Okay, so there's a thread about starting magicians and what spells you'd pick. As I am, clearly, planning to make a Hacker in a upcoming SR4 game I'll steal that thread idea and post one up for Matrix users.



What do you take and why.

Hackers are not limited, except by money, on how many programs they can start with. They have limits on how many they can run at one time, though.

Also, starting with pirated programs is even cheaper, in that they are only 1/10th the normal cost.

Except if you cluster two or more commlinks and/or cyberware. The more 'ware you have, the more programs you can run at the same time.

Or if you have the spare funding/hacking skill to make most or all of your programs Ergonomic...

Seriously, though, excluding the discussion about running program limits, I just finished building a hacker and just picked up every program in the core book at rating 6. So I'd say just go with that.

Note that most nodes that gear has(your 'ware, your underpants, your nutri-soy bar), are only capable on running programs they are designed to use, so don't expect them to be that useful in running programs.

Anyways, obviously every hacker should have all the common use programs at the highest rating possible, and if they can afford it get every other program as well. That said, IMO, these are the important ones: Exploit, Sniffer, Spoof, Attack, Black Hammer(You need to be able to scare people), ECCM, Decrypt, Biofeedback Filters, Stealth, and Defuse.

If you are missing any one of these, you will have trouble doing your job as a hacker.