hey everyone, me and my GM have a question we have been trying to solve for a while now. a little back story my character is a Gank enforcer who has a sick love for cybernetics and my gm is starting to throw ion weapons at my group and i as we become a little more notorious. i ask the question if I'm hit by ion damage (ionization blaster, ion grenade, etc.) do i soak the damage? even if i soak all of the damage does the ion still shut down my cybernetics? would investing in the ion shielding attachment for armor help? the rules only state that ion is soaked but doesn't state if the effects of ion don't trigger. if you can please list references to pages if i missed something in the rules. thanks guys.

Perhaps the GM could have your cybernetics shut down for a turn/round as a result of the attack gaining a number of Advantages, which can help to justify Setback die sent your way?

^{Pretty sure if you soak it, the Ion does not affect your cybernetics.}

If I get hit by ion weapons, do all of my cybernetics shut off, or one at a time?

It's not spelled out real clearly in the rules but is talked about in the cybernetics section. I personally say the enhancement itself has to be targeted by an ion weapon. It really at this point is a GMs discretion thing. It's also a good dev question imo.

right now me and my GM have come to the ruling that on a normal shot the ion has to get past my soak, but on a called shot, say on my repulsor arm, a hit will shut it down for a little while even if it doesn't go through my soak.if ion get trough my soak, a random limb gets turned off (roll a d6, 1=leg,2=arm,3=head,etc).

O_O. Umm, head? I would think having your HEAD shut down would be incredibly bad for you...

As for actually contributing to the conversation, I would say that shutting Dien cybernetics would be treated like an active weapon quality: you hit and deal damage to a susceptible target, you can shut down 1 cybernetic per 2 advantage. Droids take actual damage from the attack, living beings with cybernetics don't, but the attack still needs to beat soak to disable something.

Except Ion is a passive weapon effect and therefore does not require Advantages to activate. Like I said, good dev question, multi part even on ion weapon effect.

That's why I said "treated like" an active effect. There aren't clear-cut rules for exactly how it works, and shirting downot ALL of someone's cybernetics for the encounter with one hit that exceeds soak could, in many cases, remove someone from the encounter entirely (not unlikely if they have both legs and arms cyberneticized). So, whether it was intended that way or not, there needs to be a balancing factor. I say needing advantage, but the attacker gets to choose which cybernetic fails is a fair compromise.

I think using the Aim rules is a better approach personally.

I actually say both. Of course, if you want to hit their cybernetic duodenum specifically to knock it out, go ahead and Aim for it. But if you're just trying to hit them in general, you could still knock out their cybernetics even when not trying, which is what advantage is meant to represent.

any chance someone could point me to where i can ask the devs? and its not my whole head shutting down, just the cybernetics in it like eyes and brain (which is more of a database and com-link with holonet connection i think) so its not like i go unconscious.

Bottom of the page is a link for rules questions.