[X] My Assistant

[Jonny Reload]

I'm trying to help one of my players make a Hacker and he brought up the point that why are most of the Hackers in the setting all using Hot Sim Hacking and putting themselves at risk of getting Dumpshock, being targeted by Black IC, etc... When it only gives you a +2 Dice Bonus and extra initiative. Mind you, he's trying to make a more subtle and careful Hacker with the idea of "try to avoid as much cyber combat as possible and get the information."

I mean besides the +2 to all your tests to Hacking, Computer, and other online checks, and the Initiative Boost.... Is there anything else that Hot Sim Hacking grants you that I'm missing here?

[Teulisch]

hot sim is cheap. for only 750 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) you can get a jack and hot sim, giving you 3 IP for your hacking/rigging. a hacker with a novatech airwave(3/3) running iris orb(3/3) with hot sim would only be paying 3000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , leaving the rest of his budget for programs. most hackers cant afford whiz ware. shadowrunners can, so they dont have to risk hot sim to get the job done.

aside from cost, look at 'probing the target' on page 221 of the main book. intervals of 1 hour in VR, or 1 day in AR. this can give you a backdoor that you can use repeatedly. the system only gets one roll to detect you each time you intrude in that system. that right there is why you need sim, but you can probe in cold sim and then use the expoit in AR.

[ornot]

You still get dumpshock and can be targeted by black IC in cold sim. Hot sim gives all the advantages of cold sim plus those extra two dice, which can be handy, but if you do come a cropper, you take physical damage.

The only way to avoid dumpshock and Black IC is to hack through AR. According to RAW you can use the extra IPs from physical initiative boosts (from magic or 'ware or drugs to get extra initiative in AR, but that's a much greater BP investment, and makes probing for exploits far slower.

[Jonny Reload]

You still get dumpshock and can be targeted by black IC in cold sim. Hot sim gives all the advantages of cold sim plus those extra two dice, which can be handy, but if you do come a cropper, you take physical damage.

The only way to avoid dumpshock and Black IC is to hack through AR. According to RAW you can use the extra IPs from physical initiative boosts (from magic or 'ware or drugs to get extra initiative in AR, but that's a much greater BP investment, and makes probing for exploits far slower.

Sorry, I meant to say the player was leaning towards Hacking through AR.... And you bring up another good point as well about Augmented Reflexes via Cyberware, Bioware, Magic, etc... If that's the case, your only missing out on the +2 to doing everything in the Matrix?

[Leofski]

AR Hacking also increases the interval in the probing extended test, which is the kind of hacking a careful precise guy would probably use to 24 hours. In VR, its 1 hour.

So you can hack a lot faster safely in VR.

[ornot]

Sorry, I meant to say the player was leaning towards Hacking through AR.... And you bring up another good point as well about Augmented Reflexes via Cyberware, Bioware, Magic, etc... If that's the case, your only missing out on the +2 to doing everything in the Matrix?

That ruling is in the FAQ. It does mean that someone with a good meat initiative is as fast (or faster if they have 4 IPs) as a VR hacker risking his neurons via hotsim, for all purposes except probing. It's not something I like personally (and have houseruled to my personal preferences in my game), but both sides have argued the issue to death, if you fancy doing a search for the thread.

[WeaverMount]

Neither is really better. If you have a low hacking job on a low risk node that needs to happen ASAP hotsim is the way to go. Likewise if you want the call logs from a comlink you just looted, but it's guarded by nasty IC AR just might be the way to go. If you are GMing I encourage you to make both choice viable so the play gets to make choice in game and test there characters values, not just running there A-game 24/7 and seeing if there paper tiger is big enough.

[FrankTrollman]

AR hacking is so equivalent to VR hacking that there's pretty much no reason to actually use VR for hacking purposes. You're better off just having a pile of commlinks and switching from one to the other whenever anyone damages or inconveniences the icon generated by the commlink in your hand in any way. Even better, you can load an Agent onto the icon of every commlink in the pile and have them all do stuff on your behalf. Beats the pants off of +2 dice so hard it isn't even funny and there is no risk to you and yours.

Techniques are called hackastack and Agent Smith.

-Frank

[ArkonC]

Just to give you an idea of possible house rules, we've house rules it so that AR matrix actions are limited to 1 per round, no matter how many IPs you have...
While this makes little sense from a realism point of view, it does make hackers go cold or hot VR if they need things done quickly...

[kzt]

Nah, they just have their agents act for them.

[Jaid]

imo, if you're going to use VR to hack, may as well make it hotsim. if you're not going to use VR, well, you're not worried about effectiveness, you're clearly worried about safety instead. so really, it's all about where you place your priorities.

[hobgoblin]

aside from cost, look at 'probing the target' on page 221 of the main book. intervals of 1 hour in VR, or 1 day in AR. this can give you a backdoor that you can use repeatedly. the system only gets one roll to detect you each time you intrude in that system. that right there is why you need sim, but you can probe in cold sim and then use the expoit in AR.

i just wish that they had extended that to doing data searches as well. it would make sense (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
(as as much sense as the SR matrix rules makes, anyways)

[Aaron]

I mean besides the +2 to all your tests to Hacking, Computer, and other online checks, and the Initiative Boost.... Is there anything else that Hot Sim Hacking grants you that I'm missing here?

Yes. It aslo gives you more Addiction (Simsense) Tests.

[kzt]

And the ability to have your brain spray out your ears when an AR hacker has his agents hit you with black hammer.

[Sir_Psycho]

Just jack in and burn it, wussies.

[Cthulhudreams]

Welcome aboard the matrix rules train: Next stop, burning hatred!

[kzt]

No, that stop isn't available until after Unwired. Hope still exists, despite all evidence, that they might fix the madness....

[Jackstand]

Just to give you an idea of possible house rules, we've house rules it so that AR matrix actions are limited to 1 per round, no matter how many IPs you have...
While this makes little sense from a realism point of view, it does make hackers go cold or hot VR if they need things done quickly...

I like that way, too. I figured that AR is a lot like turtling in SR3. You can use all of your passes, but you can only use one of them on AR.

[Jaid]

And the ability to have your brain spray out your ears when an AR hacker has his agents hit you with black hammer.

they can do that anyways, if you're in cold sim. the difference is that you can run as many agents as he can, but you yourself are in all probability going to have superior dice pools. he can keep on booting up a new commlink from his hackastack, but every time he shows up you can just defeat him. the only way he can be instantly back in the fight is if his next commlink in line is also logged in to the same node, which can only happen if he is logging into the same node once for each commlink (requiring a number of actions equal to the number of commlinks, and facing a number of detection checks equal to the number of commlinks). hackastack is crazy good for getting a lot of attempts at one thing, but sometimes you just need to succeed the first time. hackastack does absolutely nothing for that situation; hotsim does.

also, nobody houserules hotsim into uselessness, whereas almost everyone you meet is gonna nerf hackastack (and probably agent smith too, and in some cases multiple meat IPs). but mainly, it's the fact that hotsim actually provides you with a boost to your ability to hack. one that makes the difference when you need to succeed on the first attempt, and succeeding on the 2nd or 3rd or 50th or 100th etc is just not gonna cut it. for example, when you're trying to block the alarms of that secure facility you're in so that you don't have a couple of firewatch teams waiting in ambush when you step outside said secure facility. but hey, it's up to you. the concept of an AR hacker is certainly workable, but yes... there is a reason to use hotsim.

[Cthulhudreams]

If wound penalties didn't exist, your argument about being materially better might be interesting. But he has to just get lucky once and suddenly you're doing worse, while he can never actually loose. Plus he could very well have an extra IP thanks to magic, cyberware or whatever, and that would just make him flat out better than you.


And it's not like initiative enhancing cyberware/magic wouldn't help him massively the rest of time. (Consider you're gunslinger character, would you trade 2 dice for an extra IP pass? err, yeah?)

[kzt]

Yeah, the part where you can KILL him and the most he can do is force you to reboot your comlinks tends to suggest that this doesn't bode well for the VR guy. You'll eventually get a good roll and fry his brain while his good rolls just annoy you.

[Sir_Psycho]

I know that by RAW there's not much other than the Probe time that it effects. But if I'm GM'ing, I wouldn't let an AR hacker get the same use of his IP's as a hot sim VR hacker gets.

I'd probably rule it like this:
1 Meat IP / 1 Matrix IP
2 Meat IP / 1 Matrix IP
3 Meat IP / 2 Matrix IP
4 Meat IP / 2 Matrix IP

Or perhaps with 4 Meat Ip / 3 Matrix IP, to gimp it less.

[kzt]

It really doesn't matter, because your agents all act at the same speed, and an agent can kill someone in hot sim too.

[Jaid]

It really doesn't matter, because your agents all act at the same speed, and an agent can kill someone in hot sim too.

and the hotsim hacker can use the same amount of agents.

the fact remains that sometimes, "eventually" succeeding isn't an option. if i am a street sam who is relying on your ability to take over the security systems for the building i'm about to physically break into, i'm not going to accept the assurance that "eventually" those sentry guns will stop shooting me, or that "eventually" the alert will be cancelled. i want it done, and i want it done now. the *first* time. you know, the time *before* lone star gets called in, for example.

in a hacker vs hacker fight, there is no "eventually". there is only 1 active account for that hacker at any given time. unless he has already hacked in with each and every separate commlink, and logged in with each and every commlink (generating a lot of traffic and looking suspicious, especially if he's bringing along an agent horde as has been suggested... not to mention now instead of facing 1 detection test or 1 series of tests if he hacked in on the fly, he's now facing one per commlink in the hackastack) by the time he gets hacked into the node again he is facing a node on active alert with all of the bad stuff that entails.

[WeaverMount]

An agent smith army is an army. A Hacker is a shadow runner. There are things runners can do that an army can't, like sneak. If you try to flood a node with IC some of them will be seen. Most matrix runs are already failed if they are detected.