[X] My Assistant

[Jaid]

-anyone can put a device they own into hidden mode. you are not necessarily the matrix owner of everything you have or use. if you rent an apartment, there's excellent odds that you are not the owner. if you buy a chocolate bar, the odds of them tying that chocolate bar specifically to you are incredibly slim. changing owners is a fairly involved process. same with many other things. particularly in a corp enclave, it is fairly likely that the "owner" of everything is the corp itself, except for particularly private things. if someone brings their private commlink in (which is both fairly likely and probably not allowed in any remotely secure building), *that* might be in hidden mode, for example. a chocolate bar? incredibly unlikely to even be owned by you, in matrix terms.

-critically glitching doesn't mean you turn into a drooling idiot. it means you failed dramatically in a task. if the thing that goes wrong is that they get a false positive, that doesn't mean they're going to call for an HTRT, it means they really legitimately think they found something, but didn't. and then they kick it up the chain, just like they would for any other positive, and when someone checks into it it's nothing. alternately, they could accidentally reboot their security commlink and be offline for a while, which is certainly going to lead to some interesting discussions with their boss. personally, i think it most likely that they just weren't assigned a computer skill because nobody thought it was central to being a security guard; frankly, almost everyone should likely have at least some degree of computer skill, but whatever. we'll assume they were *really* digging at the bottom of the barrel to find so many people that can't operate a computer competently.

-dog brain means it makes poor decisions, not that it's technically incompetent. if you prefer, you can replace it with an agent in a POS RCC though. potentially attached to a wandering drone.

[RHat]

changing owners is a fairly involved process.

Not for legitimate changes - the owner of a device can transfer ownership quite easily.

[Jaid]

Not for legitimate changes - the owner of a device can transfer ownership quite easily.

are you gonna spend a minute per chocolate bar (and every other thing) you buy in a checkout line? in order to become the matrix owner of a device you're probably never going to use in the matrix, period, let alone use the matrix actions that require owner status.*

i'm gonna guess that no, you aren't. for buying a chocolate bar, a minute is pretty involved.

now, are you gonna do that for a commlink that you buy probably once every couple of years, maybe less often, maybe more, and which actually has functions you're likely to use which are dependent on you being the owner? probably.

(let's see: change icon, full matrix defence, invite mark, jack out, jam signals, switch interface mode. yeah, i'm pretty sure i wasn't planning on using my chocolate bar as an impromptu jammer. pretty sure i'm not gonna waste an action going full matrix defence to protect my chocolate bar either. don't need to invite marks, not going to run a persona from it, so don't need to jack out or switch between AR, hot sim, and cold sim. i might possibly want to change the icon, but that provides even less protection than hidden mode, which as we've discovered isn't much without a sleaze attribute.)

[FuelDrop]

i'm gonna guess that no, you aren't. for buying a chocolate bar, a minute is pretty involved.

Would you do it for a klondike bar?

[BlackJaw]

are you gonna spend a minute per chocolate bar (and every other thing) you buy in a checkout line? in order to become the matrix owner of a device you're probably never going to use in the matrix, period, let alone use the matrix actions that require owner status.*

i'm gonna guess that no, you aren't. for buying a chocolate bar, a minute is pretty involved.

I could imagine spending a minute for an entire shopping cart full of goods being purchased at once instead of 1 minute per item. That would basically be checking out: you're spending credits to take ownership of all the goods you are buying. Honestly I keep using the candybar reference because of a smart-candy bar sci story I hear on a podcast, and the idea sort of stuck with me. It's not exactly what I expect in Shadowrun, but I could easily imagine all the products in a Kong-Walmart displaying AR adds to shoppers trying to get them purchase them. Stores might be minor spam zones in Shadowrun.

You have a good point here, however, because RFID tags are one of the few items that can have their Ownership set to no one. Inventory tracking and AR adverts would still function just fine without the ownership model being enforced. The rules do seem aimed more at proper electronics, and as you note: in a corp enclave everything is probably owned by the corp.

My point, which you have also made, is that simply detecting a silent running device may be in the building doesn't automatically cause an alarm. I suspect false positives are more common then runner incursions. I don't think you are arguing otherwise, because as you note: should there be an icon running in hidden mode, that's something you kick up the chain of command rather than hitting the panic button.

-critically glitching doesn't mean you turn into a drooling idiot. it means you failed dramatically in a task. if the thing that goes wrong is that they get a false positive, that doesn't mean they're going to call for an HTRT, it means they really legitimately think they found something, but didn't. and then they kick it up the chain, just like they would for any other positive, and when someone checks into it it's nothing. alternately, they could accidentally reboot their security commlink and be offline for a while, which is certainly going to lead to some interesting discussions with their boss. personally, i think it most likely that they just weren't assigned a computer skill because nobody thought it was central to being a security guard; frankly, almost everyone should likely have at least some degree of computer skill, but whatever. we'll assume they were *really* digging at the bottom of the barrel to find so many people that can't operate a computer competently.

I figured mistaking a system error for an armed Runner incursion was a dramatic failure, but you're right that it's by no means the only way to handle a critical glitch, and probably isn't the most reasonable.

I don't think everyone needs a computer skill. Most basic functions, like making a call or watching a trid, don't call for a roll unless you're fully Incompetent, per the quality. Most people probably get by on simple interfaces, much like many people today aren't especially computer literate but still use e-mail, facebook, and candy crush. Looking for silent running devices is a much more involved concept that frankly should be beyond the abilities of a basic security guard.

-dog brain means it makes poor decisions, not that it's technically incompetent. if you prefer, you can replace it with an agent in a POS RCC though. potentially attached to a wandering drone.

Drone Pilot programs are limited to only what they are intended to do: and that's mainly to interact with the physical world. Drones generally aren't involved much with the matrix and don't have a Persona, so I'd say they can't normally be used for matrix actions.

Your Agent idea is actually rather good, and I'll do you one better: Drones can run cyberprograms with a capacity equal to half their pilot program round up (see page 269). You can run an Agent program on a drone directly, no RCC needed, and Agent programs clearly can use Matrix Perception. A smart security setup might involve a wandering Microskimmer or Crawler running an agent soft to do bug-sweeps.

[Sendaz]

Would you do it for a klondike bar?

This is my Choco Tart

There are many other Choco Tarts, but this one is mine.

My Choco Tart is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My Choco Tart, without me, is useless. Without my Choco Tart, I am useless. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[BlackJaw]

To assume that the spider inside the host is alone and doesn't have assets (other spiders if possible, agents otherwise) patrolling the local grid is incredibly ill-thought-out. The corp is not going to hire fifty guards to protect the physical building, and just one guy to handle Matrix defense.

50 guards are easy to get compared to the extra training, and expensive deck, needed for a spider. Additionally, the spider needs more vetting because he will have full access the host files and systems. He's also got back-up in the form of IC he can launch and control. I doubt you'd see more than a single spider on duty, and no more than a few more that could be called in (remotely). Mostly I think this is a trope of the genre, and something that makes playing a hacker possible. It may not be especially realistic.
That said: using agents to patrol the grid space for a building seems to be within the rules.

I think the assumption that there is only one host in a building, while possibly RAW, is also breathtakingly dumb. If the facility is of any size, there will be a dedicated security host, separate from the regular host where business is conducted. The security host will be as camouflaged as possible and as hardened as possible, and will form the C3 hub of the security team(s). All sensor feeds will be routed there, regardless of whether the sensors themselves are slaved to it, for the benefit of the spider whose job it is to monitor those very feeds.

Well call my assumption "breathtakingly dumb," if you want, but I think the single Host setup is intended and works well enough. You could put all the day to day work & files on a separate host, but keep in mind: that's probably what the runner are here to steal or sabotage. You'd want that on the secure system. So ok, sure, you could have two equally secure hosts, one for the security systems and one for everything else, but A: we don't know how resource intensive that is to setup and maintain, and B: from a gameplay perspective that's just going to drag out the hacking more, and making the decker portion of a run not being a complete time suck for everyone else is a laudable goal in my book.

Personally I think the single system model generally what you see with hacking as it's depicted in TV shows, movies, and other games. I don't really see the gameplay or fun advantage in trying to make it more complicated than that, unless I'm trying to make a specific run more interesting or complicated. A facility with extra-security and a double host setup would be the exception, not the rule. How you run your games is your own business of course.

Of course this might all be subject to change when the matrix book comes out. We'll probably get all kinds of more detailed host setups and rules.

This is another area where the "EVREYTIHNG SI ONLIEN!!!!!!11ONE" conceit falls down: icon overload. If there are thousands of icons floating around in local AR, Matrix useability goes in the toilet. If a customer has to spend five minutes sifting through an avalanche of icons to find the one he wants... he won't. Most people will not put up with that level of inconvenience, and will simply go do something else. When icon spam both compromises security and costs the corp business, you can bet your bottom dollar the corps will find a way to do away with icon spam.

Average walking around with an Image Link AR isn't the same as being on the matrix and seeing all the device icons. Page 229 (emphasis mine): "As we’ve described, AR is normal living in physical space with an AR heads-up display. You can see the Matrix if you like, either by creating a virtual window or display screen and viewing it like a camera, or by overlaying device and host information on your normal vision." Everything that is online has a device icon on the matrix, but not everything on the matrix is displayed in standard AR. Additionally the Matrix interface seems to have taken usability into consideration, as page 217 notes: "The first piece of assistance comes from your commlink, which automatically filters out the least interesting icons." Average users aren't generally going to have to worry about the mass quantity of icons for normal AR use, although in some places the number of devices present might cause signal lag, as per page 231's chart.
Lastly, wading through icons isn't that hard: it's a single action to find a non-hiding icon you want, even if it isn't near you. Moreover, most people would only be interacting with icons they have marked (either as the owner with effectively 4 marks or as someone authorized to interact with it with 1-3 marks) and as page 235 notes: "You can always keep track of your marks, so you can spot an icon you have a mark on without a test, no matter the distance." That means even average users with limited Computer skills could still work with all their own devices and authorized devices without trouble, as well as interact with the Hosts they frequent in the matrix.

[Jaid]

I don't think everyone needs a computer skill. Most basic functions, like making a call or watching a trid, don't call for a roll unless you're fully Incompetent, per the quality. Most people probably get by on simple interfaces, much like many people today aren't especially computer literate but still use e-mail, facebook, and candy crush. Looking for silent running devices is a much more involved concept that frankly should be beyond the abilities of a basic security guard.

the rest of your post i generally agree with, but this i tend to disagree with.

a matrix perception test to find a non-hidden icon that is more than 100 meters away is a computer + int test. so, if you want to see what the local stuffer shack has in stock, you need computer skill.

edit file is an action that includes copying files or changing the text in them. and requires a computer + log test.

and while finding hidden icons is relatively unnecessary, basic matrix perception *is* pretty necessary, and can tell you many important things. it is a computer + int test.

doing a matrix search is likewise a computer + int test. you cannot google things reliably without computer skill.

reboot device is another test that requires computer skill. considering this is sometimes necessary to clear a hacker's marks, it's probably something security guards in particular need to be worried about, but really, pretty much everyone needs to know how to reboot their devices.

it is also a computer test to trace an icon, but generally speaking a security guard (and the average person) won't need to do that, i agree.

but over all, pretty much everyone can make excellent use of *some* computer skill (likely at 1, with a specialization in either matrix perception or matrix searches for the average person. some may be more focused on edit file though).

[BlackJaw]

a matrix perception test to find a non-hidden icon that is more than 100 meters away is a computer + int test. so, if you want to see what the local stuffer shack has in stock, you need computer skill.

edit file is an action that includes copying files or changing the text in them. and requires a computer + log test.

and while finding hidden icons is relatively unnecessary, basic matrix perception *is* pretty necessary, and can tell you many important things. it is a computer + int test.

doing a matrix search is likewise a computer + int test. you cannot google things reliably without computer skill.

reboot device is another test that requires computer skill. considering this is sometimes necessary to clear a hacker's marks, it's probably something security guards in particular need to be worried about, but really, pretty much everyone needs to know how to reboot their devices.

it is also a computer test to trace an icon, but generally speaking a security guard (and the average person) won't need to do that, i agree.

but over all, pretty much everyone can make excellent use of *some* computer skill (likely at 1, with a specialization in either matrix perception or matrix searches for the average person. some may be more focused on edit file though).

Good points.
You're right, most SINners (NPCs) should probably have Computers at a few points. I'm not so sure SINless living in the barrens, gangers, and the like need it, but clearly average members of society in 2075 can probably use a point or two.

My only (tiny) quibble is that you don't need matrix perception to find the Stuffer Shack. Each Stuffer Shack has it's own Host, and as long as a host is public, there is never a roll to locate or it.

[Jaid]

*shrug* make it a different shop that can't afford a host, same basic point remains. but then, you've basically already acknowledged that (also, i'm pretty sure gangers will like doing matrix searches just as much as anyone else (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )