Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.
As for your first question, when I need a program rating for a mechanic, I just use system/response (they're the same 90% of the time anyway) instead.
Yeah, techno's still take -2, but I assume that, just like spells, that doesn't count if they thread, immediately use, and drop; it only applies if they're maintaining it. Maybe I'm wrong in that interpretation, though.
Honestly, I haven't had anyone play a techno yet, so the stuff I have for technos is just me trying to make them work with my other rules. So I don't really have any strong feelings on my techno rules. I was really just trying to get all my players to stop being terrified of hacking.
Good point on the trading off crying in corners.
Thanks again, I appreciate it.

Sure. At 18 seconds per service. That means that if you expend 4 services, you can make one test to search the Matrix. Since it's an extended test, I hope you've got three more services left over to make your second test.

And getting those services involves putting a gun to your head and hoping it isn't loaded when you pull the trigger.

-Frank

You're (almost) not wrong. If you thread a complex form, say browse, and use it you don't suffer the -2 penalty. But if you thread a complex form like Armor you would suffer the -2 when you use Attack in cybercombat, but not when you defend against attacks using Armor.

I have yet to see someone use this technique to enhance their matrix searches. It just usually isn't time critical to do such a thing, at least in my games, so the TM can use Skill + CF to do so, even if their CF for Browse might be 2 or 3. It may take a few seconds in game to make the search happen, but if one can't take the time to perform the search, then one usually has bigger fish to fry.

Usually, though, when using this technique, one is hacking on the fly. When you have a dice pool of Resonance x 2 + Spirte Rating + Skill, I've yet to see a good hack take more than 3 to 4 seconds.

The one player who had two different TMs both had a Resonance of 5, if I remember correctly, but if not let's use that as a decent baseline. After threading, and with a Rating 5 sprite to help out, you've got Resonance x 2 + Sprite = 15 dice. Then you add your skill, let's say they're a slightly above average hacker and give them a skill of 5 as well. Now you have a pool of 20 dice. Trade that in for 5 hits each round and you can get admin access to a Firewall (4) system in two rounds and only will get the Rating 5 or 6 system on the third. Hacking on the Fly is an interval of 1 Initiative Pass which is, roughly, 1 second. If your rating 5 sprite can assist this operation up to 5 combat turns (15 seconds) and we only need 2 or 3.

You and I have argued about TMs in other threads before, and I often feel like you're trying to make TMs equal to Hackers in every way by using the same tricks as Hackers, and that's just not the case. I agree that summoning and registering sprites can be like putting a gun to ones head, but with the right preparations, good skills, and -- as necessary -- Edge, it's not been a problem for registering spritis (or binding spirits for that matter). Hell, with the helpful application of some buffing spells and a medic standing by, you can bind/register some nasty stuff without worrying about them becoming uncontrolled and kicking your unconscious butt.

Note that you're still at a net loss unless you get 3+ hits on Threading. While you are not down 2 dice on the damage resistance test, you're still down 2 dice on the defense roll.

So in Cybercombat, you have two less dice to avoid the attack in the first place, meaning that your enemy is getting an average of 2/3 of an extra net hit on the attack, giving you more damage to resist. If all you're getting is two or less dice of armor, you're in the hole - taking the same amount of damage from attacks which hit, getting hit by more attacks, and being at a penalty to your own offensive and goal oriented actions.

Threading in any circumstance where you are expecting to make more than one kind of test (even if they are essentially the same kind of test such as a defense roll and a damage soak or a traffic intercept and a spoof), is rarely worthwhile.

-Frank

Sorry for the almost necro-post, but I'd like to try Frank's proposed system of Logic + Skill + Program. It makes a whole lot of sense to me. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at coming up with thresholds, so I was hoping to get some help from the Dumpshock community (specifically, Frank). Perhaps we can devlop this system a bit further.

On average, this roll is going to result in 1 extra hit (if I'm correct).

So, for success tests, increase the threshold by 1 across the board.

For extended tests - I'm not sure. Perhaps increase thresholds by 3? Or maybe it's more appropriate to increase by an additional 1/3rd? So, if a threshold for an extended test is 10, the new threshold would be 13. If it were 12, it would be 16, etc.

Opposed tests, obviously, don't change.

What do you think?

If you're playing the Hacker out of the BBB (an unsurprisingly poorly made character), you're going to be rolling a 14 die pool instead of a 9 or 10 die pool (depending on which part of the book you believe). That means that you shoot from an average of 3 or 3.3 hits to an average of 4.6 hits. You also go from a 98.3% chance of getting at least one hit to a 99.7% chance of getting a hit.

For the advanced character, however, it goes from a quickly achieved maximum dicepool of 12 or 15 (again, depending upon what part of the book you believe) to a 21 which is achieved in about the same time. So you're going from an average of 4 or 5 to an average of 7.

So the question is: what kind of failure chances are people looking for in hacking attempts. If you're trying for Admin Access, even 21 dice is very unlikely to give you the ~10 hits you need in a single check, and you were already getting that in two attempts about half the time.

So if you wanted to maintain a similar level of success with getting Admin Access you'd increase the threshold increase for attempting better Access by one or two per level (+4 or +5 for Security, +8 or +10 for Admin).

And the incoming Firewall dice don't need to be changed at all because the Stealth threshold has not changed.

-Frank

Now, you might think that were one to attempt to to subvert the programming of a device through technical manipulation of a device that you would use the Hardware skill

...but apparently there ae some designers who don't agree. That to them, if you are attempting to subvert the programming of the device through technical manipulation that you can use the Hacking skill (for programming subversion) rather than the Hardware skill (for technical manipulation) if that's what you want to do.

Which means that by this interpretation Hacking is a super skill because literally everything you want to do to electronic devices is an exploit or subversion of the programming of that device. Indeed, all that crap on page 255 about how you need Hardware to bypass maglocks is apparently malarky under this intrepretation because you can actually just hack them by hand and use Hacking instead of Hardware at no penalty.

And if you don't agree with this interpretation, or this interpretation didn't ever occur to you after reading the book, then that is the reason that neither the text on page 223 nor the FAQ made any sense to you at all on this subject.

-Frank

Actually, everything that touches the 'firmware' of a device would be Hardware - prominent examples are hot-sim-modding a sim module or permanently chaning your Access ID.

Which is fine by me. The line between hardware and software is blurred today and it will blurr even more in the future.