Sequencer + Electronics vs Maglocks, can you use both? Options

[Lycan]

It makes perfect sense to use eletronics as a complementary skill to the maglock sequencer/passkey test. You must imagine that besides being easy to use, these devices have some options of fine tuning for the advanced user. Looking at the manufacturer & model of the maglock may give you some insight at what sequences you want to try first or what sequences you may not want to try. Security protocols and encryption used may restrict your search also. Lastly, you can look at the keypad and see some worn buttons ...

[mfb]

sequencer, yes. keycard, i doubt it. the whole point of the keycard is that it's stupid-proof and fast; all you have to do is swipe it, and the door opens.

[Czar Eggbert]

I always imagined the card as something like what John Conner used in T2 to break into the atm. A magnetic card hooked into a computer that scans for the correct code.

[mfb]

hm. yeah. the base time for using one is 10 seconds; that's not quite swipe-and-go.

[Fortune]

[Necro Tech]

Unless a sequencer gets much worse than they are right now, no electronics test should ever be needed. Its scans the codes for you. Period. Hook it up to the wires and wait. You can't help them in any way. You might require a test just to hook it up right but now matter how good you are, you will never have any personal interaction with your sequencer, no tweaking, no fiddling, no adjusting. It works or it doesn't.

[Fortune]

That's my opnion as well.

[mfb]

using the electronics skill with your sequencer doesn't make the sequencer work or not work. it's a complementary test; successes on the electronics roll don't count unless you get a success on the sequencer test. the electronics roll allows you to manipulate the sequencer more quickly, helping reduce the base time of 10 seconds.

[Necro Tech]

For game purposes I'd let that slide. Assuming of course that the sequencer actually won the test. With a complementary test, all you need is one success with the skill to allow complementary successes to work. Your rating one sequencer and electronics of 10 stand a decent chance of opening a rating four lock. For time reduction I might allow it because hooking up the machine might be included in the ten seconds.

[hahnsoo]

That's another thing... without some sort of influence of a PC Electronics roll, there are few reasons for the lower rated tech toys to exist (being outdated, designed to break into a school locker, etc.). Perhaps you can chalk it up to the PC customizing the toy between runs to make it more efficient/effective for certain situations. Under this assumption, you can give a bonus for items that the PCs have owned for a reasonable length of time and that they have specifically "tuned" for any particular run.

[TeOdio]

Just a thought on why knowledge of electronics can certainly assist you in using a sequencer (not so much a pass card, don't have a book on me right now to remember how "long" it takes to use them). If you gave me in real life a sequencer and a quick run down on how to use it, I could probably follow instructions even with my meager understanding of electronics, but still not be knowledgeable enough to use it to it's ability. Give that sequencer to someone with at least a technical school education, they could figure out how to connect it much faster than me and get the thing cracking. Remember, a complementary skill roll only works if the device scores a success. It's a sticky call on whether or not in an opposed test that would be a net success or not. But in the description they use electronic warfare as an example and almost every one of those tests are opposed. Why use a sequencer if you've got the skills already. Time. If you aren't going in stealth with a bunch of time to waste, you might still want a quick way into an area. That rating 8 maglock can keep you fiddling with it for a minute or two, which could be a minute or two too long.
:nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen:

[Necro Tech]

With electronics warfare you are using it to jam and run intercepts, a very active process where you are constantly involved and practice and skill very much alter the outcome. You are using your experience to control a piece of electronics to do what you want.

The sequencer does not require nor can you offer it any help. All you can do is update its decryption routines (making it a higher rating). Without instuction, no one can use a sequencer at all. Its actually very silly that it requires no skill to use but that is probably just because the designers wanted to give runners with no techwiz a chance.

Trust me as someone who has used them, no one "tunes" a sequencer. It's strictly plug and play.