AR TACT SOFTS, AWESOME Options

[ICPiK]

Just was reading the info on them in wireless. Extra advantages are always good. Any of you guys run em?

[InfinityzeN]

My guys do sometimes. Depends on how "quiet" their being. Sometimes they don't run any wireless, even in hidden mode.

[crizh]

I've used them a few times. I've found that it's difficult to get everyone on the same page.

What I've found is that Rating 3 is the sweet spot. Even the team's technophobes can be given enough channels to support that with a cheap drone with decent sensors, an iBall say, subscribed to their 'link.

A good trick is to give everybody an iBall and cross-subscribe them, that way nobody is ever out of sensor range of the rest of the team.

[Matsci]

My team manages to a run a rating 4 Tac-soft, if just because I have 8 players + drones, and they all are carrying like every sensor in the BBB + Arsenal.

[DWC]

I've definitely seen them as a double edged sword. The bonus is great when you can get it, but signal encryption is so terrible in SR that getting your wireless traffic intercepted while sharing that much information should be pretty much instant death.

[TheForgotten]

I'm still very confused as to what sensors qualify (if my character does not have a datajack but is running a smartgun through his comlink does that count as a sensor or does this only include sensors that have a direct cyberlink to the brain). If a tactsoft is making suggestions can it feed to the characters brain (as astral perception and AR is and either/or). Can an astral projecting magician that is troded up interface with a tac link? For that matter would a mindlink count as a sense? Can a technomancer run a tac soft as a complex form? Can a drone do some kind of radar image of a building and feed it to runners inside?

Oh and my favorite, why doesn't security just turn off their comlinks and fire some form of gyrojet set to home in on a PAN at the runners?

[Draco18s]

Smartlink and AR contact lenses give you the +2 smartlink bonus.

[crizh]

Can an astral projecting magician that is troded up interface with a tac link?

No. DNI and magic don't mix.

For that matter would a mindlink count as a sense?

No. Same reason

Can a technomancer run a tac soft as a complex form?

Yes. With GM permission. See the 'Adopting Software' box p136 Unwired.

Can a drone do some kind of radar image of a building and feed it to runners inside?

It would certainly be able to be part of their TacNet. They wouldn't be able to use it's data for direct fire against targets they could not themselves 'see.'

Oh and my favorite, why doesn't security just turn off their comlinks and fire some form of gyrojet set to home in on a PAN at the runners?

Runners should have their PAN's in hidden mode. The rules for detecting hidden nodes, let alone pin-pointing them are fairly harsh over a tactical time-scale.

[ornot]

My players ran a level 3 tacsoft the other day, and it was grotesquely effective. One character has gremlins 4, so he was rather left out, but the others, and the drones proved hideously effective. The important thing I found as a GM was to restrict what the PCs actually get the bonus on - the list of examples in the book is kinda extensive, and I have a player who will want the bonus on everything. The alternative is a silly level of dice pool inflation, which is hard enough to restrict at the best of times with hardware and whatnot.

[Dark Talon]

Yes, Tacnet is God's gift to runners. It has saved our butts more times than I can count. The bonus adds to almost everything that's useful (combat, stealth, initiative even). It's unbelievably awesome. It's what lets you compete with corp hit squads (who will likely be running one too). You get it to hit, dodge, parry, block, even melee attacks. Infiltration? Yup. Perception? Yup.

Unfortunately, it does overpower simple runs, just like when you have 3 IPs and the enemy only has one. Keeps you alive in the high end, over powers the low.

[Eyeslikethunder]

You can give it to the goons too can be big help for lesser npcs.

Our GM banned tac net dice bonuses for attacking and defending as he felt it was over powered. It was a rating 2 one. but allowed us keep it for stealth and for the group being aware of what the other members could detect.

[Hatspur]

Having run against a team using a tacsoft, I will never use them.

Sure they had some crazy dice pools until I Sniffed their signal out and hacked into the drone their were using as a node. Then things got very entertaining when I started subtly cutting feeds to certain senses to certain members of their team. Many of them noticed it and tried to alert the others, but being in control of who's getting their sensor information can turn into an Orwellian nightmare. The Samurai noticed it first and tried to vocally warn the others on his team (rather unprofessional), so I cut his audio output. Terrible things kept happening to the enemy team as my team steadily cut them to pieces with little trouble and no support from the tacsoft.

[InfinityzeN]

And just how, pray tell, did you cut his vocal output? Do you mean audio output (as in sound over digital connection), because if he was actually opening his mouth and saying that with you suddenly going "I cut his vocal output", I would have laughed at you.

[Draco18s]

I wouldn't be surprised if the same had cyberware vocals of somekind, but that is getting into the realm of hacking cyberware (and if it's doable as written here).

[Hatspur]

And just how, pray tell, did you cut his vocal output? Do you mean audio output (as in sound over digital connection), because if he was actually opening his mouth and saying that with you suddenly going "I cut his vocal output", I would have laughed at you.

You can cut his feed to the tacsoft, it is far from impossible to hack. It would have done nothing at all if the team was all in one location or hearing distance, but they weren't. I can mute all sound coming from him which is suspicious, so I momentarily cut his sound and put in my sound feed which was similar anyway.

[TheForgotten]

You can cut his feed to the tacsoft, it is far from impossible to hack. It would have done nothing at all if the team was all in one location or hearing distance, but they weren't. I can mute all sound coming from him which is suspicious, so I momentarily cut his sound and put in my sound feed which was similar anyway.

Proving why if you use a tacsoft, you need some signal for "network compromised, turn off your comlinks now".