looking at both "on the fly" & "probing the target" I am not seeing the difference. I know I am overlooking it but how is Probing safer?

Probing means only *one* roll against your Stealth, while on the fly is one roll for each test you need before you got enough hits together to get in, and those rolls are tallied together and then compared to your Stealth Rating; even two such rolls only from a moderately secure system gives them a good chance to detect you (assuming maximum Stealth).

You don't really want to enter a node when it's already on red alert.

Bye
Thanee

also, probing the target takes 1 hour pr test VR, but 1 day pr test AR...

so if you have a day to burn, go VR and probe the target

For low rating systems, and where you only require user level access, on the fly might well be okay. Use it for grabbing hold of security cameras and shutting down alarm systems in an emergency.

For tougher systems, and where you have to have security or admin access, you probably want to probe very carefully. Yes, you can do this stuff on the fly, but there's a significantly greater chance of detection and the associated alerts, roving IC, corporate deckers, etc. On the fly is only an increased chance of messing up, but why take that chance if you don't have to?

If you want to be the equivalent of a hacker doorman, consider hacking 7 (with aptitude positive quality), a specialization in Exploit, and Codeslinger in "Breaking in on the fly". with Exploit-6 that'll give you 7+2+2+6=17 dice and an average of 5.66 hits. That allllmost enough to get into a Rating 6 firewall on one pass. Thats also about 1 hit shy of admin access after two passes.

Note that TM's win out on Probing because they can have Sprites do it for them. Sure with a resonance of 5 and registering of 4 you may only be able to get a ton of services from rating 3 sprites but, charisma willing, you just use a half dozen at the same time probing a half dozen other nodes.