Each card lists category (Headware, Bodyware, Eyeware, Earware, Limb, Bioware, etc.), Essence cost (or Body Index for bioware), nuyen price, Availability (rolled at chargen-end and during play), and the Street Index (multiplier on street-market prices). The ▸ MECHANICS block on each card describes the actual game effect.

You start at Essence 6.0. Every piece of cyberware subtracts a fractional amount; drop below 0 and you're dead. Magic Rating = floor(Essence), so cyberware kills magic — a magician with Wired Reflexes 2 (3.0 Essence cost) has Magic Rating 3 instead of 6.

Bioware is tracked by a separate pool, the Body Index (maximum = your natural Body Rating). For a mundane character it costs no Essence at all — which is the point: it's how a street sam stacks enhancements beyond what their Essence budget would otherwise allow, running chrome and bioware side by side in two separate pools.

For magicians and adepts, bioware is the magic-friendlier path. Per Shadowtech (FASA7106, p. 6), bioware implantation normally costs no Essence for anyone — so light, non-neural bioware doesn't erode a mage's Magic the way chrome does. The catch: an Awakened character who undergoes drastic invasive surgery — a total Body Cost over 1.5, or any neural bioware — must check for Magic loss after healing, and anyone can lose Essence if the surgery goes awry. So a neural item like a Synaptic Accelerator, or a heavy stack, is a gamble for a mage; an Orthoskin or a pair of pheromone glands generally is not. Bioware also doesn't trip cyberware scanners — useful for the Awakened and mundanes alike.

At chargen (per SR2 p. 46) you ignore Availability and Street Index when buying — just pay the nuyen and subtract Essence. Those numbers only matter once play begins.