OneTrikPony wrote:

Instead of starting a new thread about AI and Muses I think my question is close enough on topic to hijack this one. So how does one improve the Atributes of a Muse or AI? if their atributes are usually 10 and they're capable of having atributes of 20 there must be some way to improve them. Right?

I'm afraid not. AIs cannot improve that way, or at all, really. They cannot learn skills, increase aptitudes, or anything of the sort, without access to a skillsoft. Concieveably a GM might allow an 'aptitudesoft' that could benefit a muse, but those could easily get game breaking if players tried to exploit them. For that matter, increasing aptittudes is unlikely to be of much use to an AI unless it's sleeved into a morph or vehicle of some kind, since AIs can't default on skill checks, and skillsofts don't give +40 to a skill - they just increase the skill to 40.

OneTrikPony wrote:

I have to dissagree here. First let me agree that AI's cannot improve (themselves). However, Someone coded Reaction of 20 for that hacker AI. And someone coded Intuition of 20 for my muse. Someone can concievably code reaction of 20 for my muse. If the skills of an AI are determined entirely by the skillsoft why would some attributes be raised above others. Why not just a flat 10 everywhere. Also it's a really good idea to have a muse or pet AI run a morph if you happen to have a spare. Also, Why do skillsofts even have ratings? Is there any reason not to run one at 40 given AI's can run as many as they want and it's probably a quick action to swap progs in your skillware. Given that there's no price diference between rating 5 and rating 40 why not just run 40 all the time? Since skillsofts generaly have a rating of 40 and that's the max rating of AI skills, why do AI have attributes? Especially considering the hypothosis that the coding of a skillsoft includes both the skill and the attribute it seems rather silly to give AI attribute stats. Right?

Yes, technically it SHOULD be possible for AIs to gain improved attributes via patches and such. However, (since I suspect there's greater potential for munchkining involved) it would be wise to eep such options out of the hands of players. Oh, and note that while attributes are seperate, distinct values, they are aspects of the AI's core 'mind,' one might say. Increasing them could potentially do strange things to the way the AI thinks; meaning fun times for a cruel GM. *Sigh.* I guess, if you must have Attributesofts, I reccomend they be one price category higher than skillsofts, and grant 20 in the relevant attribute. Oh, and don't let players with skillware use them unless you're willing to deal with the munchkining that follows. On skillsofts having different ratings - technically, there's only one listed rating for skillsofts in the book, which happens to be the maximum for active skills for an AI. As a GM, were I to make different ratings of skillsoft available to players, I'd increase or decrease the price accordingly, and not permit the more powerful ones to exceed the AI skill caps. AI have attributes because attributes have uses other than defaulting. Reflexes affects initiative, for example, and somatics is important for lots of non-skill related shennanigans.

One option here is to say that boosting AI skills beyond the given values is something that only wizardly master AI hackers can do -- people so good that most PCs don't have the rep and/or cred to afford their services. You can then make boosts to AI stats a type of treasure. Careful with, though... players will then try to copy their improved AIs! Make it a group reward, and warn them that if they share it outside the group, the knowledge is likely to spread rapidly and take away the edge they have with it. Also, the master programmer who made it for them might get pissed off, affecting their rep scores.

Zophiel wrote:

This gives me amusing images of people selling pirated forks of especially skillful secretaries altered with psychosurgery.

Actually forknaping is pretty big business for at least one of the Triads. So it happens fairly often. It's pretty much cannon already that most transhumans don't run AGI's or infomorphs as muses. The book states that you grow up with your muse and that the loss of a muse is often treated like the death of a freind or beloved pet. It's easy for me to understand why this is the case. I would not want someone elses personality running my life and in my head every second. A muse is specificaly designed to be a personal assistant and it grows with the character learning the best way to serve him and cater to all his preferences. The best example I can think of running an Info morph for a muse is my wife. I love my wife, allot, almost all of the time. But she's a fully developed independant personality. And, if she were my muse she would say or do something about once a month that would get her wiped from memory-I'm talking reformat the drive, write zeros, start the fuck over. An real Muse is supposed to be more like a symbiotic program. A freind perhaps but still a tool fully controled by the character. In my opinion anyone who would tolerate an infomorph for a muse already has the 'Borderline Personality' Mental Disorder. Anyone who could tolerate a full time fork of themselves is a narcisist. Any player who does it is probably a munchkin and should start having arguments with their muse and makeing stress tests.

GMJoe wrote:

*Sigh.* I guess, if you must have Attributesofts, I reccomend they be one price category higher than skillsofts, and grant 20 in the relevant attribute. Oh, and don't let players with skillware use them unless you're willing to deal with the munchkining that follows.

Actually I was thinking something more along the lines of the 1 point increase you can get when you code your own Mesh software. I know I saw that in the book just too tired to look it up now.

I would think that the one other case where you'd find AGIs as muses would be on particularly dedicated hackers. After all, it's the one AI that you're guaranteed access to, and the one AI where you're guaranteed that you won't torque off anybody else if you botch your work and have to restore it from a backup. I doubt that you uplift it all in one go, though; it's probably something where you added on a custom program here, an extra set of personality features there, and at some point along the line you pulled it over the line between an AI and an AGI. If anyone else has read a short story called "Zima Blue", by Alistair Reynolds, you'll have an example of the sort of thing I'm talking about.