Shadowrun General > Gear

Using the Matrix as a sniper weapon: Dataspike away ?

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Stainless Steel Devil Rat:
A drone gone wireless-off isn't useless.  It's just restricted to the Pilot + Autosoft it has locally loaded as opposed to being able to remotely access any Autosofts on a RCC.  Although it will prevent a rigger from being able to Jump In.

Sleaze actions are indeed preferable. While the rules do allow for Brute Forcing, unless your GM is prepared to hand waive it the target is immediately alerted when you succeed at a Brute Force action.  Because of the ability to switch off wireless, the best way to brick a target is to get a bunch of marks via hack on the fly first then throw your data spike.  With the extra marks, you can feasibly one-shot-one-brick.  But again, if the target is matrix savvy, you'll probably only get the one device.

Marcus:
You can build a super effective dataspiker, and I mean like base 11+ damage with 18 dice in the attack pool. Now virtually this works ok. Keeping in mind that hacking is usually about getting paydata. Sure burning ice down works. It's not subtle and convergence is not fooling around.

Ech0:
Also: It's incredibly boring.

Don't forget that the deckers first have to find and identify the correct weapons, cyber etc. the runners bring to the table. In an isolated environment it will not be that hard, but once they are out in the open, 100x100 Meters is a lot of ground to (matrix-)cover with matrix perception rolls - and once the enemy deckers find a wifi-on item, it could be someone elses Light Pistol or Datajack. The way the rules are written makes it impossible to pinpoint equipment without a visual link.

Jack_Spade:
I recently came across a neat combo - enabled through the new options from Kill Code/Better than Bad:

You need:
Adrenaline Surge: Let's you go first no matter what
Instinctive Hack: Allows you to Brute Force,Data Spike, Hack on the Fly, or use Matrix Perception before Ini is rolled
Action: Watchdog grants you a MARK and allows you to use Haywire, Popup and Squelch as interrupt actions
Haywire disconnects the PAN of the target taking away all wireless boni and Squelch prevents the target from sending messages, preventing it from calling for help. Popup penalizes all actions the target takes by your net hits - which also cause matrix damage.
With that combo you can effectively spend your whole ini in one burst, forcing the target to physically reboot his link.
Finally, a DumDum grenade will wipe out the data processing of all his wireless gear during the reboot while it is vulnerable through the lack of PAN protection.
All gear is as good as fried, but can actually be restored with out having to repair it.

Marcus:

--- Quote from: Ech0 on ---Also: It's incredibly boring.

Don't forget that the deckers first have to find and identify the correct weapons, cyber etc. the runners bring to the table. In an isolated environment it will not be that hard, but once they are out in the open, 100x100 Meters is a lot of ground to (matrix-)cover with matrix perception rolls - and once the enemy deckers find a wifi-on item, it could be someone elses Light Pistol or Datajack. The way the rules are written makes it impossible to pinpoint equipment without a visual link.

--- End quote ---

This is actually a common misconception as that is what kept this from going down in previous editions, but 5e made this easy. If you can see the item in meat space and the item is wirelessly active you can dataspike it. (See the example in the core.) Sure the come back is then won't be wirelessly active, but that's actually very unlikely in 5th. People don't run with touch links or cables and if your Link isn't on and broad casting your cop bait.

That said it can get fairly boring, and dataspiking doesn't stun targets out.

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