Ah no. You can have wireless on and operate in hidden mode which gives you a -2 penalty to matrix actions. On devices that don't perform matrix actions this is not really a problem. The only way you can interact with a hidden device at greater than 100m is if you are familiar with that specific device, but have noise penalties...... and you still have to spot it.



Here's you've just made an assumption about the game world to justify your argument. Why are they all backed up on a host? Why don't they just have it through their own pan with a solid commlink? Why doesn't every platoon or whatever have it's own matrix overwatch? Why, if they are all linked back to a host (which is questionable I think as an option but I digress), is that host of a rating that's particularly vulnerable. Why wouldn't it be rating 10+ and full of Ice and spiders?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're taking elements of the system you don't like (and perhaps, haven't even got a great understanding of) and then applying them to assumed realities of the world based on today's technology.

Why would you bother? Short of having them physically connect a wire to you how can they affect your tech if your wireless is turned off?

I seriously hate wireless, but the absurdist arguments are not coming form his side in this thread. There are a lot of solid reasons the wireless rules suck, sadly none of them are coming up here.

Well, I suppose they could use bullets...
Not sure how throwbacks would help in that case but what the heck.

You follow the clearing procedures for your particular weapon - takes about a second or two to do it on most firearms.

Most weapons do not just "Stop Working" though. You typically end up with a jam on extract, more than anything else (or occasionally a double feed with Automatic weapons, especially of open-bolt design, like an M60). I have had 1 Misfire in the hundreds of thousands of rounds fired over the years. I had a side blowout on a rifle once that effectively destroyed the weapon. I have had individual weapons that were prone to extract jams of one type or another. I have had individual weapons that NEVER had operational issues. The vast majority (almost 100%, save the above blowout issue) of issues encountered, however, were corrected with a quick clearing of the weapon.

That's the thing that gets overlooked a great deal in this sort of discussion. Firearms are, at the end of the day, extremely simple machines with very few points of failure. That is by design, as they are intended to be used in field conditions and expected to keep functioning.

And yet Tactical Communications do not use the Matrix to transmit. *shrug*

*Raises Hand*
All SR5 Non-Decker characters will be Non-Wireless capable. Good luck hacking them.

Indeed... I cannot even remember the last time I had a weapon malfunction.
My favorite autoloading weapon was a Smith 9mm Pistol. Would cycle entire magazines of empties with no jams. Loved that gun.
Of course, My Customized Ruger Super Blackhawk was my one true gun until it was stolen.

I'd like to post a positive critique !
After reading Preview #3 and optional Rules , especially RG1
Im extraordinarily Happy
Jay JayJay Hurray
One of my main points of critique has been nullified !

Thanks to whomever is responsible

with a Happy Dance
Medicineman

I think others have covered it, but it depends on the malfunction. The main ones (at least with the M16A2/M4) were the standard misfeed and the "pop and no kick" misfire.

Standard misfeed was fixed by basically putting the selector on Safe, drop the magazine, lock the charging handle back, inspect the receiver to make sure a round wasn't stuck in there, then basically return everything back to the way it was. It usually only took a few seconds.

The "pop and no kick" usually meant you had a round hanging out and cooking off in the barrel. The procedure there was basically keep the weapon pointed toward what you wanted to kill and wait, LOL. In the interim, get your knife ready or start fishing out a bayonet (although installing that on a rifle with a hanging round was probably not a great idea, LOL).

All in all, I figured there was a reason they trained us in three or four ways of injuring someone using the WRONG end of the rifle.

Worst I've gotten out of my CZs is one stovepipe jam in 1000 rounds, where an underloaded round didn't have quite enough backpressure to fully cycle the slide and left the brass stuck vertically in the ejector port. Easy clear, just manually cycle the slide fully back.

Well, that and the Mosin bolt sticking, but that was entirely because I was opting to clear out the last of the cosmoline by shooting it.

which i'm sure will be just oh so *tremendously* difficult to spot given it has absolutely no dice pool to resist with. unless it's on a host, or your opposition is likewise investing in an expensive cyberdeck, both of which you seem to feel are unlikely. you need to know one thing about it. for example, "it's right over there where a spydrone/scout/etc spotted it".

as to noise penalties, they're not nearly as big of a deal as you think. a datajack gives 1 noise reduction. a signal scrub program gives another 2. the datajack alone gets you to 1 km. the program added in will get you to 10 km. and even if you then go out to 100 km, you are left taking a net -2 penalty (0 against hosts, if they're used). so within 100 km i can interact quite easily with any device that is on the matrix. yes, it's at a penalty. no, that isn't a crippling penalty that will completely prevent me from being able to act. presuming, of course, that there is no further noise reduction gear available in the setting (which seems unlikely; just because we don't have it *yet* doesn't mean that it doesn't exist).


if you don't have a host (or a cyberdeck), they have no meaningful defence. no host means i don't need an expensive piece of hardware to break in (or at least, not very expensive; you still need a deck, but not nearly as high of a rating). a host means i need an expensive piece of hardware to break in, but once i am in i have broken in to *all* of your stuff. if you have cyberdecks for defence, then by buying a single 400k nuyen piece of equipment, i have forced you to buy 400k pieces of equipment for every 4 soldiers (well, 5 if you count the guy with the cyberdeck, who is also an added expense).

and if it's not a huge vulnerability, why are you suggesting that each platoon would have matrix overwatch? if it isn't a threat, then what exactly are you protecting against? if it is threatening enough that now you need to spend the same 400k nuyen on defence (per 4 conventional soldiers, mind you) that you insisted nobody would be willing to spend on offence, then it is threatening enough to be worth spending a few thousand nuyen extra per device to design them to work without needing to connect to the matrix.

unless the cost of designing completely internal cyberware to interact through a cable or even just regular wireless rather than having to be hooked up to the internet exceeds 100,000 nuyen per soldier by a significant margin, someone made a gigantic screwup here. because if it only costs a few thousand nuyen per item to have an internal connection to each other, you can have 100% effective defence for a much lower cost.

now i'm no military genius, but i'm guessing that if company A offers a military-grade product that will cost less than 10% as much to protect, and protects better than what company B offers, company A is going to sell a lot of product and company B is going to be firing a lot of idiot managers and engineers for incompetence.

edit: also, just remembered... it's 3xrating for maximum number of slaves a device can have, so it's really 1 rating 4 cyberdeck per 12 devices... and anything else is completely vulnerable. the hacker will likely also need to cover his own devices, so really we're looking at less than 3 pieces of cyber per person... if they have eyes, a smartgun, and a smartlink on each soldier, then that's 4 soldiers protected per rating 4 cyberdeck... and then the hacker can't have anything that needs protection himself. it's also worth noting that while technomancers are pretty much worse than hackers, even having a technomancer on your side, which does not necessarily cost any money at all, forces your opponent to spend significant amounts of money on matrix overwatch. even having the ability to *hire* someone who has a cyberdeck forces your opponents to spend on matrix overwatch, for that matter... you don't need to spend a cent on offence until hostilities break out to force your opponent into either not using the full capabilities of the gear he bought, or spending big on matrix defence. but hey, i'm sure that won't bother anyone in the military at all.

as to proof of wireless without being on the matrix, one only needs look at some of the wireless bonuses. a smartgun can let you wirelessly do stuff. it also has a wireless bonus that gets added in when it's on the matrix. the microtransceiver has a matrix bonus and literally cannot function on a basic level without being wireless enabled. the datajack's bonus for being on the matrix is one that, if being on the matrix and having wireless enabled are the same thing, would always be available. the detonator cap has the base functionality that you can set it using a radio signal. then it has a special wireless bonus apart from that as well. a bug scanner, which must be able to read wireless signals, gets an extra bonus if it is on the matrix. a jammer, which must be broadcasting wirelessly, gets an extra bonus when it's on the matrix. every grenade launcher has a special ability to use wireless link detonation without a DNI, as does every grenade, if they are connected to the matrix. without the matrix, you need a DNI. if being wireless enabled and being on the matrix are synonymous, how is it that these (and probably other things which i have not listed) which *require* wireless capability to function on the most basic level have a distinct and separate bonus listed for when the device is on the matrix?

Classic Stovepipe.

Removing Cosmoline by shooting. Interesting.

@Jaid,

This whole idea of weapons being bricked in combat in a battlefield situation doesn't work if you just look at the numbers - and lets just assume that noise isn't even a factor for you.

Let's assume you have a decker who wants to brick a soldier's gun. Military Grade hosts are 11-12, and the guns are hooked up to that. We'll do two tests: hacking the gun, and hacking the host.

1) There is no reason for the gun not to run silent. To find that gun, even if you know specifically which gun you are looking for, you make a Computer + Intuition test against the Logic + Sleaze of the Host to resist.

The ratings of that host would be, 12, 13, 14, 15 - and would probably be Firewall, Data Processing, Sleaze and Attack. So you roll your Computer + Intuition - so, let's say you are a PHENOMENAL decker - 13 skill, and 6 Intuition, in hot sim +2, - that is 21 dice. The weapon is rolling 25 dice to resist - and is not restricted by limits. Not very likely that you are going to even be able to FIND the damn icon. But, let's assume you get lucky and do spot it, and now you want to brick it. You roll your Cybercombat of 13, and your Logic of 6, plus hot sim bonus for 20 dice, and it rolls Intuition + Firewall - this time its 27 dice - again, not limited, and any net hits against you now damage your persona icon.

This, btw, is with a decker who has reached the Apex of his training in two different decking skills - and he still, realistically, has no chance.

2) If you go into the host, it is exactly the same issue. Even if you were to assume that the Host itself would not run silent, you still have to put a mark on it. So again, you roll skill + attribute + hot sim of 21 dice, (and if you don't want to be instantly attacked by IC, you would need to have a Hacking skill of 13 as well), and the Host rolls 27 dice to defend. Odds are you aren't getting in, and when you do, the instant you try and do something, you face similar long odds.

Now, the downside to having them all hooked up to a host, is that if you get mark on the host, then it is easy to attack the individual weapons - but one could assume that you could have a couple of spiders in the host just for that eventuality - and there is no limit to the number of weapons that can be hooked up to a single host. Also, lets assume, just for a moment, that you capture a rifle, connect directly to it, and get a mark on it, allowing you to get a mark on the host.

Now, entering the host, you want to brick another rifle. Once you've done so, the Patrol IC would have a chance to see you perform that illegal action. Well, it is now rolling 24 dice to see you - and with that many dice, it is more than likely to spot you doing something wrong, and now it starts launching the 24 dice rolling Black IC.

Also, bricking may not always be the best option available. So, you've tracked down the sniper who is keeping your team pinned and you've got access to his smartlink. You could brick the gun, sure, since that somehow works... or you could screw with his IFF information so he starts taking shots at his teammates instead while jamming his incoming communications. Now rather than just disabling a threat you've redirected it.

Fun and a bit hard on the shoulder. 7.62x54r kicks like a mule. But after 10~ rounds in a few minutes, I had drips coming out of the magazine. A good hard cleaning after that, then wrapping the stocks in black plastic and leaving them on the rear dashboard of a closed car in South Texas summer for a couple days, and I managed to sweat most of it out.

Gotta love the Texas Heat. Don't really miss it all that much, though.

Or, you know, start counter Sniping, since you now know where he is.

You realize that you're quoting the ratings equivalent to the Host for a major megacorporate headquarters to defend a squad of grunts in the field, right? Not to mention that due to how slaving works, all anyone needs to do to make all that work useless is get ahold of a single item slaved to that Host and connect to it directly.



That's a few hundred thousand to a couple million nuyen that can be bypassed and then mass bricked by picking off a single scout and stealing anything he's got on that's slaved.

Not just military situations, though that's a good extreme example of how the system is devised around putting strong protection around vulnerabilities rather than simply eliminating vulnerabilities by cutting performance.

Note that any bit of runner/security/military gear, as in anything worth hacking, is going to be a part of the arms race. Very few and desperate people should be running online gear if they're not protected somehow. The juiciest targets -- wired reflexes, smartlinks, and so on -- are all extremely expensive or restricted/forbidden to begin with, and in few conceivable circumstances would go without the protection of a host. Shadowrunners can't rely on that sort of backup and have to use proactive deckers.

See, I see it differently. You can be completely protected, with absolutely no possibility of Bricking or being detection through a wireless signature, for the simple expedient of removing any and all wireless shenanigans from gear that is critical (i.e. anything you carry on a run). The risk of bricking/discovery is not currently worth the few dice you can possibly gain. *shrug*

Complete immunity for the cost of only a few dice? Especially with the DP's you can obtain already in Chargen... Yes please.

bah, shouldn't have added stuff in an edit.

anyways, as has been pointed out: we have a situation where, supposedly, it is reasonable for the military to spend millions of dollars on this... but somehow it isn't a problem. nobody has any desire to defend against it.

and, as has been pointed out: you capture one soldier. you hack his gear directly, and get on the host. you now have a direct connection to every single other device connected to that host. there is no stealth defence. i have a direct connection to it. and the device is now just as defenceless as it was without a host. i've taken out one soldier, and i now have access to every other soldier's gear that's connected to that host. i can easily get their locations, i can easily find out what gear they're using, i can easily start bricking gear at any time, and i can easily invite all my friends to the bricking party... but hey, apparently military organizations don't sweat these sort of security risks.

not to mention that the use of HARMs will pretty much wreck any military dumb enough to have all of their devices broadcasting all of the time.

Which brings us full circle to exactly why wireless bonuses and bricking are stupid ideas to start with. *shrug*

Ok.

This is what Jaid is complaining about, I think:

http://s27.postimg.org/3rmpmlfkz/hosts.png

Top half of the image is how the game is currently structured. Cross-host there's a penalty (situation 2). But in the same host there is no penalty (situation 1). As soon as a hacker is on your system you have no defense, none zip zero nada. Not even being in stealth mode will help you.

Bottom half is how it (probably) should be: every device has its own defenses, but being on a host gives a boost (situation 3).

It costs nothing extra to have guns as Throwbacks, and you don't lose anything by doing so (unless your gun has wireless bonuses but most don't). Just one extra line on the character sheet for a little peace of mind.

Yep...

According to..? I've already asked for a book citation on non-Matrix wireless, but unless I've missed it one has yet to be offered.

RHat, the micro-transceiver, pp 441, is a counter-example.

That is the one - You can hook it up wireless to cover the world (why would you?), or go non-wireless (sans any connections to matrix at all - throwback style) and still communicate within 1 Kilometer.

The micro-transceiver occurred to me, but I dismissed it as it's functionality is far and away less than is required for this subject. Comments from certain posters have directly held that you could have device to device wireless with Matrix connectivity. The MT is voice only.

And a force using MTs only for comms will get their ass kicked by an equal force using full wireless capability.

yeah, i posted them into an edit of a former post... and by then there were like 15 responses after that post. here's what i had edited in:

"as to proof of wireless without being on the matrix, one only needs look at some of the wireless bonuses. a smartgun can let you wirelessly do stuff. it also has a wireless bonus that gets added in when it's on the matrix. the microtransceiver has a matrix bonus and literally cannot function on a basic level without being wireless enabled. the datajack's bonus for being on the matrix is one that, if being on the matrix and having wireless enabled are the same thing, would always be available. the detonator cap has the base functionality that you can set it using a radio signal. then it has a special wireless bonus apart from that as well. a bug scanner, which must be able to read wireless signals, gets an extra bonus if it is on the matrix. a jammer, which must be broadcasting wirelessly, gets an extra bonus when it's on the matrix. every grenade launcher has a special ability to use wireless link detonation without a DNI, as does every grenade, if they are connected to the matrix. without the matrix, you need a DNI. if being wireless enabled and being on the matrix are synonymous, how is it that these (and probably other things which i have not listed) which *require* wireless capability to function on the most basic level have a distinct and separate bonus listed for when the device is on the matrix?"

so, basically, you have devices which explicitly have a base functionality that lets them interact through a wireless connection, and then have an additional bonus when hooked up to the matrix.

Doubt it. *shrug*
Your assumption is that Matrix Connectivity somehow grants you superior tactics and strategy, which is BS. It is simply a tool (and a shoddy one at that in SR5). *shrug*

Again, no. YOU have to be familiar with the device, not have 2nd/3rd hand knowledge of it.



It's still something you have to account for and may not be able to reduce to zero, therefore significant.



Again. You're making assumptions not backed up with anything, barely anecdotal anything...... A device behind a good comlink will probably give your standard soldier 10-11 dice before using countermeasures such as matrix defence actions. While yes, that's not insurmountable, it's probably better than having been shot at with an assault riffle from within 100m. Not only that, if the decker is that competent, why is he on a battlefield? I sure as hell wouldn't be. I'd be getting a big paycheck protecting corporate Hosts. Your standard decker may take 3-4 actions to crack that while perhaps taking damage in the process..... against 1 soldier, when his side could have fielded 2-3 soldiers in his stead (depending on the deckers competence and gear levels).



Those aren't my positions. You're concocting situations that are absurd to support your hate for a system you don't really understand and have seemingly not actually used in game. My position is that the cost and threat of a decker on a battlefield does not look good if you did a cost benefit analysis. They are not a front-line battlefield archetype. It's like putting a 'face', a 'retired cop' or the 'Rocker' archetype on a battlefield.

What i'm suggesting is that using your logic 'that hackers are a threat on the battlefield' i can come up with scenarios that still make it mostly a non-issue.

Shadowrun is not even about this kind of stuff anyway. We have street Samurai which are archetypes that may have been on a battlefield in some way. However, the system doesn't support this kind of play. On a larger scale you'd have mechanics that support squads (like warhammer 40K for example). The shadowrun system has been crafted to support playing with 2-5 runners on largely infiltration style missions. This is the same reason we don't have mechanics for how wage slaves use computer systems, because we don't need to know.



Yes, but you don't get magical matrixy bonuses. That's just how the world works. Wikipedia makes stuff work better some how that our poor 2014 brains just can't comprehend. I don't see why that's conceptually so hard to deal with. I kinda believe that most of this wireless hate is just temper tantrums being thrown about having to make choices.



That's what they used to have. Matrix Magic makes soldiers more effective at minimal risk and cost. with wireless on the soldiers are perhaps 10% more effective than before at the cost of a good quality comlink.



Again, this was just me putting up to your made up problems. If you believe that it is worth putting $500k deckers into the field and you believe that this is something they'd actually chose to do then I can find expensive ways to counter it........ even though I think those contermeasures are largely unnecessary.



No-one is suggesting that things can't communicate with different protocols, it's just that Wikipedia is needed to get pool and limit bonuses or bonus stacking.

Except you cannot hide behind a comlink. No Sleaze makes that impossible.
And while your at it, why are Hackers even in the Shadows? Per your inference, they should be working for a nice cushy paycheck in a corporate host somewhere.



Except that they will never be a non-issue to shadowrunners, since they are the defense of the Hosts they are trying to penetrate.



Where you then have to worry about your stuff being screwed with. That is the conceit of the game. And we DO need to know how a normal person uses the Matrix. If you don't, you get stupid results like normal users never being able to actually unprotect a file for their own use. Oh wait, that is an issue in SR5, isn't it?




So you don't have issues with the ludicrous nonsense that Wireless is more secure and faster than Wired systems. Others do. And that is a major issue for a lot of us.



Which is ludicrous and stupid. As many have stated. Kind of hard to argue with that, too.
I would have loved to see Wireless Bonuses be something cool and awesome. Sadly, what we got isn't (and is in fact pretty horrible). *shrug*

I guess comlink users don't have logic. Nor do comlinks have firewall apparently.



No it's not. It's a problem you have with SR5. I don't have that problem. If an actual user wants to use a system then they just use it. See that's not so hard is it?



Most don't. I don't see how you can have logical problems with half the sci-fi stuff but be completely ok with the other things that make no sense. Maybe if you just suspend disbelief (which is a requirement of playing RPGs generally) you would have less issues and more fun?



So I guess it is a bit too conceptually challenging for some. I am kind of sick of arguning about it though. i just wish the haters would just stick to 4th Ed and stop bitching about 5th and turning every discussion into a moronic clusterfuck of hate. i'm going to stop engaging and just allow you all to remain ignorant.

Logic and Firewall DO NOT HIDE YOU AT ALL.
It is better to never be discovered than to be defending yourself from the get go. Or have you missed that in your tactics briefs?




Except that is not how it works, and you know it. Yes, I have a problem with SR5. It is a jumble that needs attention. It had such great potential, but the ball was dropped. That is FACT. Yes, some things are pretty decent, but most are not.



The problem is that the Stretches of Disbelief needed to allow me to ignore the ludicrous behavior of Computers and electronics that the current morass of Wireless Bonuses introduces is just too much. It is not Star Wars. It is a Near Earth Equivalent with Magic. And I am sorry, but Technology IS NOT MAGIC. I was pretty sure that was evident.



It is not conceptually challenging. It is conceptual BS.
And all that insulting people does is make you look bad. *shrug*

"the matrix magically bends the laws of reality" is exactly what i don't like about it. it's stupid. we know what the matrix has always been like. we know that it has changed, and we know how it has changed, and none of that explains why the matrix can apparently alter the rate at which time passes (reducing the time it takes to perform an action just by connecting a device to the matrix) and magically make you better at everything, including actions that literally take place faster than you have time to process what's happening.

it's the matrix. it's not a new concept. it isn't even a recently imagined concept. and nothing in the new matrix even remotely suggests it should have magical powers.

unless of course the actual in-setting explanation is that the matrix is behaving in a completely illogical fashion to modify reality, in which case considering how often in only the past few years in the SR timeline matrix threats have screwed everyone over... well, they should be trying to find something worse than the jormungand virus to gut the entire damn thing, because in the last few years alone the matrix has been the source of multiple major worldwide disasters that *supposedly* set back everyone in a big way, and the immediate response to "there is no logical reason for this to work the way it does" bloody well should be to get out the pitchforks and torches and make sure that this time they kill it with more fire than they used the last three times this happened.

What if the Matrix is Awake? That all our screwing around with clouds and grids has created one planetary electronic mind? Granted not one with a cohesive personality that can be distinguished as yet, but then what would one be like?

Maybe this Matrix Mind is operating at quantum levels, giving us the bizarre situations one has seen and how connecting to it benefits more than it should under normal circumstances.

The boys on top know its there and are taking advantage of connecting to it, but are also keeping an eye on it as they do not fully control it either though you can be sure they are very keen to learn to do so.

What if it is not entirely sane?

on a side note, it's getting really tiring having the goalposts moved.

apparently hacking is not a threat, except that we need million dollar solutions to matrix threats for everything, except that after pointing out the expense forced on the opposing side merely by the existence of a single hacker, it's completely irrelevant to the discussion because it's not about shadowrunners specifically even though it's a part of the setting the game is in. but that's apparently also beside the point, because even though militaries *could* defend against these things, they're somehow not a threat.

and apparently there is no such thing as wireless without being on the matrix, except that there are numerous examples of that exact thing happening, but somehow that doesn't matter either, because once we've demonstrated that, it's no longer anything to even consider; that's just because the matrix is somehow a magical power that doesn't obey physical laws, even though it isn't magical. matrix bonuses don't have anything to do with wireless communication, it's also some quasi-religion that alters reality for no apparent reason whatsoever.

i mean, seriously, your response to hackers that can be sitting 10 kilometres away hacking everything you have is that they have to worry about assault rifles within 100 feet? that somehow knowledge about a thing cannot be transmitted? damn, why the hell did i bother learning how to speak if i can't communicate information about something to you, somehow you magically are required to know about it from personal experience. it's not good enough to know where something is, you have to have personally seen it in that specific location for it to count. this isn't a ritual spotter, it's a bloody hacker using a computer. if knowing where something is is sufficient, then it doesn't matter how you came into that knowledge, whether it was spotted by a drone or not... but even if it DID for some idiotic reason matter, they could just show you the damned drone footage, and now you have that firsthand knowledge, unless we're going with an idiotic interpretation that you need to see it with either your natural eyes or something you payed for with essence. this is technology, not magic. we're talking about hacking a device, not going on a metaplanar quest.

and no, 10 dice from a commlink isn't going to save you (not that 10 dice is particularly likely... that's a rating 6 cutting edge commlink and every single soldier having a 4 in willpower). a starting shadowrun character can easily pull off 14+ dice (6 skill, 6 logic +2 from bioware, plus any bonuses gained from having a 250 nuyen program, plus hot sim) without even doing anything too fancy. even if we presume military hackers are slightly less brilliant on average, that's still a bigger dice pool going against your smaller dice pool. a less than 50% chance of successful defence is not an effective means of protecting yourself.

/sigh. I can't let this go...... Let me make position crystal clear. I don't think that it's a threat. I think that a soldier on a battlefield will be able to defend themselves adequately with their comlink for long enough that the decker will be sprung and neutralised. I don't think the battlefield is the right place for them and they just wouldn't tick enough boxes in a cost benefit analysis to be worth using.

Anything else I've said has been in response to your premise that they are a threat and they are a cost effective measure. Assuming in some bizarro world that this is the case, then options a, b, c and d would logically follow as countermeasures. I don't suport these measures in my Shadowrun world view becuase I don't see Decker hacking as a big deal.



The who gives a shit philosophy works best. You can stay up all night in cold sweats worrying about how you don't understand sci-fi, but that doesn't make the system bad. How do you deal with other games? I mean would you head explode if you you played Numenera?



Apparently you didn't because the rules specify that you can't do this.



Again, you are making up rules to support your own premise. Yes, you need to have spotted the individual device on the matrix at some point while having been within 100m of it, assuming that it is running silent. The whole point of this ruleset was to provide a need for hackers to be on-site for hacking, like the good old days of 1-3rd ed when you had to plug a wire into something to hack it. This is why your battlefield premise is fundamentally flawed!



It's not about having seen the thing in real space /facepalm. you have to have seem it while on the matrix while within 100m. Now here's where I play devil's advocate and pretend your point on ranged hacking is actually valid, just so you don't get confused' and say: If you know the exact location of a soldier based on some kind of drone footage wouldn't you be better off dropping a mortar on them and save the other $498k you spent getting a decker out in the field before payment?



So in your bizarro Shadowrun world view, we do have military outfits spending $200K on cutting edge enhancements (It could be way more than this if you think about who in the world actually gets deltaware gear if it's not the military) but not another 12k on a comlink to protect that investment? Ok, sure that makes sense...... and a trained warrior is not likely to have above average willpower? Not 1 more point that some average joe? Sure why not. I conceed your logic. Let's make it 9 dice then.



I'm not sure I support 'easily'. If you mean a device hacking specialist can achieve 14-16 dice at creation that would perhaps be more accurate, but what the hell let's go with that. So 14 dice vs 9-10? It's hardly a slam dunk is it? I'm expecting you to take 2-3 combat turns to pull it off and if you fail 1 roll the target can just turn their wireless off and forgo a couple of extra dice until they find you and stomp you into the ground. That's not even touching the fact that even if, and I stress 'if' the decker manages to brick your wired reflexes, it's questionable that this has anymore effect than to reduce your initiative to normal speed, dispite all the mountains of fluff text that suggests that a campfire might start in your spine but provide absolutely no rules on how this works besides stating that the device stops functioning. So say you support the logical assumption that the initiative decreases then the soldier can still find the decker's limp body and cap him with just 1d6+whatever initiative.

Wait. Is it "see it on the matrix" or is it "be within 100 meters is the physical world"?

Both doesn't make any sense, how could you ever use a website hosted on a device in another country if you've never been within 100 meters? Especially while also stating that it has nothing to do with real space.

I know what the writers probably intended, but what you just said wasn't it.

Presumably hosts have some sort of matrix address that you use for tracking it down with a Matrix Perception test. "Shiawase host for Facility A15-4559/s" would be hard to pluck out of the aether (though there would be a figurable difficulty for a Matrix Search to get that info). "Bob's Smartgun" is probably less easy to find if that's all you have to go on.

I'm guessing the website does not run on silent mode though.

directly from the rules, page 235, in the sidebar entitled "Matrix Perception":

"When you take a Matrix Perception action, each hit can
reveal one piece of information you ask of your gamemaster.
Here’s a list of some of the things Matrix Perception can tell
you. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it should give you a pretty
good idea about how to use Matrix Perception:

[snip]
If you know at least one feature of an icon running silent,
you can spot the icon (Running Silent, below).
[snip]"

note that this is separate from the ability to check all icons that are running silent within 100 meters.

so... i know it's location. i know what the device is. assuming i have even remotely halfway-decent intelligence, i probably even know the brand name, what software it's running, and what grid it's located on for their standard soldiers (having standard stuff across all soldiers means that you don't need to keep spare parts for a million different pieces of equipment). therefore, i can do a matrix perception test to spot the icon.

for someone who keeps complaining that i don't know the rules, you don't seem to have brushed up on the rules yourself.

as to the military using rating 6 commlinks, well, not only do i not think the military won't be using the same hardware as "Billion-nuyen experimental devices, space craft", but the book even lists "High-end devices, betaware, military vehicles and security devices" as being rating 4. so ummm... yes. considering "military vehicles" includes vehicles that cost in the hundreds of thousands and often into the millions of nuyen, and are worth rating 4 protection... no, i don't think their regular infantry are packing rating 6. not even if they do spend 200,000 nuyen on them (that's the device rating table on page 234, by the way).

on a side note, also on page 234 is the "Matrix Spotting Table". wanna guess what it says about targets that are outside of 100 meters range and are running silent? (hint: it doesn't say it's impossible, and against devices without a sleaze rating it isn't even difficult). so that's 2 sources now on being able to find devices that are running silent, but are further than 100 meters away.

so umm... yeah. if you're gonna tell me i don't know the rules, maybe you oughta check the rules first to make sure that *you* know what you're talking about, thanks.

so yeah. you can use cyberdecks, and blow a crapton of cash on defending gear because you were too cheap to invest in a few inches of optical cable, a better microcomputer, and some surgery. or you can use a host and have a single point of vulnerability for all of your devices (and still spend an awful lot of money... oh, and no the grunts are not going to have the same rating of host as "military command", by the way, so you can forget about that rating 12 host nonsense). or you can have virtually no protection whatsoever, since as a best-case scenario you're likely going to have 4 dice to avoid being spotted, and are rolling maybe 8 dice to defend your gear from matrix attacks.

note that you may not even be aware that your stuff is *being* attacked in the first place; you'll notice a data spike dealing matrix damage, but you will not, for example, notice all your files being copy protected (and therefore inaccessible to you), or having data bombs set on it so that if you try to open anything your gear explodes. you also won't necessarily notice viruses or worms being uploaded, but then again we don't have rules for that yet so i can't be 100% sure of what they could do, or even if it's noticeable.

as to why it's better than an artillery strike, well, artillery strikes don't let you find out who's communicating with the soldier you just saw, and don't let you wait until they lead you to more of their friends. artillery strikes don't let you go through all their maps and find out what they know. artillery strikes don't let you set them up for later destruction. and also, artillery strikes make it pretty obvious that you spotted the soldiers.

Remember kids:

Red lasers are only a quarter of The Battle.

(As a side note:


Ironically the book is silent on what "one feature" actually means. It may in fact be a recursive rule requiring that you've spotted the icon already).

the odds that they said "one feature" when they meant "one specific feature and no others, that specific feature being that you have personally seen the exact icon in question before and therefore probably know a number of features beyond one purely on that basis" are, i feel, extremely slim.

i mean, it's not impossible. the editing is certainly not great in a lot of places. but it seems incredibly unlikely, and in any event, it certainly isn't what they wrote.

and of course, this all still supposes that they need to be within 100 meters of your physical presence rather than your matrix presence (which seems unlikely considering you check based on your location in a host, which is a matrix location, and not a physical location, but that is unfortunately also not particularly clear).

Let's see here:

Smartlink: No, it can't have that functionality with a non-Matrix wireless connection; the alternative is the wired version.
Datajack: Are you forgetting the datajack's built in cable?
Grenades: You need to recheck the grenade rules, because you're mistaken. DNI just lets you trigger the wireless grenade faster; without wireless your options are timer or motion sensor.
Jammer: It's the difference between just broadcasting a crapton of random noise across all spectrums; by having actual wireless (that is, both transmitting and receiving) going it can become selective.
Microtransceiver, detonator cap: Pretty clearly uses something outside of normal wireless - a very small RF band reserved for the equivalent of a walkie-talkie. This band would be the only thing outside the Matrix protocols; basically not "wireless" per se. For the detcaps, this is an obvious safety feature - you don't want an accidental signal to set it off, so you use the one and only (very small, very low-bandwidth) band that isn't used for Matrix transmission.
Bug Scanner: Normally just a passive scanner, no transmission.

Now, part of what's important to understand here is that all wireless connections* are Matrix connections, but not all Matrix connections are wireless connections.

*: Defined as transmitting and receiving on any and all bands outside of the narrow RF band used for MT's/detonator caps.



And having a very, very, very useful tool that your enemy doesn't, all else being equal, means that you will win.

Wireless isn't some magic I Win button.

That guy with the high tech wireless suite can die to a punk with a knife just as easily as anyone else. This is Shadowrun, after all.

Planning and tactics can trump any tool.



-k

Yes, but a tool that makes your equipment more effective, dramatically increases tactical flexibility, instantly provides and organizes massive amounts of information, provides various levels of the command structure with the information they need to react to changing events rapidly and well, fix many fog of war issues... The difference made is smaller when you're talking about the individual level, but when you start looking at military engagements it's MASSIVE.

And remember, I DID say all other things being equal.