So the description of the Area Program Option says,



So is this a typo? Should this have said rating +1? with the 1 being the initial target? Seems kinda stupid to have
a rating 1 work the same way as the attack program without the option, and you got to pay for it too.
2 Karma for a Techomancer or 750¥ for a hacker is the cost to get a rating 1 that would do nothing based on the current way it's written.
I'm sure this has to be a typo, or just something the author missed.

Maybe it's a speed bump, to reduce the power.

Well you roll one dice pool against all selected targets and you get a -1 to the pool for each target beyond the first.
So it does have a albeit small, speed bump already built in.
It just seems strange the way it's written. That the first rating point is virtually meaningless, other than a necessity to get the second rating point.

I think they just forgot to add "additional"

Yeah this.

yeah

The program may engage an additional number of targets equal to the Area option rating.

sounds a lot better.