I am simply expressing my views on how the system works based on my analysis of it during playtesting - these views are not official but they may help shed some light on this Hacking and Rigging rules.

When you open a file on a computer today it is a Program running on your Operating System (to simplify) which is actually opening it, decompressing, reading, modifying, editing or saving it.

To give a specific example, when a contemporary hacker cracks the code protection on a just-released computer game, it isn't the hacker himself but the computer program he wrote to do it. No matter how skilled he is a programmer and hacker he would never be able to crack the code himself in real time without that tool/program (no matter how intelligent he is / how high his Logic attribute) - I like to call it a language barrier. He simply presses execute and the program (he wrote) cracks the code. In fact, in most cases the hacker has no more active participation in the process (except compiling the program in the first place or programming new routines into it) than I do when I open a Word .doc. The difference being the hacker (with the Computer 6 skill) can tweak and modify the functioning of the program to wield better results and I can't (have Computer 0). (Given my lack of knowledge on the subject) I can only assume you could try to read the contents of a .doc or .wav file without having any relevant Program installed but personally I doubt it can be done without weeks of work.

Almost the same thing in the Matrix.

Furthermore your persona is simply the representation used by your Operating System (actually its more like a hybrid between an OS and a browser) to interact with the "external" Matrix (or you could say that like in SR3 the Persona is the representation of the OS) and which runs the programs you have loaded, these allow you to interact with the various softwares and files encountered on the Matrix (regardless of software platform compatibility). At best you have control of how best to deploy these programs and tweaking their overall parameters to get the best out of them (ie. you have tactical command).

On the other hand Technomancers «have the ability to process digital information directly and intuitively, through the elusive Resonance attribute, as well as spontaneously generating code devices understand.

And for the record you've never been there at all (in any incarnation of Shadowrun). Your conscienceness is in your body, it is never uploaded into the Matrix. What you experience is false sensory input or as the game calls it a "consensual hallucination" which is being generated by your deck (now commlink) specifically your ASIST converter from the simsense feed it is recieving from a server (host) or router (grid) somewhere.

I ment when a rigger does it. Or was it when they are using the driving a vehicle that also has it's own Pilot rating? It's somewhere back in this thread.

Check.

Uncheck. Most applications have these things called "settings." Those "settings" are configured based on the intention of the user. Skill plays a good part in knowing the settings to use however a good amount of deductive reasoning can further optimize those settings.

I actually had this discussion earlier today when a client wanted all the computer simulations we ran to be identical. Sure, I could run them all with identical settings and might get "good enough" data but it would be less than ideal for virtually no cost savings and could possibly hurt the costs by increasing processing times. (I'm an engineer who simulates large hydraulic systems with off-the-shelf software and write scripts and apps to fill in the holes.)

To give simplified SR4 example, the Attack program can assault any system. Activate it without any modification (aka "0 skill") and it runs at its rating firing a random assortment of general purpose assaults. If you have some skill you might know that your target is running Nix so you adjust the settings to exclude Iris-specific flaws. Add some Logic and you realize that the target is a Rigger running mobs of drones and will likely be heavy on ECCM but won't have as much Biofeedback filter so you further streamline the operations.

Word is on par with the "Edit" program at Rating 2. VI or Emacs would be at 5. Word can do "find/replace." VI/Emacs can find/replace/calculate/tabulate/ truncate/repaginate.

Skill is being able to use all those commands as needed.

Ability is being able to do it in one line.

I gave my SR4 to my brother but a rigger is a hacker, he just has a focus. If it helps, consider the Comm to be a Control Deck where the Command application is the Rating.

There is a difference between issuing commands to a drone (aka "captain's chair") and "jumping in" the drone. Jumping in does rely on the rigger's stats plus, since it is VR mode, the rigger reduces the thresholds for driving checks by 1.

64 dice to not hack the car.

A persona as a seperate, thinking entity?

Or even a semi-autonomous pet or drone ... (although I like the first interpretation better)

I think I now have the system for some deranged hybrid between Shadowrun and Rockman.EXE --

Huzzah!! *ebils*

Except that if you glitch, you remove hits from the success test. If you critical glitch, the test blown. So it's not at all like rolling 64 dice at once and seeing if you get enough hits.

If it was this point & click, the skill would be pointless. Make it a Program Rating+System test since that covers the application's capabilities and the Comm's processing power.

I can't comprehend how a person's mental abilities would have no impact on what is basically a mental test but that their skill would. Does not compute. I work with people who have the data and processes needed to do a job stored in their head so they have the skill rating but are incapable of making the leap of, dare I say, LOGIC that would let them simplify the process and save an immense amount of time when running programs.

It isn't that they have no impact, it is just that it was judged to be in 3rd place. Only the top two are included in the die pool.

Yes. p236 decribes uncontrolled Sprites. However, I can't imagine that these entities last very long before they are de-rezzed. I'd treat them as Agents or SKs. Anything greater than that, and you are mucking about in the AI mess again, and I don't think that a Technomancer should have to power to create an AI.

On p331, under the entry for datajacks, there is specific text that says this exact situation (connecting your brains together to communicate mind-to-mind using a fiberoptic cable between two datajacks). I'd imagine that fiber-optic ports are standard on a lot of devices, barring size restrictions (i.e. Contacts or possibly Glasses might not have a port)

The thing that bugs me is that there's a way to get all three and it is already being used in another part of the system, Magic.

Program Rating (which is limited by your hardware) sets the maximum successes from your Stat+Skill roll. Good programs, which mean good hardware, get jobs done faster. Logic & Skill both apply.

Wait a minute..... Does this mean that 2 people can comunicate telepathicaly with wwireless comlinks, considering you can do anything wirelessly that you can do wired?

I don't believe you have a online personna unless you go VR (where your meat goes limp like old-style decking), and not everyone is going to go VR. However the intermediate step of AR is there so you can see inside the Matrix (such as having a pair of glasses that display stuff HUD).

Virtual Reality is full immersion. Two types of this hot and cold. Hot gives the best bonus but your meat takes Physical damage from cyber combat. Cold gives better than AR but not as good as Hot and your meat takes Stun damage from cyber combat.

Augmented Reality is not immersion. This is like a HUD where stuff is overlaid on your normal vision via eye implants, contact lenses, or glasses. The dice bonuses are minimal and typically at GM whim. You don't take damage from it, but the GM can assign effectively vision based penalties if someone does something to screw with the overlays. For rigging this is like the old virtual dashboard mode that people with datajacks but no VCR could use. Your character can walk around with this on and they can pick up public broadcasts from stores and stuff, as well as info from your team, the weather network, your personal day timer, techincal manual, etc. For an input device to control what you see you can also use 'trodes, a datajack, or a glove thing that works a bit like a contempary mouse does.

Wouldn't that be defaulting and subject to some sort of penalty? I've got to imagine there is some sort of penalty for not using a program when the check calls for one. Like not having a skill and defaulting (or is defaulting gone now too?)...

If you don't have a program, and a task requires one, you are stuck. You can't even make the test. Generous GMs may allow you to make a jury-rig program given some time (at least 1 hour) and your Software skill, but the only characters that can "make" programs on the fly are Technomancers (through Threading).

Ok, call me stupid for asking this but.. IF a program is required to even TRY to make a test, then why bother rolling hacking skill at all? IF its only the program that makes a test possible, then the program has got to be doing virtually ALL the workload. Assuming the reason why you need the program and can't do without it, is it will take hours to come up with even the most basic code to deal with a matrix action. Then why even bother with the hacking skill, because your basically saying hacking skill can't do it alone, if the skill can't "hack it" (sorry horrid pun but I just could not delete it ) then why add it at all. What does the hacking skill do, if not allow you to take illegal matrix actions?

Then comes the question, well if there is no program for a particular task, why is hacking skill suddenly able to do something very similar to that matrix action that required a program, and you can add your logic to the test. All for the price of not doing an operation that requires a program you have to pay for...?


I'm sorry i could not give concrete examples, I too am at work and my book is at home, because I was stupid and took it out of my bag

But you can do a biotech test without a first aid kit.. its not a good idea but you can do it. Also I know in 3rd edition you could attempt an electroncis test without a kit, but it was like at least a +4TN modifier. But that may have just been my GM being nice to characters that needed to get through a security door and the most useful tool any characters had was ducktape, yes we used alot of ducktape cracking that maglock

Damn it i really wish i had brought my book with me tonight.

The program probably needs to be fine-tuned for the specific purpose each time, which would involve the Hacking skill.

I'm fine with your explanations for why I might wrong, and believe me I have been wrong in the past and will be wrong in the future. But, i have to keep playing devil's advocate here. If you see a flaw in my logic, please explain it to me. Is the purpose of the hacking skill to fine tune programs? Or to just set parameters on a program? If thats all it is, then it seems like a very large amount of dice to add to what, at its base should be a program test. In reality, I can very easily understand why pretty much all "hacking" should only be done by programs, because of the way it works. I just assumed in the VR world of the matrix, if you wanted to hack your way inside a host you should have 2 options. Option 1, use your program (ie monofilament chainsaw) to cut your way through the door fast
option 2, use your natural skill and logic (ie your bare hands) to beat the door down and hope.
they both seemed like reasonable ways of working in VR, with real world corrallarys, but the game mechanics don't support this way of thinking. Because without the chainsaw (program) you can not even try to hack your way into something. And so the hacking skill becomes basically useless. Unless you have the correct program, and then it adds a lot of dice to a test that is basically just the program running to see if its rating is better than the defenses of the system the program is trying to hack

what you would basicly be doing then is recreate the lady on the cover of rigger 2

Erm, do you know how much of a bad idea that is, both mechanics-wise and real life? The most you could do is diagnose, and even then, without the proper tools, you can't do much. With a threshold of 2 and an assortment of bad modifiers for not being in a proper place and without a medkit, you probably won't get any net successes.

Right, but you'd have to spend some time scrounging up the tools, even with a generous GM. If you have the inadequate tools on your person, then why didn't you bring an Electronics kit? You can do a test with inadequate tools for both cracking a maglock (spend an hour scrounging something up) and hacking a system (spend an hour on your commlink writing a quick program) in SR4. Neither will be effective, but that's the advantage of being prepared with an electronics kit or the proper program.