How do you plug this in?, AR/VR tech questions Options

[Snow_Fox]

OK I still oppose the bul of the 4th ed books as a needless cash grab BUT I think they finally got the decking stuff right after only 19 years. It was so off that my group finally had a house rule that deckers HAD to be NPC's but this system seems to be workable, needing skills but fast enough not to bring the rest of the game to a screaming halt as the decker does his bit while the rest of us go out for pizza. We'll keep using mainly 3rd ed stuff but definately go with the hcanges to decking.

Because of the complete lack of storage limitations the whole mp thing is gone so good, less book keeping BUT where does a decker carry all the stuff? I mean before it was the guy lugging around a key board. Now, not counting head ware is the guy just carrying a small pouch on his belt and connecting to a data jack?

The AR system especailly seems very much like the system in GitS which is GREAT! One of my fav scenes in the 1st TV serries has Batou viewing AR and making angry gestures at a map he's seeing, while almost litterally scaring the piss out of a shop keeper in front of him who can't see the AR image.

Now the question, how do you plug it in?

Ok now I get it, not counting the head ware stuff, more on that in a momment, but mst people carry their access stuff the way many Americans now carry cell phones and I-pods. OK I get that. BUT how does the info get from the 'i-pod' to the eye ball? Does everyone have a data jack now? Do you load to glasses? I mean how does it get to where the average person can, as used in the example, go shopping? Sure Paris Hilton always has her cell phone to pick upo the signals but without a jack to plug into how does it get to her visual area?

My especial concern here is mages. IF data jacks are common then mages are going to stand out in a crowd and 'geek the mage' will get even easier if she's the only team member not on the system.

Now for someone with head gear it's pretty obvious on that front, but less so it how does osmeone with headware up load the hacking programs? Chip jack? To remind you long term vets of the SR world in 1st ed it was possible to surf the net without a deck, surfing naked I think it was called but if you do this now, with a head deck and it gets fried by ICE is it litterally brain surgery to scoop out the melted goo from your brain?

Like I said I adore the new rules for decking (yeah I know it's 'hacking' but I'm an old fashioned girl and these will always be 'deckers' to me)

[Ravor]

The "popular" answer is that everyone uses trodes and 'jacks are fairly rare.

My answer is that everyone has a 'jack and any Mage stupid enough not to have one to match her cybereyes needs to be geeked.

[Cain]

We went over this in the other thread, but things got a bit sidetracked.

It works kinda like this: the commlink is indeed an iPhone and mp3 player combined. It allows full access to the Matrix, and wirelessly connects all your gear and cyberware. To see AR, you only need one of the following: AR-glasses, AR-Contacts, a trode net, cybereyes with a free Image Link, or a DNI link, such as an implanted commlink or datajack. In all these cases, the commlink sets up a Bluetooth connection, allowing all the devices to share data, and project it into your field of view. If you don't have any of these devices, the commlink also has a screen and keypad. You can also control a commlink through AR gloves or AR feedback clothing. However, the easiest is DNI through a trode net, or by implanting the commlink.

To go full-VR, you need a sim module and either a trode net or a commlink, or just a datajack. As always, your brain is safe unless you go Hot Sim. In Hot Sim, you are vulnerable to Black IC. In Cold Sim, your brain might take stund damage from Blackout of Black Hammer, but no lasting damage. And in AR-mode, neither can really hurt you at all.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

As always, your brain is safe unless you go Hot Sim. In Hot Sim, you are vulnerable to Black IC. In Cold Sim, your brain might take stund damage from Blackout of Black Hammer, but no lasting damage.

Actually, by RAW, that isn't the case. Using Cold Sim does not prevent Damage overflowing from Stun to Physical track - only Blackout offers that protection. So if somebody attacks you with Black Hammer in Cold Sim, it simply will take him longer to kill you.

[Daddy's Litt...]

I can see the confusion. There is lots of detail on the toys and most of us get basic cyber but SF never does so she is very aware of the differences between cyber and meat parts. I think the area SF may be stumbling is that is it so close to GitS that she is seeing it that way and in that world everyone except homeless dregs of society have some cyber.

The key line is towards the top of page 209: "Via simsense or any other devices." From there it goes on about the access, programs, effect etc. But not on the visual devices. Other people have pointed out the idea of contact lenses or even sun glasses. Because the tech is wireless there is, obviously, no need for wires now.

This is a radical leap forward for SR.

[Cain]

Actually, by RAW, that isn't the case. Using Cold Sim does not prevent Damage overflowing from Stun to Physical track - only Blackout offers that protection. So if somebody attacks you with Black Hammer in Cold Sim, it simply will take him longer to kill you.

Technically true, but I didn't want to confuse Snow Fox. She still thinks SR4 decking is pretty cool, not the pain some of us have come to realize it is.

[Ryu]

Main book, pg. 232, last paragraph under the Black IC header. My German rulebook says "no overflow for Blackout".

I´m partial to reading the "stun only" of Black Hammer as "works like Blackout against cold-SIM users".

If your game sees that differently, buy a (not networked!) Biomonitor that is wired to a hard-off switch of your SIM-module. A 300¥ expenditure won´t kill a runner.

[Daddy's Litt...]

Technically true, but I didn't want to confuse Snow Fox. She still thinks SR4 decking is pretty cool, not the pain some of us have come to realize it is.

Lol she still won't deck but if she is seeing something as good let's not disturb her. I am more likely to end up at the Kusanagi Motoko type character as I usually have heavily cybered combat oriented types.

What do you see as the problems it has?

[hermit]

Unwired put up lots of character red tape, such as regular patches and (by stringent RAW application) dozens and dozens of die rolls every month so your programs don't degrade, two system load tallies, lots of programming options, and system design possibilities that, all in all, make SR4 hacking somewhat less slender and easy (even if much more consistent and, if you put up with and/or work around it, fun).

[Cain]

What do you see as the problems it has?

Gah, post got eaten. Let me try again:

Hermit already hit on several good points, so I'll put up some of the moderate ones.

• Despite the GitS references, you cannot "ghost hack" in SR4
• What happens when you hack a device or cyber is vague.
• Combat decking is highly overrated. Not only do you need Admin access to accomplish anything, anybody with half a brain will have their cyber's wireless turned off.
• Otaku are seriously underpowered everywhere but the matrix, where they're just underpowered. This lasts until and if they earn enough karma to initiate and learn the game-breaking metamagics/Echoes. They make nice one-trick ponies, though.
• Sprites are supposed to make up for the otaku's lack, but they just end up being cooler than their summoners.
• The rules for massive agent swarms (the Agent Smith army) are confusing. First, they try to stop it, then they tell you all kinds of cool things you can do with it. And, there's still a few loopholes that allow it; they're just not as accidental as before.
• The rules aren't futuristic or cyberpunk, like GitS. It's more like a fantasy version of the Windows XP user's manual.

Those are the ones off the top of my head. I'll come up with more later.

[hermit]

The rules aren't futuristic or cyberpunk, like GitS. It's more like a fantasy version of the Windows XP user's manual.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

That's a good, if somewhat negative, one!

It's still easier to relate to and see how it's useful than Second Life's more deadly cousin, as the SR3 Matrix always appeared to me.

[Daddy's Litt...]

I did wonder about a ghost hack into a person's comm to 'hack their eyes' so a guard does not see you.

[hermit]

It technically works, though anyone woth their money will have strong encryption running, a Lv. 6 Analyse (optimised if need be) and IC with analyse, and have their cyber clustered and/or wifi removed, so it's not very accessible. It's easy to setup your cyber so it's unhackable, actually.

But technically, yes, you could edit someone's field ov view, provided they have cyber eyes or a display link in their meat eyes. If they have pure eyes, you'd need to attack them with psychotropic black programs and have the psych effect brainwash them. Pretty hard if they've got a reasonable matrix defense set up.

Thinking of the Laughing Man? I'd recommend he makes a pact with an AI residing in an insane headware commlink and/or is a karma-system built mancer with 300 Karma and carefully selected game-breaking echos, otherwise he won't work under SR4 RAW.

[Daddy's Litt...]

I was thinking of a scene in 2nd Gig where the Major walks into a base and the guards are programed to think she's the cleaning crew but she is wearing her normal clothes. On in 1st season when Batou hacks some cybered guard dogs to look like their trainer.

[hermit]

If you have a good Edit program and your target is careless and has cybereyes and/or display link, no problem.

[Cain]

I was thinking of a scene in 2nd Gig where the Major walks into a base and the guards are programed to think she's the cleaning crew but she is wearing her normal clothes. On in 1st season when Batou hacks some cybered guard dogs to look like their trainer.

On the first, it's possible, but you'd need to hack in multiple nodes (one for every guard), then hack a live feed. For the second, I'd personally say no, because dogs respond to smell more than sight.

It's still easier to relate to and see how it's useful than Second Life's more deadly cousin, as the SR3 Matrix always appeared to me.

That's because the graphics of the era were nothing compared to what they are nowadays. Virtual Realities had some nice (for the time) full-color graphics of what the Matrix looked like. It was mostly vector-graphics, IIRC. It'd be kinda nice to see those pics updated.

[hermit]

That's because the graphics of the era were nothing compared to what they are nowadays. Virtual Realities had some nice (for the time) full-color graphics of what the Matrix looked like. It was mostly vector-graphics, IIRC. It'd be kinda nice to see those pics updated.

No, I always had trouble with the forced full-VR interface that felt a bit useless for everyday applications. AR DOES go a long way to make the Matrix seem much more accessible.

[Ryu]

For the clothed-hack (Hmm. That direction is new (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) ), see Environmental AR Software in Unwired, specifically "Body Shop". If you make sure that the guards comlinks display your node, you can severely change your appearance. Dogs are out, they can´t perceive the AR.

As for the rules problems, there are very few. Rules complaints are more numerous, but you are on DS long enough to judge what´s good and what not. I´d say that tuning the game around the exploit mechanic is the largest problem. As that can be learned, the remaining issues are a matter of taste.

Rules complaints... some things could be better, and the main books approach to presentation is certainly among them. Some are plain wrong. The "TMs suck in the matrix" argument is certainly one of the worst. It is damn easy to miss how they can work, but work they do. Agent Smith is a dubious one, too. Effective uses for such a tool are few and far between, and then there would be severe ingame consequences. (You have to realise that hackers are often stopped on the soft front, by security spiders, or matrix security divisions, or the Grid Overwatch Division. The attempt to make nodes safe with passive measures alone is doomed to failure.). The main negative effect of multipe IC/agents is the number of required condition monitors and dicerolls.

[Cain]

The "TMs suck in the matrix" argument is certainly one of the worst. It is damn easy to miss how they can work, but work they do. Agent Smith is a dubious one, too. Effective uses for such a tool are few and far between, and then there would be severe ingame consequences.

Would you mind telling me how exactly to make an otaku work? I've only seen a few in play, but what I've seen hasn't been impressive. Threading has been overrated, and sprites are more capable and just plain cooler than their summoners. The best I've seen so far is an otaku/face, who used a machine sprite in his emotoy to inflate his dice pool into the low 20's. But that doesn't help them in the matrix.

As far as Agent Smith goes, the old method was devastating for non-subtle hacking runs. The original writeup involved using hundreds of agents and a Teamwork test, thereby giving you enough dice to buy Admin access to Zurich-Orbital, and crashing it. When they fixed the teamwork test, they slowed down the problem slightly, but it still existed.

Now, the problem still exists, it just can't be done accidentally. And the new botnet rules give the Agent Smith army even more versatility than before, such as DDOS attacks and mass-probing. You can still crash Z-O in a single round with enough agents, it's just mildly more difficult to do it than before.

[Ryu]

If you want impressive in the too-good sense, go for the munched Exploit build, have a registered sprite for stealth, and roll 30+ exploit dice before your target is any wiser. The GM can basically just hand you admin access to all but the best nodes. I strongly suggest to use the karma-based generation for TMs though - they really benefit from that.

The problem of agent smith is IMO only that you´ll have to roll a great many dice. If all you want is access, not caring about alerts, you don´t need an army of agents to force entry. And if the nodes reaction is "Shutdown!", you want as few attackers as possible - the node might luck out on detection, too. Botnets are cool hacker tools - great for attacking large numbers of weak nodes. Beware of the G.O.D.

[Cain]

If you want impressive in the too-good sense, go for the munched Exploit build, have a registered sprite for stealth, and roll 30+ exploit dice before your target is any wiser. The GM can basically just hand you admin access to all but the best nodes. I strongly suggest to use the karma-based generation for TMs though - they really benefit from that.

The problem of agent smith is IMO only that you´ll have to roll a great many dice. If all you want is access, not caring about alerts, you don´t need an army of agents to force entry. And if the nodes reaction is "Shutdown!", you want as few attackers as possible - the node might luck out on detection, too. Botnets are cool hacker tools - great for attacking large numbers of weak nodes. Beware of the G.O.D.

How do you get to the 30+ dice again? I'm not good at making characters, but I'm capping out at about 20 without Threading, which is unreliable. And karmagen is pretty much better for everyone-- at 750 karma, you're going to come out with better overall stats than you will under BP. I still haven't figured out where the balance point is. I will concede that karmagen is better for Awakened and otaku, since they can potentially both initiate several times and learn powerful metamagics.

As far as Agent Smith goes, the problem is that within one combat pass, you will have admin access to Z-O, and can prevent the shutdown. Even if the node gets a chance to respond, what happens if your goal was to crash Z-O at a critical time, and destabilize the world economy? You succeed either way.

The only response the G.O.D. can have to an Agent Smith army is another Agent Smith Army. By the time you're rolling several hundred dice on either side, your game has bogged into oblivion. No matter what people say about the intelligence of agents, they are smart enough to defend themselves without orders.

[Ryu]

I boost stealth so high that I can do a second test on hacking on the fly, minimum. The hacker has more dice per attempt (because I´m not also expending a service to boost Exploit), but only one secure attempt against better nodes.

What can GOD do against Agent Smith besides match it? Spoof orders to break off the connection attempt, or even better, spoof orders to attack a trap node that looks the same. Trace the command subscription and kill the controlling user. Spoof the target nodes address so that the agent orders don´t match. Trace the command subscription and crash the controlling node. With botnets, who brought the tools is of little concern.

[Cain]

I boost stealth so high that I can do a second test on hacking on the fly, minimum. The hacker has more dice per attempt (because I´m not also expending a service to boost Exploit), but only one secure attempt against better nodes.

What can GOD do against Agent Smith besides match it? Spoof orders to break off the connection attempt, or even better, spoof orders to attack a trap node that looks the same. Trace the command subscription and kill the controlling user. Spoof the target nodes address so that the agent orders don´t match. Trace the command subscription and crash the controlling node. With botnets, who brought the tools is of little concern.

I'm not wondering why you're boosting Stealth so high (makes sense to me!) but how you got to 30+ dice in Exploit, without a very good Threading roll. I'm capping out at 20, which is within reach of a decent decker.

The problem with trying to spoof a botnet is that you have to target each one individually. They're almost certainly operating on scripted orders, since you can't maintain a subscription to that many agents. In fact, I might just script the agents to ignore all orders until they've broken through. If you're using a hackastack setup, they're running on your persona, so spoofing them gets even trickier.

[Ryu]

Exploit 6 + Hacking 6(Exploit +2) + Codeslinger + HotSim + "The Black Hat" paragon = 19 dice for exploit. If stealth 6 + Support Operation 5 = 11 is safe enough to risk two attempts at exploit, you thread Exploit by the fading-safe amount, lets say +2. Else you thread stealth. If you threaded stealth, you have 2*17 dice (sustained threading), if you threaded exploit, 2*21 dice.

More reasonable levels of proficiency (within the limit of 400BP) lead to more balanced TMs. If you have magic 6+ combat mages in your group, resonance 6 TMs will be fine.

[Cain]

Maybe it's me, but I'm still not getting it.

If you Thread a Force 6 Exploit, you can't go above double your Resonance. And to do that, you need 6 successes, unlikely even if you have a Resonance of 6 and a Software skill of 6 (which is impossible, given this build). You're looking at a actual maximum of 10 dice for the Threading roll, which equals to 3.33 successes, for a new rating of 9. And you're still facing a sustaining penalty of -2. So, effectively, you'd have gained 1 dice, for a total of 20. Which is pretty good, but not noticeably better than a similar decker. We also may have a bound sprite penalty of -2 to deal with, dropping us below our starting total. And that's ignoring any penalties from Drain that may or may not have occurred.

I've discovered Threading to be unreliable and overrated. If you need a program on the fly, it does the trick; but so does taking an action to swap out your load.