Under the new matrix rules, would two deckers working together be a viable strategy? What sorts of things could they pull off that a single decker wouldn't be able to manage? Also, if half my gaming group is deckers, how can I involve the rest of the team on matrix heavy runs?

They get to carry the other half(deckers) while they are jacked in and comatose?


Not sure how well team deckers work with each other and how moving through the grids as partners go. One of those bad times to lag behind.

With the new Teamwork rules, it looks like two or more deckers working together will at least not be liabilities and can probably work together fairly well.

you're actually much better off in that specific scenario imo with a decker + technomancer combo than a pair of deckers. technomancers start off behind in raw numbers (not so far as to be useless, but definitely behind), but can really support extremely well starting immediately. which means that even if there aren't two things to hack, the technomancer can be a massive power amplifier by doing things like reducing an enemy's abilities, using sprites to give dice pool bonuses to using a cyberdeck, and in the event that overwatch matters, a technomancer can pretty much remove it as a concern entirely. in addition, those extremely high fading abilities won't mean that you have zero matrix presence while your technomancer recovers.

as to whether or not that's worth the losses in meat world effectiveness, that's less certain. the decker will probably be able to contribute a little bit of effectiveness simply because he can use cyberware. the technomancer, on the other hand, can't use cyberware without hurting his skills as a technomancer... still, it might be worthwhile to invest in at least some (1-2 essence points max), particularly since it's going to be a slow start for that technomancer in the digital world.

as far as contributing on matrix-heavy runs, i wouldn't worry as much in SR5. the matrix is designed to be resolved fairly quickly anyways. just alternate between matrix and meat, for example by needing to fight through a group of enemies for your hacker to be able to log in using a security decker's terminal (for example, we know that you can only retrieve an archived file if you already have a mark... if you use a cyberdeck/persona that already has a mark on the file, such as a security decker or researcher, you can pull that file out of the archive... which means half of the "hack" is actually just getting to that terminal in the meat world).

Interesting...

/Sarcasm
So, in effect, it works just like SR4A then, because we resolved Hacking Actions in Real Time right along with the Street Samurai and his actions in SR4A.
/Sarcasm

[Was that a TJ Fallacy?]

The nice thing is that the Extended Actions have gone away for Hacking (for the most part), which is a plus.

So is remote decking even viable any more?

We used to use a remote decker (NPC) and a combat decker (PC) to handle things.

Often part of the mission was to set up a laser link that was connected to the buildings matrix so that our remote decker could work the system.

Can you do any thing to provide a remote decker with direct access to the target system?

in theory, "direct access" negates all noise penalties caused by distance. precisely what constitutes direct access is a bit unclear, however.

in general, i would say that any connection that goes directly from device to device without having to use the matrix/wireless to transmit data qualifies. so, for example, you could use a fiberoptic cable (not recommended for corporate infiltration, but handy if you want to use a central location for security deckers so that a team of deckers can cover a larger area). or you could use a laser transmitter (but obviously this will be limited by the range of the laser). in general, for the purposes of getting into a corporate facility, there isn't much you can do without getting noticed. i suppose you could have drones infiltrate the HVAC and lay fiberoptic cable leading to a laser link on the outside of the building or something, but i would presume that HVAC has security in the shadowrun world (at least, by any place concerned about security enough to not be a pushover), and so you'd need to figure out how to deal with that, too.