This means of course that there are no true "offline / high security isolated systems" ... everyone has to be online at least every two month. This means that there is no possibility to have legal software in dead zones, too.

SYL

But hey, not everything that is FUBAR in Unwired is bad for characters:

Using Encryption, you can make you Comlink near-impossible to hack. Because to hack an encrypted Node, you need to decrypt it first. Just, after encrypting it with Strong Encryption, the Intervall of the Extended test is now up to 24h.
Which means that hacking it, it the absolute best case, will take 12 hours if the security hacker rushes the job - not going to happen in combat.

I really want to pley in you game if anyone can get a weopon focus

so im starting to wonder, where exactly does it spell out that autosoft, activesoft and similar ones degrade?

or is it a case of exanding the "common use" statement into near absurdity?

In the Unwired of course.



However, there is a rule contradiction

So, agents and OS cannot be made with copy protection or registration. Which means they don´t need to be updated or are updated without an identification process. But on the other side they are mentioned under legal software. FUBAR at its best. I hope Errata 1.6 (or Errata 1.0 for Unwired) or a clear FAQ enty will arrive soon and the authors will not wait until the next print. There are some major holes in the rule system now.

SYL

-Frank

I still don't see why you need to use cracked acti-,know- or linguasofts. Just buy those legally and they won't degrade.

Depending on the type of active skillsoft you have to authentificate yourself (weapon skillsoft for example). Then of course there is the price ... and then of course there is the principal question on how much does it make sense that after 10 month a high quality english lingua chip is no longer able to translate the language. Or why after 8 month a car cannot be driven anymore from a legal chipped driver without matrix access.

SYL

The only way these would ever be flagged for illegal use (and even then its questionable) if if the same SIN you used to buy them was linked to a crime. But I don't forsee companies keeping an eye on most wanted and shutting down their programs. In fact I'd think Lone Star would want them to keep them running because it makes them easier to track. These programs aren't actually ever used "Illegally" the way actual Matrix programs are. I think only Hacker programs could ever be flagged as illegal use, common use ones wouldn't be (they'll just make it easier to track you).

But the reason people would crack them would be to give copies to all of their friends. If anyone wanted a copy of my program of this though, I'd want them to pay at least 25% of the price, considering I'll then have to patch my program that before was taken care of. I'm not going to give them something for free that will then start charging me every other month.

and here in lie the real issue i think. what can and cant be tracked, or what will and wont be tracked.

hell, by the looks of it one can do it this way:

have one day designated as patch day. at that day you open up so that all your softs can go online and update themselves. the rest of the time you stay in hidden mode or run with wireless of.

and when you go online to update, you do it via one or more layers of proxy

Fluff wise, bad rule. Game wise, good rule.

There is zero reason game wise not to use a Registered activesoft. The only penalty is that when you purchase one in game you have to pass a SIN verification test. You are not going to be tracked via softs because the only record of your softs is on YOUR gear. Of course if your gear gets captured and you don't routinely wipe your own access logs then the LS has a record of all your crimes.

I think that the extra cost is a good balance to everybody getting free programs and softs.

On the earlier topic of SIN checks. There are two different tests as far as I'm concerned. The one is just the "Do you have a SIN and does our verification system say it is real?" This is the one that you go through in high security areas and when purchasing things. The cops/corps are just concerned that you have a SIN and the you are displaying it. Kind of a quick "flash of the badge" to ensure that you are okay to be there.

The second is the actual roto-rooter that some people seem to think happens every time. This one actually costs time and money. This is where there are people running background/credit/criminal checks on you.

In RL, here's what happened to me. At every job I've been to before I just had present my SIN to show that I am a legitimately registered worker. When I started working for the Mutual Fund company, when I would be handling lots of money, I had to not only present my SIN but submit to a Credit and Background check. In the latter case the extra time and expense was worth it to them to assure themselves that I wasn't going to rip them off.

Want to restate a question I asked pages back...

Complex Forms and Program Options for Technomancers: 2 Karma per option is per option, not per option per complex form correct... Meaning I buy it once and can apply it to any complex form I wish.

If this is per option, per complex form, then I think I'll be houseruling 2 karma per complex form level (instead of = new rating), so 12 karma would get you rating 6, not rating 4 (actually its 11 karma but close enough)

By extra cost you mean the players lifetime wasted by idle bookkeeping?

Or you you can just calculate the cost and time pent(buying hits) and just add the cost to monthly lifestyle and pent the required time during downtime.
Not that much of a bookkeeping now is it.

and considering that hackers can now spoof their lifestyle, it's good that they have attleast some monthly exspencives.

yep, any hacker worth the label should be able to hack a middle lifestyle, using the buying hits rule, in 3 days

i dunno, seems most of the problems voices here comes from how anal the GM wants to be about the rules.

or to put it another way, they be highly academic until some player wants to massively abuse the piracy rules...

Hey, I just picked up on something. On UW p162 there's some shadowtalk about Matrix phenomena, and in the middle of the second column, Winterhawk says "Cerebus has been awful quiet lately." I couldn't find a reference to Cerebus on the shadowtalker list, but as I was working on my Emergence campaign, I noticed that there's a Matrix entity that works for Celedyr by the same name (EMR p107). Is an e-Ghost a regular on JackPoint?!

You can buy a program option or program option rating (so an option at rating 1) for your complex form at 2 karma (1 BP) in which case that complex form always has that option when you use it (136). Or else you can thread in which case each hit = 1 rating of options (148).

So at char gen you can get an Attack 4 (Area 2, AP 2) for 8 BPs. You can always use those options with it. Alternative you can thread them during play in which case you need 4 hits to add both of those options.

@Rotbart:

It takes 1 Combat Turn (3 seconds!) per test to look for programs in the Cracker Underground. A Rating 12 Hacker program with no options has a Threshold of 24. Assuming 1 hit per test that's 1.2 minutes! If you get all 26 programs at this rate it takes you 31.2 minutes to find everything! Fucking hell, a restricted agent can run all the searches for you!

Grand Total = 31.2 minutes and 1880 nuyen.

If your GM forces you to roll all that out instead of just adding that amount to your monthly costs you should punch him in the face and call him a "Sick Fucking Bastard," and never play again.

Not a bad price considering that no one in the group ever has to pay for Lifestyle...ever.

only issue with buying hits on warez searches are the glitch and critical glitch events...

Just figure out the odds of rolling either on each check and multiply through by the number of tests. Or just roll d% against a TN of the odds.

don't know if that's been asked/answered allready or if it has been errataed for the latent awakening quality, but why does a latent technomancer get the MAXIMUM of his resonance attribute chopped down so the character in question can become a technomancer as long as the characters essence is >=1 but a character with the latent awakening quality and an essence of <6 can't ever be an awakened, because it lessens the actual magic attribute instead of the attribute maximum?
and in the same line of thought, if they had less than 1 point of essence at one point and through gen-therapy got it back above 1 point of essence, could they still awaken to magic/technomantic abilities?

i'm sure you can find your answer to this question by reading the latent awakening quality more closely.

i don't promise you'll understand what it is that made you think latent awakening doesn't give you 1 magic point provided you have at least 1 point of essence though.

Don't know about the first question, but no to the 2nd one: The magic/resonance attribute stats down permantly. I doesn't raise when gaining back essence. See Augmentation for that.

Because Latent Awakening works the same, you get a magic of 1 when you awaken, only the maximum is changed?

the second part is a little more tricky than that; the person has not yet gained the magic or resonance attribute when they lose the essence.

personally, i would rule that you can still awaken/emerge, but i couldn't really point to any solid rule that backs me up there. in fact, i think there might even be language that says if you drop below 1 essence, you lose your chance to ever awaken/emerge, but i suspect that wasn't taking into consideration the possibility of regaining said essence.

This issue has already been covered (namely both are being treated the same).. but how about why do they get 3 complex forms for free? Thats 6 karma, or 3 BP that standard technomancers don't get (and anyone who's messed with a technomancer knows how ridiculous increasing complex forms is)

I realize that this is almost a negligible amount, but if they felt complex forms were too expensive for someone to be a Technomancer, why not figure up some way we can normally get a discount. (FYI Latent Technomancy is not worth it at all, due to the price in Complex forms)

well, with unwired technomancers can have more than 4 ini passes, so there's a precedent again, useable by at least magicians . . and they get real world ini/reaction enhancement that suspiciously looks like what boosted reflexes would have been in my eyes, if the cyber had not been scrapped . .

And non-technomancers can have more than 4 ini passes too, if they get a Simsense Accelerator.

Can someone please look up the wording of the Support Operation service for me? Nothing to do with biowire...

If I recall adds the rating of the Sprite to one of your CF's for Sprite's Rating in combat turns.

Can't be more specific without knowing what you need.

He's wondering if you can use it to boost the Activesofts with Biowire.

I think I failed my English skill test.

Biowire creates CFs, Support Operation increases the rating of any CF (German wording), sprites of rating 5 are easy to come by. (And Biowire is fine IMO, it´s Support Operation that needs work.)

Does Intuitive Hacking do anything at all?

It's really clearly not worth five points, that's for damn sure. But seriously folks, does it do anything?

The FAQ says straight up that if you need a program and don't have it that you "must default." This means among other things that you can default on such tests when you don't have the appropriate program. So why is there a quality that "allows" me to make a test with a bullshit tiny dice pool when that is explicitly listed in the FAQ as something that absolutely everyone can do for free?

-Frank

I think you're right frank, only thing you get from this is that its no longer considered defaulting. And it doesn't actually replace a program, just replaces it for an action. So 5 BP for a partial program (where 1.2 BP is all it takes for a rating 6 program). This is for when you loose your program/commlink, and want to at least loose the default?

The maths make it advantageous once you forego purchasing 5 Rating 6 Programs, right? I agree, it seems awfully low return for a 5BP investment...

Now in my game, we have skill caps, so this quality would be worth a little more, as defaulting caps at one success on a test...using this quality I would allow a higher cap, but again, that is only going to make this more attractive at my table.

it looks like the quality allows you to default without taking the defaulting penalty. not much, but it's something i guess.

i'll ask a couple of questions again though:

1) what kind of programs can i emulate as a TM? if i emulate an agent (*can* i emulate an agent?) is it limited to the matrix attributes of the node it is on, or is it now resonance based and can now ignore that? can i run it from my living persona? do i have to run it from my living persona (because it is resonance based, and so requires a resonance node to run off of). can i emulate a hacking or common use program? if not, can my agent run my personal CFs? if so, can i run those emulated hacking and common use programs? can i emulate autosofts and drone pilot programs? can drone pilots emulated by a TM run emulated autosofts? normal autosofts? can they run normal drones, or do i need to somehow invent a resonance-based node for drones? there's a whole lot of questions that need answering that all come from this one rule. some clarifications on what it can or can't do would be nice.

2) the transfer sprite power. it's listed right there in the sprite chapter. but no sprites actually *get* the transfer power. is it intended as a free sprite power? because technically, those are the only sprites who can take it. or was it supposed to be removed but got left in?

3) page 111, under the nuke program. last paragraph, it includes sprites as being limited by node ratings. is this intended as an errata? i am unaware of any other text that indicates this might be the case.

It explicitly gives you a defaulting dice pool of Skill + Zero Dice. Unfortunately, despite us asking this exact question for over a year of real time we still don't have a straight answer as to what the normal dice pool for Defaulting on a program is. Things in the running are still:

Skill - 1
Skill + Logic - 1
Logic - 1
Skill + 0

Of those, the dice pool set by the Intuitive Hacking is superior to only one of them. And considering that it's only 1 die better than that, and the Intuitive Hacking Quality is purchased not even per program, but per use of a single program, it's definitely laughable even in the best possible reading. I mean seriously, you get a larger bonus that applies more of the time to a greater number of Matrix tests by just taking one of your Cracking skills and specializing it.

-Frank

i didn't say it was doing something worth 5 BP, i only said that it appears to actually be doing something at all. you never asked if what it was doing was *worth it* (in fact, you pretty clearly indicated that you don't feel it is... a point i have not chosen to disagree with), your original question was "Does Intuitive Hacking do anything at all?". the answer to that question is yes; apparently it does. that particular something is pretty crappy (even for a 5 BP quality), but it does have an effect.

The FAQ says you must default, but if you read further, it implies that the defaulting is only for using electronics or trying to make electronics do something outside of their parameters. I.E. you can maybe default on something odd like making a radio into a frequency scanner by mucking with its program. But at the bottom of that FAQ entry is "If he wanted to edit a holo media file, analyze the device's Firewall, or search its usage log, he would use a program (Edit, Analyze, and Browse, respectively)."

Which I've always interpreted as: If you don't have a program, you can't do tests at all that use that program.

Though I agree that Intuitive hacking is a complete freaking waste of 5 points overall, it _does_ allow the possibility for being able to do certain things if you are somehow completely stripped of programs and a commlink.

Of course, I can't for the life of me think right now of an example of how being able to default on a few programs would let you hack without a commlink. I was going to say intuitive Exploit might be interesting if you were imprisoned, stripped of your commlink, but they were stupid enough to let you get near a DNI device with some fiberoptic cable laying around, but then I realized that no exploit would be possible without a stealth program. Then I was going to say that an intuitive Spoof program might be able to spoof a command to something (the locks on their cell?), but that would require knowing an access ID to spoof.

So yeah, not a freaking clue. Useless thing.

I think I figured this out...

You're on a run, you get to the pay data room... And its the iMac 70, there are no drives, no ports, just a keyboard and a screen. How do you hack it you have no software. Whats on your commlink matters not at all.

If a GM threw this at you and you didn't have this quality, he's an ass...

Here's a remark regarding layouts...

I really liked Arsenal including page numbers at the back of the book. As to where this information came from. I was hoping the same would be done in future books. But we have all the tables for unwired in the back, and no page number references so we know where to go for details.

Well, one could buy edge 5, the codeslinger quality, and intuitive hacking, all for Spoof. Hacking gets specialised on spoof, too (not a bad idea anyway). If you ever have to rely on a comlink you found (if only to leave absolutely no trace back to you), you can spoof orders to most nodes without uploading any program, or changing any setting. Start - Spoof - Shutdown.

That actually sounds like a plan. If you can´t default anyway.

1) Only Skillsofts. You cannot emulate an Agent. You cannot emulate Autosofts or Drone pilot programs although I might house rule to allow Drone Autosofts. The only problem with the rule is that they used program to interchangeably mean Skillsoft. Replace all instances of program in that paragraph with Skillsoft and no problem.

2) I think it was meant to be a Free Sprite only that got orphaned.

3) It does not say that they are limited by the resources of the node but that they rely on the resources of the node. Think of it this way. A magical spirit is not limited by the ambient mana level in the world. But they rely on that level being above a certain level for them to manifest. When the mana level gets out of whack (a background count of >1) the spirit has problems. Nuke basically creates a localized background count for that target.

except that you can emulate a smartlink program, or a simrig. or an ARE program. if you can choose to emulate these other types of programs as complex forms, why not an agent? or a pilot? presumably, this is how dissonant technomancers can emulate malware.

so, why couldn't you emulate an agent?

you are correct as to me remembering wrong, mind you... the section on emulating skillsofts would not necessarily apply to anything else. so you would have to pay normal complex form costs for these things (which really needs reworking for the karma costs, imo, but that's neither here nor there). it still remains: if i emulate an agent (and it seems to be implied that i can) how does that work?

I think you're talking about two different things, Jaid. Emulation (on page 149) refers to skillsofts for use with the Biowire echo. The rules for TMs making smartlink and simrig complex forms are on page 136 and are not an Emulation at all.

Actually, AIs can emulate those and spawn them.

BTW - does a Tacsoft count against the processor limit? It's not a Common Use or Hacking program.


That doesn't really match up to p. 120.

like i said: if i can emulate (not Emulate, just emulate) a simrig or a smartlink, why not an agent?

I'll stick this in here as well.

Has anybody noticed that Sprites don't have Edge and can't become Free due to not being able to make an Edge(3) test?

Can someone clarify a comment SYnner made in another thread?

He indicated that Persona (the UI?) can not run any programs. From the way he phrased things, this would seem to mean that if your commlink is going to respond in any way to outside activity, then it needs an agent.
Is that the intended meaning? I note that BBB states that the node can take an analyze test to detect an intruder, so it seems that nodes can do some things. And p 226 does indicate that a node can run a program, using its system rating instead of the skill.
So, can a node run attack without having an Agent?

Thank you,
Joel

The persona does not run any programs. It is a user interface. Your commlink (or whatever generates the Persona) is what is really running the program.

Whatever it is that runs your Persona cannot interact with outside activity except for things within its parameters. A commlink receives commands and information from outside sources. Your pilot detects and responds to traffic.

Node /= Agent. There are certain programs it is allowed to run (Analyze being one, Encrypt another). It cannot attack without an Agent or IC.

Note also that Agents cannot attack anymore either unless they are unrestricted (costing x1.2).