some missing items in cybernet

[hobgoblin]

hehe, i continualy find stuff that is missing in cybernet

recently i noticed that the vehicle list contains a military fighter that isnt described anywhere...

and one of the biggest holes in the book is the total removal of rules for concealed weapons and items (man im glad that i have the modern book as i can use those wholesale)...

then there is a reference to nightsight cybereyes addon under nightvision goggles (i can only guess that its the infrared addon its talked about)...

and a reference to language chips in the description of read/write skill (is it just a normal skill chip or something? well the problem is that this skill works in a diffrent way then the rest)...

there is allso the talk about being fatigued after surgery in the medical skill, how is that handled? it it like being knocked out from nonlethal damage? and i cant realy recall seeing any rules on nonleathal/subdual damage...

did the writer work under a timelimit or something?

 

[August]

Actually, Hobgoblin, what you are finding is mostly the intent of the book, which is to be a basic system with a number of options mentioned in the text for Games Masters to expound upon in their own games without fleshing out them out in the rules because of space constraints.

Concealment was not considered a major issue for the book and because there were already excellent rules out there for such things if a Games Master required them (as you evidently did) we decided not to waste space printing them again. With the size of some of the hardware and cyber-additions in the book, concealment is often of secondary importance in any case.

The military fighter wasn't included as anything but a mention because once again, if you are bringing that kind of hardware into the game on anything but a plot basis (and you hardly need stats at that point), you are likly using other reference works anyway.

Cybernet is a complete game (with the errata, which does contain mistakes I made, and admit to) but it was never meant to be all inclusive. If it was, good folks like Stratos and Kiln Pub. wouldn't have anything to do.

Take care,
-August

 

[kiln publications]

Right August, it gives us something to expand upon. In the Cybernet:2087 Sourcebook we will have some vehicles and some cyber-wear. The cyber-wear will be dealt with more in the Mechana book coming out the first quarter of 2005.

 

[Stratos]

man... I had better get off vacation and start writing! Sounds like the Hobgoblin needs me!

- Stratos

 

[hobgoblin]

well august, im used to if i find something in a table in a book or a refrence to it (like say the one that says to check the info on consealability in a diffrent section) in the text then it should allso be in there. if not then the reference or item should not be left in.

if the fighter was meant as intent then it would be better of with some lines of text saying that its up to the gm rahter then a list of stats in a table (complete with prices if i recall)and no talk in the text at all. the way it is now it looks like a misprint like the impys rather then a gms option.

oh and given that the book have all the character creation rules i dont realy see why leaveing the consealment rules out was done as you may as well have said to use the character creation rules in d20modern but use these classes as base. and allso they take up about half a page. your copying over the character creation rules from d20modern, you copy wholesale the combat rules (alltho you managed to oops the healing rules and i do belive that even the faq dont cover nonlethal damage), and you tell me that you removed the consealment rules as you found that they could be gotten from somewhere else to make up space? sorry but i dont follow that logic at all...

consealment to me is important. can you spot that the guy in the coat have a submachinegun under it? do the guard doing a tapdown on you when you enter the restaurant find the consealed gun in the ankle holster? and i dont like leaving that up to the gm's will unless i have the d20 modern srd or book handy...

other then that the book is fine, alltho i think there may be some errors in the web chapter when it comes to describing its use (and only in the webcrawler chapter is it talked about that normaly it takes 1d4 round to get on the web from what i recall). specificly its when hellcat removes a door while under cover of cloak (i think). from what i read somewhere else that action should automaticly drop your cloak. allso cloak states that it will hide you from any ICE. but later in the book it is said that the use of cloak only hides you from the scanner software, you still have to use actions like moveing silently and hideing to get around ICE (alltho i dont belive hellcat does so in the example, hell she places an explosive among them!).

and getting connected can be a bit confusing, ateast when it comes to hardline hookups. do they only cover hooking directly into the server like the remote access server seems to indicate or do they cover a general hookup but with a solid (ie wired) phone connection? and if so then the text for the "open the door!" example could use a nice cleanup as its hard to tell where the -5 comes into play. as in if she is hooking into a doorlock that is connected to the net then she needs to take two actions? first one to connect to the web in general and then one to get into the server with a -5 as she is useing a physical connection. but useing a physical connection enables her to do all that in one action. isnt that called a contradiction?

oh and kiln, bailey, that sounds realy interesting. i realy hope i can get my hands on those books when they come out...