Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Korduk on <03-20-18/2227:49>
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Good day, chummers.
I recently had a disagreement with my GM, and while I relented to his judgement, I would like to hear what the community thinks about this situation:
A rigger has a vehicle with Electromagnetic Shielding (page 166, Rigger 5) and was sitting inside, physically jacked into it, with its wireless functionality disabled. Along comes a Hacker with a grudge...
The question is, can the rigger and/or his vehicle take Matrix damage?
I would greatly appreciate if rules references could be included with your interpretation.
Thank you for your time.
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The vehicle itself can absolutely be bricked. Unless it in turn is inside another, larger faraday cage.
The Rigger sitting inside the vehicle would be safe from Matrix damage*.
However if the Rigger is jumped in to the vehicle, then he can suffer matrix damage as his persona merges with the vehicle's device icon.
*= actually kind of tricky. The electromagnetic shielding acts as a faraday cage, which effectively provides infinite noise. Noise only ever affects the source; not the target. For example if you're in a heavy spam zone and someone from another sprawl is hacking you, you don't add the noise of your environment to the hacker's test (SR5, pg 230). Now that being said, the faraday cage appears to break that precedent by explicit language in the description of what it does. So ultimately I'd say that the specific "rule" for faraday cages trumps the general rule that you don't apply noise to an action based on the target's environment.
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Good day, chummers.
I recently had a disagreement with my GM, and while I relented to his judgement, I would like to hear what the community thinks about this situation:
A rigger has a vehicle with Electromagnetic Shielding (page 166, Rigger 5) and was sitting inside, physically jacked into it, with its wireless functionality disabled. Along comes a Hacker with a grudge...
The question is, can the rigger and/or his vehicle take Matrix damage?
I would greatly appreciate if rules references could be included with your interpretation.
Thank you for your time.
What was the GM argument as to how the Hacker got in?
I could see a variety of methods bypass these sorts of things, Touch linking, micro-drone penetration, pre-planted databombs, nanites exposure, pre-planted sprites, Pre-planted AI assistance, and I'm sure there's more. But it would require some fairly serous preparation. With the target being wirelessly inactive the decker couldn't have bricked you from the normal dataspike method. That said pre-planning and gathering information are all mainstays of decking. So I would just try and figure out how that guy got in, and trace it back. A pawned deck buys a lot drones.
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"Toggling an individual device’s wireless functionality off is a Free Action, as is toggling all of your wireless devices to “wireless off.” You lose wireless bonuses, but the items can no longer be wirelessly hacked." - SR5 Core, pg 421
Unless the hacker somehow has a wired connection, the vehicle can't be hacked. And the stuff inside the vehicle is protected by the EM Shielding. So, no, without a direct connnection I can't see how the hacker can hurt you - I'd want a pretty solid explanation of how he's wirelessly hacking something that's wireless off.
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You can turn your vehicle wireless off (or run silent), but that's introducing a whole new basket of problems if you do. It's like casting invisibility on a vehicle... may sound good on paper but in practice you come to see it's a pretty terrible idea for other vehicles on the road to not be able to see you...
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With regards to having your vehicle wireless deactivated: If you're parked I don't see it causing you trouble. If you're trying to drive while wireless is disabled... well.
For starters you can't get your AR/VR bonuses for driving. You can't use Gridlink to ignore worries about fuel/battery charges. While you might be able to jump in to a wireless disabled vehicle directly via data cable (and I'd say that's arguable as to whether you even can), it's pretty clear that if the vehicle is a faraday cage its sensors won't be operating. If sensors are inside the field, they won't work. If they're outside the field, they can be hacked and therefore the exercise is moot. And of course while jacked in, you can't even look out the windows to use your eyeballs as sensors. Driving while you're blind, and while you're not showing up on gridlink isn't asking if you'll be in a traffic accident, it's a question of how long before you're involved in one.
If you want to use an EM shielded vehicle as hack-proof armor, I don't see it working in practical terms unless the vehicle is stationary. And of course Shadowrunners specialize in penetrating the unpenetratable. Just because you have EM and wireless turned off doesn't mean a data tap can't be delivered onto your vehicle, or etc.
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Sensors work fine while wireless off, and vehicle sensor suites include cameras. They can also include radar, IR, ultrasound, and many other things that don't care that the cars around them aren't on the Matrix. Yes, Gridlink and GridGuide won't register you - but your vehicle works fine, and you can drive it fine even while the vehicle is Wireless Off.
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You're able to jump into a device with its wireless disabled if you have a direct connection to it. Nothing about being jumped in requires drones or vehicles to be wirelessly enabled (it just isn't practical for anything you can't fit in). You can use the vehicle's sensors as they're a hardwired part of the vehicle. It works totally fine for the rigger and is a common practice to protect a vehicle from hackers. The rigger uses the UDC cable from their control rig to plug into their RCC, then plugs the RCC into the vehicle. No wireless needed.
The AR/VR bonuses would still be available, as they aren't like wireless bonuses from gear, they're to represent added ease of use. Being able to use AROs or VR (which you can still do just like how you can use your computer without an internet connection) just makes driving easier.
For the record they could also drive the vehicle without going into VR (and thus without jumping in) doing the process above, as their RCC's sim module would allow them to see AROs sent by the vehicle. So, for example, a driver could be in a car with all the windows covered, with an ARO in front of them showing them what the car's camera sees, because they're plugged into their RCC which is plugged into the car.
If you want an example of this, the opening fiction of the PDF supplement Coyotes has a character doing exactly that.
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Ignoring physics and treating a faraday cage as an imaginary construct that exists only in the rules:
R5 discusses the EM shield as protecting what's inside the vehicle, but it doesn't say vehicle itself is shielded from the EM spectrum. It says matrix comms can't go wirelessly through the vehicle; not that they're stopped before reaching the vehicle's own hack-susceptible electronics. Besides if the sensors are working, the vehicle must necessarily be receiving EM/matrix data and therefore the vehicle itself is interacting with the EM spectrum. However, if the rigger inside an EM shielded vehicle jumps in, his persona merges with the vehicle's icon and his RCC becomes vulnerable to taking matrix damage and he physically is vulnerable to Bio-feedback from outside the vehicle by way of a hardwire connection through the EM shielding to the body of the vehicle itself.
Bringing real world back into the rules (a dangerous and shaky proposition, granted):
Of course what disrupts the faraday cage's field is going to be GM judgement... the metal bands surely go through the doors and when a vehicle door is opened it's got to be disrupting the faraday cage/EM shielding. But would opening a window negate the shielding? Less clear. Damage to the body of the vehicle is even more subject to GM whim on whether the bands are affected.
Going by what R5 says, EM shielding doesn't do much of jack for protecting the vehicle itself. It's all about making the passengers/cargo unhackable. Of course that's a different discussion from having the vehicle go wireless off.
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The AR/VR bonuses would still be available, as they aren't like wireless bonuses from gear, they're to represent added ease of use. Being able to use AROs or VR (which you can still do just like how you can use your computer without an internet connection) just makes driving easier.
This part boggles me.
How can you have AR/VR bonuses if you're cut off from the matrix? Or are you saying you can still get AR/VR bonuses if your car is wireless off and NOT EM Shielded, since the AR/VR bonuses are coming thru your Commlink/RCC?
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Well, think of it like this. If everything is wired together (you, RCC, car), then the sim module in your RCC allows it to basically use your DNI in place of a monitor. You use the DNI to interact with the RCC (which doesn't require a matrix connection because you're plugged into it) and the RCC being plugged into the car allows it to transfer information and data through the RCC to you. In this case, AR and VR are basically what become your GUI. They're the interface, not the matrix.
Unless EM shielding would completely shut down electronics (in which case it would just brick the car and your RCC...) then it won't interfere with that.
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When you interact with the Matrix, you can do it in one
of three modes. In augmented reality, or AR mode, you
deal with reality directly, and you use your meat body
to interact with the Matrix through AR overlays. In virtual
reality, or VR mode, your body goes limp and your
only sensory input comes from the Matrix.
But AR and VR don't do anything without a Matrix connection... by their nature they are ways of interacting with the Matrix.
The Matrix can't propagate wirelessly to inside a Faraday Cage.. that's the point of a Faraday Cage.
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I would say if you are directly connected to the vehicle and you have something that can project the AR/VR interface like a control rig implant or even trodes then we can get AR/VR bonuses for driving a vehicle as the matrix does nothing to assist and isn’t needed to drive a vehicle manually.
Of course then you cannot rely on a grid link hack to feed you enemy vehicle information
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Well it makes sense that the Rigger inside the EM shielded vehicle has full (and reciprocal!) connectivity to the Matrix at large by way of data cable when physically jacked in. It's when you combine that with the vehicle being set to wireless off that the scenario gets hinky, since neither vehicle nor RCC can receive external data.
I think I understand firebug's argument in saying you don't need to be "on the matrix" to directly jump in to a vehicle. If I do understand her correctly, I don't agree. Sr5 pg 241 lists Jump Into Rigged Vehicle as a Matrix action. No Matrix = No Matrix Actions, logically. You, your RCC, and/or your Vehicle you're directly jacked in to need to have contact with the Matrix to do a Matrix action, neh?
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When you interact with the Matrix, you can do it in one
of three modes. In augmented reality, or AR mode, you
deal with reality directly, and you use your meat body
to interact with the Matrix through AR overlays. In virtual
reality, or VR mode, your body goes limp and your
only sensory input comes from the Matrix.
But AR and VR don't do anything without a Matrix connection... by their nature they are ways of interacting with the Matrix.
The Matrix can't propagate wirelessly to inside a Faraday Cage.. that's the point of a Faraday Cage.
How do I phrase this... That passage is written without considering the seriously edge-case situation we're discussing. AR and VR are ways to interact with devices and hosts, AKA, "the matrix". More than nine times out of ten, there's no reason you'd try to use AR or VR without being wireless. But consider this...
You know how you can hack a hardwired system, where everything is a throwback device wired to eachother? You still use AR or VR to do it even though it's cut off from the matrix, because that's how computers work in Shadowrun. AR and VR are ways to interface with the matrix and devices.
I think I understand firebug's argument in saying you don't need to be "on the matrix" to directly jump in to a vehicle. If I do understand her correctly, I don't agree. Sr5 pg 241 lists Jump Into Rigged Vehicle as a Matrix action. No Matrix = No Matrix Actions, logically. You, your RCC, and/or your Vehicle you're directly jacked in to need to have contact with the Matrix to do a Matrix action, neh?
No, you don't. Editing a file is a matrix action. Are you going to argue that you can't write on your commlink when it's not connected to the matrix? What's needed is a device capable of performing the action, and a connection to a valid target. Normally this is done wirelessly via the matrix, but you can just plug into the device you are targeting. The reason a direct connection removes any Noise is because you can interface with the device without the matrix. Really, am I being that crazy by suggesting that turning off your wireless doesn't stop you from using wires to connect to things?
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How do I phrase this... That passage is written without considering the seriously edge-case situation we're discussing. AR and VR are ways to interact with devices and hosts, AKA, "the matrix". More than nine times out of ten, there's no reason you'd try to use AR or VR without being wireless. But consider this...
You know how you can hack a hardwired system, where everything is a throwback device wired to eachother? You still use AR or VR to do it even though it's cut off from the matrix, because that's how computers work in Shadowrun. AR and VR are ways to interface with the matrix and devices.
I see what you're saying.
I think I understand firebug's argument in saying you don't need to be "on the matrix" to directly jump in to a vehicle. If I do understand her correctly, I don't agree. Sr5 pg 241 lists Jump Into Rigged Vehicle as a Matrix action. No Matrix = No Matrix Actions, logically. You, your RCC, and/or your Vehicle you're directly jacked in to need to have contact with the Matrix to do a Matrix action, neh?
No, you don't. Editing a file is a matrix action. Are you going to argue that you can't write on your commlink when it's not connected to the matrix? What's needed is a device capable of performing the action, and a connection to a valid target. Normally this is done wirelessly via the matrix, but you can just plug into the device you are targeting. The reason a direct connection removes any Noise is because you can interface with the device without the matrix.
Honestly? Yeah, I think there is room to say you can't perform an Edit File Matrix action on your commlink without any Matrix connection... as the way storage is described for Commlinks that any data "on your commlink" is actually quite likely stored somewhere on a Renraku or Shiawase Server in some Data farm, out on the Sixth World version of the Cloud. Yeah, I'd expect that while inside an EM shielded vehicle you'll potentially have issues playing songs stored "on your commlink" while on stakeout or such.
But I take your what I think is your larger point about wireless comms. Should two people inside an EM shielded vehicle be unable to make a commcall between each other? I'd have to bring real world assumptions in about an intermediary Cell Tower being required to say no, whereas the rules do seem to suggest that a simple LOS broadcast directly between the two Commlinks could probably work.
Really, am I being that crazy by suggesting that turning off your wireless doesn't stop you from using wires to connect to things?
First of all, thanks for engaging in sincere discussion.
Second of all, no I have no issues with over-the-data-cable matrix comms. To reiterate for clarity's sake, yeah if the Rigger is directly jacked in to the EM Shielded Vehicle, he's able to transmit and receive Matrix comms through the faraday field by virtue of being hard-connected to the vehicle that is otherwise stopping Matrix signals from propagating through it. My issues are around wireless comms only. Specifically, whether wireless devices all inside a faraday cage can use matrix protocols to talk to each other in a sort of Mini-Matrix existing separate from the global Matrix at large. On reconsideration, I suppose maybe they can. The rules don't appear to insist upon the alternative.
While I wouldn't let a passenger inside an EM shielded vehicle perform a Data Search Matrix Action, but perhaps there's no RAW reason why they couldn't, by virtue of being able to communicate with other devices within the EM shield (arguably, so long as the Data desired is actually stored locally on a device physically within the same EM shield).
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Thank you all for your help. Now to give some additional details from the scenario...
According to the GM, the Rigger was apparently susceptible to Matrix attack because once he plugged into the vehicle, its icon was subsumed into his own, meaning that he was now active in the Matrix, even though his commlink was off and the vehicle's wireless functionality was disabled. The act of jacking in and receiving VR bonuses is what opened him up to attack. This was the first point of contention.
The second point of contention is the vehicle itself being open to attack, even though its CPU is within the EM Shielding (faraday cage), with its wireless disabled.
The Rigger attempted to create a situation where all those within the vehicle were isolated from the outside world, and safe from hacking/tracking via personal gear, while escaping from a hostile encounter. With this goal in mind, I'd love to hear your thoughts and interpretations of RAW vs RAI.
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Thank you all for your help. Now to give some additional details from the scenario...
According to the GM, the Rigger was apparently susceptible to Matrix attack because once he plugged into the vehicle, its icon was subsumed into his own, meaning that he was now active in the Matrix, even though his commlink was off and the vehicle's wireless functionality was disabled. The act of jacking in and receiving VR bonuses is what opened him up to attack. This was the first point of contention.
It's true that when you Jump In to a rigged vehicle, the vehicle's icon disappears and is replaced by your own persona. Now how that'd work if the Rigger is not on the matrix himself is less clear... but I'd say that if you're not on the matrix (e.g. using a Commlink or RCC to broadcast a persona) you can't use the matrix in the first place (that's the whole point of being a technomancer)... So while you can jack a cable directly in from the datajack in your forehead to the dashboard inside the vehicle, unless you're also using a Commlink/RCC you still can't perform the Jump In action. So therefore yes if you're Jumped in you have to have a persona (or a Technomancer has to be broadcasting his Living Persona)
The second point of contention is the vehicle itself being open to attack, even though its CPU is within the EM Shielding (faraday cage), with its wireless disabled.
Two parts to that. The EM shielding, by the way I read the language, protects the people/cargo inside the vehicle. Not the vehicle itself. However, shutting the vehicle's wireless capabilities off would protect the vehicle (without need for fancy EM shielding).
The Rigger attempted to create a situation where all those within the vehicle were isolated from the outside world, and safe from hacking/tracking via personal gear, while escaping from a hostile encounter. With this goal in mind, I'd love to hear your thoughts and interpretations of RAW vs RAI.
Generally, being "hack proof" should be on one hand an in-universe desirable state while simultaneously being unachievable from a game balance point of view. You shouldn't ever be able to make yourself unassailable from one of Shadowrun's Three Worlds. Especially so if your niche revolves around that world. A hack-proof rigger is as ridiculous as a Sammie who wants to find a rules justification to where he can't be hurt in combat, or a mage who can't be affected by enemy magic.
Now, that being said having an EM-shielded vehicle with wireless off is pretty well close to being hack-proof for practical purposes, I'd say. I'd even go so far as to penalize the driving of the vehicle, as the vehicle isn't interacting with Gridlink or other vehicles in traffic. If the Rigger wants to be hack proof, I'd say the game is designed to achieve that end by having a hacker on your side protect you. Just as in you don't ever get to be immune to magic; best you're supposed to do is have a mage on your side do overwatch. Now, there's no reason the Rigger couldn't be his own hacker. Many of the Decking and Rigging skills overlap, afterall. I'd say that working within the rules is far easier on everyone involved than finding ways to circumvent the rules.
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Hack proof means different things in different frames of reference.
A PhysAd who only packs around weapon focus sword. Is "hack proof" in some sense, odds are PhysAd has not cyberware, and weapon focus sword is really just a lump steel. So ain't really gonna hack that.
But that doesn't make him hack proof in the sense that a decker could hack a car and try to run PhysAd over with it.
Clearly success may vary, and running over a PhysAd sin't the easiest thing to do. But the point is made.
There should an accept standard, of this device isn't active wirelessly, and it has no connection to matrix. Like the Auto-Pistol from weapons 3, that only has a dumb laser sight and purely mechanic components. Those sorts of things are hack proof. It doesn't break the game to include such things.
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I believe I take your point, but a Rigger being Hackproof isn't comparable to a PhysAd being Hackproof... it'd be comparable to a PhysAd being immune to hostile Magic.
The way the Matrix 2.0 is described, pretty much anything that's not a natural object is on the matrix. They even use the example of a Katana in the bricking rules... yes you can brick a Katana. It's just that being bricked doesn't stop the Katana from being a 4 foot long razor sharp length of steel.
OTOH they make toggling wireless off a free action, which means that by the rules you may as well leave everything wireless off by default and only turn things on immediately before using them, and immediately off again after. Which renders the whole "everything's wireless" paradigm moot. But that's a gripe with the game design, not with you :)
Going back to the example of a Rigger driving a wireless-off vehicle: Riggers require the matrix to rig (SR5 pg 266: must be in VR to Jump In), and yet the rules appear to allow cutting yourself off from the matrix while rigging. It's a conundrum that imo merits GM "interpretation" like imposing a dice pool/threshold penalty to represent the absent data feeds that are usually omnipresent while operating a vehicle. Maybe it's more appropriate but more rules-harsh to say that from inside a wireless-off vehicle with wireless-off RCC/Commlink, your Noise Rating for Matrix Actions like piloting your vehicle counts as an uncounterable -8 dice (max penalty based on "distance" from the outside world that you've been shut out from). Maybe not. YMMV.
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If a rigger plugs a cable from the car into the CR in his head, I don't have an issue with it being not wirelessly active. Which does make it hack proof in some sense, there is a computer there. So you have find an alternative means to connect with it, so again hack proof would be a relative term.
We talk alot about how to make stuff hack proof, but if you go to your average missions table to look around at the characters, lets be honest how many are using wireless enabled? For me and I have played a lot of missions tables. The vast majority did, at minimum most had Smartguns, a lot had reaction enhancers combined with wired. Yes there also good number magic folks who largely didn't carry hack-able gear but even some of them still did. Regardless of the forums attitude on the subject the vast majority of basic missions player are not taking deep hacking precautions.
Now that could easily change if the mods started pushing hackers, I promise if the Opposition Forces started bricked cybereyes with any kind of regularity at tables tables and internal routers would suddenly become the most hot ticket item sense pokemon cards at a millennial convention. But as is the system seems to working.
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I'm taking it to another thread (https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=27278.0) because for the purposes of the OP's question, it sure does look like just simply going wireless off across the board pretty well renders you immune to hacking (barring a data tap or physical connection). My point I'd like to discuss is what downside a Rigger could/should suffer for being completely wireless, so I'll pursue it in that new thread rather than keep hijacking this one.