Grey IC used to be something that hackers in earlier editions feared. Losing their high cost gear to Grey IC was often seen as just as bad as losing themselves to black IC. Without Grey IC the AR hacker becomes the new power in the 4th Edition Matrix. AR hackers are immune from the dreaded Black IC so now there is nothing to fear except a Trace followed by a Threat Response team knocking on your door.

Fallout is simple and uses already existing rules and concepts in the game. Just like Blackout and Black Hammer being two levels of a similar program, now Nuke has been taken to the next level.

Fallout uses the same rules as the Nuke program with one simple change. Damage done by the program is permanent and cannot be fixed by a simple reboot. To repair damage done by Fallout the Hardware or software has to be replaced or repaired. After you've been attacked by Fallout you have to replace or repair the Response Hardware or System/Pilot Software.

So just like Grey IC in the past editions Fallout turns that Hot piece of tech into a fancy and expensive paperweight.

Hacker's Beware


EDIT: Changed "replaced" to "replaced or repaired"

Very nice. I like it.

How would Fallout affect technomancers?

I like the idea of this Gray (it's not British! ) IC affecting technomancers the same way Black IC would. Since a technomancer's commlink is their brain, I think this would add some realism to them. Plus this gives a little more distinction between technos and hackers.

I assumed it was Grey IC like Grey's Anatomy. It's named after some programming chick named Grey.

Ugh - now to go try to kill those brain cells that have memories of that show...

How would somebody with a built in comlink do this?

Sorry about the misspelling. I am on some pretty heavy pain meds so my brain is not 100%.





Shivers. Need Brain Bleach.



One of the downers of having an implanted commlink I guess. Of course, how is common maintenance on the implant suppose to take place?

Heh, it's my fault - I was trying to be funny, not pedantic

Since for ease of not making up a bunch of extra rules and to keep with th premise that it is a harsher version of Nuke, then it would follow the rules for Nuke which means they are immune. Of course, they also suffer physically from Matrix damage I think it is a fair tradeoff.




No problem

. Better call your street doc buddy...

I once played a street sammy who was upgrading his Synaptic Booster. I asked my GM since I was in Seattle and needed brain surgery, does that mean I should get Patrick Dempsey to it?

As long as it'snot this Patrick Dempsey

I like that alot.

One question. If it's like nuke to some degree what happens when your response of system hit zero does you comm crash and dump you from the system or are you frozen in place. If your AR you can just hard shutdown and take dumpshock, If your VR what happens?

Since Response limits System, and System limits subscriptions, I would say you are unable to access any other nodes or run any programs. Your 'link (or other persona-generating device) hasn't crashed, so you remain in VR (or AR) and suffer no dumpshock.

I like the Nuke/Fallout comparison. Here's how I'd do it:

Fallout: Fallout functions like Nuke, except it targets a specific persona software rating (Firewall or System). If Fallout reduces its target persona rating to 0, make an opposed test of Pilot + Fallout vs Firewall + (targeted software rating). Each net hit semi-permanently reduces the targeted rating by 1 point. The System or Firewall has to either be restored from backups, taking some set number of hours (let's say 6), or else repaired by making a Logic+Software (Fallout rating x2, 1 hour) extended test to reverse the effects. If Fallout fails on the opposed test, the target still crashes, but is not permanently affected.

Other IC programs to add (sourced from SR3):

Tar Baby (White IC): Tar Baby attacks a specific active program. Roll an opposed test of Pilot+Tar Baby rating vs Firewall + Program rating. If the Tar Baby wins, it crashes both itself and the targeted program, requiring a fresh copy to be loaded from memory (1 complex action). Tar Baby will not attack passive programs such as Stealth, Armor, Biofeedback Filters, or ECCM.

Tar Pit (Grey IC): Tar Pit works exactly like as Tar Baby, but when it crashes it potentially corrupts all copies of that program on the target's commlink. If Tar Pit succeeds in crashing a program, roll an opposed test of Pilot + Tar Pit rating vs System + Firewall. If the Tar Pit wins, the targeted program is rendered unusable until the Hacker replaces it with a backup, or buys or creates a new copy of the program. If the Tar Pit fails the opposed test, the target program still crashes, as it would if attacked by a Tar Baby, but can be reloaded from memory as normal.

Ripper (Grey IC): Ripper IC functions as an Attack program, but damages a specific persona hardware rating (either Signal or Response) instead of the icon's Condition Monitor. If it reduces its target rating to 0 or lower, make an opposed Pilot + Ripper vs Firewall + (targeted hardware rating). Each net hit permanently reduces that rating by 1. The only way to repair this damage is to replace the affected chips. If the Ripper fails the opposed test, the target still crashes, but is not permanently affected.

Technomancers are immune to permanent Persona damage from these IC.

I suppose these would make VR slightly more attractive due to the tooth-and-nail protectiveness hackers would have over their systems. AR hackers are usually willing to take the risk of crashing, since they don't have to worry about dumpshock.

I have to ask, is the Iconography based on a certain character?

I honestly just got the name. Nuke/Fallout. I think I need more coffee.

In my games, built-in commlinks are special connectors, with the commlink itself a separate purchase; the comm itself is easily removed/replaced. It makes maintenance make sense, keeps you from having to get brain surgery to update/upgrade the hardware, and makes deltaware implanted commlinks less insane in the cost department.

One thought that hit me was this, would the emp hardening from unwired help against this?

Not likely. That's mostly external shielding, IIRC. This is the CommLink being told to overwrite it's Write-Sometimes Memory and change how the electrical power goes around on the sensitive circuits.

A 5V item suddenly taking 12V is not a pretty picture. And the expensive components burn out to protect the 12 cent fuse.

Truthfully I prefer to keep house rules to a minimum but saw a Program group that was potentially in the game already. That is why I made it as simple as possible using rules already in the game. Beyond that it would be up to the individual. By following KISS in my work it saves me a lot of headache.

I though EMP hardening would be a good possibility to use for defense, but how would the hardening be done rules wise that is as simple as possible. If we can keep it simple enough then we might be able to get Gray IC actually added back to the game.

I would like to point out that the spelling "grey." is not British. It's not like "colour." It is simply another spelling of the word "gray" in English. It tends to be used more in Britain than in the States, true, but it is completely accepted and normal in American English. Go to dictionary.com and check out the word. It mentions nothing about it being a British spelling. Then check out "colour." There you will see it listed as "chiefly British." You can check out this phenomena in any paper dictionary you have on hand and should see the same type of difference.

I felt the need to point this out as twenty years ago I managed to make an English teacher in High school apologize to me for marking the word as an unacceptable spelling in American English and deducting points in an essay I wrote. I got my points back (meaning the difference between an A- and a B+, mind you) and have never spelled the word as "gray," unless quoting or as a proper name, ever since.

And now to be back on topic, I want to add my appreciation of the new program. Very good! I will probably try it out in a new game I am running.

Vlad

I suggested this program option to my team's technomancer and she asked if there were any other software programs she could thread that would cause hardware damage.
I said she could design an OS so bad it made the user want to shoot his commlink. Composure Test(1/2 Program Rating rounded up)

Implant Medics...
Or have it be easily removeable with a little bit of work, no Surgery required (which has its own drawbacks , of course...

@ Ravensoracle; Brilliant. That rules variant is elegant in it's simplicity. Bravo. Reward yourself with 10 Karma & a cookie from your local Subway sandwich shop. ;D

@ Epicedion: This goes for you too. I like the fleshing out of the rules you put there, especially on the description of effects. ;D

Your next task is to re-create Sparky IC.

One can only hope.

Make phone go boom, do rating damage(f).

Electricity Damage. Done and done.

White IC? It's more sparkly than Grey.

Sparky could just be a Grey IC version of Blackout. Basically, an IC that inflicts direct stun damage through the DNI but doesn't have the nasty "can't log out" features of a Black IC.

I was actually considering re-creating Sparky IC, but one of the problems I have with Sparky on a conceptual level is that the easy solution - doing damage with it - is unbelievable to me. Electrical discharge when you're plugged in via cable makes *sense* to me, but not when you're wireless. A commlink's batteries obviously store plenty of power, but enough to make an electrical discharge happen on a level that deals quantifiable damage? Not so much. Commlink detonation is the obvious solution, but I don't like that either, for similar reasons.

I was contemplating making Sparky IC deal a small amount of stun damage with some taser-like effects, with the amount varying based on how much "extra" shit you had on you. I.E. a guy with a commlink and a trode net doesn't take much because there's not a lot of different batteries to discharge. But the guy who's got a commlink with a sim module, currently running in AR with gloves and glasses is gonna get a bunch of batteries discharging all at once.

My real concern is where to draw the line on what can get discharged without additional hacking attempts. After all, slaved smartglasses aren't too terribly different from a slaved drone's simsense feed, as far as the OS is concerned.

I guess one can draw the line at carried/implanted devices. As such, someone with a cyberlimb may be in for a shock

on that note, could one hijack the pain reporting of a cyberlimb and crank it up to 11?

or maybe invert a pain editor?

Sort of. Cyberlimb hacking is vague in the rules, but that seems like a valid option. The GM should make it limited enough to be fair (hard to do, only lasts until the user spends an action to turn it off, etc..
)
I think a Pain Editor is bioware, so no. Maybe with a designer pharmaceutical.

If you hacked a cyberlimb, I don't see why you couldn't crank up the sensitivity - it's a pretty standard part of the hardware, just like moving it. There's probably a hardware cutoff, but if you can hack your way in, that shouldn't stop you, either.

As for inverting a pain editor, no I don't think so - all it does is turn pain off by overriding a nerve. It doesn't have any innate amplification ability. Besides, it's bioware, so I don't think it can be hacked to begin with.

Bah, i was wondering if it was bioware but could not be bothered to checked.

You know, if there was something like this around, I might be tempted to make a Pip-Boy 3000-A. Radio Tubes are easier to replace if they burn out than teeny, tiny microcircuits.

When it's plugged directly into your brain, it doesn't have to generate a lot of charge to deal damage. As best I can tell with a quick search on the interwebs, neurons operate on about -0.07V at around 10^(-12)A. That's in the picoamp range.

While voltages on a modern CPU and motherboard aren't all that high, 3V or so, that's still over 40 times the expected voltage, and way-hey-hey-hey more amps. Just a little zort and it's skull bacon time.

Not brain damage; that already exists. Commlink damage.

Yeah, but that's what Black IC does, not Sparky. Like, explicitly that's what Black IC does, which is why in order to be hit by it you have to be running a sim module with the cutoffs disengaged: the cutoffs are what prevent voltage like that from being delivered to the brain.

Edit: Sparky's whole deal was that it caused electrical overloads, damaging the deck AND causing minor damage to the decker. I like it, conceptually, but I don't want to roll over either Nuke/Fallout or Black Hammer/Blackout TOO much.

Oh, for damaging chips. Well, the battery has got to be able to provide enough juice to power the thing (and in SR it seems it can do this virtually indefinitely). I imagine the power regulator is computer-controlled, and the chip-burner IC can temporarily alter the amount of power affecting a subsystem, jacking up the power until the chip either blows out or the control chip kicks in and shuts out the code that's causing the malfunction.

Computer parts are sensitive. It doesn't take much to fry them.

JSIK, This Sparky IC/Gray IC thing is from SR3, right?

Yeah. Though I think it might have been in SR2 as well, courtesy of Virtual Realities 2.0. Could be wrong on that score, though.

As long as it's the IC that Sparkle, not the Vampires...

I really need to get into Third Edition.... All this wireless stuff is fun an'all, but there's something about lugging a big clunky cyberdeck that makes me get all tingly in places other than the bathing suit area.

EDIT: Removed squick.

1) TMI.

2) While SR3 is a fantastic and fun and quirky game, SR4 has got it beat on ease of use and integration of all the team members into all parts of gameplay. A standard, useful, and well-supported tactic was to leave the decker at his favorite jackpoint and let him control everything from there.

Also you basically had to know what seemed like several completely separate systems. Hacking into a system might mean diving off the LTG into a Tier 1 host to hack into the Tier 2 host to hack into the host you want, each with arcane ratings listed like Orange-7/11/12/10/13/11 and a security sheaf that indicates planned responses should a decker push the security tally beyond certain trigger steps.

*o*
That's me going all starry-eyed.

Yah, it actually sounds like something people who understand a bit of computers can relate to, neh?
but it gets more complicated from there on . .