3.4 - Marketplace
Alpha State
This game system, and the setting in which it takes place, are both in active development. Everything on this site is subject to change. Please hard refresh pages when you visit to ensure you're viewing the latest versions.Words and stuff.
There's a lot of good and bad things about having neuralware embedded in the brains of every single person, and one of the most prominent goodbad things is the development of skillware. Software can do a lot of things, and software designed to carry the fundamental and physical knowledge of specific tasks or actions is one of the most spectacular. Don't know how to drive? Skillware can drive for you. Can't stand up to that bully? Let skillware stand up to them for you. Got hired to teach a language that you don't speak? Just install the right skillware and you're getting paid for top-notch work you could never do on your own.
Skillware is, essentially, an app that controls your wetware like any other app controls hardware or cyberware. You don't actually gain any of the information, knowledge, or techniques included in the skillware, but while it's installed you can perform all of it. It's been described as watching your body on autopilot, like a dream, but with conscious awareness. Some people even claim they can learn new skills from watching skillware make their body do things, but there's been no major studies on the idea.
Installing Skillware
Once you've purchased or rented a skillware app, you only gain its benefits once it's installed. It doesn't do anything just sitting in your ICS storage, it must be installed and active. Like any app, an installed skillware app uses NRAM.
While installed, a skillware app uses NRAM based on how complex it is. That complexity emerges from the complexity of the task it's meant to emulate, as well as how much of your body it needs to control in order to function. Generally, apps that control more of your body require more NRAM than those that control less of your body, and apps that contain more advanced knowledge reuire more NRAM than those that contain less advanced knowledge. So, by way of example, a skillware app for spinal surgery uses up a ton of NRAM because it's dealing with highly complex subjects and needs very fine motor function control. If you don't have enough NRAM to run the app, you can't install it.
Using Skillware
While Skillware is installed, it replaces the die code of one Training or Knowledge, even if it's lower. This means that for the duration of the app's installation, whenever you make any STK Check that uses that particular Training or Knowledge, roll the app's die code instead of your own. Skillware completely overrides any neural functions related to that specific activity.
Uninstalling Skillware
You can uninstall a skillware app like any other, it only takes a moment, but there's a potential cost. Once the installation is complete, make a Flat Check of the skillware's die code, and your own die code for the same Training or Knowledge. If your Check result is lower than the app's check result, your die code decreases one rank to a minimum of d4. If your die code is already d4, you instead suffer a bad neural shock and become lightly injured/lightly damaged.
List of Skillware