In my current primary group of four players, the other GM has decided to run Eclipse Phase. I think transhumanism is pretty cool and all the Posthuman Studios books are gorgeous. But I've been having trouble finding any sort of preparation for the game. What does it take to be an effective Firewall agent in the time of Eclipse?
I've played Shadowrun, so that was an extensive introduction to being paranoid: wiping RFIDs, constantly buying and dumping commlinks, living off mesh, hacking into a Shiawase data bank through an Aztechnology Stuffer Shack, carry around an area jammer, using unidentifiable credsticks, and et cetra. Hardish SF is also not a stranger to me: I know how freefall works, to check for things like pressure in a habitat, and what to expect in space without a suit on.
The issue is that I have little idea what to expect from a game of EP.
What gear should a PC have, how should a PC be anonymous on the mesh, what is the protocal for swarms of nanobots haunting every corner, and is there any way to fend off the exsurgent virus? Any important questions I miss are appreciated as well.
My GM is running a scenario (Continuity) so no spoilers in that respect. We aren't starting in our personal morphs, but whatever is available on the station.
Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.
[New Player] What does it take to survive?
Fri, 2012-11-23 14:57
#1
Undocking
[New Player] What does it take to survive?
Fri, 2012-11-23 17:09
#2
RustedPantheress
Depends on how things run.
Depends on how things run. Take a look at the books. One thing to remember: You aren't a dedicated adventurer. You're a civilian that freelances for a secret conspiracy that doesn't pay you anything. And doesn't tell you everything. Your paranoia is not going to be constructive: it will merely cause to panic and accidentally wreak havoc.
—
Somebody is using bad science! Snark, facts, snark.
Your body is corrupted: Cool, do more science to it.
Your mind is warped: That's nice, want a cookie?
What do we say to the God of Death? Not today!
Sat, 2012-11-24 00:05
#3
blatoe
A letter to players
I apologize for the lengthy response, but currently running into some similar issues with my players and felt like sharing my suggestion.
What to expect:
The EP setting is so diverse, that there's no one set way to run a game. It can vary depending on the story the GM wants to tell.
You could end up on an expedition using one of the Pandora gates to go to some unexplored world (more in line with adventuring),
be brushing elbows while preforming backroom deals at a fancy party with a bunch of Hyperelites (more social/political intrigue),
upholding order on the plains of Mars while dealing with Hypercrop oppression (lawless western feel),
or run through a series of hallucinations pre-programmed into commercially available drugs. (anything from sunshine and rainbows to things man was not meant to see)
A good game would try to touch different aspects of the setting, especially to drive up conflict for the Players. If you know the types of games the group tends to gravitate towards, it may give you a better idea of what to expect. Or you could ask him.
Game References:
You may want to try listening to some Actual Play recordings people have done of their sessions. You can links on the "Resource" page on this website under "Actual Plays".
A Glorious Fall may be a good episode to start off on, first half is a tutorial scenario covering basic concepts of the setting (forking, muses, simulspace, combat), second half is a group playing through the scenario "Glory".
"Think Before Asking" moves at a faster pace, but shows the diversity the different habitats can take.
The ongoing campaign "No Evil" is a fantastic example of a great EP game.
What your can do:
The GM should be doing most of the heavy lifting to inform you though the setting, but do your part by reading the book and familiarizing yourself with the setting. At the very least, cover the chapter on character creation and things concerning your character; like backgrounds, factions, and the skills you take. If you're an async (have psi powers) know the mechanics that comes with that; if your the hacker, familiarize with the process of breaking into systems.
Practical advice for EP:
Some advice on roleplaying in general:
Play the character, not the system. You'll go through a lengthy character creation process, but you should work on building them up beyond stats and skills. Give a background on the character and give the GM story hooks appropriate to the setting, especially for things you want to see in the game. An interesting thing to try is taking a typical story hook for a different setting, and seeing how it could be adapted into the transhuman future.
You're character works with firewall, taking up the call when given a mission, but its not who they are or all they do. They had lives before joining the organisation, and have their own motivations. Sometimes they overlap with firewall's goal and sometimes they go in the complete opposite direction. If you play the character and it leads to trouble in game, it leads to entertainment at the table.
What the player knows isn't necessarily what the character knows. Your character is not going to know everything about the EP setting; the different strains of Exsurent Virus', firewall operational protocols, even the real names of your fellow firewall members. Try to filter your character knowledge, and when in doubt, ask the guy behind the GM screen.
Don't go to crazy on buying equipment and body mods for your morph, limit yourself to a maximum of 20,000 credits. Once you have to resleeve (change to a new body) or die, you'll end up losing that stuff and the points your spent on it; especially if you end up farcasting to the other side of the solar system. Hell, somethings are illegal depending on where you're at, so stick to things that make sense to your characteer and you should be able to get other things by tapping into your networks.
Sat, 2012-11-24 13:31
#4
Undocking
What does it take to Survive?
One of my hang-ups about the system involves death and the revoking or denial of Rez points. Rep and creds aren't connected to your body so they are fine, but dying in a mission or going insane unable to be saved via cortical stack means that the player is punished, going back to the last back-up and not being rewarded for their actions that session (outside of Rep).
I've read about half of Rimward, Sunward, and Gatecrashing; not in any particular order, just whatever subheading seemed interesting.
I started listening to Fistful of Misanthropes (not their first episode) and RPPR for their Eclipse Phase games to see how they go about doing it. From "Glory" to "Think before Asking" the group is changing up quite a bit—Arachnid Cincinnati—and I do have a feel for the game but they were all effectively one-shots with Bartleby connecting them. I'll try to listen to one of the "No Evil" casts before playing tonight.
In future I'll remember that. Including the Muse I spent about 30,000 on mods and equipment. I guess the 10 CP could have gone to skills, and 5 extra points can make all the difference.
Sat, 2012-11-24 15:05
#5
blatoe
There’s some much to the EP
There’s some much to the EP setting to keep tracked of and managed that I wouldn't be surprised if certain things like rez points and backup tracking on a players death wouldn't be hand-waved by a sensible GM if it wouldn't impact the story. It comes back to the style of game the GM wants to run. You can always bring it up with the GM a to try and find where he stands on the matter.
Besides, EP has a slow experience point progression to begin with to avoid power creep; typically players gain 4-7 rez points per story arc (3-6 sessions depending on pacing). Missing out on a maximum of 7 points out of the already 1000 point character isn’t the end of the world. That's less than 1% of your total points!
Sat, 2012-11-24 18:23
#6
RustedPantheress
Undocking wrote:One of my
Ok, you've got to read as much of it as possible.
As for the dying... One, make sure that your teammates know to recover your stack. In game, they should remember, and should make every effort to do so, so not recovering your stack is saying "I really fucking hate you."
And this is why frequent backups are important! Ideally, backup before every mission.
—
Somebody is using bad science! Snark, facts, snark.
Your body is corrupted: Cool, do more science to it.
Your mind is warped: That's nice, want a cookie?
What do we say to the God of Death? Not today!
Sun, 2012-11-25 10:23
#7
Undocking
For the Love of Lack
We found out about that the hard (fun) way.
I'll recount the session. This will be a wall of text written around midnight.
We started at 6:15pm and played until 10:40pm (EST). Our GM reportedly changed some of the scenario. We finished the entire scenario, and although one of us died, we grabbed his stack.
[size=30]Characters[/size]
(Me)Alphonse "Alph" Tyrrhena: Re-instated Barsoomian savant prospecting for comets aboard the Kepler. Worked as a terraformer for the Tharsis League in Tyrrhena, then joined with nomads and Barsoomians on Mars before laying low on Neptune. Parts of his memory were lost when he was farcasted out. Looking for his daughter, who is in the Jovian Junta.
Hiroto "Hiro" Antonov: Lost Hypercorp ghost posing as a research assistant to steal Melvin Morris' mesh inserts for his corporate masters. Picked up by a hypercorp after the Lost project tanked. He is searching for his AGI mother.
Zhuang "John" Yu: Original Space Colonist Argonaut menton researching possible methods of safe seed AI. He is so old he's forgotten when he was born. Secret xeno-deist. Trying to recreate his wife as an AGI using information of her.
[size=30]Kepler[/size]
Our characters wake up from being sleeved into back-up morphs and alerted, by the on-board AGI Hans, that the all wireless communications have been compromised. We remember having a routine back-up two weeks ago. Alph and John are in standard versions of their morphs, with a couple extra enhancements; Hiro is in a Bouncer. Our fourth occupant of the station, a gene-hacker named Melvin Morris has not been resleeved with us. Since Alph is the only one with access jacks, Alph plugs into a fabber in the medical bay, boot it up in 'safe mode' and create a knife for Hiro. Hans tells us that there is a problem with the main server and an issue in the Machine Bay. John notices the pressure warning light is yellow and Alph fabs a rope, then shuts the machine off.
We venture into the Greenhouse and head for the Machine Bay. Around the corner from it, Alph ties the rope around himself (highest Free-fall) and the others hold on. He moves through a room to enter the Machine Bay, a Cargo Bay, which is empty except for an offline Automech. Then he fails a Free-fall roll but the rope catches him. The airlock is being held open by a bar, which looks recent. He investigates the room and discovers a cornucopia machine and two lockers. Opening them up, he fills a vac-suit with: one vacsuit, two wrist-tools, four med pistols, one flex-cutter, three scraper gels, and an agonizer. Making his way back to the cargo bay, the automech turns on and rushes the rope. The GM and I remember that Alph has the magnetic implant, so he Free-falls to the door and magnetizes to the side. The Automech cuts the rope, but Alph has a pistol out and fills the mech with two bursts, ripping off a mechanical arm and puncturing its main circuitry. With a helping push, Alph sends the bot tumbling into the void.
They reunite and gear is dispensed: Hiro takes the flex-blade, a vac suit, and the agonizer; John takes a vac suit, wrist-tool, and pistol; leaving Alph to magnetize the three pistols and scraper gels to his body while attaching the wrist-tool in place.
The party splits up to look for Melvin. John takes the OP Centre and discovers that the door his jammed. Since the mesh is off-limits, he takes off the panel and uses Electronics to open it. Hiro investigates the living quarters and is attacked by a servitor bot—though Hiro is the best at combat, he proceeds to get trounced by the little tin-can until the agonizer comes out and Hiro manages to melt it. Alph boots up the cornucopia machine in safe mode to make eight magazines of med pistol ammunition in one hour. He turns off the cornucopia machine's incoming mesh functions, then checks out the Fusion Power Plant. It is fine and the two escape pods are accounted for, which makes the disappearance of Melvin odd.
John opens the door when Alph strolls over to report his findings. Hiro returns with a mangled bot corpse; Alph checks it out and finds that its hack failsafe never went off, so something must be up with Hans.
The OP Centre door opens and the party sees a servitor with Hans' avatar in the face plate. Hiro checks out the Computer Bay. Alph speaks with Hans while John checks out the mesh, is almost hacked but reboots, but not before he is hit with this weird clicking static. Half his body is paralyzed for a moment but he comes to and analyzes Hans' behaviour. Hiro finds a cornucopia machine, and on inspection it is fabbing nanites. Alph takes off to jump into a vac suit while John shuts down the cornucopia machine without releasing the swarm. Due to his curiosity, John connects with the mesh, fights against the force that is hacking him long enough to access the main server (the password was an in-joke, I told the group I'd make one up) turn on life support and download video files from the server then bails out. Hiro convinces Hans to tell them what happened.
Hans explains that they went to investigate a ship called the Istari, Melvin is not around, and he ejected the communications terminal. Alph grabs the suit and tugs it on while grabbing four finished mags of ammo. He notices a ship coming towards them and returns to the OP Centre. They say bye to Hans and John watches the vids.
We do a flashback scene and leave to go investigate the Istari after it broadcasted a distress signal.
When John hears a clicking static as the video shows the previous us board the Istari, he is fully paralyzed and losses some sanity.
Tying the cord around himself, Hiro convinces us that he wants to check the outside of the station to see what was ejected. We hold one end of the rope and he explores EVA. Tied to a broken radio-antennae is Melvin, warped and covered in strange spurs. His vac suit is ripped, moisture is frozen on his face, and both his arms are bent back. Hiro approaches, when to his surprise Melvin looks at him then starts clawing over. The shocked Lost takes out his agonizer and shoots into it as he backs up. It makes a leap and grabs the rope. Alph and John begin to haul on it to drag their companion back in. A few more frantic roasts puts whatever Melvin turned into out of its misery. The bodies collied and Hiro gets scratched, but not before he cuts off the head to appease his corp masters.
While conducting EVA, Hiro wrote a poem:
this Keppler's Star
the excised wound
being the biggest boon
fuck I drifted far
[size=30]Istari[/size]
Now the Istari is nearing the open airlock. Hiro is hauled in and slaps a nanobandage onto his shoulder in the medical bay. While applying his bandage, he sees something out of the corner of his eye but his muse tells him its nothing.
They meet up at the door between the cargo-bay and the machine bay to receive their visitors. Two creatures emerge and sanity tests are failed all around (no Trauma). The two things charge only to be roasted and shot—but their bodies are still floating towards the party. John announces he has no Fray, so Alph (being +Philanthropy) dives at John to push him out of the way; both escape unscathed. Hiro fails his Fray and is cut by some of the spurs. They pry out the cortical stacks of the weird morphs and put them in convenient carry pouches.
They venture into the Istari and find a missile launcher near the door, but no missiles. Hiro is convinced the spurs that cover the walls are moving towards him; Alph and John are nervous for him. Alph notices two dwarf bots in the Istari's machine bay, without spurs. He accesses them and tells one to pull John around (no free-fall) while the other can take point while exploring.
In the next room, a large Recycling Bay, Alph notices three humanoid figures lurking in the corners. Hiro complains that the spurs are pointing at him. The creatures shriek and lunge at the party, who realizes they are fighting older versions of themselves. Failed sanity rolls all around, each gain a trauma and minor derangement.
Hiro shoots his otherself, otherAlph attacks the dwarf, John shoots his otherself, and Alph unloads two med pistols on full-auto (ambidextrous) into his otherself. The combat ends after two rounds, and the dead body of otherHiro collides with Hiro, who fails his Fray (yet again) but is saved by his armour. They notice two missiles.
Leaving the dwarves to pummel the corpses, they move to a medical bay then into the life support room, where Hiro notices that John's eyes and Alph's cooling fluid have changed colour. He grabs John, telling him that he is really sorry but they have got him. Alph tries to convince Hiro to drop John to no recourse, then Complex Aims and (called Shot Head) shoots him. Hiro fails his fray and takes a two Wounds, failing his SOM roll and stunned for forty seconds. John is convinced that Hiro did not need to be shot, until Hiro comes back online and tries to lunge at them, where is receives another burst to the head from Alph, killing his morph. There is a brief discussion, and they decide to pop Hiro's stack and interrogate him later.
[size=30]Escape[/size]
A plan is hatched: grab the missiles, set one in each life support system, take the shuttle to the abandoned communications module, use the ego-bridge to farcast to the emergency receiver around Neptune (Ilmarinen).
They grab the missiles and John removes the minimum detonation distance failsafe while Alph set the timer for an hour. John grabs the egobridge while Alph visits Hans:
"Hey Hans, you remember our joke?" Alph asks.
"Prompt unknown."
"What do eating and women have in common?"
"I don't remember."
"Its just something biomorphs have to do."
Alph wishes Hans well. He takes out the scrapper gel and pours it onto Hans' servers to give him a euthanized death to end his self-deleting half-life.
John and Alph meet up, race to the shuttle, fit everything in (ego bridge, assorted cortical stacks), vent the oxygen (to not carry nanites), and take off for the drifting module. Alph calculates possible trajectories of the module and picks up a likely signature with the radar and lidar, while John sets up a simulspace for an Alph-alpha fork to speak to Hiro about the possiblity of ego-casting. It occurs to John that the stations were under control of TITAN technology that he experienced first-hand.
Hiro seems reasonable (and accepts Alph's apology) and agrees that he was acting out of character. John picks up nothing strange in the code, so they send themselves off. Alph leaves last, waiting for the Kepler and Istari to explode. When they do, right on time, he programs the shuttle to full thrust all its reactor mass to Neptune, with an argonaut distress beacon, and farcasts out.
[size=30]End[/size]
Each character was given +5 r-rep. John (+TITANS; opening OP doors, nabbing security footage, programming missiles, not dying) and Alph (+Philanthropy; shooting Hiro, plan of escape, dramatic Hans, not dying) received 5 Rez, Hiro was only given 4 (+Melvin's Mesh Inserts; first encounter, poem, convincing delusions), because he was killed. Alph and John received +5 C-rep for dealing with the eradicating contamination, but for his failure Hiro was penalized C-rep.
We had a great time and a few close scrapes, considering John insisted on repeating mesh access. Apparently, Hiro was only under the influence of hallucinogenic toxins from the spurs and not infected, neither player nor character minded though. We had some trouble with atmosphere (WMP can't into repeat), but everyone agreed it was a fun session. The GM said it was an average session for him, but he was a bit under the weather, and that we brought the awesome. As a player I thought it was a strong session, even if we were not fully in a horror mood.
Sun, 2012-11-25 17:11
#8
NewtonPulsifer
The rulebook has
The rulebook has
"Cortical stacks are intentionally isolated from mesh inserts and other implants, as a security measure to prevent hacking or external tampering."
Just ignore that practice. It's not relevant for a Firewall agent's lifestyle. Go ahead and network it to an access jack. Put a lock on the access jack.
And backup often (to storage on your teammates, across a radio farcaster link to the storage on your coffee maker etc.).
As for mental resilience, make sure you have a decent WIL.Ego+Morph 25 or higher and you should be good.
Also keep in mind the utility of a synthmorph cyberbrain and mnemonic augmentation - you can store your memories as discrete files (lifelog). If an ego copy is corrupted by a infovirus, you might still be able to assimilate the separate XP files (and arguably still earn your rez points).
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Sun, 2012-11-25 23:19
#9
Undocking
Coffee Maker?
Cortical stacks are too easy to corrupt with exsurgent viruses, I've started listening to the "No Evil" AP and I'm starting to worry about my back-ups now. But if I can back-up to a coffee-machine, then there does seem to be a problem. Are there specific items/devices that an ego can't back-up to? is there hardware that works better to store back-ups?
Thanks for the advice Newton, I've noticed how useful mnemonic augmentation is for sharing XP vids when necessary, but I'll have to ask the GM if he'll accept lifelog compilation to regain rez.
Mon, 2012-11-26 00:29
#10
NewtonPulsifer
What specifically are you
What specifically are you worried about re: backups corrupted with exsurgent viruses? I'm not familiar with the stuff in the "No Evil" campaign.
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Mon, 2012-11-26 10:26
#11
prototyper
Moxie Moxie Moxie ....
After listening to the Actual Plays, I will be telling my players (since I am likely to be the one running the first session) to buy as much Moxie as they can get away with. They ( the actual play egos) go through that stuff like water, and not just because they didn't think the roll went the way it should, either. EP is a tough universe (and I kinda like it that way).
Mon, 2012-11-26 10:53
#12
RustedPantheress
What Newton refers to is our
What Newton refers to is our current debate on whether or not cortical stacks make good backups (and I say that putting an access jack on your stack is not going to work due to its design and that people will get you psychosurgery as a gift because of it), and it's one of those long messy things where I just try to preserve canon by using logic and he just gleefully tears it apart with checking to see how much that changes.
And I'm not too sure about stacks getting infected... Oh wait, TITAN tech. Rare strains.
—
Somebody is using bad science! Snark, facts, snark.
Your body is corrupted: Cool, do more science to it.
Your mind is warped: That's nice, want a cookie?
What do we say to the God of Death? Not today!
Mon, 2012-11-26 11:47
#13
NewtonPulsifer
RustedPantheress wrote:...and
Well, the book has the (in my opinion terrible) standard cortical stack (basically free). Then, you have the Emergency Farcaster, which not only networks a quantum radio farcaster to the cortical stack, but provides a one use antimatter powered neutrino transmitter (which also has the side effect of frying the user). Oh, and apparently includes prepaid lifetime backup storage.
So, to use a car analogy the rulebook gives us the Municipal Bus, or a Mercedes with the extended warranty. No other choices.
What if I just want to have a quantum farcaster networked to my cortical stack only? I'd imagine it would be much less expensive than [Expensive].
EDIT:
Here's a list of implants that network with the cortical stack:
Emergency Farcaster
Mnemonic Augmentation
Multi-Tasking
Memory Lock
So it does seem possible/feasible to network something else in.
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Mon, 2012-11-26 15:51
#14
Undocking
Cortical Stacks are Buses
It is similar to the Glory Strain where resleeving does not remove the exsurgent virus. Pretty much what the Pantheress said:
Having the quantum farcaster networked would be cool to grab for the high-cost, I can't imagine spending 20 CP on the Emergency Farcaster as a starting character. One thing I am looking forward to in a later supplement is more gear/morphs/psi to expand on such things; especially sample characters, having their examples to look at helps for motivations, gear choices, and skill spreads. I know there are parcels of gear and morphs in the new supplements but a dedicated synth book would be cool, since Panopticon had a heavy uplift focus.
Tue, 2012-11-27 23:30
#15
The Doctor
Undocking wrote:One of my
Just like not backing up your hard drive often enough, if your drive crashes you can only restore what you copied. I work around this in my game (because I like my players to not feel like the story is hopeless; if they wanted that we would play Delta Green :) ) by giving the characters that could not be restored from cortical stacks the opportunity during downtime to confer with survivors to figure out what happened, review XP of what happened, and undergo training or education on the mesh (in effect, regaining the XP they lost with GURPS-like study points). Also, the characters in my game are paranoid and make lots of offsite backups as a result, so thus far they have not lost much.
—
[img]http://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/info_userbar.jpg[/img]
[img]http://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/argo_userbar.jpg[/img]
[url=https://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/blankbadge.png][img]http://drwho.vir...
Tue, 2012-11-27 23:33
#16
The Doctor
Undocking wrote:It is similar
Infected backups can be made. Oops. If nothing else, it makes the players sweat a bit.
—
[img]http://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/info_userbar.jpg[/img]
[img]http://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/argo_userbar.jpg[/img]
[url=https://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/blankbadge.png][img]http://drwho.vir...
Fri, 2012-11-30 17:37
#17
Undocking
The Doctor wrote:
We are planning on doing this for any instances where there are lost cortical stacks or compromised back-ups. They will be able to gain half what the rest of the group did since their back-up. Rez is something that represents time and training, so it makes sense that downtime would give some of this.
Tue, 2013-02-05 13:50
#18
Scottbert
Undocking wrote:
This would only get you the Farcaster's ability to backup over radio links with encryption. The Expensive cost gets you the ability to, no matter where in the solar system you are, go 'F--- this is a bad situation, I'm outta here' and make an antimatter-powered neutrino burst that will be picked up by your receiver (Frying your old morph and implants in the process, but hey, if you use this you're probably somewhere you will never visit again)
Tue, 2013-02-05 16:06
#19
NewtonPulsifer
Scottbert wrote:Undocking
If you were to houserule the availability of a Radio Farcaster linked cortical stack I agree [High] is overcosted. In the "Communications" type gear we have [i]Miniature Radio Farcaster [Low][/i] and [i]Neutrino Transciever [Expensive][/i].
If it were my game I'd just have it cost [Low], like it says in the gear section.
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Wed, 2013-02-13 06:18
#20
Xagroth
Please do remember that the
Please do remember that the Emergency Farcaster is not only a "out of danger" (kinda) card, but also a "no trace left behind" option. While a suicidical assassin might go up and blow himself if caught or after the act, a not so quite suicidal one can ignore (to an extent: it is not unlikely that there are ways to scramble the farcast so the Ego that gets received is so corrupted that its useless) planning to get out, complicating the defender's role exponentially.
My ideas on the setting are quite simple: High tech => computer knowledge. Boost your infosec skill (damn, AGI is considered a heavily unbalanced origin because the discounts it gives to those skills!), give it enough backup, and live the CP2020's netrunner's life. Meaning that you should wear a resiliet body that can wreack havoc using computer skills on your enemies. Ghost Rider modules (to store forks of yourself to help you) are quite the option.
Programming is a very good skill too, supported by knowledge and profession skills it lets you build your own blueprints, exchanging time for credits/favours. The x60 accelerated VR possibility means you can work an hour each real time minute.
Useful knowledge skills would be Physics, Programming (yes, there is a knowledge skill for each active skill), chemistry, military history, and (squad) tactics, followed by Morphs, Implants, and one or more factions. Professions that might be interesting are Armorer, policeman and/or commando, habitat designer/maintenace guy or engineer (choose: structural, orbital, social...).
As for gear, Mesh inserts are quite good, but having a way to replace use-and-ditch ectos can be incredibly usefull, specially if you use copied accounts to "share the love" with unknowing pedestrians. A quantum computer can be really interesting for offline accelerated programming, encription/decription, etc... And of course, a Cornucopia Machine and a fabber are needed (use the fabber to make bullets, man!). Won't you forget the Oracles and medichines, while the Oracles are expensive they are very useful (XP saving among it), there is no excuse to not have medichines.
There are certain ways to justify you being paranoid (playing like you describe you did in Shadowrun): you need to flesh out your main "life". For example, a Ultimate merc is very likely to life that way, regardless of its position in any team (point, explorer, sniper, Electronic Warfare...), while a hacker will be less prepared to deal with physical violence (but for running away).
As for the Rez points penalty, there are ways to avoid that. Experience recording (a cheap implant for lifebloggers) into a shared link between the teammates might let you "steal" some points in case you need to resleeve from a pre-mission backup. If the GM lets you.
And of course, and this is the most important part, have some link with other player characters. If you are just running the "weekly crisis" and your egos do not know each other, meh. But getting to contact each other out of "office hours" is very common. And gives lots of adventure seeds ;)