take on doing a corp node..., just a thought... Options

[hobgoblin]

just had a bit of a "brainstorm" about how to handle large corp nodes.

basically, set a overall node rating. but its not one device, its many. most are either worker terminals or traffic routers, and not important. and you can jump from any one of them to any of the others with a single action (or even be in multiple of them if you want to take the risk). these all have the same rating. hell, ones you have hacked your way in, your free to roam.

for those you can also set a overall ICE. a kind of ICE that will be present in every one of them. its kinda like the networked antivirus/software firewall of today. they can be sentrally monitored from the spiders control station. and if one of them spot you, the alarm goes across the whole system.

but in this there is also specific areas, like say the security controls (cameras, sensors, alarms and so on), specific servers and similar. these will pack special ICE and maybe some higher or lower ratings then the others.

basically here is how i would do the writeup:

overall office rating: 3
ICE-3 (analyze, attack)

this is the overall system that can have any number of terminals and similar in it, each holding 1 copy of the ICE. said ICE will not follow a person out of its "device".

secure file server, security control center: 6
ICE-6 (analyze, attack, armor, medic)
ICE-6 (analyze, track, armor, medic)

these are high security points in the office node. again the ICE will not roam outside of their home ground.

notice however that if either ICE makes a analyze check to spot the hacker (how often and so on up to the GM, i would say ones pr action performed), all parts of the node goes on alert and so on. also, the high sec areas may require additional logon credentials, like say a passkey or linked passcode. so even if the hacker gets past the initial security (firewall 3) he may have to hack his way into those.

again, the overall node can have any number of devices under it, but you can move from any of them into any other. keeping track of it all would just be a waste of time. he will just have to run a browse to map the general layout of the node, and then aim for the security or secure server areas depending on his goal.

if one wants to, one can expand this with special choke point areas in front of the node itself, or in front of any of the secure parts. this may result in aditional hack actions, both for the chokes and for the areas behind. the flexibility of the rules puts this in the hands of the GM imo.