Once I'm hacked into soemone's PAN can I command their comlink to switch them to VR mode, assuming they have a simrig?

It'd be lovely to shut someone down physically like that for even one turn.

If they're capable of going full VR, odds are they're already trying to hack something and will already be in VR. Most gunbunnies don't go into combat wearing a simrig.

You don't need a simrig to get into VR. You need a sim module, which is far more common. I'd imagine that a lot of people use cold VR fairly often.

My Face adept has no computer skill, yet he has a simrig for Knowsofts, Linguasofts, and when the group gets a tac net.

When I bought it I told my GM I was getting one with a manual mode change only - IE if i want to go full VR, I have to physically flip a switch. Some company in the Sixth world cranked out a bunch of them during that whole Technomancer scare.

I also see that switching that between AR and VR is a free action :'(

Maybe it would impose a small 1 turn dice penalty, but I'm not even sure of that.

Back to the drawing board.

Blackhammer your momma time...

Not necessarily back to the drawing board. Depending on what cyber gear or other gear is linked up to their PAN, VR isn't always going to be an option. But if there's other cybernetics you could potentially have lots of fun.

If you're in someone's PAN and they've got a smartgun subscribed to it, you can mess with the images the gun's camera gives or just disable it in general. Maybe they've just got an image link? Make it go solid black to practically blind the person. Got more time? Make like The Laughing Man (GitS:SAC) and just edit the feed from their eyes to make you invisible by hiding behind icons that look like the real world.

If the person has reaction enhancers or some other full body invasive system you could theoretically do worse to them. Imagine if you had a corrupted version of a skillsoft you were able to upload into someone's skillwires that would make all of their muscles contract at once. Heck, might not even need such a skillsoft...

Problem is time, though. A push of a button, or if you've got DNI a mere thought, and their PAN's switched off and you might be reeling from a dumpshock.

It says on somewhere that you have to be AWESOMELY godlike with an edit program to alter someone's visual feed with an EDIT action. not with my books near me now, so i can't really remember where. I guess it was done so players can trust their own senses.

Considering that Laughing Man was pretty much godlike in his hacking skill, I can accept that. Kinda why I said "Got more time?". Figuring it's easier to just blunt or negate a sense by switching the input off than it would be to edit it that input on the fly.

If you look at the technology today, an Edit like that seems like it would be cake.
For example, if you combine the tech Microsoft acquired for creating digital 3D infinite zoom models from multiple 2D images, then you've got an auto-completed 3D representation of whatever environment a person might see which you can then overlay on their vision. Then it's just a matter of magic-wanding yourself out, or transposing objects so that the person sees things incorrectly.

That kind of procedure should be able to be thrown together on the fly with little more than a thought. It also lets pure hackers compete a little bit on the combat stage so that they're not always bored in meatworld.

I'm familiar with the GitS: SAC series. That was the original inspiration for this character. I posted a while back about making a super class A hacker like motoko a while back. I'm still looking into how to pull it off ingame. The character's dobe (we start into runs this Wed) and i'm finishing up the novel of a back story i have prepared. When i finish it this weeken i'll post both in the original thread.

My GM has ruled that live footage manipulation would require a program other than Edit. We spent the better part of an evening going back and forth on it. In the end, it was decided that a completely new program be created. We are currently looking for a name for this new program that would be limited to doing on-the-fly video edits. Any sugestions?

(found the original thread here)

I once had a team that for an extraction hacked there targets comlink, put him into VR and slapped Blackout on him. (works in Coldsim), the mark was out cold in a round then they moved in to take him. (of course his bodyguards were there, but without him moveing it was an much easer job.

Well, that's promising.

But what are it's effects in RAW?
Can I even trigger the jump to VR by hacking his comlink?

Let's say I can. I drop him in VR and his body goes down. Next person's turn.

Finally, it rolls to the Mark's turn. He spends a free action and drops out of VR and into AR. He spends (standard?, Complex?) action to stand back up, or stay prone and quick draw/shoot.

Sound about right? Net gain, 1 wasted free action, maybe a wasted standard?

With Admin access you can always Change Interface Mode(a free action) for someone else, and then Encrypt(a simple action) the controls to it in the same pass. Wham, blam, welcome-to-vr-ma'am.

The effects of flipping someone into cold sim VR and nailing them with Blackout? You've got an unconscious target who can't pull themselves back out of VR (black IC jams open their signal and prevents logout) even if they get revived.

As for that program you mentioned? The one the GM ruled would be needed to change a hacked target's sensory feeds? How about UnSight?

Of course, encrypting the controls won't mean they can't turn it off by manual trigger (button), automatic trigger (biomonitor) or DNI trigger, even if it's implanted.

Generally, though, this is an excellent reason to have no active network interfaces on your Sim Module running Knowsofts and use <sense> links to get your AR fix.

Just thought of another aspect of the interface mode swap tactic. If you've got a bead into their tacnet via the PAN of one or more of their 'periphery' members (if you're going after the hacker that's acting as Overwatch, then more power to you but good luck)... DON'T USE IT right away. Just be there and use their feeds to give you information about what their doing. Heck, if your team is running their own tacnet, you can use your opposition as extra sensors.

Then, later, if they've got you on the run, a quick interface change flip done to someone running at full tilt after fleeing shadowrunners will have that person laid out on the ground as their sim module cuts out their motor functions. Even if you do nothing else, that's going to cause some rug burn and a wasted combat turn as they have to swap back out, pick themselves up, and catch up again. Extra kudos for hitting more than one at a time. This 'stringless marionette' method can be used in multiple ways where a sudden loss of motor skills can be a hazard, and is just one reason why the Resonance Trodes echo is so dangerous in the hands of a close combat trained technomancer.

Actually thats a good point, free action to swap them to VR, then hit them with Black IC, and they are stuck in VR till you stop, and chances are he wont have the programs to fight against the IC, so you go for knock out and then choose another target

And let this be a cautionary tale for the Runners out there: Make sure you let your hacker load up your link and ware with whatever defensive works they've got available. Even if it's just a biofeedback filter to help protect your brain. If you've got the space, have them load up one form of icebreaker agent or another. And if your hacker is a TM with sufficient charisma, having a defensive sprite loaded up into each team member's PAN hub does the same trick.

If the GM is feeling frisky (as ours was), and if your team TM has both the TM and normal versions of the software skill, you could even work out a way to make a standard version of the Shield complex form (it's a sideline of our current campaign that several folks are working on this, but it's a long road due to how different standard code protocols are from complex forms). Having this active adds to your matrix defense test so that initial black IC attack might not stick at all.

Even putting the Biofeedback Filter on the Sim Module doesn't help if it's slaved when your commlink is compromized:
It's just a Simple Action to unload it, then a Free to enable VR, then a Simple to order the Gray IC to blackout you.

Lessons learned: Sim Module linked to Commlink = Bad. Sim Module slaved to Commlink = Worse.

That's easily taken care of by a competent device user. Change settings so that only your hacker's encrypted feed is allowed to make changes like unloading programs, and link that to a hardware key.

Is this foolproof? Absolutely not. But it does add a relatively low-cost means of protecting from the kinds of quick in, quick result attacks we've been discussing in this thread. If the attacking hacker takes the time to do the needed work-around (decrypting the slave link to get the authorized hacker's ID and spoofing the hardware key authorization), then I would HOPE that the defending team's hacker is on the ball enough to have noticed the in-progress attack and start dealing with things personally. If he's not... well, that's what you get.

That's neither possible by RAW, nor desireable by in-game perspective: No-one should have a master key, ever.

Ok, new question then.

Since I've spent ALL of my time pouring through the matrix rules and practically none on the cyberware sections:

Why would Joe average samurai have a sim module? And if he does, will it by necessity be linked to his comlink?

For Knowsoft. And no, it would most likely have even internal networking shutdown.

Without some form of DNI, he can't control his smartgun except by analogue. If you want an arsenal of weapons controlled by murder thoughts, then you need a sim module.

No, you don't a Sim Module for that. You just need a trode net or any implant.

Agent, Armor, Shield, and Blackhammer.

*Alert user*
There was a break-in. I took care of it. Enemy hacker is dead.

Wouldn't you need a sim rig to translate the signals from the trodes to something your gun could understand in terms of murderation? I know an installed smartlink has a specialist system for such matters, but I didn't think the trodes could work with a pure head to com/gun connection..

while the smartlink system held a limited sim rig in SR3, its much more compact in SR4.

heck, the basic functions can be provided via glasses, goggles or contacts that house a image link and the display end of a smartlink system.

there are some other benefits to a smartlinked gun however, beyond the extra dice on attacks. Namely, turning some actions into free actions when said gun is accessed over direct neural interface.

sadly, there is no comprehensive list, that i know of, over what implants and devices that provide a direct neural interface.

what i can say tho is that a sim module is not a requirement for DNI.

When Shadowrun says Direct Neural Interface, we are talking about four (4) different things or levels:

DNI "trigger" allows you to turn on and off any implant – a basic switch, can be a manual, subdermal, remote, wifi or automatic, linked as well. (The last resort to kick someone out of your head)
DNI "control" allows you to operate any implant – think keyboard, mouse. (Get the implant with a Hardware Restriction so this is the only, non-revocable admin access)
DNI "integration" makes the implant a part of your body – cybereyes, cyberarms, you name it. (Yeah, Hardware Restriction by default)
DNI "interface" allows you to recieve (and partly generate) simsense – trodes, datajacks, and implanted commlinks, implanted sim modules. (The hole in your head)

If you linked everything, any single implant will give you DNI "control".
Sim Modules need to be timely configured for a user by the user, so the hacker can't just supply the sim module to Fry Brainz himself. That's what makes carrying running simmodules with active network so dangerous and implanted ones twice as risky. If you run Know- & Lingua-Softs off them, keep them seperated from the rest of the PAN.

Hate to break it to you, but a hacker dedicated to flipping you into VR at a moment's notice doesn't even need you to have a VR unit. Why?

Sim modules are external units. Some are built into your commlink. Some aren't. Some are in simrigs(external versions are like trodes), or even in simdecks. But the point is you can have a sim unit that isn't part of your regular equipment - and connect to it to get the benefit. The choice is up to the user - whether that's through a fiberoptic hardlink(Datajack plugged into a commlink, decker style), with DNI(Trodes, for example) - or wireless.

Now we're cooking with fire.

An intruder with admin can form subscription links no problem.

Even worse, the hotness of the signal isn't dependent on how the VR unit's being connected to. Its a function of the sim unit itself. Uh oh.

So a clever hacker can carry around a spare, wireless enabled, hot-sim hacked Sim Module for the sole purpose of linking -other- people's wifi enabled DNI to.(Trodes are signal 0, remember?). Throw in a psychotropic-optioned blackout(Do the Thriller at 11:59 am in front of the yamatetsu building on main street) and you have comedy. (One month test to code? Totally worth it. Or thread it.)

Or a terrorist attack in the making.

As a GM I would seriously allow perception rolls to notice that your sight feed was being altered. Maybe hiding a book on a table in the edge of the vision of the mark might be pretty reliable, but to edit an entire field of view with perfect, believable accuracy would boarder on the impossible. You're talking about Ultraviolet level VR, which requires mainframes of unbelievable power to accomplish in the setting. I'd be loathe to allow such a program to run on a freaking commlink.

Now, if you want to hide items in a field of view, you could write a program that samples the area around the item to hide, replicates it, and creates an icon over the item, thus creating a sort of virtual mimetic camouflage. Moving, or the item being moved, naturally decreases the effectiveness seriously.

I might call this program "Nothing There". As in "I look on the table, what do I see?" "Nothing There."

However, Predator (for the cloaking field effect that the moving mimetic camo would create) is far more cool. Perhaps if I was feeling generous I would grant that an item/person under the effect of the camo was relatively impervious to called shots, even if the mark is aware of the camo.

I call bullshit. I fail to see how I, a complete mundane, using a cellphone can get hit with VR and black hammered.

I don't have cybereyes to perceive the VR. I don't have a datajack or other DNI device. I'm not even wearing goggles, glasses, or contacts.

You'd have to get the trodes on me first, won't you?

In the hardware sense, yes. SR4a, page 328; A sim module must be accessed via trodes or a direct neural interface (datajack, implanted commlink, etc). Just holding a commlink that happens to have a sim module built into it is by no means enough.

A technomancer with the Skinlink and Resonance Trodes echos can do the same with just a touch, but success is not automatic if the subject is resisting. Don't know about you, but being grappled by someone who's trying to do a Vulcan mind meld with me is gonna be resisted.

Trodes are so common in 2070 that most fashion includes them in its design. If you could control your computer with a thought for the same price as a wireless mouse, wouldn't you? To the average person, the paranoia of thinking someone will pop into your com, link in a hot sim and psycho-wack you is a far smaller threat than just getting stabbed stepping out the door in the morning.

To a runner, such paranoia is justified, but I'd say there are plenty of marks out there waiting to get dragged into VR and have their brains ate up.

As to Ultraviolet nodes being hot shit, by SR 2072 they're like an old Silicon Graphics comp would be today. SotA 15-years ago is mundane in present time. Once the nanotech barrier was breached, computers would have gotten unbelievably more powerful and compact. Which reminds me that I need to work on a quantum computing scenario later...

Keeping trodes in fashionable headware for the common wageslave? Not too a good idea if you want to stay in business.

Even though it's not possible for a technomancer to do so, the average person does believe a technomancer can hack your brain, and AFAIK that propaganda is still believed by the majority of the uneducated masses. So why willingly wear an accessory that has trodes built into it linked up to your off-the-shelf commlink to give a boogieman like a technomancer nearly free reign to your gray matter? Then there's the propaganda against hot sims, and even running cold a dumpshock can give a person a splitting headache.

Unless there were several grunts in any of the books (skimmed SR4a and I didn't see that any have trodes base, let alone an implanted commlink), or anything to suggest that the average wageslave has a trode net on him along with that low-end commlink on their wrist, I wouldn't assume that said average wageslave is going to have trodes on.

Brother's gotta access that knowsoft somehow.. and we all know how club kids love to get bombarded with waves of sim signals while they run through their eX. I run a considerably wired up world full of disaffected near-nihilistic thrill seekers. YMMV.

Hate to break it to you:

See Unwired, p. 45.

The whole chain needs to be calibrated by the user as that involves wetware feedback (so the given simense signal is correctly perceived as a sense), which a hacker can't provide.

That program already exists for the game... it is an ARE Program called Negator, cost a whopping 100 Nuyen and is availability 4...
It is from Unwired...

Keep the Faith

Yeah, but it erases the items you want not to see, not the item owner.

hack comlink, install program, and presto.

I believe you can easily see the programs running on your link. So it's more complicated than that.

heh, so what is needed is the SR equivalent of a root kit?

hey, i think i found just the thing. Unwired, p123, ringworms.

basically its a agent with edit and stealth.

Aha. So you have to spend months writing it (or just need to buy the expensive Agent if your gm is cooperative) instead of just planting the program and forgetting about it.

if you want it hard to get rid of, then yes.

i guess you could nail it together using a existing agent with a similar loadout.

agents are very flexible that way.

Couldn't you just optimize it, drop it in their com, and stealth it same as the agent would?
Or, option #2, capture the video feed, route it through your own com and dump the altered feed back into the hacked device. Any time lag would be imperceptible since wifi in SR is massive bandwidth and all EM waves travel around three hundred million meters per second.