No, you don't a Sim Module for that. You just need a trode net or any implant.

Agent, Armor, Shield, and Blackhammer.

*Alert user*
There was a break-in. I took care of it. Enemy hacker is dead.

Wouldn't you need a sim rig to translate the signals from the trodes to something your gun could understand in terms of murderation? I know an installed smartlink has a specialist system for such matters, but I didn't think the trodes could work with a pure head to com/gun connection..

while the smartlink system held a limited sim rig in SR3, its much more compact in SR4.

heck, the basic functions can be provided via glasses, goggles or contacts that house a image link and the display end of a smartlink system.

there are some other benefits to a smartlinked gun however, beyond the extra dice on attacks. Namely, turning some actions into free actions when said gun is accessed over direct neural interface.

sadly, there is no comprehensive list, that i know of, over what implants and devices that provide a direct neural interface.

what i can say tho is that a sim module is not a requirement for DNI.

When Shadowrun says Direct Neural Interface, we are talking about four (4) different things or levels:

DNI "trigger" allows you to turn on and off any implant – a basic switch, can be a manual, subdermal, remote, wifi or automatic, linked as well. (The last resort to kick someone out of your head)
DNI "control" allows you to operate any implant – think keyboard, mouse. (Get the implant with a Hardware Restriction so this is the only, non-revocable admin access)
DNI "integration" makes the implant a part of your body – cybereyes, cyberarms, you name it. (Yeah, Hardware Restriction by default)
DNI "interface" allows you to recieve (and partly generate) simsense – trodes, datajacks, and implanted commlinks, implanted sim modules. (The hole in your head)

If you linked everything, any single implant will give you DNI "control".
Sim Modules need to be timely configured for a user by the user, so the hacker can't just supply the sim module to Fry Brainz himself. That's what makes carrying running simmodules with active network so dangerous and implanted ones twice as risky. If you run Know- & Lingua-Softs off them, keep them seperated from the rest of the PAN.

Hate to break it to you, but a hacker dedicated to flipping you into VR at a moment's notice doesn't even need you to have a VR unit. Why?

Sim modules are external units. Some are built into your commlink. Some aren't. Some are in simrigs(external versions are like trodes), or even in simdecks. But the point is you can have a sim unit that isn't part of your regular equipment - and connect to it to get the benefit. The choice is up to the user - whether that's through a fiberoptic hardlink(Datajack plugged into a commlink, decker style), with DNI(Trodes, for example) - or wireless.

Now we're cooking with fire. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

An intruder with admin can form subscription links no problem.

Even worse, the hotness of the signal isn't dependent on how the VR unit's being connected to. Its a function of the sim unit itself. Uh oh.

So a clever hacker can carry around a spare, wireless enabled, hot-sim hacked Sim Module for the sole purpose of linking -other- people's wifi enabled DNI to.(Trodes are signal 0, remember?). Throw in a psychotropic-optioned blackout(Do the Thriller at 11:59 am in front of the yamatetsu building on main street) and you have comedy. (One month test to code? Totally worth it. Or thread it.)

Or a terrorist attack in the making.

As a GM I would seriously allow perception rolls to notice that your sight feed was being altered. Maybe hiding a book on a table in the edge of the vision of the mark might be pretty reliable, but to edit an entire field of view with perfect, believable accuracy would boarder on the impossible. You're talking about Ultraviolet level VR, which requires mainframes of unbelievable power to accomplish in the setting. I'd be loathe to allow such a program to run on a freaking commlink.

Now, if you want to hide items in a field of view, you could write a program that samples the area around the item to hide, replicates it, and creates an icon over the item, thus creating a sort of virtual mimetic camouflage. Moving, or the item being moved, naturally decreases the effectiveness seriously.

I might call this program "Nothing There". As in "I look on the table, what do I see?" "Nothing There."

However, Predator (for the cloaking field effect that the moving mimetic camo would create) is far more cool. Perhaps if I was feeling generous I would grant that an item/person under the effect of the camo was relatively impervious to called shots, even if the mark is aware of the camo.

I call bullshit. I fail to see how I, a complete mundane, using a cellphone can get hit with VR and black hammered.

I don't have cybereyes to perceive the VR. I don't have a datajack or other DNI device. I'm not even wearing goggles, glasses, or contacts.

You'd have to get the trodes on me first, won't you?

In the hardware sense, yes. SR4a, page 328; A sim module must be accessed via trodes or a direct neural interface (datajack, implanted commlink, etc). Just holding a commlink that happens to have a sim module built into it is by no means enough.

A technomancer with the Skinlink and Resonance Trodes echos can do the same with just a touch, but success is not automatic if the subject is resisting. Don't know about you, but being grappled by someone who's trying to do a Vulcan mind meld with me is gonna be resisted.

Trodes are so common in 2070 that most fashion includes them in its design. If you could control your computer with a thought for the same price as a wireless mouse, wouldn't you? To the average person, the paranoia of thinking someone will pop into your com, link in a hot sim and psycho-wack you is a far smaller threat than just getting stabbed stepping out the door in the morning.

To a runner, such paranoia is justified, but I'd say there are plenty of marks out there waiting to get dragged into VR and have their brains ate up.

As to Ultraviolet nodes being hot shit, by SR 2072 they're like an old Silicon Graphics comp would be today. SotA 15-years ago is mundane in present time. Once the nanotech barrier was breached, computers would have gotten unbelievably more powerful and compact. Which reminds me that I need to work on a quantum computing scenario later...

Keeping trodes in fashionable headware for the common wageslave? Not too a good idea if you want to stay in business.

Even though it's not possible for a technomancer to do so, the average person does believe a technomancer can hack your brain, and AFAIK that propaganda is still believed by the majority of the uneducated masses. So why willingly wear an accessory that has trodes built into it linked up to your off-the-shelf commlink to give a boogieman like a technomancer nearly free reign to your gray matter? Then there's the propaganda against hot sims, and even running cold a dumpshock can give a person a splitting headache.

Unless there were several grunts in any of the books (skimmed SR4a and I didn't see that any have trodes base, let alone an implanted commlink), or anything to suggest that the average wageslave has a trode net on him along with that low-end commlink on their wrist, I wouldn't assume that said average wageslave is going to have trodes on.

Brother's gotta access that knowsoft somehow.. and we all know how club kids love to get bombarded with waves of sim signals while they run through their eX. I run a considerably wired up world full of disaffected near-nihilistic thrill seekers. YMMV.

Hate to break it to you:

See Unwired, p. 45.

The whole chain needs to be calibrated by the user as that involves wetware feedback (so the given simense signal is correctly perceived as a sense), which a hacker can't provide.

That program already exists for the game... it is an ARE Program called Negator, cost a whopping 100 Nuyen and is availability 4...
It is from Unwired...

Keep the Faith

Yeah, but it erases the items you want not to see, not the item owner.

hack comlink, install program, and presto.

I believe you can easily see the programs running on your link. So it's more complicated than that.

heh, so what is needed is the SR equivalent of a root kit? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

hey, i think i found just the thing. Unwired, p123, ringworms.

basically its a agent with edit and stealth.

Aha. So you have to spend months writing it (or just need to buy the expensive Agent if your gm is cooperative) instead of just planting the program and forgetting about it.

if you want it hard to get rid of, then yes.

i guess you could nail it together using a existing agent with a similar loadout.

agents are very flexible that way.

Couldn't you just optimize it, drop it in their com, and stealth it same as the agent would?
Or, option #2, capture the video feed, route it through your own com and dump the altered feed back into the hacked device. Any time lag would be imperceptible since wifi in SR is massive bandwidth and all EM waves travel around three hundred million meters per second.