I wanna hear what makes the Deckers of shadowrun drool...

So assuming it's a custom built deck, what would make a seasoned decker drool over a cyber-deck. With in reason, nothing like the holy grail of decks... but if you had all the nuyen in the world to spend on the deck.

I believe the canon answer to that is:

5'10'', red hair, green eyes, legs up to here

no no no, he wants a serious answer man!

up to HERE

lmao.

ok ok beside the chick who is most likely a major reaosn why a lot of deckers get killed, or at least shot at.

Seriously though... hardware.. Cyber-decks... heh

MPCP 14, Persona ratings in the 10's and 12's, 25,000MP storage memory, Rigger Emulation Module, ICCM Biofeedback Filter, something like 3K active memory; a programming suite and a Cross Quick Coder.

Since there isn't, to my knowledge, any natural or artificial limitation on deck ratings, I can't see this question having a more interesting answer than "the biggest numbers I can get".

So I'm going to have to vote for the redhead, too.

Ooh i like that idea. Heh heh show off the sweet all in one cellphone off to all the other members. "oh how cute you have a PDA..."

The reason I ask is in a game my decker has accepted a job (most likely a suicide mission.. but hey aren't they all?) But being offered a custom built deck.

Being very new to the game I'm still trying to figure out what would be worth it.

lol ok ok enough with the redheads, brunettes, blondes and so on... Hard ware guys come on <Snaps his fingers, and points to his cyber deck>

Ok, well I think asking for a deck with an MPCP of say 40 would be shot down right out. I know the GM won't allow any thing too insane.

My character is basically used as the IC breaker. Keeping the heat off any other members while they do what they need to on the matrix.

Since it's almost a "get what ever you want" deal, i'd like to see my character come out of it with a deck that'll let him move in a direction where he can work easier on his own... so more of a well rounded decker. (that'll come through the utilities i'm sure)

So, sorry for being so vague, but with the idea that he's a matrix combat specialist, what suggestions would fit that idea?

Ask them for enough money to retire on, if they can give you whatever you want deck-wise. Giving you a cool 5 to 10 million should be no problem... and make sure you get it up front, since it's going to amateur night.

Going by what it says on p76 of Matrix, one of the limiting factors on how good a deck you can have is the Computer (Programming) skill of whoever is writing the software for it. The text there says you can't have presona programs with a rating higher than Computer (Programming) x1.5. I'd assume that includes the MPCP, and not just the persona chips.

So what's the highest Computer (Programming) skill anyone has in your game world, maybe 16 or so? So you *could* have a deck with an MPCP of 24 in that case. The problem being that the base target number of the programming test would be 24.

Let's say you have a guy with Cyberterminal Code Design 12, and a task pool of 3, and a LOT of karma pool. He gets 15 successes (against TN 5) after making plenty of rerolls. Then you send your programmer off to the ZO, where he gets a further -4 for programming on a red host, and -2 for having double the memory required. Great, his target number for the programming test is now down to only 3, pretty good! He's even got 12 complimentary dice from the host.

The base time for the programming test is 24 x 24 x 8 = 4608 days

So he rolls his 16 base dice, 3 task pool, and 12 complimentary dice, and keeps pumping in the karma pool until he gets all successes. So that's 25 successes total, for an actual programming time of 184 days. Hmm... Well, how about this guy actually has a twin brother, who also has a Computer (Programming) skill of 16. So they divide that time between them with the team programming rules and it takes about 61 days. Heck, there's not much else to do up in the ZO, and these guys are REALLY dedicated, so maybe they get that time down to more like a month.

Okay, so you've got the finished code, now we just need someone to roll a 24 (or a few of them) on a Computer B/R test. Hmm, well these guys know an old man who's been hand-crafting decks all his life, and has Computer B/R of 12. He's got a big old karma pool of 20, so he Hooper-Nelson's that 24 down to about a 6, burning off 18 points of karma pool in the process, but getting a couple of successes on the installation test.

Pretty tough, but hey those guys have now got an MPCP 24 chip in their hands.

They then go about writing up the code for the persona chips, ASSIST interface, ICCM, Response increase, RAS override, etc etc. All this is comparatively easy, and locked up in the ZO the boys get the whole lot done in a couple more months. Then they find a few more Computer B/R and Computer (Cybernetics) grand masters who don't mind burning off all their karma pool for one test. They get this done and slap the whole thing together.

Woo! The parts cost for the hardware is thrown in for free by the ZO staff, and if they ever wanted to sell the thing I'm sure it would have a base price somewhere around 10 million+ nuyen, comparatively cheap eh?

You now have a deck with MPCP 24, and BEMS 18/18/18/18 (or whatever you like), about 12 points of hardening, all the active and storage memory you could ever want, and everything else rammed in that's useful.

Now all you need is some utilities worthy to run on it and you could probably take on Fastjack...



In short, I'd say more like MPCP 16 is about the highest in existance.

As far as just numbers go, with some clever messing around and a decent decking skill, you could probably crack anything you like with a customised MPCP 12 deck and utilities, ZO included.

Well, my prediction that you could get into the ZO is, as I said, based purely on the numbers, i.e. the stats of your deck and utils, decking skill, and the security rating, ACIFS, and sheaf of the host. Actually finding one of the vanishing SANS and being there at the right time, and all kinds of other crazy problems, are what would stop any real attempt at getting in. The numbers aren't the main problem, it's all the other stuff that's not so tanguble. But if I was the GM, I'd probably just boost the ACIFS even more, or put wicked levels of system tricks and UVs and stuff in there, and tighten up that security sheaf (I mean come on, it lets you get a security tally of 1 without repercussions!).

I do agree that, for reasons of game balance and general megacorporate stability and suchlike, it shouldn't really be possible to deck your way in there unless you're some kind of matrix god. Fastjack (in Target: Matrix (another 3rd ed book, bear with me here!)) mentions that it can be done, so one would assume he's done it, as have probably a few other guys.

Anyway, that's all a bit off topic, but I was just pointing out that if (I think) you can do the ZO with the right MPCP 12 deck, then there's maybe not much need for anything better than that. I guess it would make life a little easier though if all your numbers were 16s instead of 12s, or whatever.


Hmm, skills at 20+ in your campaign eh? Pretty ridiculous, but in a good way. It is actually possible for a decker with "only" a couple of hundred karma (roughly) to get his decking specialisation up to those kinds of figures if that's all he spends it on.

I guess, as with most other things, skills/attributes/deck MPCPs etc just need to be measured against what the PCs have. If some PC decker has a decking skill of say 16, then the very best (i.e. Superior) NPC deckers would need to have skills in the 20s. Not that I require much reasoning for seeing extremely high power levels...

ZO and it's defending deckers being in orbit and attacking deckers being (one would suppose) dirtside, creates a significant time lag (e.g. 1 second or so), at that point, ZO being an UV system, having SOTA black IC, defending decker(s) with (at least) a Fairlight Excalibur, and (in my version of events), an AI, etc. is really just icing on the cake

game balance is preserved in my campaign largely because most of the matrix gods with the uber-decks of MPCP 17+ are also involved with having supplied ZO with it's AI, so it's not likely they will be hacking ZO...

and skills of 20+ are relatively rare in my campaign, reserved for high tier NPCs... I'm too busy with school and work to spend the time neccesary to beat power-gaming PCs at their own game, so I am not ashamed to admit I just use a brute force approach. I don't think the PC decker has higher than a 10 or 11 in her computer skill.. and she's not the power-gamer... in that respect, I mostly have to worry about the guy playing the shaman in my game... but this is why I have things like a million year old free spirit that casually mentions (in 2056) that he/she/it has to be off to the Great Ghost Dance and if they wouldn't mind apologizing to UCAS about NORAD for he/she/it...

MPCP: 20 deck, running a Masking of 20, and a Sleaze of 20, Running in Masking Mode (Masking 30, Sleaze 20) = Detection Factor : 25. If allow optional rule for Hacking Pool dice to be assigned to DF (assuming intelligent character with decent reaction) character "10" dice.. Now DF = 35.

The odds of any system rolling a 35 on a D6 = less then 1 in 500 chance.

Now add in utilities with "sneak rating 10" (making the DF=45 on those actions) and all attack programs with "stealth: 20" to make "Crashing" icons not add anything less then rating 20 to security tally...

It would be a miracle for a system to detect a decker with that deck.

The scary thing about this deck is that even a "newbie" decker could hack some of the darkest-red systems with it.

The max hacking pool dice you can add to DF is six, giving you +3DF, but otherwise yeah, it can get pretty sick. Even with "only" MPCP 12 you can get DF 18 before any utility options, which means the host would have to roll like 216 dice to get 1 security tally, which is quite crazy.