Hmm, that sounds pretty lame to me... You could say the same thing about all the gear in the main book - nanite face masks and monofilament chainsaws and all that minor gadgetry could always come in handy, you never know.  But you can only carry so much stuff.  And at least the main book stuff is cheap, nanites sound like they take a pretty colossal bite out of your saving towards useful stuff, like upgrading that synaptic booster.

Nanoware is neat stuff that can give you and edge and its essence free unless you add nanocybernetics of which there is very little. Some parts of augmentation are great I love the custom cyberlimbs options, genetech and nanoware aren't as cool as I thought though.

I think it's for the good of the game that such things seem a touch underwhelming. Nanotech and genetech are closely married to the mechanics that were in the game from the very start, and overall, I think that's a good thing. They don't seem as minty fresh because of it, but it goes a long way towards limiting rules bloat, and that's commendable. The important thing is that they managed to put in enough stuff to make people rethink previous builds and added new threats to the game that will require some meaningful decisions on the parts of players, and I'll take that over power bloat and planned obsolescence of corebook gear any day of the week (and twice on sundays). After all, the only stuff that's truly outdated now is non-custom cyberlimbs, and I think everyone's willing to give the devs a mulligan on that one.

I agree 100% with that and a lot of the rethinking builds stuff is comparable types of ware have similiar costs and essence requirements. Such as the internal air tank vs the cyber gils same essence cost only a small differance in price. The air tank is good for more reasons than just breathing under water, but if you only want it to breath under water the cybergils are a better investment at the same essence cost and price more or less. You just have more options.

As for the non custom cyberlimbs, well sometimes your not gonna want a custom limb like in the case of just getting a hand with a gryomount, full arms and legs and torso on the other hand will have to be custom to keep from sucking it up.

Actually, I was talking about 'Must' as in fire extinguisher or smoke alarm, not as in bullet proof vest.

While you're talking about cyberlimbs, I certainly am glad that they made the SR4 version 'obsolete'.  It certainly was the way it was written.  Folks who took one (or more!) were either not paying attention, or nostalgic.

...or they wanted to be mega kill death machines.  Never underestimate the cyberhand gyro.

Bah.  Advanced articulation is better.

Advanced articulation?  Is that a new thing from Augmentation?  Because you couldn't be referring to the pile of crap that is enhanced articulation in the main book...

Yeah, I'm not really a big fan of Enhanced Articulation either. It's nice and all, but the high "opportunity cost" relegates it to being a luxury item, imho. Muscle toners annihilate them and if you're trying to make an athlete on the cheap, you'd be much much better off with Synthacardium 3, which is less expensive and can make the average joe into a passable weekend athlete all by itself. Unless I'm making a full on Cyberninja and really, REALLY, REALLY want that extra point of infiltration, I pass on Enhanced just about every time.

Well the killer is that it no longer works on the huge variety of skills it used to.  Now it just works on physical active skills.  That can be good if you're making a gymnastics/stealth/athletics based character, but it's no longer universally awesome.

Also keep in mind that +1 die in SR4 is MUCH less useful than it was in SR3.

In SR3, if you have an Smartlink, with 4 Firearms, and Enhanced Articulation, you're tossing 5 dice at Tn2.

In SR4, if you have an Smartlink, with 4 Firearms, 4 Agility, and Enhanced Articulation, you're tossing 11 dice at Tn 5.

The difference the enhanced articulation made in the second roll is negligable. It's almost constantly a guaranteed +1 Success on the first.

That's where my problem lies: It's not universally awesome, and therefore the expense puts it firmly out in luxury purchase territory for the majority of runners. When I start spending tens of thousands of nuyen on something, I want it to be universally awesome (Skillwires, Initiative and agility boosters), provide unique benefits (Sleep regulators, Pain Editor, Platelet factories) or add just a silly number of dice to your specialty (Rating 3 Synthacardium & Tailored Pheromones). Even once my characters get out in play I'm usually too busy trying to scrape up the cred to get myself something sexy like a Supathyroid gland or a Pain editor to give articulation a second look.

@WK: Combat and Physical skills are technically seperate categories now, so articulation doesn't help you gun people down anymore. I would think it'd be more helpful at least with subdual combat, but apparently the devs disagree with me. A slightly odd choice, since from what I can tell wrestling and MMA is often about trying to make the other guy rue the day evolution cursed him with such flimsy soft tissues.

Ah, yes, right.  I meant Enhanced Articulation. 

I must say that I interpret 'physical skills' different from 'phisical active skills'.  So, I'd say that you would add dice to combat skills, provided that they were both A. Physical and B. linked to physical attributes.

Distinguishing between combat active skills and physical active skills is asinine.  I mean, what's the difference between the dodge skill and the gymnastics skill? Both can be used to dodge attacks, but you'd gain +1 for enhanced articulation with gymnastics, but not for dodge?

I can see a little cartoon strip in my head mocking this:

<Show street sam dodging bullets>
SS:  Man, my articulation isn't helping at all!  What the hell!

<Physad flips into the panel>
PA:  No! No! No!  You have to use gymnastics.  They don't work when you aren't doing flips!
SS: What?  That makes no sense!  Why wouldn't they stop working when I'm not doing flips?
PA:  Ummm... no clue.

<switch to inside the physad's wrist, where we see two small figures marked 'articulation' and 'enhanced articulation'>

EA: It says here in the union rules that dodging is a 'combat skill', and I don't do jack unless it's a 'physical skill'...
<end scene>

So, no, I say it works with any skill that is 'physical', and not just physical active skills.

(Actually, as a GM I'm lenient, and would allow you to add the die when performing a task that is physical in nature, even if linked to nonphysical attributes.  Provided it requires a good amount of hand dexterity.)

As for the benefits of Enhanced articulation over muscle toner, well, they're three fold.

1. Muscle toner can only go up to level 2 out of chargen, so you can add enhanced articulation for that extra die.
2. Muscle toner only adds to agility.  Enhanced articulation would handle any physical skill, so it would have a wider range of uses.
3. Enhanced Articulation adds bonus die, so you can still max out your attribute and skill levels and still gain + 1 from EA.

Of course, that's the way I see it, and if the developers disagree with me?  Well, that's just another house rule I'm using, and advocating.

Heh, well, nobody ever said the RAW is perfect.
For what it's worth, I agree with the spirit of your argument and dislike the difference between the two. But the designations do indeed exist and Physical Skills≠Combat Skills; the precedent was set when they made Improved Ability charge players a 0.5 power points per rating for Combat Skills and only 0.25 for Physical, Social, and Technical Skills. It's one of several reasons why I consider Dodge to be the Gymnastic skill's unloved ugly sibling. I honestly don't know what they were trying to accomplish; if they really wanted to discourage everyone from making combat monkeys they sure picked an oblique way of going about it. Of course, Improved Ability has been a mess ever since release; heck, until they put in the errata, you technically couldn't take Improved Ability for Vehicle Skills at all.

Yeah, no doubt.  However, sticking with a flawed RAW rule when a simple change makes more sense is crazy.  Just as crazy as having a flawed house rule when the RAW was better.  The 'physical action skill' idea cripples EA.  At least my way they're useful without being the ungodly thing (Enhanced Artwinkulation) they were before.


Of course, the reflex recorder, a piece of bioware just like EA, doesn't distinguish between skills.  (Neither does the karma cost, either.)  Besides, like I pointed out before, it's a dice pool modifier.  Thus, unlike the reflex recorder or improved ability, it neither raises the skill nor is it limited to the 1/2 cap of skill bonuses.

Oh, and here's a kicker. Gymnastics is a more useful skill that physads/mystic adepts can use improved ability at .25 a pop versus .5 ... and it does the same thing as dodge...