We've overthrown the RAW SOTA system from Unwired, deeply unhappy with it. We're experimenting with the following:

- Each Common Use and Hacking program has a SOTA rating (1-48)
- SOTA ratings drop by 1 every month
- The square root of a SOTA rating is the program's Rating (1->1, 4->2, 9->3 etc.) Round down.
- The program's SOTA is it's Availability
- SOTA 4 and lower programs are available for free
- Common Use programs cost SOTA*20 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , and Hacking costs SOTA*200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .
- Raising a program's SOTA can be done with a Logic+Software test; interval 1 week for Common Use and 2 weeks for Hacking. every hit adds a SOTA.
- Patches are available; in legal programs they just come through the mail. Illegal ones must be bought; from someone who has the same program that you want to patch. (I.e. no S-K upgrades to your Renraku Exploit program). Upgrades cost their SOTA difference with your program.

We made a sheet that's basically a [# of programs * 48] field of squares; you fill in the SOTA you have on each program, and the nearest Rating printed (at 1, 4, 9, 16 , 25, 36) shows how dated your software currently is.

It still needs testing for balance, but it's not as weird as the Unwired system, while still adding the sense of urgency SOTA should be adding. It also equalizes piracy, freeware etc.

How is pirated ware balanced? If your pirated ware is traded at a lower Availability, it's SOTA will quickly sink to that level, as all the security vendors pick up a copy and take countermeasures.

This makes programs have an absurdly high availability. A rating 4 has availability of 16, and a rating 5 has a 25 availability, making it notably harder to find than heavy milspec armor.

What happens with fractions? Does it round down or to nearest?

It rounds down. I wanted the Rating 6 programs to be truly valuable, yeah. Something to work towards, not available from the start.

Well, my concern was more with the fairly middling 4 and 5 programs, but...

You do realize that a rating 6 program isn't just difficult to acquire, it is virtually impossible to do so right?

Availability 36 means that you'd need a DP of roughly 16 to find the program (And it would take something like three months to track down).

I guess that you could simply improve the program up to that level though... which does make alot more sense.

Ah well, I actually do like your method now, it gives hackers something to actually work towards instead of just starting out with all maxed out programs and never having any real means of advancement.

I was inspired by William Gibson's novels, where the protagonist is given cutting edge military software that's years ahead of anything normal hackers can come by. I wanted that effect without having to introduce Rating 9 software (6 is the limit).

As a side effect, skill becomes more important than software, and script kiddies are in trouble.

I thought six was just the general limit while you could still program software above that?

RAW it is, yeah.

Six is the (almost) hard and fast limit by RAW.

It makes mention of if you have bleeding edge military software that is supposed to be ultra amazing and yadda yadda yadda then you have a rating 7 program. This suggests that a 7 is supposed to be rare beyond reason, and that anything higher doesn't exist.

Just to derail the thread slightly:

What should one be looking for in a good hacker? I'm used to building characters that rely on actual attributes, but as far as I can tell, hackers can have extremely low attributes and still function well. With hackers, it looks like a 4 in cracking and electronics and some good programs are all you need.

Don't forget about all the ware out there that can give you boosts. If possible break your skillgroup to get hacking up to 6 (or maybe even 7), since the most important skill is by far hacking (not a big surprise really). Other than that, yeah, there is no statistical reason for your hacker to be smarter than a sack of bricks, he'll be just as good at hacking as a super-genius would be (Though make sure GM won't be using the optional rules of Attribute + Skill max hits program rating or Skill + Program max hits Attribute).

Derail.. Rerail..

Consider if you want to be able to use social engineering.
I was at a computer security conference last month; one of the speakers commented: "We only do technical security testing; social engineering attacks always work anyway."

Implants are important; particularly an Encephalon II (which is expensive!)

Intuition is useful; it's the only stat used in determining your matrix initiative.

Simsense Booster is useful for VR; but if you wanna use AR, it's not needed (nor is Biofeedback Filters! No dumpshock or biofeedback damage in AR!)

Consider if AR is truly the way though; a lot of actions are Free in VR that are Simple in AR, and so on. VR is a LOT faster.

If you go VR, get a biomonitor that's not driven by your PAN, but with a killswitch to your commlink. If you get hacked and attacked with biofeedback, it'll switch off your commlink. (As long as it receives no input except manual and it's own readings, it should be immune to subversion.) Choose a reasonable setting at which it will automatically jack you out (not too sensitive, not too loose).

Doesn't shutting off your own commlink while in VR hit you with dumpshock?

Yes, but it might be better than the alternative.. (Although 5P dumpshock for full VR is pretty intense.)

Cold VR with Simsense Booster seems the best I think.. you get 3 IP, and dumpshock and biofeedback are still Stun. If your biomonitor-lifeguard shuts off the commlink whenever you lose consciousness, you should be safe-er. Unless they trace you and come and get you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif) Maybe a medikit set to auto-treatment whenever the biomonitor intervenes?

Remember kids: don't do hot VR without someone standing besides you keeping an eye on you.

Wrong, see errata.

From what I can tell I'm probably the only software engineer with considerable experience actually reading this thread. What I have done with hacking to inject some realism while balancing out the bugs is this:

1) Software is free, with the exception of things like Activesofts that take significant development input. Everything else is mostly done by evolutionary computation or other AI-driven programming at this point. If you're a corp coder you're coding automated software generation tools, not software. This is happening in industry RIGHT NOW. By 2070? Standard. Also, the fact that anyone doing anything industrially advanced is either intranetting or open-sourcing their stuff. There's no middle ground like Microsoft anymore - they just got gobbled the fuck up for their bad business methods that stop being profitable when people tighten their belts and start thinking about money. Big corps buy software because it's been custom-developed. The masses download open-source projects, ESPECIALLY hackers, who often need to modify programs on the fly.

2) Hacking programs? Ratings? HAHAHAHA. Bunch of scriptkiddies. That's ALL gone - hacking programs are still there, mostly for memory and response requirements, because that does make sense. Ratings are irrelevant and it's now a Skill+Logic test. Logic is now an important attribute and that troll with a Log of 1 is not going to be an amazing hacker anymore. The scriptkiddie stuff is still available, and can replace your Logic stat with a rating of up to 3, but it degrades FAST.

3) The old rules for limited initiative passes with AR are in effect. If you've got 4 passes in the meat, you're still down to 2 in AR - the interface can only respond so fast. Hot and Cold Sim work as normal.

Where is that rule from? I never recall anything saying that you were limited to a max of 2 passes in AR.