[PresentPresence]

I'm designing an A.I. that Emerged from a tank's pilot program. Her personality is very easily summed up as "MOAR DAKKA!" So while the basic rigging stuff isn't too hard to work with (Piloting Origin, lots of nuyen blown on drones, guns, and softs), Matrix rules can sometimes confound me. It seems like the overwhelming majority believe that cybercombat just isn't worth it. First, because if your caught then you've failed, time to pop smoke and give it another go. Second, because, for A.I.s and technomancers, if you die in virtual reality, you die in reality, too. But I had trouble convincing myself that she would be gung-ho about combat encounters in the real world and a stealthy ninja in the virtual world. So, my questions are, can an A.I. reasonably gain mastery over cybercombat in such a way that she would not need Stealth (at least to get in - maybe to get out after leaving a smoking hole in the firewall)? Is it worth the necessary investment? Can she take advantage of Agent autosofts such as Cascading and Expert Offense to gain an upper hand against spiders and IC? Or should I leave the hacking bit to agents and the building-toppling to her? Thanks in advance.

[Hellion]

Ok to my mind i would think that a tank pilot program wouldn't be gung ho per say, more analytical. You know sort of "i have x percentage of damage which affect my capabilites by x percentage, time to withdraw". I can't see it really being any different than that but i suppose its really personal interpratatio, its your character and so should really be played how you want it.

Nothing i read in unwired allows a AI to use the autosoft options only agents, but talk to your GM he may allow it as a house rule.

[Novocrane]

I don't see why any given AI couldn't have a personality of their own.

If I were going to focus on AI cybercombat, I'd look at the proxy rules from Unwired 104, so I can avoid the drawback of having an (almost) fixed Access ID by using a proxy server with a spoof chip.

[Hellion]

*bows Nova's direction*

i apologise i didn't mean to suggest that it couldn't develop a individual personality, just that it would be coloured by its origions, but i also stated thats its PresentPresence character and he should play it however he likes.

[Caradoc]

Can A.I.s summon Sprites and do Threading? That would provide support for cybercombat much like a mage summoning/binding spirits in a physical battle.

[Thrass]

They can't.

[Aria]

Nothing i read in unwired allows a AI to use the autosoft options only agents, but talk to your GM he may allow it as a house rule.

RC allows AIs to use agent autosofts so cascading and so on will be ok.  The autosoft that allows you to replicate yourself (agent) won't work because AI code can't be copied so no spawning and army of doom to wreak havoc.

[JustADude]

Nothing i read in unwired allows a AI to use the autosoft options only agents, but talk to your GM he may allow it as a house rule.

RC allows AIs to use agent autosofts so cascading and so on will be ok.  The autosoft that allows you to replicate yourself (agent) won't work because AI code can't be copied so no spawning and army of doom to wreak havoc.

Oh come on, everyone knows that's what a Technoshaman with Feral Resonance (aka "Attune AI") and a full load of both AIs and Sprites, is for.

[TropicalPandas]

I guess it's not so much a question of how to specialize as it is how to be successful.  How much cybercombat investment do I need before I have to worry about every John Q. IC starts melting my code?
So I know the essentials are:

Attack program for bots
Black Hammer program for people
Armor program
Expert Offense soft to get the job done quick
Cascading soft in case I get stiffed with a bad roll

Now, what sort of a dicepool should I strive for? Are there any optimizations I'm missing?  What other options do I have (nuke?)? Is Exceptional Attribute (INT) worth it for a rigger/brute force hacker A.I.? Thanks.

[Makki]

you could have a feral AI as a pet and train it for teamwork tests

[Whiskeyjack]

To a question posed in the OP - "is it worth the investment?" In my opinion, no, because in my experience cyber combat has been generally pointless and accomplished very little (and certainly much less than stealthily breaking in) while tying up way too much table time.

Meat and astral combat eliminate real opponents that can kill you dead. Cybercombat...doesn't. If you're hacked, there's better ways to solve the problem than cybercombat (though having active IC on in your PAN is a worthwhile investment. If you're hacking, cybercombat makes it less likely you'll get what you set out to achieve, not more likely.  Unless your job is to geek a technomancer. And even then you're much safer targeting them, y'know, outside the Matrix where all their real powe is.

[RHat]

I guess it's not so much a question of how to specialize as it is how to be successful.  How much cybercombat investment do I need before I have to worry about every John Q. IC starts melting my code?
So I know the essentials are:

Attack program for bots
Black Hammer program for people
Armor program
Expert Offense soft to get the job done quick
Cascading soft in case I get stiffed with a bad roll

Now, what sort of a dicepool should I strive for? Are there any optimizations I'm missing?  What other options do I have (nuke?)? Is Exceptional Attribute (INT) worth it for a rigger/brute force hacker A.I.? Thanks.

Black Hammer's only needed for people if you're wanting to cause real-world damage to them.  Attack will do just fine, overall, if your intention is just to crash an icon (and all someone has to do is act through AR and your Black Hammer can't do jack).  And choosing Black Hammer is an intentional choice to be lethal when Blackout might serve you just fine - which means it calls down an entirely different sort of response.  Most of the time, you shouldn't be TRYING to kill people; that's just not good for a runner's career or survival prospects.  For an AI this is doubly true - if they find an AI using lethal IC, that's going up the chain of command - after the Renraku Arcology and Crash 2.0, probably all the way to the Corporate Court.  Black Hammer is a very bad idea.

Aside from that, if you're going to be so obvious the Code Flux quality is a must, as is Redundancy.  ECCM and Track are pretty much musts given your background, and you could justify the Command rating to do decent remote rigging, too.

You should probably be prepared for that idea that you're going to be less effective as a hacker - Matrix stealth is often less about the risks of combat and more about the risk that your goal will become impossible if you're discovered (IE, the data you're after is destroyed).  Also, this places you in a certain amount of danger that you can do no building to avoid - all an enemy has to do is draw you into combat in a node, disable its Matrix connection(s) in meatspace, and blow some pre-planted explosives.

I'd also suggest calling the thing (or at least a Fake SIN that it uses) Ida Starr, but that's just a programming in-joke.