OK I still oppose the bul of the 4th ed books as a needless cash grab BUT I think they finally got the decking stuff right after only 19 years. It was so off that my group finally had a house rule that deckers HAD to be NPC's but this system seems to be workable, needing skills but fast enough not to bring the rest of the game to a screaming halt as the decker does his bit while the rest of us go out for pizza. We'll keep using mainly 3rd ed stuff but definately go with the hcanges to decking.

Because of the complete lack of storage limitations the whole mp thing is gone so good, less book keeping BUT where does a decker carry all the stuff? I mean before it was the guy lugging around a key board. Now, not counting head ware is the guy just carrying a small pouch on his belt and connecting to a data jack?

The AR system especailly seems very much like the system in GitS which is GREAT! One of my fav scenes in the 1st TV serries has Batou viewing AR and making angry gestures at a map he's seeing, while almost litterally scaring the piss out of a shop keeper in front of him who can't see the AR image.

Now the question, how do you plug it in?

Ok now I get it, not counting the head ware stuff, more on that in a momment, but mst people carry their access stuff the way many Americans now carry cell phones and I-pods. OK I get that. BUT how does the info get from the 'i-pod' to the eye ball? Does everyone have a data jack now? Do you load to glasses? I mean how does it get to where the average person can, as used in the example, go shopping? Sure Paris Hilton always has her cell phone to pick upo the signals but without a jack to plug into how does it get to her visual area?

My especial concern here is mages. IF data jacks are common then mages are going to stand out in a crowd and 'geek the mage' will get even easier if she's the only team member not on the system.

Now for someone with head gear it's pretty obvious on that front, but less so it how does osmeone with headware up load the hacking programs? Chip jack? To remind you long term vets of the SR world in 1st ed it was possible to surf the net without a deck, surfing naked I think it was called but if you do this now, with a head deck and it gets fried by ICE is it litterally brain surgery to scoop out the melted goo from your brain?

Like I said I adore the new rules for decking (yeah I know it's 'hacking' but I'm an old fashioned girl and these will always be 'deckers' to me)

The "popular" answer is that everyone uses trodes and 'jacks are fairly rare.

My answer is that everyone has a 'jack and any Mage stupid enough not to have one to match her cybereyes needs to be geeked.

We went over this in the other thread, but things got a bit sidetracked.

It works kinda like this: the commlink is indeed an iPhone and mp3 player combined. It allows full access to the Matrix, and wirelessly connects all your gear and cyberware. To see AR, you only need one of the following: AR-glasses, AR-Contacts, a trode net, cybereyes with a free Image Link, or a DNI link, such as an implanted commlink or datajack. In all these cases, the commlink sets up a Bluetooth connection, allowing all the devices to share data, and project it into your field of view. If you don't have any of these devices, the commlink also has a screen and keypad. You can also control a commlink through AR gloves or AR feedback clothing. However, the easiest is DNI through a trode net, or by implanting the commlink.

To go full-VR, you need a sim module and either a trode net or a commlink, or just a datajack. As always, your brain is safe unless you go Hot Sim. In Hot Sim, you are vulnerable to Black IC. In Cold Sim, your brain might take stund damage from Blackout of Black Hammer, but no lasting damage. And in AR-mode, neither can really hurt you at all.

Actually, by RAW, that isn't the case. Using Cold Sim does not prevent Damage overflowing from Stun to Physical track - only Blackout offers that protection. So if somebody attacks you with Black Hammer in Cold Sim, it simply will take him longer to kill you.

I can see the confusion. There is lots of detail on the toys and most of us get basic cyber but SF never does so she is very aware of the differences between cyber and meat parts. I think the area SF may be stumbling is that is it so close to GitS that she is seeing it that way and in that world everyone except homeless dregs of society have some cyber.

The key line is towards the top of page 209: "Via simsense or any other devices." From there it goes on about the access, programs, effect etc. But not on the visual devices. Other people have pointed out the idea of contact lenses or even sun glasses. Because the tech is wireless there is, obviously, no need for wires now.

This is a radical leap forward for SR.

Technically true, but I didn't want to confuse Snow Fox. She still thinks SR4 decking is pretty cool, not the pain some of us have come to realize it is.

Main book, pg. 232, last paragraph under the Black IC header. My German rulebook says "no overflow for Blackout".

I´m partial to reading the "stun only" of Black Hammer as "works like Blackout against cold-SIM users".

If your game sees that differently, buy a (not networked!) Biomonitor that is wired to a hard-off switch of your SIM-module. A 300¥ expenditure won´t kill a runner.

Lol she still won't deck but if she is seeing something as good let's not disturb her. I am more likely to end up at the Kusanagi Motoko type character as I usually have heavily cybered combat oriented types.

What do you see as the problems it has?

Unwired put up lots of character red tape, such as regular patches and (by stringent RAW application) dozens and dozens of die rolls every month so your programs don't degrade, two system load tallies, lots of programming options, and system design possibilities that, all in all, make SR4 hacking somewhat less slender and easy (even if much more consistent and, if you put up with and/or work around it, fun).

Gah, post got eaten. Let me try again:

Hermit already hit on several good points, so I'll put up some of the moderate ones.

• Despite the GitS references, you cannot "ghost hack" in SR4
• What happens when you hack a device or cyber is vague.
• Combat decking is highly overrated. Not only do you need Admin access to accomplish anything, anybody with half a brain will have their cyber's wireless turned off.
• Otaku are seriously underpowered everywhere but the matrix, where they're just underpowered. This lasts until and if they earn enough karma to initiate and learn the game-breaking metamagics/Echoes. They make nice one-trick ponies, though.
• Sprites are supposed to make up for the otaku's lack, but they just end up being cooler than their summoners.
• The rules for massive agent swarms (the Agent Smith army) are confusing. First, they try to stop it, then they tell you all kinds of cool things you can do with it. And, there's still a few loopholes that allow it; they're just not as accidental as before.
• The rules aren't futuristic or cyberpunk, like GitS. It's more like a fantasy version of the Windows XP user's manual.

Those are the ones off the top of my head. I'll come up with more later.

That's a good, if somewhat negative, one!

It's still easier to relate to and see how it's useful than Second Life's more deadly cousin, as the SR3 Matrix always appeared to me.

I did wonder about a ghost hack into a person's comm to 'hack their eyes' so a guard does not see you.

It technically works, though anyone woth their money will have strong encryption running, a Lv. 6 Analyse (optimised if need be) and IC with analyse, and have their cyber clustered and/or wifi removed, so it's not very accessible. It's easy to setup your cyber so it's unhackable, actually.

But technically, yes, you could edit someone's field ov view, provided they have cyber eyes or a display link in their meat eyes. If they have pure eyes, you'd need to attack them with psychotropic black programs and have the psych effect brainwash them. Pretty hard if they've got a reasonable matrix defense set up.

Thinking of the Laughing Man? I'd recommend he makes a pact with an AI residing in an insane headware commlink and/or is a karma-system built mancer with 300 Karma and carefully selected game-breaking echos, otherwise he won't work under SR4 RAW.

I was thinking of a scene in 2nd Gig where the Major walks into a base and the guards are programed to think she's the cleaning crew but she is wearing her normal clothes. On in 1st season when Batou hacks some cybered guard dogs to look like their trainer.

If you have a good Edit program and your target is careless and has cybereyes and/or display link, no problem.

On the first, it's possible, but you'd need to hack in multiple nodes (one for every guard), then hack a live feed. For the second, I'd personally say no, because dogs respond to smell more than sight.



That's because the graphics of the era were nothing compared to what they are nowadays. Virtual Realities had some nice (for the time) full-color graphics of what the Matrix looked like. It was mostly vector-graphics, IIRC. It'd be kinda nice to see those pics updated.

No, I always had trouble with the forced full-VR interface that felt a bit useless for everyday applications. AR DOES go a long way to make the Matrix seem much more accessible.

For the clothed-hack (Hmm. That direction is new ), see Environmental AR Software in Unwired, specifically "Body Shop". If you make sure that the guards comlinks display your node, you can severely change your appearance. Dogs are out, they can´t perceive the AR.

As for the rules problems, there are very few. Rules complaints are more numerous, but you are on DS long enough to judge what´s good and what not. I´d say that tuning the game around the exploit mechanic is the largest problem. As that can be learned, the remaining issues are a matter of taste.

Rules complaints... some things could be better, and the main books approach to presentation is certainly among them. Some are plain wrong. The "TMs suck in the matrix" argument is certainly one of the worst. It is damn easy to miss how they can work, but work they do. Agent Smith is a dubious one, too. Effective uses for such a tool are few and far between, and then there would be severe ingame consequences. (You have to realise that hackers are often stopped on the soft front, by security spiders, or matrix security divisions, or the Grid Overwatch Division. The attempt to make nodes safe with passive measures alone is doomed to failure.). The main negative effect of multipe IC/agents is the number of required condition monitors and dicerolls.

Would you mind telling me how exactly to make an otaku work? I've only seen a few in play, but what I've seen hasn't been impressive. Threading has been overrated, and sprites are more capable and just plain cooler than their summoners. The best I've seen so far is an otaku/face, who used a machine sprite in his emotoy to inflate his dice pool into the low 20's. But that doesn't help them in the matrix.

As far as Agent Smith goes, the old method was devastating for non-subtle hacking runs. The original writeup involved using hundreds of agents and a Teamwork test, thereby giving you enough dice to buy Admin access to Zurich-Orbital, and crashing it. When they fixed the teamwork test, they slowed down the problem slightly, but it still existed.

Now, the problem still exists, it just can't be done accidentally. And the new botnet rules give the Agent Smith army even more versatility than before, such as DDOS attacks and mass-probing. You can still crash Z-O in a single round with enough agents, it's just mildly more difficult to do it than before.

If you want impressive in the too-good sense, go for the munched Exploit build, have a registered sprite for stealth, and roll 30+ exploit dice before your target is any wiser. The GM can basically just hand you admin access to all but the best nodes. I strongly suggest to use the karma-based generation for TMs though - they really benefit from that.

The problem of agent smith is IMO only that you´ll have to roll a great many dice. If all you want is access, not caring about alerts, you don´t need an army of agents to force entry. And if the nodes reaction is "Shutdown!", you want as few attackers as possible - the node might luck out on detection, too. Botnets are cool hacker tools - great for attacking large numbers of weak nodes. Beware of the G.O.D.

How do you get to the 30+ dice again? I'm not good at making characters, but I'm capping out at about 20 without Threading, which is unreliable. And karmagen is pretty much better for everyone-- at 750 karma, you're going to come out with better overall stats than you will under BP. I still haven't figured out where the balance point is. I will concede that karmagen is better for Awakened and otaku, since they can potentially both initiate several times and learn powerful metamagics.

As far as Agent Smith goes, the problem is that within one combat pass, you will have admin access to Z-O, and can prevent the shutdown. Even if the node gets a chance to respond, what happens if your goal was to crash Z-O at a critical time, and destabilize the world economy? You succeed either way.

The only response the G.O.D. can have to an Agent Smith army is another Agent Smith Army. By the time you're rolling several hundred dice on either side, your game has bogged into oblivion. No matter what people say about the intelligence of agents, they are smart enough to defend themselves without orders.

I boost stealth so high that I can do a second test on hacking on the fly, minimum. The hacker has more dice per attempt (because I´m not also expending a service to boost Exploit), but only one secure attempt against better nodes.

What can GOD do against Agent Smith besides match it? Spoof orders to break off the connection attempt, or even better, spoof orders to attack a trap node that looks the same. Trace the command subscription and kill the controlling user. Spoof the target nodes address so that the agent orders don´t match. Trace the command subscription and crash the controlling node. With botnets, who brought the tools is of little concern.

I'm not wondering why you're boosting Stealth so high (makes sense to me!) but how you got to 30+ dice in Exploit, without a very good Threading roll. I'm capping out at 20, which is within reach of a decent decker.

The problem with trying to spoof a botnet is that you have to target each one individually. They're almost certainly operating on scripted orders, since you can't maintain a subscription to that many agents. In fact, I might just script the agents to ignore all orders until they've broken through. If you're using a hackastack setup, they're running on your persona, so spoofing them gets even trickier.

Exploit 6 + Hacking 6(Exploit +2) + Codeslinger + HotSim + "The Black Hat" paragon = 19 dice for exploit. If stealth 6 + Support Operation 5 = 11 is safe enough to risk two attempts at exploit, you thread Exploit by the fading-safe amount, lets say +2. Else you thread stealth. If you threaded stealth, you have 2*17 dice (sustained threading), if you threaded exploit, 2*21 dice.

More reasonable levels of proficiency (within the limit of 400BP) lead to more balanced TMs. If you have magic 6+ combat mages in your group, resonance 6 TMs will be fine.

Maybe it's me, but I'm still not getting it.

If you Thread a Force 6 Exploit, you can't go above double your Resonance. And to do that, you need 6 successes, unlikely even if you have a Resonance of 6 and a Software skill of 6 (which is impossible, given this build). You're looking at a actual maximum of 10 dice for the Threading roll, which equals to 3.33 successes, for a new rating of 9. And you're still facing a sustaining penalty of -2. So, effectively, you'd have gained 1 dice, for a total of 20. Which is pretty good, but not noticeably better than a similar decker. We also may have a bound sprite penalty of -2 to deal with, dropping us below our starting total. And that's ignoring any penalties from Drain that may or may not have occurred.

I've discovered Threading to be unreliable and overrated. If you need a program on the fly, it does the trick; but so does taking an action to swap out your load.

That´s a misunderstanding then. I´d use threading on an existing CF, to improve the rating.

Ok, but how do you reliably get a Force 12 CF? I can't see any way of a starting character with enough dice to reliably pull it off. Not to mention the fact that you'd be facing 6P Drain, with a maximum of 11 dice given your setup. You'd be taking 2P per casting, which would give you a wound penalty and leave you even worse off than before.

Have a rating 6 registered sprite assist CF and have a CF at 6. 6+6=12.

The problem is, we discussed that; in the setup he presented, the registered sprite was tied up doing Support Operations on a Stealth program. He talked about threading a program up to force 12, but I can't see any way of reliably doing it. I suppose you could have two spirits at work, but wouldn't that incur a -4 penalty for keeping sprites bound?

There is no penalty for keeping a sprite around. There is penalty for having CF threaded, which I think you might be mixing up.

/nod

And in the July dev chat the game developers said Threading could be done over and over provided the penalty was applied each time.
(And note that the sustaining penalty for threading doesnt apply when using the threaded program.)

This means you could add two points of threading on a given test then do the test a total of 3 times to get 6 dice from threading but you'd be at -6 to all things not actively using that CF.

So all in all the sprite is a better way to go.

Not to be a pain, but:



Since bound spirits can inflict a -2 per spirit penalty, if you're applying that to magicians, you have to also apply that to otaku. Assuming the GM doesn't want you running around with 18 dice for Stealth and 30+ dice for Exploit (although I still don't see how you get to that), it's pretty likely that he'd apply the penalty. And if we do apply them to the example Ryu mentioned, we actually end up worse than we would be if we didn't use them in the first place.

So, of the two powers available to otaku in SR4: Threading is unreliable as it requires net successes, and sprites carry a few problems of their own. Compared to deckers, otaku seem to definitely end up with the short end of the stick.

The GM in question should take character approval more serious, instead of using an optional rule that hurts all characters of a given type. One could get where things are going somewhere between Codeslinger (Exploit), Hacking (Exploit +2), paragon bonus to exploit, and the exploit CF of 6.

Threading is a cheap +2 for what you are just doing. Two hits are a given for most TMs, and two boxes of potential fading pose no risk. Sprites on support duty face no problem at all. Speaking of TMs: TM picture

Whussa, didn't know seven was good at drawing.

I´ll tell her you know now . Gamer GFs that can draw are very handy, I recommend it .

She got a sister?

No, really, if only she'd master shading, she could start drawig for the Pegasi ... Germany's SR needs good artists badly. Maybe they'd even pay her a dime or two!

The clue is in the supplement title: Unwired. I.e. you don't. Everything is wireless. Or at least it can be. Vision aids, earbuds, smartlinks, commlinks, they all hook up by wireless Personal Area Network. Or that's how Joe Schmoe does it. Joe Pro uses "skinlink" so that someone has to touch you to hack your PAN, and they can't detect you by your (even covert) emissions.

So your smartgun talks to the image link in your contacts to project the crosshairs where it's pointing. Your 'Trodes chatter back and forth to your commlink. Or they could AR the smartlink's aimpoint directly into your visual cortex.

I see your point, but that's still not outside what a decent decker could have. Where are you getting the 30+ dice from?

As for the sprite penalty, I don't use it myself; but if I did, I'd apply it fairly, to mages and otaku alike. If you're using it to rein in mages with huge bound spirits, you have to use it for the otaku with huge bound sprites. The rules also isn't technically optional; it's just another case of "GM discretion" which I find to be particularly unfair, since it's meant to target one player instead of another.

Oh, and that pic is pretty cool.

- Slow hacking goes to the TM, unless stealth 6 is enough, so that it is a tie.

- Hacking on the fly uses a simultaneous extended test mechanic. While dp sizes of hackers and TMs are about equal, the TM has the option of severely increasing the target nodes threshold. A good node (lets say a dp of 12) will beat the hackers stealth of 6 on the second test (24 dice against threshold 6), maybe even the first. The TM can have an effective stealth of 12 and is unlikely to be detected on the second test, but likely will be on the third. So you effectivly have to double the TMs dicepool for the comparison.

I agree on the -2 penalty. It really hurts the wrong players.

And I´ll relay the compliment of course.

Okay, but here's the thing. If I'm reading Assist Operation right, the sprite doesn't add directly to the program's rating, it just adds dice. The wording is kinda vague, so I might be wrong on this one. But if I'm right, then the only way to actually increase the rating of the program is threading, which has been established to be unreliable and may cause drain. Effective rating != Current Rating.

Hmm. The German edition is pretty clear that it adds to the program rating, and I don´t remember that Support Operation adding to the rating was challenged. Likewise, drain for increasing ratings is clearly for the gained points only.

This is why I'm asking. The US version I have is a little unclear.

You're absolutely right there. I meant that Threading to rating 12 requires 6 successes, and you don't have enough dice to reliably do that. And you'd be facing 6P drain-- exceeding your Resonance causes physical drain, regardless of how many points you gained. Assuming a Willpower of 5, we're looking at 11 dice to soak drain with, averaging 4 successes if you round up.

Ok, that plan I would have challenged, too. Drain type is no problem if you are only going for a +2 anyway.

Okay, now let me see if I've got this straight.

Your otaku has Resonance 6, Hacking 6, and Exploit 6. We have a comparable decker. Both try to hack a rating 6 system on the fly; we assume that it has a relevant dice pool of 12. If I understand you correctly, the decker will, on average, be detected in two turns, since he's limited to a Stealth program of 6.

Now for the otaku. He has Stealth 6, but decides to Thread it for +4, for a modified force of 10 and a net of +2. However, he's now at -2 dice from everything, and may or may not take physical Drain. That doesn't matter too much; since his Stealth is still rating 10, it'll take 10 successes to detect him. The problem here is that he's losing, on average, two successes per three turns. That means it'll take him longer to break into the system. On average, the system will detect him after 3 turns-- and that extra turn might be how long it takes him to catch up with the decker.

So, I'm still not seeing a huge advantage here.

When I initially read the title, I misunderstood it. But it did bring up a thought that I hadn't been able to answer through the books;

How do you plug it in? My question linking to this is, how does one power the device? Are separately rechargable batteries still a business or does one simply recharge the commlink like a cellphone (by using a docking station)?

wireless power:
http://www.gizmag.com/go/7418/

all in all i would not worry about such things unless they make heavy use of data traffic (VR and similar) for days on end out in the wilderness.

Okay, but where are you getting the 2x from? The number of turns it takes? That means the decker gets double the dice as well.

The decker does not have another turn before causing an alert.

Sorry, I'm slow. I'm still not getting it. I thought you said that the decker would be discovered in two turns, while the otaku would be discovered in three? But the otaku, having less dice than the decker (due to Sprite and Sustaining penalties) would likely need that extra turn, thereby making their chances of discovery before penetration about equal, right? Or have I lost it again somewhere?