Full Version: Matrix Trap!
| QUOTE (WeaverMount) |
| I actually really don't see the problem with leaving TMs AR a little gimped. If a TM has no damage, a threaded CF and a full compliment of sprites nothing in the RAW has can stop them but another TM. The only thing that keeps them from running ruff shod over the planet is that they get nickel and dimed to death doing anything. If they had a super effective way to play it safe that would make it nearly pointless to play an adept hacker and completely pointless to play a mundane hacker. I don't see the point in giving them a buff, so can COMPLETELY dominate. |
This gave me an idea. Let's say we're spiders running a security network, and we have it on good word that a Technomancer is coming to visit. How do we beat him? For sake of argument, we've been provided by MCT with more rating 6 programs than you can shake a cyberdeck at, but we're not TM's, just regular old spiders.
Here's what really prompted me to start this thread: I would wait for the technomancer and his army of sprites in one node, and then when they arrive, load up something like fifty instances of Sniffer. This won't do much in the way of killing the TM, but it will lower the node's response to zero, basically making it run on Windows 2012. Since Sprites have the response of the node they're run on (EDIT: That's a total lie, sorry everyone, my bad), they're kinda stuck. As for the TM, we load ourselves up onto the node, throw Black Hammer at him to jam his connection open, and smash his living persona to bits.
There's probably a lot of rules stuff that says I'm not allowed to do that, but I thought it was rather creative, at least. So what do you say? How does one best a technomancer in cyberspace? Trap-like scenarios get bonus points.
What prevents the technomancer from having his sprites operate from his "node?"
You don't even need black hammer. The TM is his Persona. They use the same damage track. Technomancers may have sprites, but they truly cannot afford to lose matrix combat.
sprites don't run on the node they are in. ever. they don't run on any node, in fact.
Okay, I quite clearly have no idea what I'm talking about, sorry everyone. I could have sworn I read that sprites have the response of the node they run on, but that's very mistaken. Maybe I was thinking of agents. Of course, this makes the whole task of beating a technomancer in the matrix even harder. So how does one do it?
Honestly, if you know the TM is coming, the best thing for the top Spider to do is to put up as many speed bumps as possible, peck at the TM through AR if he gets detected and reboot the system if things get dicey. Unlike an AR hacker, a TM can't just reboot his Icon and rush back in again once the system is back online and start fresh, any damage the TM took is there until it is healed. TMs are awesome, but not so good at endurance matches. They're pretty much stuck with sitting around in the bunker and hoping their Sprites steamroll everything.
Course, if you know the TM is coming, this begs the question of whether or not you could backup data and take the host offline until non-matrix countermeasures can deal with the TM in the real world. Or, call up your friend, who's also a TM and pay him for a bunch of spites on loan 
Really, we all know what kind of damage spiders can put on people.
Or, you could just limit it to physical access, and have physical security keep the techno from plugging in.
| QUOTE (Whipstitch) |
| You don't even need black hammer. The TM is his Persona. They use the same damage track. Technomancers may have sprites, but they truly cannot afford to lose matrix combat. |
Correct, but Black Hammer jams the communication open giving you more time to track his unconcious body so that R&D can "recover" him.
| QUOTE (Cheops) | ||
Correct, but Black Hammer jams the communication open giving you more time to track his unconcious body so that R&D can "recover" him. |
actually, no... when a TM goes unconscious, their node crashes. when their node crashes, their living persona has nothing to run on. and when their living persona has nothing to run on, it also disappears. thus there is no living persona to track from, no living node to track to, and you get nothing.
if you want to get your hands on the technomancer, you have to have IC with very high stealth (and analyse, unless you just get lucky, and track so that you can actually find the TM with what is probably a really high stealth rating) locate them, and then when the team is just around the corner, hit them hard with various attacks so that they can't respond to your extraction team kicking in their door.
| QUOTE (Jaid) | ||||
actually, no... when a TM goes unconscious, their node crashes. when their node crashes, their living persona has nothing to run on. and when their living persona has nothing to run on, it also disappears. thus there is no living persona to track from, no living node to track to, and you get nothing. if you want to get your hands on the technomancer, you have to have IC with very high stealth (and analyse, unless you just get lucky, and track so that you can actually find the TM with what is probably a really high stealth rating) locate them, and then when the team is just around the corner, hit them hard with various attacks so that they can't respond to your extraction team kicking in their door. |
I'd disagree because when a personality gets dumped it doesn't mean that his datatrail automatically get erased. So if you can still crash a Hacker's persona and then track him I think you should still be able to do it to TMs.
But hey, to each their own.
| QUOTE (Cheops) | ||||||
I'd disagree because when a personality gets dumped it doesn't mean that his datatrail automatically get erased. So if you can still crash a Hacker's persona and then track him I think you should still be able to do it to TMs. But hey, to each their own. |
Most of the datatrail is still there. You can track the technomancer through whatever nodes he was passing through, getting closer and closer to his location, but the last node in the trail - that is, the technomancer himself - will be shut down. Y'know, the unconsciousness. When a hacker goes unconscious, his commlink still runs and maintains all his connections, allowing trackers to break in and change his reality filter to Hello Kitty. When a technomancer goes unconscious, his node crashes spectacularly, and there's a whole trail, but no destination.
By that Logic would a mundane hacker with a bio-monitor rigged to restart his comlink accomplish the same thing?
| QUOTE (WeaverMount) |
| By that Logic would a mundane hacker with a bio-monitor rigged to restart his comlink accomplish the same thing? |
Yup, and that's probably not a bad idea.
How about wrapping his head in tinfoil coated with antiwireless paint?
[j/k]
[j/k]
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