My group has made it into a complex where an AI is in charge. (The AI computer in Resident Evil, Red Queen). The Rigger tried to hack into her systems and rolled horribly, one success. Red Queen is rather bad ass (15 dice pool) and rolled 6 successes on that check. Anyways, she counter attacked with black ice. I didn't want to kill the player so I went after the his icon. Killing it in 2 passes.

Anyways, I want to know how much an AI can multi task in a pass. Everyones gear is wireless, and Red Queen is THE local wireless server/node. How much can she do to their stuff, including smartlinks, in the 2 passes she has left before the players can react? Can she "lock" everyones smart links as a single action? Or does it take a simple action per smartlink? Same kind of question for messing with their cyberware, etc... Yes, by "lock" I mean make it to where the players would need to hack their equipment to regain control/use of it.

Do the players need to use simple or complex actions to shut down all of their equipment, or is it a simple action to shut down/disconnect each independent system, IE one to disconnect their smartlink from her node, another to shut off their cyber eyes, etc...?

I primarily want to do this in accordance with the core book only. I can take ideas/guidelines from other books under consideration, though.

Thank you for your help.

It depends on how your group is setup. The AI would still need to hack a player's comm. If the rigger is running everyone through his comm, then Red Queen getting admin access to his comm would give her access to everyone. If not, then each comm is a separate node to hack.

Smartlink, cyberware and the like, if it is linked through the player's comm, could be compromised if Red Queen gets access to that comm.

So their running wireless through her node gives her no advantage of significance?

No. And they're not running wireless through her node, they're running wireless in the same coverage area as her node. That just means that she can get to their devices without needing to jump through other nodes in Active Mode.

If all the devices you want to break were slaved to the hacker's commlink, and she hacked that commlink, then she could just switch everything off or mess with it.

Why didn't you use Blackout (does Stun damage) or Attack (just does Matrix damage), rather than changing the rules for Black Hammer?

Because I do not have all the various rules memorized, so I just adapted, knowing that there are ICE programs that do not kill. So rather then stop things and look it up I rolled with it as best I could. So even though I started out thinking "Black Ice", as soon as I realized I would slaughter the Rigger I started thinking "something that will kill his Icon instead". I just didn't know the name of it at the time.

I wasn't having a go -- sorry if it came off that way. My recommendation would be to use Blackout next time, though; it causes Stun damage rather than icon damage, but it also jams the hacker's connection open and lets you do all sorts of nasty psychotropic things to their brain (assuming you have Unwired).

For the 4th edition all I have is the Core book. I do have a lot of the extra books for 1E through 3E, though. Unwired does not sound familiar, so even if it was done in a previous edition I likely don't have it.

Unwired is the 4th Edition Matrix and all things related book.

Anyone have an answer for him, because I would like to know as well.

AI's Get 3 passes in the Matrix, Same as a Hacker running hot-sim, or technomancers.

I understood the number of passes, what I want to know is how many actions they can take per pass, if there is anything beyond the list given in the 4E Core book.

Let me try asking in a different way. IS there a write up allowing a high powered AI to do extra actions beyond the norm in a given pass? You can normally do two simple actions or one complex. However I was wondering if AI's had an ability to "multi task", since they can run numerous computations/activities simultaneously. Something that may let them go beyond two simple or one Complex action in a single pass?

I am guessing such a thing would be considered uber powerful, but just in case its something allowed...

An initiative pass is defined as the amount of time it takes for a character to perform two simple actions or one complex action(and a free action). By definition, if a character can perform more actions during 3 seconds(1 combat round) they gain another initiative pass. You can't get more actions per pass because if you did you would take those actions in another pass.

Keep in mind that a hacker in hot sim has no physical restraints on their matrix speed, they operate at the speed of thought. An AI, likewise having no physical restraints on their speed also operate at the speed of thought, thus it makes sense that they both get the same number of passes.

If you wanted to represent an AI that evovled out of a program optimized for multi-tasking, you could give it Extra IP's (up to five), or the Multiprocessing Echo from page 146 of Unwired.

Another option would be to have multiple A.I.s working together as if they were a single being.