You can still hack tacnets, commlinks, drones, and even guns depending on how the owner sets them up, but it seem Unwired tried to back away from the whole hacking cyberware bit. Just because it was silly IMO. In a day and age with hackers and even those evil technomancers who cause Crash 2.0 out there you don't want them to be able to stop your pacemaker or something like that out in the streets. Why does your cyberleg need to be constantly connected? Especially when you could walk into jamming, dead zones, and the like. You'd use DNI to monitor things in there because that isn't subject to the vagaries of wireless signals.

Generally speaking cyberware hacking falls more into the realm of surveilance and force multiplication then it does into an enemy disabler. Hacking the enemies comlinkis for example gives you access to their smartlink if their running one off their PAN and it's not connected to a wholly seperate comlink. I do enforce a seperation of character knowledge and skills knowledge, for example a character with no points in hacking themselves likely isn't going to know what safeghuards to take beyond installing some antivirus or ICE and calling it a day. Now if the opposition is using any kind of real time communication or TACNET then it's time for a hacker to really earn their pay. Spoofing or editing, video, audio, and biomonitors can allow a team to disable guards without their fellows knowing what's up. In the case of an actual firefight your generally in a position of trading actions for actions which depending on your combat prowess your almost always better shooting someone however my personal favorite trick if i've had time ahead of time. I prepare a script to execute. On a given command it does the follow: Shuts off cybereyes, ejects clip, disable tacnet. Do this as their about to fire and you've cost them 6 dice minimum, they still have a round in the chmaber so they can still fire but their going to have to choose, do they spend their free action rebooting their ware (presuming they have DNI which i shouyld hope) or do they spend it enjecting a clip so they can use their simple to reload. Most people wont want to fire blind and they'll want to boot me out post haste so they wil reboot their ware and restore it to a defaults asap. Witht he right automation you can do this to a whole team at once so your hacker can do a simple in combat to cost multiple enemies their simples. With agents or other tricks it won't even cost you a simple.


So my take on cyberware hacking, it provides a nice force multiplier but it requires planing and opportunity and it's usefullness is going to vary wildly based on the tech usage of the opposition.

Edit addendum: Don't forget the surveilance cabilities of seeing through the users own eyes during sensative activities, that's why everyone but the hacker aught to have wireless off during meetings with mr J or run planing routing their connections through him.

Wouldn't say it was retconned, because being able to hack cyberware left and right was never part of the rules to start with. It only was an impression people got when first skimming over the new rules, and apparently still do

Well, it is most useful for obtaining Eyes on the situation, through whatever surveillance the location already uses. Combine that with the abilities to intercept the Opposition's communications, and you have a powerful advantage (Assuming that you can keep them from using those same tricks against you).

My Most recent Hacker was a Cyberlogician, that coordinated the Tactical Network, employed Drones, and used any and all of the In-Place Systems. Generally, hacks consisted of Initial Discovery; Decryption, Hack into the System (Assuming I had not prepared a Backdoor or Login prior to the Run, which I accomplished about 65-75% of the time), and then subversion of the system to suite our needs. Opening Doors can be done through the Security Protocols, of course, or through hardwired access (for those doors not covered by Security Access). We had a Technomancer who could handle the Direct Touch stuff (Like Doors).

It is mostly a very fluid Situation, because all GM's do not run the Matrix the Same. Some will only use a Single Node, while others may use layered defenses and chokpoint verifications. We tend to stay away from the Cyberware Hacking, because most 'Runners know better. It is generally a waste of time to attempt, unless you are going against an unseasoned 'Runner or Security Force. It is often better to screw with their data Feeds thatn it is to screw with their 'Ware.

Anyways... My Hacker has been quite useful, and has a significant impact on our games. On Ocassion, a Hacker needs a bit more time for some setup. When we had to plan for an Infiltration on a Zero-Zone facility, The character I played was required to physically infiltrate a Corp Facility as a Security Spider, and then find all the Security and Matrix Protocols (as well as a few Major Corporate Security Spiders AID's) for that facility, and then set up a Trojan to prepare for our Final Plan on the Zero Zone. What kept this from being an Old-School Matrix crawl was that the others had their own things going on at the same time, so no time Disconnect in play, as it was all handled in cut scenes - Took 2 weeks of game time to actually pull off, after a year of initial planning). When it comes to crazy things like Resonance Quests (for the Technomancer), the GM either runs that away from the Group, or we all participate. For Extended Penetration hacks, the entire group may participate, and most do, in some fashion. This may not be doable for a new character group, but the majority of the characters in our group all have high end gear (courtesy of my Hacker) and have at least passable Hacking Skills, or other tools that will help (Decent Level Agents). In the end, we have been able to keep the Matrix stuff pretty fully integrated with the rest of the action, since all actions happen at the same time (no more disconnect between Meat World Actions and Matrix Actions).

Its been quite fun, in fact.

Ok, thanks for all your help so far! Another question if I may..

In the rulebook, it states that if two entities roll the same initiative score they act at the same time. But there are no rules for simultaneous actions anywhere else in the game that I can see. How do you deal with this? Do you have the player or players or player and GM write down their intended action on a piece of paper?

Also, if you've delayed taking your action, you can act "before, after, or at the same time as" another entity. If you choose to act before at at the same time, you don't get to find out what they were going to do first, right?

I typically just decide what the NPC is going to do. It's usually pretty easy since their choices tend to be "same thing as last time," "new tactic because that didn't work," or "run like hell."

For PCs, just let them go in whatever order they want. It save the time of making them delay so they're in the right order, then go.



We treat delayed actions like readied actions in D&D. You can interrupt someone else if you want to. It might not be RAW, but it makes them a lot more useful and means that the guy who's not able to do anything at the moment doesn't feel as gypped, and he can be a real game changer if the situation changes.

i.e. Sniper is waiting around back to catch any fleeing targets.He's spending his whole combat delaying unless someone comes out. When they do, if they've got enough movement to get out of his line of fire in one action and you enforce a "can't interrupt" rule, the sniper is effectively useless. If he can interrupt them though, one guy dies and the rest have to rethink that whole "run away and live to fight another day" plan.

I wish that if you have a smartlink program running on your commlink to control your smartgun. I mean what software is running on your contacts that couldn't be run on your 'link?