In the FAQ page, the quick-link for the following entries are broken:
"Can I spend Edge once per test or once per action?"
"Can I convert 4 Minor Actions into a Major Action before my turn begins?"
"What counts as “Edge abuse” that rises to the level of being stopped by the “preventing Edge abuse” rule?"
"How do hosts, spiders, and IC use Edge?"
Yep. Noted, and thank you!
How is it I can borrow my friend's commlink, which is broadcasting their SIN, and somehow my use of it makes their persona turn into my persona?
While your friend is accessing the matrix they use their own matrix persona (their own global internet user) and they broadcast their own SIN. Doesn't matter which commlink they use when they access the matrix. Or if they access the matrix via a cyberdeck instead of a commlink. They still use their own matrix persona and they still broadcast the their own SIN.
It is a little bit similar to when I logon to my kids gaming computer I will log on to my own steam account and I will broadcast my own steam achievements. My steam account and my steam achievements belong to me, not to whatever device I use to access the internet with (I am aware of that the analogy have flaws, but for the purpose of the point I am trying to make I think it kinda works).
That is indeed the ballpark I also envision. Your persona is your online identity. It's a gestalt of all your email addresses, all your telephone numbers, all your forum logins, all your game logins, your browsing history, your matrix user setting preferences, and all kinds of other things. Most important to the reason why noone can use anyone else's persona is it is also keyed to your unique biometrics (your brainwaves, in this case). That's all technobabble, however. What's important is the meta, game balance concern: you can't change your identity. Not to dodge your overwatch score, not to escape having access hacked into your PAN, not to avoid being recognized for what you did prior. Not for any reason whatsoever. You're always you in the matrix, no matter what your icon might happen to look like. Ergo, you cannot assume someone else's identity, either. You're always you.
Also bear in mind that your SIN (fake or otherwise) and your persona are two completely different things that in a rules point of view have no overlap. Also note that SINs aren't paired to a commlink. Nor are they a signal that's broadcast for anyone to just read at will (think of the potential identity theft...).
Those two things in combination also mean that you can't just steal some schmuck's commlink and drain their bank accounts.
I may sound salty, but the LOS model is far far easier for storytelling purposes.
I think perhaps the intent is here that you can still see and interact with specific devices that you (or someone in your team) were already (somehow) made aware of, even if you currently happen to have a broken line of sight to them.
Otherwise you can't remote control your car if it happen to be parked around the corner. And you can't spoof a command to a vending machine in the lobby unless you take the elevator down to the lobby. And you would be prevented from sending a message to the rigger that is lurking in the van.
Exactly. The intent is "basically" LOS, but something just being around the corner or on the other side of a wall doesn't prohibit hacking it.
Also bear in mind that the Matrix is indeed global, so if you know what you're looking for you can still "spot" that device anywhere in the word, but remember to factor in distance based Noise. So if you can potentially see a device anywhere in the world, what stops you from seeing EVERYTHING anywhere in the world? A really good in-universe rationale would be the existence of a preference filter to suppress the AROS for anything you don't currently care about. If you DO start caring about a given device or devices, you update your filter during the course of trying to pinpoint their matrix signals among all the other matrix signals clogging the Sixth World airwaves. That'd be considered as part of the Matrix Perception in terms of action economy.
This seems to contradict my previous understanding of devices in Hosts and nested Hosts. It's not enough to do a matrix perception check for hidden devices and beat the Host's Sleaze + WILL to spot cameras that are protected by that Host. The best you can do is spot the Host. The cameras are forever inaccessible without first getting inside the Host or directly connecting to the camera.
If that's the way the owner of the host wants it, then yes. Note that many devices, particularly those that are intended to be operated by the public, will not be hidden inside the host. But yes, devices that the host's operator thinks outsiders have absolutely no plausible business interacting with (security cameras, gun turrets, motion detectors, etc) will often be inside the host and therefore untouchable by hackers until they gain access to that host, or achieve a direct connection.
Same is true for personas, so are a security team's devices immune to hacking as long as they're in a Host and the hacker isn't?
This was also an issue in previous edition if a person was accessing the matrix via a commlink or cyberdeck (and thus the device icon was subsumed into a persona icon) and then the persona entered a host.
I always thought it would have made more sense that if when the persona entered a Host then their device's device icon would again temporarily appear out on the Grid (and become able to be targeted) until the persona exited the Host.
Not sure how this is intended to be resolved in SR6, but I rule this as each member of a security team get a PAN of their own (or that their PANs are combined with / slaved to the security team's technology specialist's PAN).
It's potentially true that a security guard could "hide" inside a host, and it's almost assuredly the more mechanically advantageous route than operating their PAN off a commlink. However there are several reasons why they might not do so:
1) maybe they're not allowed to. The more people who have access to a secure host is the more potential ways the host can be exploited. The guard's logged into the security host? Great. Guess what. You just gave shadowrunners a head they can press their guns to and force the guard to do stuff in that security host with LEGIT user access, no hacking needed!
2) if you're inside the host, you can't see outside the host. Guards might notice shadowrunners via matrix perception rolls rather than physical perception rolls, but only if they're not inside the host.
3) you can have the guard(s) be protected by the host without their PANs disappearing inside it, just as you can with maglocks or anything else for that matter.
Perception against the mother host reveals the entire network.
Perhaps the intention here is that while you can typically see the entire host network architecture from the outside without performing some sort of dungeon crawl to discover each node one by one you might still fail to see specific nodes that are running silent (depending on how good you are at matrix perception and what the sleaze rating of that specific network was set to).
Exactly. You can get a "map" of the entire architecture before you go in, so you don't have to waste time and OS during your hack exploring your way through.