I'm curious about the biases of a few skills I can't place in the bias trees.
Firstly, Mind-Machine interface. The rules address design, construction, installation, analysis, sabotage, and repair, but not the actual use of devices that operate via M/MI. An example would be 'Mech piloting in the Battletech universe, where neo-feudal 31st century knights control multi-ton bipedal battle machines with the aid of a Neural Net. Is this T13@1 Operate M/MI? The rules clearly state that the bias level doesn't obey the standard repair rule, so I can't go by that. Should operation be differentiated by the type of M/MI (hard-wired, external, scanning)? By the actual device (Battlemech, memory-extension database, thought-steered jetpack)? Both? Neither?
I was also curious about the biases of various games. The only games specifically listed are "Role-Playing Games," at M0@0, and "Computer Game Play," at T11@0. I'm thinking most games should be @0 - which leaves bias area and level. Sports are easy enough. I'm thinking most would be B3@0 (through running) or B5@0 (up through jumping), unless throwing and catching things requires a shift to level seven. It's chess that has me stumped.
On one level, I want chess to be a psi game - mind to mind competition. I can't make it fit, though, and I really want Intellect to be a relevant attribute for chess. Because, really, it's relevant. That leaves Tech and Magic (Bod was never in the running). RPGs are magic, and there's some appeal to games falling into that realm, but somehow, I can't see a chess wiz winning a game by force of his animal magnetism. Magic seems wrong. But is it really Tech? Manipulation of pieces with symbolic meaning as a method of honing strategic skill - treating the game as a kind of "competition simulation device"? Tech 0@0? Help me out here.
MMI Use:
The reason no specific skill level is given for using such devices is that it's going to be rather specific to the device, and also to what you mean by "use".
For what that word means in a great number of contexts, we're probably talking about a 13@0 skill--the user really has no idea how it works, and doesn't have to: he thinks, it responds. Whether it is hard-wired into the brain, touching specific nerve endings on the skull and/or spine, or scanning from across the room, the user doesn't need to understand what it does to use it. He might have to plug into it, for a hard-wired system, but connecting a multi-pin plug is going to be an @0 skill anyway.
There are a great number of designs, though, that might require something more. For example, if you have to tune the deevice to the mind, this might require the equivalent of a 13@1 Analyze skill, determining how to attune it properly--even if it is a device with which the user is familiar. Similarly, donning a skull tap system will require knowing where to place the taps, and arguably this could be considered a 14@2 repair variant--even though use of the device once attached would probably be a 14@0 skill. "Using" a hard wired system that is not already installed requires installing the internal portions, a 13@4 listing; interfacing with an unfamiliar device (like R2D2 connecting to an unfamiliar computer) might be the equivalent of a 13@3 modify external portions (as a software issue).
There is also the separate issue of this being a control interface. In your mecha example, what the character is doing is operating the equivalent of a 12@4 prosthetic through a 14@ control system, so 14@2 is the minimum bias for MMI control system for mechanical body (to cover both systems by both level and curve). You would use the same approach to MMI control of vehicles, aircraft, and even I suppose cities.
Games:
Yeah, that's a good one.
I think chess is magical, but not for the reasons you propose. Rather, magic includes all skills which attempt to make sense of life in an explainable form--philosophy, but also many of the soft sciences, plus dance and acting. Many academic subjects land under magic because they are about explaining life.
Many games do the same thing, attempting to capture and recreate a segment of reality. Tactics and strategy are in some ways about understanding how people think, and how to manipulate that.
Some people do win games--even chess--by intimidation and force of personality and confidence, all of which are caught up in animal magnetism. Further, that aspect of being immediately attractive includes some aspect of understanding what it is that is attractive to others, not necessarily cognitively but perhaps intuitively (the reason a Dale Carnegie course can raise your an mag). That in turn means you understand how to manipulate people, not intellectually but by the seat of your pants. Chess, particularly, is about getting your opponent to defend against the wrong threat or otherwise give you the openings he does not know you want. Tactics and strategy are about manipulation in a fundamental way, and thus about illusion, about making people expect one thing while you are in the midst of doing another.
So it's a M0@0 skill, in my opinion.
--M. J. Young