[FR34K-$H0W]

Ok, so I'm hoping somebody can give me some input here (with references) to help clear up some questions about decking.

I have a decker character (and I'm a fairly new player to missions) and I noticed after a few games that when using AR or HOT-SIM in combat I was falling behind and not being very useful due to action limitations. It's easy for the meatshields with the guns to ask "what do I see" and to get a description of combatants and the surroundings. It's a little harder for me as a decker to ask the same question, and I generally get the response of "make a Matrix Perception test" which eats up my entire complex action to get what I thought was basic "automatic" information based on my distance to the icons in question. Esentially getting info such as, "you see 3 pairs of Ares rifles and pistols, along with commlinks." My understanding is that at less than 100m, unless an icon is running silent , those details should be instant and I shouldn't have to look for them. So who's right?

With the slowdown of combat options (usually our gunners ventilate any threats before I can even throw my first data spike at their weapon) I decided an agent would be a good investment as a henchman that could help me speed up things. I'll say things like, "I'm always running my program Agent Smith who runs constant Matrix Perception tests to gather information on nodes within 100m, gathering information and alerting me to the presence of hidden icons before trying to gather more information about them. The Agent will always buy hits, for 3 successes." I figure that gives me the benefits of my agent's capabilities, without having to slow down the game to roll 12 dice every 10 seconds to simulate the constant scans. Does that sound reasonable?

Which brought me to the next question: What else can my agent do? I'm not sure I trust him alone in most cases to do my dirty work for me, (my first attempt using him to mark a police radio backfired HORRIBLY) I was wondering, since he has his own persona icon in the Matrix, does he also have his own initiative and his own set of actions? If so, does he use the initiative dice for the AR/Cold/Hot mode that my deck is using? If he has his own set of actions, does this mean he can also set me up for the shot by marking targets on an earlier initiative so I can slam them with a data spike for additional damage on my initiative? Alternatively, if there's less targets to worry about but I'm concerned about going up against a target with a high device rating, can the agent use a teamwork test to assist me with the action I'm going to do on my initiative? If the teamwork test can be done, could I opt to also buy the hits to speed things up so that I simplify things and just add 3 to my dice pool and the limit of the check?

I'm also looking for recommendations in general of what to do with my decker during combat encounters. I understand that wireless tech is basically everywhere and there's all kinds of bizarre ways I'm sure that I could mess up machines and devices around the combat environment in order to try to help control the encounter (causing the slurpee machine to ramp up it's output speed sending slurpee goo all over the drekhead standing in front of it possibly distracting him or gooping his goggles to temporarily blind him) but getting that level of feedback about the environment can often slow things down, and I hate being the drag on encounters when I'm already the center of attention when it comes time to do "the Matrix stuff." Marking weapons doesn't seem very useful except to drop magazines, and most goons will just simple action load another readied magazine anyhow. Trying to brick weapons seems to be a more viable route, since it's my understanding that a bricked firearm typically won't fire. The downside to that is the rule on looting and fencing means that I'm taking away potential loot for the party by destroying the tech we could sell off later. If anybody has any "this is a good tactic most of the time" suggestions I'd love to get some more ideas!

Glitchd

[Michael Chandra]

You can't decide to buy hits in a situation, and I don't expect the GM to allow it in situations where actual risks exist. Probably best if the GM simply rolls for the Agent's perception when it matters, and you just roll twice. (I actually had someone roll multiple Clearsight checks to aid another drone in Clearsight.)

By the way, you don't get to raise your Limit with the hits of a helper on a Teamwork test. If he scores 1+ hits, you get the hits as bonus dice and a +1 to your Limit.

Matrix isn't my strongest point, but you will automatically spot icons (and probably filter them by type, so not looking at any non-guns/commlinks) when in AR/VR. Of course the GM decides whether they run silent.

Agents are autonomous programs, I assume they have their own Initiative since they can run without supervision on their own devices. My guess is that their Initiative is like Pilot programs, since they're similar to them, so Ratingx2+4d6, but I wouldn't really know for sure. However, Pilots, IC and Sprites all have that as Matrix Initiative, so I'd assume Agents are no different.

Your Agent can't score marks for you to use, because each Persona has its own Marks and they cannot be shared in any way. Note, however, that it MIGHT be possible for Spoof Command to spoof the Invite Mark (which requires Owner) command, though I don't dare make a statement on that matter.

Teamwork tests may very well be possible, though I probably wouldn't allow them on things that have an effect on you alone (so scoring marks). However, perhaps this should in fact be possible, so I can't really tell. It WOULD solve the matter that right now even scoring Marks on multiple opponents is incredibly risky because failing once = bloody hell. As such, it might actually be fair, since it requires high expenses and a program slot to be sacrificed. Definitely something we can use official clarification for.


DURING Combat Encounters you're a bit limited, might be best to just do Attack Actions then to brick gear, or score a Mark and then start ejecting clips. What you want to do, however, is find out there's enemies BEFORE combat starts, analyze their devices with Matrix Perception, score Marks and run Trace Icon. That way you can make AROs for the entire group to use so they know exactly where some of the enemies are. And when combat starts you can immediately start ejecting clips or shutting down cybereyes, or brick weapons.

Just keep in mind that the second you start doing this, people will know they're being hacked and will turn off their wireless. That is of course a bad thing for them as well, but it's also why attacking for bricking isn't a good idea: They are immediately aware so unless you brick them (and your Agent can help there) before they get their turn, it's useless.

By the way, you're correct in that Ejected Clips can easily have a fresh one reloaded (barring the few idiots without spare clips). However, you're forcing someone to sacrifice a Simple Action to reload, meaning they can't use one to dive for Cover and fire at the same time, or use Suppressive Fire. It also costs them their Free Action to turn off the wireless. So basically you're costing them a Free and a Simple action with a Free of your own. One downside is that following the Missions FAQ, this probably counts as an Attack action so you wouldn't be allowed to eject 3 different clips. (We'd have to ask Bull for that.)

Bricked Weapons, while not capable of firing, can easily be fixed with lengthy Hardware checks. So it's not as if Bricking the gear destroys it, as long as you're willing to fix it afterwards before fencing.

[Kincaid]

The rules for teamwork and agents are a little unclear.  The rules for teamwork tests specify "members of your group" (p. 49), and it's an open question as to whether or not agents and sprites qualify as "members."  In previous editions, they simply gave you +1 die, so I'm inclined to believe they don't count, but I'm sure that will vary by GM.

In the same way that astral recon should become second nature to your group, matrix recon is extremely useful, especially for setting up marks.  If you have a really good Hack on the Fly roll (and just about every decker I've seen in Missions seems to roll 18+ dice for this), using Fork it's not all that hard to get 2 marks on 2 separate items with a single action if the opposing team doesn't have a decker.

Forked Data Bombs are a staple of my combat options, but sending false messages to someone's comm is also handy ("Quick! Run across the room to the far door, I'll cover you!"), and the various environmental effects you've mentioned as well.  Don't think of your decker as another gunner who just uses Data Spike instead of an Alpha, think of your decker as support artillery.  You're there to change the playing field and act as a force multiplier.

A GM needs to work a little bit to incorporate deckers and be fair--the vast majority of icons don't run silent and you'll automatically see.  A lot of default rules in Missions are geared towards the players having fun--unless otherwise noted, all NPC grenades are timed grenades, for example.  By the same reasoning, I figure unless otherwise noted, icons aren't running silently.

[Belker]

As one of Glitched's GMs (we have two tables for our Missions groups now), and who ran a CMP for him last weekend, here's what we've come up with for now in the absence of formal clarification, whether that comes in Data Trails or errata.

Agents get to add to some teamwork tests. I've permitted them to help with Marks; I can see a rationale that they can't since Marks are per-Icon, but I can see a (somewhat fuzzier) rationale that the hacker is offloading some of the gruntwork processing of the Sleaze or Attack action to the agent.  ("Here, decrypt this while I probe for vulnerabilities.") My co-GM and I will need to hash out when we'll allow it to chip in and when we won't.

[FR34K-$H0W]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think at a minimum it's good to know that there's at least a little bit of confusion as to what can and can't be done with agents just because the rules don't explicitly state some of the things I'm trying to do, specified verbage for teamwork tests etc. I don't think I'm being treated unfairly necessarily, but with the recommended "prepping the battlefield" with marks, and setting the stage for a big sprung attack seems logical to me, but I know it also takes time. nearly that entire prep time for me to interact in that way leaves the rest of the party just checking ammo and trying to stay quiet. I think most would see the benefit of slowly seeing AROs come into view with exact locations of lead magnets to help them identify targets, but from a mechanic perspective that wouldn't necessarily have a mechanical benefit to them, it's just a lot cooler sounding when the bullets start flying. I guess by comparison our magic users do a fair bit of asensing and astral recon so I'm not so far different in that regard.

That's also a good point about the marks from the Agent, technically they aren't my own, so I wouldn't benefit from them completely the same way. But I would imagine that if my Agent marked a target, because a mark allows you to keep tabs on that target as always visible to you until it can clear the mark and hide, my Agent could just as easily indicate to me where it was? Again I think i'm just a little used to other game systems that are a lot more rule specific with organized play and heavily stress everything being exactly the same every time and minimizing table variation. I mostly am trying to compile all of the snippets of info and resources from the book and also the forum leads so I can back up any arguments I may have if an overzealous decker hating GM at a con is hell bent on me spending three rounds to get a single mark on a waffle iron while the combat classes rock and roll and win the fight.

My area GM's usually let me have a little bit of leeway with regards to my perception sometimes and let me put up "ballpark area" AROs to each team member as I notice various icons indicating weapon threats and commlinks. They aren't accurate enough to be targetable independently, but they are close enough that I can color code them to help focus fire towards particular icons if certain threats are deemed to be "no kill" targets, or are currently locked up by various spells and so on.

[Cronstintein]

As a Decker in combat you shouldn't need a matrix perception check to see opposing icons if they aren't running silent. 

Even then, it's tough to get good usage of matrix skills in combat.  With the fork program running you can attempt to brick two guns per turn, but if you fall short of the 9 damage needed, you get no useful result. 

[martinchaen]

Keep in mind that if you are filtering out any icons other than, say, guns and commlinks for example, then you won't see the icon of, say, an Ares Predator that has been made to look like a credstick with the Wrapper program. You'd have to suspect that the credstick icon was not in fact a credstick icon, and check it with a matrix perception test for it to be revealed for what it is, I believe.

[firebug]

As a Decker in combat you shouldn't need a matrix perception check to see opposing icons if they aren't running silent. 

Even then, it's tough to get good usage of matrix skills in combat.  With the fork program running you can attempt to brick two guns per turn, but if you fall short of the 9 damage needed, you get no useful result.

Getting the 9 damage has a decker is not difficult.  Have a Configurator program set up for this: Highest attribute to attack (probably six), and have your programs be Decryption, Fork, and Hammer.  Now you've got 7 Attack with +2 damage, so that's 9 right there.  Since you need net hits to actually succeed using Data Spike, you prettymuch just need to make sure you've got enough that their matrix damage resistance roll isn't higher than your net hits (unlikely unless they're using very high-end commlinks).

Also, putting AROs with Trace Icon does have serious mechanical benefits.  See, sure, a mage can astral project and say "There's four guys in there".  But a decker can go "there's four guys in here, let me show everyone where they are standing real time" and then the Street Samurai puts his rifle muzzle to the wall and fatally shoots them all without even needing to enter the room.  This ain't no half-assed FPS--  bullets go through stuff.  With a live-feed to the entire group, your whole team can just pick a target and try to shoot them through the wall.  Yeah, you may get a blind-fire penalty.  Yeah, they may even get a defense bonus.  But they also lose the rest of their defense pool because they're unaware of your attack, and any attempts to fire back are going to give them the same penalties as you, but you know what to expect.

Being able to start the fight before you've even entered the room is a huge deal.

[martinchaen]

That... is an AWESOME example of a decker's potential to be a force multiplier, firebug. LOVE IT!

[Michael Chandra]

and then the Street Samurai puts his rifle muzzle to the wall and fatally shoots them all without even needing to enter the room.

Had this happen, one of the players shot through the ceiling of the room to kill one of the gangers on the next floor. It was a typical 1-pass massacre, perfectly executed.

[FR34K-$H0W]

So another example of my continued missions as a Decker, Last night my Agent and I bricked a total of 4 guns in one pass (fork and mugger helped a lot) but since our driver decided to just ram the van into the building itself, I was at a bit of a disadvantage with regards to the whole setup. A big problem I've noticed can be that the decker needs constant feedback to know what's going on, and in the cycles of combat, that can slow things down FAST, and I don't want to be the guy who takes up 5 minutes of time to get absolutely no benefit for the group.

With regards to icons being immediately visible, I agree, and it should be as simple as me asking "what do I see" If the GM doesn't feed me that info (it's easy to gloss over the descriptions for the guy in another dimension essentially, while the actual layout of what something looks like in meatspace comes automatically to most GM's, so I figure I'll typically have to prod to remind them that my primary concern is digital, not physical). With regards to wrapper, that is a hacking program, meaning it needs to be run on something other than a typical commlink. If the band of 4 or 5 gangers have even the lowest rating cyberdeck for the sole purpose of making their rifles look like credsticks, I've got probably got a decker or technomancer somewhere to worry about anyhow. So that's why I typically filter for personas/commlinks/cyberdeck and weapons. The issue last night came up of how quickly one can determine the type of weapon I'm dealing with based on its icon. My goal in the first pass was to fork data spike with my agent to try to brick the 4 biggest and most damage dealing guns (if I see rocket or grenade launchers or heavy machine guns I'm going for them first) to which I had to roll a matrix perception (which critically glitched) and I lost my whole first pass anyways.

Also if anyone can explain what is required to "re task" an agent as far as time or action type it would be greatly appreciated. I simply assumed when it's initiative came up I could just pick what it should be doing at the time in the pass, but our GM had me actually retask it with what I wanted it to do during my initiative. In some combats this led to it acting like a Roomba banging into the same corner repeatedly as some of the commands I could direct it to would be invalid by the time its action came up. Is that normal? I can't find anything in the rules describing how you would direct the agents (which behave a lot like pilot programs based on one sentence in the agent description).

[Michael Chandra]

You probably want to establish some default protocols for the Agents, and give them an instruction with such a protocol as reference. That way, you can establish a more complicated thing with failsafes, where they got backup actions available (or are simply ordered to delay until directly after your next command if they can't execute their action anymore). Basically make it like a flowchart with perhaps 5 arrows. Otherwise the agent would have to roll to try to figure out what now might be a good idea.

By the way, are you always digital, and do you keep AR penalties in mind?

[Cronstintein]

My understanding is that tasking the agent would be simple action, send message.

[Michael Chandra]

Pretty much. What you should keep in mind is that just like Spirits and Pilots, an Agent is basically an NPC. So the player has no direct control over it, all they got is instructions (and occasionally with Spirits 'requests', since a Combat Service does not include full control over what powers are used, so mister brave Fire Elemental could you please spit fire at them?) and the GM takes point.

With Agents and Pilots, a few short protocols would be a nice way to have them act in a more complicated manner.