So you're a dedicated hot sim VR hacker. You've got +2 DP and since unwired, 5 Initiative Passes.

Your adversary has 4 IPs, is running in AR and is immune to simsense damage.

You both have program suites and commlink ratings of 6.

How do you nullify him as a problem. You could just attack the fucker and crash his commlink. But then he'll just re-boot and come back to try again, a luxury that you don't have, because he's brandishing a Black Hammer utility.

How would you defeat him and make him stay down?

Go cold sim on second thought, stay hot and hide from him, trace his location, send some bruisers his way that explain to him, how important it is to have proper respect in the Matrix and turn his meat body to pulp in the process.

If he has some sort of biometric reader on his commlink, fly-hack his link, edit his commlink's biometric reader to only allow some-one elses biometrics to activate. Then you crash his link, either by commanding it to shut down/reboot, or defeating him in cybercombat.

You could disarm his analyse program and leave him alone - he´ll never even know you are there. Or you load Nuke instead of attack, which makes your opponents icon freeze instead of crash.

The problem with Nuke is that the damage is taken away with a reboot. So effectively, it's a lot like an attack program, effectively.

Admin hack is comlink and blacklist him so he has to hack on to use AR. then load a few nice ICs and have fun.

Nuke: That generic solution buys you at least two combat turns, or 10 IPs. Time to prepare surprises - delete his account, trigger an intruder alert for his icon (after disarming the ICs analyse program of course), set up a DDOS attack in case he does not change his matrix ID to sidestep exactly that...

Well, if you're good enough to get on his commlink:
Have an agent run attacks from it against SK, KE, Azztech and everybody else who can nuke him.
One of them should respond.
Finding his location and pissing off the nearest group of gangers might be faster though.

Well.. this doesn't specifically answer your question... but as a gamemaster, I prefer to set a world where AR is much slower than VR. Sidestep the issue by using the optional rule that limits AR to 1 matrix pass, even if they have multiple IPs.

Limiting AR Passes
To make VR Matrix use even more advantageous over AR,
the number of Initiative Passes allowed to AR users may be
limited as far as Matrix use is concerned. To use this option, only
one Matrix Action per Combat Turn may be performed when
using AR, regardless of the actual number of Initiative Passes
the character may have. (Arsenal p 39)

Hack yourself an Admin account, kill the hacker's connection and change his password. He now can now no longer log into his own commlink. He's going to have to find another commlink and hack his way back into his old commlink. Of course, by then, you have permanently deleted all of his programs and data (after having copied all the interesting bits, like phone number of allies), so all he has is an empty shell.

I don't know if you've read it, but I have a houserule that is similar to this, but a little more complicated. All characters with extra meat IP's are limited to 1 unrestrictedMatrix IP, regardless of how many their Wired Reflexes/etc. has given them. The other IPs incure -1, -2, and -3 DPs to Matrix tests. I also allow the bonuses from the Simsense Booster cyberware and the Simsense Accelerator modification to be used in AR, so a dedicated hacker who's spent the cash is still a faster hacker, even in AR.

Freeze the hacker and infect his commlink with a virus/trojan. When the hacker comes back and tries to attack me again, I make him think he hits and kills me (which should be easy enough with the help of the virus). I then have fun with his reality filter/AR experience: have a ghostly version of my persona appear from time to time, have cryptic messages written in blood appear on the walls, dig up his psychological profile to see what'll be most effective and slowly drive him insane.

but what can one do if one is allready engaged incombat with said hacker?
after you've hurt him enough to kick him out of the matrix, he resets his comlink and your connection to the comlink is severed so you would probably get dumpshock and have to go back to the comlink first . . by that time, he is probably up and running again . . rinse and repeat?

I have a even more complicated house-rule. I consider 2 kind of AR use, Manual AR (with a manual interface) and DNI AR.
* Manual input mode leads to a -2 modifier for actions requiring to be fast and precise (such as cybercombat).
* DNI even in AR is vulnerable to biofeedback but the RAS filter signals, acting as a rating 4 biofeedback filter. The bad news is that in contrast to the biofeedback filter program, this filter filters all signals, including useful ones. Because of this, actions requiring precise feedback (such as controlling a drone, or cybercombat) suffer from a -2 modifier, cumulative with the modifier for the manual input mode.
* It takes longer to enter command in manual input mode than to just think about them so all purely-matrix based actions (so it doesn't include turning the commlink on or off, or programming) take twice the base time. Simple action becomes complex actions, complex action span on 2 IP (I don't really like this one, but I haven't found a better way) and the intervals of extended actions are doubled.

well, you could bring back the old grey IC programs.

i was really hoping they would do that in unwired

Send your rating 6 agent after him. Its at least as good as he is, and can reboot just as well.

Never really looked at Agents tbh, or much of the matrix stuff really since I was the only person who was ever interested in playing a hacker.

so Agents can persist on a piece of hardware through a reset?

Sure, if you edit it onto his commlink, and have it with a set of instructions, such as, crash the commlink once online.

I was more meaning that the easiest way to deal with the AR hacker, is to simply send your agent after him, and go to bed for the night. The agent will be equally as good as the ar hacker (in most cases) and doesn't need sleep or anything, so it can continue to hound the other guy non-stop.

Data Bombs and Worms, baby.

Unwired brought at least one fun new option that doesn't require the VR hacker to hack the AR hacker's commlink directly. Malware.

Disarm the AR hacker's Analyze program to blind him or just crash him so he has to reboot, then while he's working past that, infect the node you're fighting on with an Inertia virus malware set to attack all programs and keyed to something on your commlink or PAN like your datajack so it won't infect you (if you go by some of the fluff that implies this is possible).

After that, every time he uses his analyze or attack, he's going to risk picking up the virus and start having major problems shortly thereafter unless he actually manages to detect the virus and manages a good roll on a computer + purge vs virus rating x 2

If you can hack into his comm link....have it start porno AR/VR spamming via an agent/worm/virus etc, left there for that. Or have it start actively broadcasting all the personal information that it has on its AR user, ie Sin, bank accounts, video footage of the last run they did...

WMS