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[SR5] Data Trails?

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JackVII

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« Reply #240 on: <06-03-15/1433:07> »
I dunno... a rigger being able to adequately hide their spy drones from being spotted in the Matrix by having a reasonable sleaze rating doesn't seem like a sea change to me.
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Csjarrat

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« Reply #241 on: <06-03-15/1515:08> »
I dunno... a rigger being able to adequately hide their spy drones from being spotted in the Matrix by having a reasonable sleaze rating doesn't seem like a sea change to me.
Yeah, sounds much more like common sense and something every rigger would take reasonable steps to do! like encrypting your RCC comms in 4e, or running a stealth program in 4e, or running a non-standard wireless link in 4e.
Not really much of a sea change lol.

It can run cyberprograms so you could always just run stealth and/or decryption on it
True, good point. That would pump it up by another point for either, but then you start to cut into your autosofts for sharing.
Could load both into a virtual machine so they only take one slot?
Or you could mod the rcc with a program carrier and load it with one of the above. Its pretty cheap that way too and doesn't have any side effects

Last I checked, the juries still out on this one,some believe that decryption and stealth add 1 to an existing attribute and that an RCC does not have either attribute (this is different from having the attribute at 0), if this is indeed the case than having access to the dongle (Or going the add a mod route) may be the only options for adding these attributes... personally I hope the upcoming rigger book (and I mean upcoming before a new addition as I have no idea when we will see it) will have more options for riggers than just the single mod any device can have.
That really needs clearing up then as it looks pretty clear cut that you can use them that way; there's nothing RAW saying that drones, vehicles, RCCs etc can't benefit from them like decks do.
« Last Edit: <06-03-15/1517:43> by Csjarrat »
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Kincaid

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« Reply #242 on: <06-03-15/1554:14> »
I dunno... a rigger being able to adequately hide their spy drones from being spotted in the Matrix by having a reasonable sleaze rating doesn't seem like a sea change to me.

A rigger able to generate his own marks is.
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Csjarrat

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« Reply #243 on: <06-03-15/1601:46> »
they could hack in 4e! just needed the software
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JackVII

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« Reply #244 on: <06-03-15/1621:34> »
I dunno... a rigger being able to adequately hide their spy drones from being spotted in the Matrix by having a reasonable sleaze rating doesn't seem like a sea change to me.

A rigger able to generate his own marks is.
But a Street Sam or Mage with an Attack Dongle attached to his commlink isn't? I guess I'm confused.

With that said, thank you for clarification on the RCC/dongle issue. As you can see, most people assumed they worked just fine together.
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firebug

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« Reply #245 on: <06-03-15/1715:04> »
After reading a bit more, I'm bothered by the cyberprograms.  They are cool, don't get me wrong.  In fact, I love them!  But instead of Cat's Paw or Tantrum being just actions that a hacker can do, now they are impossible for TMs to do without making terrible choices.

However, gotta say...  +5 Sleaze for an amount of Noise Reduction that every decker can get with minimal investment?  Uh, what the fuck guys.  Data Jack, Signal Scrubber, Vectored Signal Filter.  (The filter can be installed permanently, too, which seems like the most reasonable choice.  It theoretically even stacks with itself, meaning you could have NR left over).

And yes, I absolutely would be willing to risk any extra noise (which mind you, isn't going to be any if I'm in a host) becomes a penalty for an extra five dice for running silent and not being spotted, along with an obscene Limit on a lot of tests.
« Last Edit: <06-03-15/1738:43> by firebug »
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Herr Brackhaus

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« Reply #246 on: <06-03-15/2044:20> »
Wait, since when is riggers being able to hack a massive change? They did so just fine in 4th Edition, and as mentioned by others, it's apparently just fine for a street samurai or mage to do so, so what gives? Seriously, what is with the lack of love for riggers in this edition? I feel like throwing my hands up in the air right now, because that rationale makes absolutely zero sense to me, both mechanically and from a story perspective. If there's one area riggers should be able to excel at in addition to piloting their vehicles and drones it should be protecting their gear with EWAR, particularly if the team doesn't have a dedicated Decker. Completely removing an ability from an archetype mechanically just seems like a really poor decision to me; instead of having lots of options for thematic characters, restricting choices like this seems to me like it would be more likely to pigeonhole riggers to be pure riggers and making it very hard to make characters with diverse skill sets...

Well. At least i know what one of my first house rules are going to be.

Fedifensor

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« Reply #247 on: <06-04-15/0031:44> »
Can you run Virtual Machine (in a useful fashion) on a Commlink through a Program Carrier modification?

It's pretty clear that you can run Virtual Machine, which gives you 2 slots for cyberprograms. But does the fact of having 2 cyberprogram-slots give the commlink the ability to run cyberprograms, or is that a seperate ability? (If it is, it makes Virtual Machine useless on commlinks; if it isn't, it makes Virtual Machine fantastic on commlinks).
The Program Carrier is a cyberdeck module, so it runs programs that can be run on cyberdecks (not to be confused with the apps that commlinks can run), even if the device isn't normally able to run programs.  The Program Carrier can be installed on a non-cyberdeck device (such as a commlink) through device modification.  In this case, the Program Carrier runs Virtual Machine, and Virtual Machine runs the two other programs.

Of course, it is up to the GM to determine if you lose your 12,000 nuyen agent program when someone bricks your commlink and burns out the module...

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« Reply #248 on: <06-04-15/0103:27> »
The simple solution would be to make it so that only cyberdecks and living personas can perform attack or sleaze actions.  Even with a dongle.  I can only imagine, but I can't think of a good reason to allow dongles to replace cyberdecks.  A commlink should not be a cyberdeck, any more than a cyberdeck is a RCC.

If a rigger wants to hack something, they can certainly try - but without either an Attack or Sleaze attribute, it'll be tough.

Csjarrat

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« Reply #249 on: <06-04-15/0418:24> »
The simple solution would be to make it so that only cyberdecks and living personas can perform attack or sleaze actions.  Even with a dongle.  I can only imagine, but I can't think of a good reason to allow dongles to replace cyberdecks.  A commlink should not be a cyberdeck, any more than a cyberdeck is a RCC.

If a rigger wants to hack something, they can certainly try - but without either an Attack or Sleaze attribute, it'll be tough.

that might be simple but it then pretty much invalidates the new options, rendering them fairly useless
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Top Dog

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« Reply #250 on: <06-04-15/0518:17> »
The simple solution would be to make it so that only cyberdecks and living personas can perform attack or sleaze actions.  Even with a dongle.  I can only imagine, but I can't think of a good reason to allow dongles to replace cyberdecks.  A commlink should not be a cyberdeck, any more than a cyberdeck is a RCC.

If a rigger wants to hack something, they can certainly try - but without either an Attack or Sleaze attribute, it'll be tough.

that might be simple but it then pretty much invalidates the new options, rendering them fairly useless
As far as I can tell it renders the Attack dongle completely useless. The stealth dongle only mostly so.

(Re. Pixie:)
Dongles don't replace Cyberdecks anyway. To get the equivalent of a mid-rating deck, you have to spend 108k nuyen - half of a 6/5/5/3 deck - and than you only get one of the two ratings - for both, you pay more than the deck. Granted, you then have 0/6/7/7, but considering the Cyberdeck can run more programs to up those ratings (or do other useful stuff), the cyberdeck still wins out.

The same general idea holds for lower-rating decks. That doesn't mean dongles don't have their place. Full decks don't have the 7 firewall/DP that a good commlink brings (unless they sacrifice their attack stats, or until it's a really high end deck), and for a secondary 'decker', or a backup device, you don't need both ratings, and certainly not maxed out. But dongles will never be able to efficiently replace decks for a true decker.

Herr Brackhaus

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« Reply #251 on: <06-04-15/0755:39> »
Of course, it is up to the GM to determine if you lose your 12,000 nuyen agent program when someone bricks your commlink and burns out the module...
Easy enough; keep a copy of the program on offline media, just like riggers should with their expensive autosofts. You might lose the commlink and it's program module or a drone, but at least you don't have to pay thousands of nuyen in software all over again just to make yourself operational again.

The rules clearly state you can't run two copies of the same program on one device, but there are no copyright rules in core. There is, however, several ways to copy files, and since a program is an icon that can be interacted with, I know how I'd play that.
« Last Edit: <06-04-15/0757:29> by Herr Brackhaus »

Pollution

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« Reply #252 on: <06-04-15/0821:53> »
After reading a bit more, I'm bothered by the cyberprograms.  They are cool, don't get me wrong.  In fact, I love them!  But instead of Cat's Paw or Tantrum being just actions that a hacker can do, now they are impossible for TMs to do without making terrible choices.

Sorry, don't get it.  What terrible choices?  Cat's paw is a data spike that distracts the target at -2+marks.  Tantrum is icky, but what is the connection to TM's?  or rather, what is the terrible choice?  Sorry, I don't understand your point.

However, gotta say...  +5 Sleaze for an amount of Noise Reduction that every decker can get with minimal investment?  Uh, what the fuck guys.  Data Jack, Signal Scrubber, Vectored Signal Filter.  (The filter can be installed permanently, too, which seems like the most reasonable choice.  It theoretically even stacks with itself, meaning you could have NR left over).

And yes, I absolutely would be willing to risk any extra noise (which mind you, isn't going to be any if I'm in a host) becomes a penalty for an extra five dice for running silent and not being spotted, along with an obscene Limit on a lot of tests.

Where is this coming from?  I didn't see this in DT, and I didn't find it at a glance either.

I too am pissed about the content of the book being so lite for TMs, but I don't get your post.  Please clarify?

thanks

Ursus Maior

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« Reply #253 on: <06-04-15/0831:11> »
I can certainly understand why riggers would want to be able to add a dongle to their RCC, but that would represent a huge change to the rigger's role in the game, to say nothing of skewing the cyberdeck/RCC pricing scheme.  If riggers are due for that sort of sea change, it'll happen in the rigger book.
I always find these balancing arguments very awkward to play. Essentially rational developments are victimized over what could be excelent devolpments in a campaign. Imagine the breakthrough of smartphones an tablets: They basically killed netbook-style laptops as they were known before.

Technological development should be incorporated into the game, if it fits how technologies are supposed to work. Unless surpressing technologies makes sense within the storyline, i.e. blueprints etc. are destroyed by a corporate hit etc.
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« Reply #254 on: <06-04-15/0855:10> »
After reading a bit more, I'm bothered by the cyberprograms.  They are cool, don't get me wrong.  In fact, I love them!  But instead of Cat's Paw or Tantrum being just actions that a hacker can do, now they are impossible for TMs to do without making terrible choices.

Sorry, don't get it.  What terrible choices?  Cat's paw is a data spike that distracts the target at -2+marks.  Tantrum is icky, but what is the connection to TM's?  or rather, what is the terrible choice?  Sorry, I don't understand your point.

However, gotta say...  +5 Sleaze for an amount of Noise Reduction that every decker can get with minimal investment?  Uh, what the fuck guys.  Data Jack, Signal Scrubber, Vectored Signal Filter.  (The filter can be installed permanently, too, which seems like the most reasonable choice.  It theoretically even stacks with itself, meaning you could have NR left over).

And yes, I absolutely would be willing to risk any extra noise (which mind you, isn't going to be any if I'm in a host) becomes a penalty for an extra five dice for running silent and not being spotted, along with an obscene Limit on a lot of tests.

Where is this coming from?  I didn't see this in DT, and I didn't find it at a glance either.

I too am pissed about the content of the book being so lite for TMs, but I don't get your post.  Please clarify?

thanks

His first point is that those programs add new tactical options to Deckers - giving penalties to Matrix Actions instead of doing damage - while keeping those tactical options from Technomancers (practically, at least - for Deckers it's a simple program slot that you only use when needed, for technomancers it's a massive karma expense that's useless when you're not using it). I kind of agree with that point too.

The second part of your quote is about the Smoke-and-Mirrors programs, which adds (up to) 5 Sleaze at the cost of the same amount of noise (for tests made with that deck only). That's a huge boost of Sleaze for a relatively minor drawback - the noise can be reduced fairly easily, or outright ignored in many circumstances.