It seems that the Decker from SR3 was taken to an extreme as the Hacker in SR4.

The previous SRs the decker was indeed the oddman out, often times (far more than not) I either ran the decking outside of game time or heavily Houseruled the system basing it off just a few dice rolls. (more than 2 less than 10)

I hardly ever had a dedicated decker in the group, usually they had a decker contact or the sam hybrid also decked. (enough to do some orange to low red systems) That worked well enough.

With SR4 though, since every single character is connected (usually it seems) then it also seems these three things are true:

1. Anyone and everyone can hack to an extent. (I havent gotten into the numbers enough to know the minimum effective skill+ program. However threshold tests seem doable by a 1 logic, 1 skill, 1 rating program? Likely I am missing something)

2. Everyone is meat for the hacker. Why should a hacker go on runs when he can hang out and hack all the legit users. Stealing anything and everything from cars to simple house burglery. To even just Identity theft and draining their accounts. Even on the runner side, no need for guns or magic when you can just forcefeed BTLs to everyone.

3. The Hacker has now gone from, "can do without and story line around it" to "must have or someone might make your toast burn" or "must address or the game mechanic suffers"

I suppose I am saying, it seems that the change is a bit far.

It is largely impossible to build a viable character that does not drop a ton of cash to buy software to protect himself or have a hacker friend or contact.

Lastly, if hacking is indeed such an issue, then why does the books gear not reflect that. Ala note that everything has X level of security or firewall. It seems that it is written so the ignorant unread and uninformed player will create a character with none of the security, just so the GM or Hacker player has someone to F with.

The wireless section says 'you better get a hacker on your side or buy software' while the gear section says 'here buy this un-secure gear'. It seems like a disconnect. Akin to buying a car with no seats or headlights. Still works, but um...

I understand that the world (civilians) at large do not have to deal with that, or just ignore it for some reason. "Oops looks like someone drained my account. Shucky Darn. Time to put more cash in there. la lala lala." But the game is not written for people to play (in game) ignorant civilians. Nor is the book written as an in-game catalog for the population (as was SR2 Street Sam Catalog)

I dunno, it just feels wierd.

(heres your out... Maybe I am old and can't get new concepts.}

True in SR3, as well, though cost more prohibitive.


You could do this in SR3, as well. Even easier, actually, because tracing a decker was very difficult in 3rd.


Without going into the debate, this is preventable (in the rules) to such a degree that it should be considered a non-issue for all but hot-sim users. Call it a trode-fuse, whatever.


You can still storyline around it, really, and then the problem returns to "why is magic so powerful?".

[edit] Also, I don't think you're old, just dumpshocked by the emphasis SR4 gave hackers through the interpenetration of the Matrix...

You are likely right about the interpenetration.

I suppose if in SR3 the costs on decks were dropped and then basically required for all characters it would be in fact similiar.

Still though there was a hardlink required (unless you ran with sat links and so on). So any character would in fact be unaffected until they hooked up.

With wireless, everyone is a target all the time, even with a hidden mode.

That character would be rolling 2 dice, 4 if he's in full VR (which most non-hackers won't be mid-run).
In either case, it becomes quite likely that the character will glitch or critical-glitch his roll before he hits the threshhold he is after. He would also stand almost no chance at hacking into a rating 3 (typical) device at all, much less, unnoticed.

not that much. a decent commlink is something like 10k, and the software required isn't terribly expensive either.


they did. look up device ratings.


yeah, and there's nothing in the hacking section that says you should buy armor just in case people shoot you. this isn't really a problem anyways.

Runners can shore up pretty easy, if they don't want to data share too much, by disabling wireless on everything and using skinlinks. Have a junk comm to ping your ID when needed, and keep everything else offline. But hacker-in-a-box is a good way to run a game without a meat hacker. It can work along the lines of a maglock passkey, a network watcher, a simrig editor, etc. And without a hacker to code the agents, they'll be buying them.

Gotcha

I think I finally may have the mechanics down, at least theoretically.

I found when I learned to run SR way back, it was relatively easy to compartmentalize the aspects of the game. Rigging, Decking, Magic and so on. Learning each part as they became important.

So far in SR4 it seems everything is so integrated that the entire rule system becomes one large elephant to eat instead of piece by piece.

It does make it easier than old SR because at least that elephant doesnt have different rules per piece.

Yeah, I was going to say earlier that it isnt that hacking is more powerful, just that it is now an integral part of a run. I dont walk out the door without a tag eraser, jammer, firewall 6, spoof 5. Now that the electronic world is so much more accessible, it is so frequently used that those who are adept at using it hold a great deal of power.

It is easy to remove magic from the shadowrun world, but it is almost impossible to do SR4 without the wireless matrix like you could in SR3.

...what I have been gathering from reading the various matrix oriented threads is that if anything, the entire hacking scene has become even more complex than decking was due to the fact there are so many more options to deal with.

Looking back it seemed pretty straightforward, you had your deck and programmes, you jacked into someone's system, you went for the data. You either succeeded, were forced to cut & run because your Sec Tally got too high, or were fried by IC. None of this PAN hacking/cyberware hacking/gear hacking/momhammering/Agent Smith/this mode/that mode stuff.

I'm almost about to turn my Matrix Specialist Violet into just a tech wiz & forgo the hacking completely because it is becoming too much to keep track of anymore.

Strangely, she seemed a lot more fun to play when she was a decker back in 3rd ed.

Well, I think people focus too much on trying to hack PANs and cyberware and so on. It's not easy to do on the fly, and that's when you'd most often want to hack them.

There's nothing wrong with coming to an agreement with your GM to use the Matrix in the fashion of break in, access the host, steal the data, erase your trail, fade out. Rather than pulling teeth and hairs over network management.

I am coming back around to that mode of operation as well. Actually I should say that is my intended endpoint.
However, I feel I need to fully grok the RAW intention before I make it my own.

ie: if/ when my gamers come to me and want to hack a fizzypop dispenser, because they realized they can, I want to be able to make a solid logical argument as to why they can or can't. Not just 'you can't do that' or 'sure do it and there are no repercussions'.

Firewall 6 and Encrypt 6 cost 3600 nuyen and combined with Hidden Mode make finding and hacking you fairly hard and lengthy. This is less than 1 BP at character creation.

1) Momhammering only works on targets in VR. This is the same as SR3.
2) Agent Smith and Hackastack only work with a very specific (and in my opinion incorrect) reading of the way the words are arranged and used in the Matrix section.
3) The only modes that matter for hacking are Hidden or Not Hidden. The Passive and Active modes can be completely ignored if your characters aren't into social networking and stuff like that while on a run. Or if you have a mean GM like me who has LS come around and ask you why you aren't running in Active mode.

Matrix in SR4 is similar to the Matrix in SR3. It takes a little while to get used to but once you do it is well worth the effort. Plus the rules are so much easier in SR4 than they were in previous editions and there is no more Hacker Dungeon Crawl.

Well, a soda dispenser is - at heart - a public locker. You put in a quarter, it opens, drops a can, and closes. The quarter doesn't go into the dispenser anymore, it goes from your bank to another bank and the two banks tell the machine how much was deposited. They cost about a thousand bucks at Sam's Club and then sit in public with a few hundred nuyen of product inside them, not to mention advertising and searching for people who've never tried Fizzypop, so let's call it a Device Rating 2 (same as public terminal).

I did the math last night and - by buying successes - the out of the box hacker can hack a Rating 2 device, add a backdoor to get free sodas from that machine whenever she desires, erase her data trail and make machine believe a legitimate purchase was made: all in about 6 Combat Turns from AR, with around a 1 in 5 chance of setting off an alarm during Exploit. At some point company audits will show a machine somewhere is handing out freebies, and then narrow it down or consider it the cost of doing business. So ~75,000 in programs and hardware will give you free sodas for the most part. A Rating 3 Device, such as datajack, would have detected the hacker during Exploit...

Unless your a hacker or rigger, getting hacked isnt that big of a deal. I could care less if my image/sound link gets hacked i can just take them off. All my cyber and smartlinks are wifi-off and or using skinlinks that do not go through a commlink. Lets see if matrix boy can shurg off my damage as easily.

So what you are saying is:
1. Based on 12oz sodas weighing 0.75 lbs
2. A fully stocked vending machine will hold 725 sodas.
3. 1 a pop (since we cant seem to get smaller)

I would need to hack 103.4 fully stocked fizzy pop machines stealing every can for a total weight of 543.75 lbs per Machine to pay off my box hacker gear.
Costing me 1,861.2 seconds ( 31 minutes) of total hacking time
a semi to haul the 56,223.75 lbs (25.5 metric tons)
the grunts to load the sodas
and the time to travel from venind machine to vending machine.

All I have to overcome is the camera systems in the area and alert systems for the vending machines?
And find a way to sell them for full price.

Pasha! Might as well hit another 43 machines to hit the 80,000 lb gross weight and fill the truck up. Netting a grand total of 106,140 give or take.


Course it might be more efficient to hit the Clothing Flats machines for 5 a pop. Alot less weight, likely less pissed off customers.

Note firstly that you could do this under SR3 as well, just hack the main Fizzypop host and download the maglock keycode to all the machines, right? They could go around stealing cars and cracking credsticks if they wanted to, the rules allowed it.

Ah, but you can't get full price for them, only 40% of the retail value on the black market. Plus, they're not even cold when you go to sell them, dropping the value another 10%! And does the fence really have enough cash to buy all this soda? Maybe, maybe it's actually a run for the Underground Ball...

Sure, the Fizzypop audit programs receive a signal from the machine when they are empty, not to mention at random times of the day, so they can manage sales and marketing data. They'll notice that the money in the bank != sodas sold, unless your hacker was extra careful (upping the hack time, though at this point she should just go full VR and hack from the Trix side, giving her access to all the machines at once while remotely controlling the truck). Now, remember that I said four out of five times she slips in without alarm? Well, make her roll the dice instead of buying successes and she'll screw up sooner or later, meaning Fizzypop will be onto her then and searching the blackmarket for sellers while temporarily putting their machines on alert...

I'd add that this is why shadowrunners should be paid so well, or they go into bizz for themselves. Though the Great Fizzypop Heist is something the Mafia would be run as part of an extortion, making Fizzypop distributors pay protection money to keep their vending machines running smooth... Now the mob would overlook a soda here and there, but not all of them, right? You just made them look bad. Oops.

...consider this idea yanked for the next time I GM.

I think that at some point, you're better off just bringing a laser cutter and throwing the machine in the back of the truck and selling that instead of (or rather, in addition to) the fizzipop it contains.

That said, my hacker is never going to pay for soda again.

So do you think Fizzypop corp cares more about their machine or their sodas? Or will the hunter-killer drones come get you anyway .




Kanada Ten:

Question regarding your 75k Box Decker and SRM02-01A Parliament of Thieves.
In the optional scene where



How much does Dean cost? (box decker gear wise)

Dean doesn't even have a Stealth program: he can't hack a soda machine much less a car without setting off alarms. The only way he could shut down the car without notice is with passcodes that he must have obtained from extensive surveillance of the team or backdoors from the car manufacturer/seller. GM fiat is priceless. However, the scenario makes no sense to me: if they try to run he engages them in cybercombat? And if he wins, they don't just shoot his ass? It seems like it was designed for a slightly different set-up, and then modified.

Scary thing is it doens't even have to come to that. The Fizzypop spider (they do have one you know, every corp does) notices that 3 or 4 machines have gone empty in the last 2 hours. He sends out agents to check each machine and report back if more than 10% of the soda's get "sold" from any one machine in less then 2 min. He then gets the RFID inventory numbers from the vending machines that have been hit, remember 1 RFID for EVERY can. He then goes and informs Lone Star and Fizzypop's security forces (the Pop Cops) that there is a theft ring on going. The spider then scrambles 3 or 4 rotodrones to go near likely machines to be hit next and a few drones to scan for the RFID tags of the missing cans. The spider then tries to find cameras near the machine and get images and vehicle information as soon as he can and pass that off to the pop cops and Lone Star.
As soon as you hit the next machine he has the pop cops and Lonestar head over to make the bust.

Might be much you think? Lets see if Fizzy Pop has @300K in product sitting out on the street at any given time and probably 500K in equipment in any given city they probably have a spider watching them for theft and vandilisim. He is also probably resposnible for guarding the delivery drivers as they make the drop offs with drones; 40K in product in one delivery truck might be to unreasonable to expect and I'm sure that some people think they are easy hijack victums.

And lets face it that spider is probably BORED OUT OF HIS MIND!!! You are probably the most intresting thing that has happend in the last 2 years and he probably trys to bust the guys who steal 2 or 3 sodas at a time jsut to keep from geting to bored and to keep hsi skills sharp.

The great part about RFID cans is that you don't have to paint them. Everybody can see you drink Fizzypop by the AR icon of Fizzy Fuzz, Fizzypop's adorable mascot bouncing circles around your hand yelling out that everybody should drink Fizzypop, the soda that tingles to your toes! I wonder if they hand out free soda when you add Fizzy Fuzz to your friend's list, little bastard popping up in the middle of chatrooms to let everyone try a simsample of Scrambler Soft, the drink that scrambles your senses! while you shrug defensively at your date, "I was thirsty."

...The Fizzy Pop^™ Gambit

...coming in two weeks to a gaming table near you (well at least for my SR group)

OK, with my book, Dean has 23,500 in gear, tho he's missing a bunch of critical programs (Edit, Stealth, Analyze, Browse, to name a few). Spoof being useless without Analyze, like Exploit without Stealth.

Our out of the box decker has 52,950 in used equipment and programs (he could use a few more programs, too, like Sniffer), part of that cyberware cost, but mostly programs and upgrades.

Personally, if I were fizzipop, one in ten dispenser machines would be fully functional combat drones with only limited inventory.

"See, what did I tell you. Those firs three machines went down in less than seven minutes with travel time. We'll be rich by the end of the day!"
*the vending machine stands up to it's full 3m height, and fizzypop-colored machine guns pop out from the logo*
"....drek..."

The only downside is that you might get a very good hacker trying this gig and have to deal with the PR of a fizzypop machine gone on a rampage. That's a real boon to competitors.

"Snazzydrink -- the drink thats' never shot up three square blocks of your home town."

And who really wants to feel the full fizz of the Fizzypop Blackhammer? Can't you just see the little Fizzy Fuzz pulling a can from behind his furry back, shaking the fraggin' thing like mad and unloading some liquid whoopass down your throat? "Argh, it was *gruggle* just *fuggle* one *blurrrg* soda..."

Feels like a caffeine high and headache having a boxing match in your skull for the next week.

[edit] I imagine the most embarassing part of being a security hacker is the persona the corp makes you wear. "Sure, you got to wear a Eight Headed Medusa Succbus at D'Isis Horrorworks, but here at Rad Dog your expected to suit up as Happy Herb the Hotdog, at all times. Got it?"

...this is getting better and better...

I like the disguised combat drone, and the Fizzy Black Hammer.

Actually in RL there is an energy drink made by Jones Soda called WhoopAss, I kid you not. My players tremble in fear if I bring more than one can to a game...

You know what would be even more devious? A whole rack of 20 or so cans that can't be accessed by the normal menu, and only show up as inventory if you hack in. What hacker is going to check the inventory against the ARO display? Especially if he's hitting a bunch of machines real fast?

Those extra 20 cans should all be minidrones, with a mix of micro-lasers, crude cutting impliments, and tasers. And they should keep pretending to be cans until discovered (unlikely) or the hacker falls asleep.

...and some filled with cutter nanites.

Nice.

How about those practical joke snake-in-a-jar cans?

Except with monowire?

Sweet zombie Jesus! Couldn't they just be exploding nanospy paint cans, like bank dye packs, or something? Embarrassing and effective, but not, you know, messy messy. It could just be some kid who wanted a soda really bad. It's not his fault Fizzypop has the same addiction rates as novacoke!

What can I say, I'd make a terrible corp peon.

"Sir, I've got some good news and some bad news."
"Bad news first please."
"The bad news is, we expect some lawsuits with our new promotional campaign for the breakfast cereal."
"You mean the 'free miniature monowhip in one of every five boxes' promotion? Kids love that stuff. What's the good news?"
"We've partnered with Docwagon, so we think we can make up the lawsuit expenses."

If I ever get my own megacorp, you're hired...

I had another thought on this subject.

All the defensive / offensive additions to these fizzypop machines are expensive. It would be good if we saw some ROI other than loss prevention. I think the solution is dual-purpose equipment.

For instance, a pyrotechnic display / flame thrower.

Kids love fire, hackers hate being burned alive. It's a win/win!

Well, if we want to go crazy, then figure that Fizzypop doesn't own the machines; they sell the soda to distributors and vendors to "concentrate on making quality thirty quenching products" (and limit liability, maximize liquadatability). The vendors give them access to their specific dispensing machine, to customize marketing, but AVM manages product distribution (having paid for the soda at wholesale).

AVM manages lots of vending machines and kiosks in any given location, and stacks them in circles, like food courts. The food court floor is made of compacted, colorful sand, and in addition to hiding an earth spirit, it can convert into a sandtrap/sinkhole (though only deep enough to drown a baby). Because the drone guards ten or more machines, it has a pretty impressive rating, along with group bonuses from the attached agents. Each of the variously themed courts also contains harmless Swarm IV drones in appropriately styled insects, usually butterflies, which act as sensor augmentations for the - say in the AVM Jungle Brunch court: MadMax Monkey biodrone, which (while normally adorable and friendly to the kids) can go apedrek insane when he detects theft.

Of course Little Tommy the 2 yr old who is actively digging in the machine gets slaughtered by the drones or shock or spirit when the hacker who is 20m away finishes his hack.

Tommy doesn't know any better just that yummy drinks come from there. Who know Little Tommy may be some high muckety mucks son and out with the nanny.

So then, who gets it and how, and is it safe enough to not cause major lawsuits.

I made some stats for a vending machine that adress those issues in a sperate post.

Vending machine stats

Having an agent and max damage of 5S as well as the ability to tell Tommy to back away from the machine without a comlink helps a lot. I'm trying to work on a drone that restocks the vending machines as well. Might just write up a whole stinking concessions dispencing company with stats and specilized drones, warehouse, key personel and some black market aplications for vending machines and the drones that restock them.

I have a loooonggg communte each day and I need somethign to think about on the 2+ hours I spend in the car.

ah yes the good old 5S, see me with my implanted SR1-3 info made that a 5 Serious.
Which by rules wouldn't kill the kid, was a bit over the top. Particularly since most most orks and all trolls would soak that to nil.

SR4, 5 stun gotcha!

Drones are actually fairly intelligent in Sr4. Tommy digging in the sand would have MadMax goofily coming over to play with him and keep him occupied while the system tried to match his RFID up with a parent/guardian to warn them about leaving children unattended. The earth spirit would be there to conceal the sandtrap drone, and repair damage to the sand. When the system detects a hack it uses Track to identify the hacker, not sensors.

I suppose you could also have a non-lethal response, like that quick-hardening foam glue from Arsenal.

"Hahaha... my vending machine spree is on a roll now. And you didn't think I could pull it off."
"Umm... Ed, did the last vending machine having a video clip of a fizzipop soda being shaken up violently?"
"What? Whatever. Just another quick edit, and we'll have another trunk full..."
"Ed... Ed, it's pointing the can graphic straight at us. That's not normal, is it?"
"Fizzipop is mine!"
*sploosh* -- liters of quickly expanding foam burst from the machine centered on the can graphic and instantly coats the two startled hackers and begins to harden
"...hey Ed, this stuff actually tastes a little like fi--"
"Shut up."

Optionally, you could make the foam flammable as well. Just in case it needs to be...



Is it a bad sign than when I thought of multiple vending machines all standing together like that, my first thought was "That's great! If you had three to five of them, you could connect them all with some hidden hydraulics, and with a few modifications to add joints in the middle, you could turn it into a humongous hand to restrain or crush would-be hackers!"