Deckers and Otaku, or lack there of Options

[Eyeless Blond]

I gotta side with Kagetenshi on this one. When you're on a low-security host it's far easier to just use Evasion and sleaze your way past all the IC forever than to do any sort of attacking. This is particularly true if you don't allow the optional rule to allow you to use hacking pool to supress IC.

Here's a question for all you veterans out there: what kinds of wireless interfaces would you spend nuyen on at chargen? Is it a good idea to toss out the cash for a satelite dish and related gear in the beginning, a cellular link, or are these sorts of things better to wait on?

[Kagetenshi]

If you've got a Rigger who can stick a fixed dish on their van, it's far more than worth it.

~J

[Necro Tech]

Radio, cellular and satelite. Having radio and cell is good for doing info searches in the field and accessing public databases. Set yourself up a fake MSP account and go to town.

Satelite is great for not worrying about the corp ever finding you and the downside is very small. Accessing the satelites can be a problem because you only have rating six programs which can leave you with nasty target numbers. It is however your only option when out in the barrens or cruising the Salish-Sidhe unless you have a monster power boost.

[Kagetenshi]

[fistandantilus4....]

There is of course the 'stealth' option on attack programs.

Once again though, it's like "entrapment".
"Never carry a gun. You may be tempted to use it."

[Necro Tech]

A very poor and expensive option. You will never be able to afford attack 8M+ stealth 8. Low grade IC isn't a threat to a good decker and when you see rating 10-12 IC bearing down on you the stealth 8 wouldn't do it then either. 2-4 on a red system could be 1-2 trigger steps putting you at square one.

If you are going nuclear, get the best attack program you can, kill every thing that comes up until the system enters shutdown mode then keep using swerve until your mission is complete. Not a good option but it forces them to power off the system manually and lose data or just hope the security deckers can boot you.

I should never say never. Maybe someone has 2.3 million :nuyen: to drop on a program. Nobody I know.

Remember, evasion is your best friend. Save the attack program for the deckers.

[fistandantilus4....]

Ummm... aren't we the deckers?


Besides, programs are too expensive to be buying all the time. Either get the connected edge, or write your own.

Yes it takes for ever, but at least you'll have something to do in the downtime.

And after you write that Attack D +stealth 8, you can sell it to Hackerhouse and buy yourself a few other nice proggies.

[Weredigo]

[Critias]

[fistandantilus4....]

[mfb]

[Kagetenshi]

I disagree. With an average of one security tally per test (one per two if you allocate hacking pool, etc), that isn't very many Null Ops tests before the next piece of IC or Passive Alert goes up.

~J

[mfb]

it's a minimum average (if there is such a thing) of five operations between IC pops. that's not bad, for the type of intrusion beginning runners get hired to do. it won't be easy; the decker's not going to be ghosting through the system with no trace. but it's possible.

[Kagetenshi]

That's about fifteen seconds. Keep in mind that the IC isn't going to be dealt with in a single round either, and additionally each piece of crashed IC makes things worse.

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

Keep in mind, though, that every time you destroy that probe IC 4-5 you're either raising your tally by that same 4-5 (unless you *really* dropped alot of cash on that attack prog, and even then it'll be more like 2-3) or dropping your DF by one. Of course this all assumes you're not using the optional rule of supressing IC withhacking pool; then and only then could you get away with attack before you pick up that ludicrously high Sneak attack program (and can suck down that SI 3 1,024,000 Y price tag or wait the two years base time it'll take you to write it yourself.

[mfb]

where are you getting 15 seconds from? and, yes, i'm assuming you're a) suppressing the IC, and b) using hp to do it whenever possible.

[Kagetenshi]

Null ops for five combat turns is fifteen seconds. On hacking pool you're still dropping your DF unless you weren't using it to raise DF; even if you've got free hacking pool, you're lengthening the time it takes to successfully perform tasks.

~J

[mfb]

that's not how null ops works. if you don't do anything for ten minutes, you do a single null ops test at the end of that time, with a TN modified by the amount of time you've been nulling.

[Kagetenshi]

*Digs for SR3* You sure on that?

Edit: answer's somewhere in-between. "The gamemaster may require a decker to perform one or more Null Operations whenever the decker is waiting for something to happen".

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

Precisely, Kagetenshi. No starting decker can get more than 9 hacking pool, two of those needing an encephalon which is really hard to justify for most characters, without heavy investment in a Cerebral Booster 2 and a custom 450,000+ Y deck, both of which are heavily up to GM fiat at chargen. Six of those HP are going to your DF, leaving you with 1-3 for IC supression.

Net effect: your HP has earned you those precious 45 extra seconds, giving you a full minute of overwatch time before the Stuffer Shack you're infiltrating (You're assuming overwatch on a Blue-Easy, right?) hits its next trigger step, which is likely to be something even more nasty than the Probe IC you're supressing (likely a Passive Alert by now.) So what do you do the rest of the 9 minutes it takes your buddy to break through the maglock at the front door? :D

(EDIT): Ah, hmm, just reread that section on null ops (SR3 p. 218 if anyone's interested). I gues that *does* make overwatch more possible than I thought, though you're still rolling against Control which is usually the highest subsystem rating. *shrug*

[mfb]

oops, not a TN mod, a raise in the effective security value. if you've nulled for <10 seconds, no change; up to a minute, +1; up to an hour, +2; up to 12, +4, +1 per every further 12 hours.

edit: if a stuffer shack is hitting passive alert on the second trigger step, something's really wrong.

[Kagetenshi]

Blue-Easy hosts typically hit Passive Alert on the third or fourth trigger step.

This being primarily a factor of the gigantic void between trigger steps.

~J

[mfb]

hm. i use the random host creator in Matrix as a guide; with that, you don't tend to hit passive alerts until the 5th-6th step no matter what type of host you're on. i prefer that the hosts scale by trigger step, rather than by actual security tally--that is, all hosts have roughly the same number of trigger steps, but varying maximum security tallies.

[Kagetenshi]

Maybe it's four or five; all I know is that all of the Blue-Easy hosts I've created in the past few weeks (all using the random creator) triggered at the fourth step.

Edit: on P114, Matrix, the Blue and Red grids trigger Passive Alert and Security Deckers at the fourth step (24 and 12 tally, respectively) while the Green and Orange trigger as the fifth step.

~J

[Shockwave_IIc]

Also something you have to bare in mind is that you have to know how long your going to "Null Ops" for.

You might think you need a minutes worth og time but it might end up being longer or shorter, if longer then thats another Null ops you need to do.