Which is a nice little tension there.

The way I would accomplish this is to make it possible for you to rent cyberware. So you go to a particular doctor, who has a relationship with a particular corps medical supplier. He installs cyberware on you, but you now must pay him so much a week, or so much a day, or so much every time you rest in a hotel to keep it. Removing it costs a small fortune. If you end up brankrupt, your cyberware refuses to operate on your command. (So maybe you have to pay to activate your equipment in safehouses?) The corps can reposess them. And when it comes to extensive modifications, such as wired nerves and chipped rereflexes -- well the corps can run your cyberware with you in it, outside of your control. Of course, a slaved zombie such as you would be is no where near as efficient or skilled as you would be if you were in control. So this only happens when the corps want something akin to a suicide mission out of you. And you cannot protest. This sort of wiring is illegal in the first place, and you signed a waiver of all your rights when you got it installed.

As an added nasty twist we could make it impossible for CKs to shoot corps members of the corps that supplied their cyberware. I'd reserve this for Crazy and Brutal games, if you decide to include it.

Most Cyber Knights never can afford to have their implants removed. Either it costs too much, or without that implant they cannot earn enough to afford the other implants. They are in financial thralldom to their own implant payments. More successful Knights own their own implants free and clear. And the most successful ones have few or no implants, and are operating on their own skills alone. (As are the poorest knights, those just starting out, with no skills to speak of and little or no implants.)

This would make the idea of a 'starting kit for a class' something that was decided by the Corps, on the basis of what skills they think it would be useful to have, and which would always include some things that you would gladly do without, just in order to make it unlikely that you would ever be able to afford to buy yourself free.

These are just ideas I have, anyway.

[blackgauntlet]

Sounds good, grav. Reminds me of a movie I saw quite sometime ago where people buy new internal organs on a hefty loan to stay alive. Should they fail to pay up at least the interest, repo-men would drag them off the street and remove those innards.

[grävling]

John Varley wrote a story (Blue Champagne) about a paraplegic woman whose large salary as a maker of 'feelies' all wsa spent on monthly payments on the exoskeleton that allowed her to walk again and live more or less normally. The skeleton also recorded all of her experience, hence she was one of the most successful 'feelie' artists around.

[blackgauntlet]

Well, if it's made of gold, it damn well be expensive! Might as well have bought diamond ones... Women! Tsk! ;D

[fela]

IMO the problem with cyberware is that it doesn't make enough of a difference to justify the exp cut.

In shadowrun if you don't have some kind of boosted reflexes, you'll act last and also less often. Which usually means you end up dead. (It creates a problem in itself that this makes the reflex boost almost mandatory.) Other Cyberware can make the difference between a deadly wound or surviving. Or allows you to shoot SIGNIFICANTLY better (in SR3 anyway, i'm not very familiar with SR4 rules).


In CK, once skilled sufficiently, I act more often and in my very own time anyway. (Even the best drone is out of AP after 4 phases, which costs me 3-7 AP and leaves me free to use the remaining 15-8 AP at my own discretion) There's just no point in enhancing myself with cyberware beyond helping me out in the very first initiative phase. There IS no opponent to counter my AP reservoir, especially since AI controlled opponents use up 3 AP/phase no matter what they do - which i suppose will eventually get fixed (yet that will only move the invulnerability to even higher exp (AP) levels)

[fallen]

fela - yes, it will get fixed =) There is a lurking wave of enemies who are actually sporting cyberware who will give you good reason.

grävling and fela - great input. Look forward to balancing and revisions soon!

[blackgauntlet]

fallen- Perhaps you could create a poll to see how popular each of your package sets are?