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Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

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Tue, 2012-01-10 00:24

HyveMynd

Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

Hey all, I finally ran my first game of Eclipse Phase last Sunday night and I'm having mixed feelings. I love the setting, and the core dice mechanics are fairly simply, but holy hell there is a LOT to remember. None of my players were familiar with the rules and so it fell to me to remind them of what gear they had, what it did, and how to use it. This placed an incredible amount of pressure on me since I had to keep track of three PCs as well as everything else that was happening in the scenario (we played the Glory module). I'm thinking that Eclipse Phase isn't really all that good for a one-shot unless everyone is relatively familiar with the mechanics and capabilities of their PC. Anyway, that's not the issue I'm looking for advice on. One of my players was dead set on playing a hacker, had read the hacking rules extensively, and requested a few changes to the pre-gen character he was going to play as. He was using the Criminal Hacker character from the EP core book, but asked for a Menton biomorph with the Multi-Tasking enhancement in place of Mental Speed. It looked fine, so I said OK and we shuffled CPs around. Towards the end of the session he attempted to hack into the systems of a large ship. He successfully bypassed the firewall and I called for an opposed Infosec test against the ship's security AI. After rolling he announced "I succeed with a MoS of 60+, so I gain access and have Hidden status." A MoS of more than 60?!? I asked what his skill was. "My Infosec is at 120." he replied. I almost did a spit take behind my GM screen. 120. 120! I asked how this was possible. "My base skills is 70, I get +10 for the Menton morph, and with three forks and my Muse assisting me that's another +40. If I did a Brute Force hack my Infosec would be at 150." The Security AI only had an Infosec score of 40. After a few more rolls which he naturally passed with disgustingly high MoSes, I just gave up and gave him complete and total control of the ship, allowing him to do whatever he wanted without even rolling for it. It wasn't that much of a big deal since doing so helped wrap up the scenario as we were at the end of the session. Still, I can't help but feel that this was pretty cheap. As far as I can tell he didn't cheat, nor was he trying to. He just wanted to build a really good hacker. Which he did. We did find one mistake in his numbers since the Multi-Tasking enhancement can only make two forks, dropping his Infosec total to 110. I've looked through the rules on hacking, cooperation, and the description of the Multi-Tasking enhancement but can't find anything mechanically wrong with what he did. I do feel that it is taking advantage of the rules, however. Using the forks of himself purely to gain a cooperation bonus on his hacking attempts follows the letter of the rules, but seems to break the spirit a bit in my opinion. I know that bandwidth in EP is so massive that it's a non-issue, but having four "people" (an ego, two forks, and a muse) all using a single set of mesh inserts to gain a huge cooperation bonus seems wrong to me. I kind of see it as the virtual equivalent of four people all trying to use a single computer at once; you're not going to get anything done. Even the example given in the Multi-Tasking description only have one "person" engaging in mesh activity. So my question here is, am I simply being a hard ass? Is what he did completely legal and within the scope of the rules, or is there something that prevents him from generating such an obscenely high Infosec score?

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Tue, 2012-01-10 05:44

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

Why cant the security (npc) also use team work and extra bonuses? Also I think there could be worth noting that bonuses and aptitudes have a upper limit. http://www.eclipsephase.com/aptitude-max#comment-3776

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Tue, 2012-01-10 08:52

Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

And I thought Teamwork stopped at +30? And… no, why do you think that's what Multi-Tasking does? The crunch says '+2 mental Complex actions', not '2 free alpha forks without any forking/merging tests'. The answer, though, is 'yes'; it's very easy to get a very high Infosec (in particular).

Tue, 2012-01-10 09:22

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

Yerameyahu wrote:
The crunch says '+2 mental Complex actions', not '2 free alpha forks without any forking/merging tests'.

A note; This is an extremely important point to make. It is crucial to the balancing of multitasking over the other action giving implants. It also sets an extremely dangerous precedent in the other direction if you allow forks to grant complex actions. It makes things like Ghostrider modules really, really, re~ally good. So I wouldn't advise doing that. But as Yerameyahu has said, Infosec is an extremely gameable skill. I am almost certain it has the highest potential skill in the game, and many of the modifiers are really easy to get your hands on. So don't be that amazed when you see characters running around with skills of 159. Hacking is basically a game of cat and mouse, with time being the important factor. If you want to keep people out of your system you put as many eyes onto a master node as possible and slave everything else to that node. Anyone who wants into your system needs to beat your small army of infosec forks in opposed tests or they get locked out of the network.

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Tue, 2012-01-10 12:03

LatwPIAT

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

Well, I'd say that it totally makes sense that a fork in a Ghostrider Module will have its own complex actions. Not provide them, but [i]have[/i] them. That doesn't, however, mean that those actions are available to the morph/ego with the Ghostrider Module; if the fork doesn't want to help with hacking, then it won't. In the case of the Multitasking, the preDelta-forks are specially programmed to do exactly as the ego/morph with the implant wants them to, hence the player gets the extra actions. (The Multiple Personalities implant also provides an extra mental/Mesh action; I work under the assumption that this is provided willingly on behalf of the other personalities, and uses their stats, etc.) A normal Alpha, Beta or Delta-fork, meanwhile, is subject to other things like the psychosurgery roll to create them, not to mention significant losses in stats (It's up to the GM, after all, to decide whether two Egos can cooperate on a specific Task Action. Delta-forks don't have skills above 40, after all, which could hamper their ability to provide help.) Alpha-forks and Beta-forks may very well decide to betray the core Ego if they fear for their own existence (e.g. being deleted after a while) or are otherwise mentally damaged. Mistakes during psychosurgery may instill Beta-forks with strong feelings of individuality, paranoia, or solipsism. In any case, your player would't have been able to force their skill above 90 in the given situation.

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Tue, 2012-01-10 12:52

Madwand

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

It's actually pretty easy to get your infosec skill above 200. I've had hackers who do this routinely. Infosec is probably the most important skill in the game; I've had entire games where the PCs do nothing but sit absolutely still in their vehicle and think really hard. I love it; that's transhumanism for you. Those games have been some of my best. Unfortunately when both sides are doing this the system mechanics might as well be coin flipping; the system doesn't handle hacking very well.

Tue, 2012-01-10 22:30

HyveMynd

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

Yerameyahu wrote:
The crunch says '+2 mental Complex actions', not '2 free alpha forks without any forking/merging tests'.

I realize that, and having the player in question make two Psychosurgery Tests to reintegrate those forks at the end of 4 hours (or whenever he choses to 'turn off' the augmentation) is one way I see of balancing this. A couple of failed Integration Tests that incur some SV or derangements might cause him to use that augmentation less frequently. I could totally see my player telling me that he should get like a +30 bonus on his Psychosurgery Tests for Integration though. Not to be a dick, but simply because "That's what the equipment is designed to do. It's designed to create and reintegrate forks, and so would be easy for anyone to use." Looking through the rules again, I noticed that in section about Complex Actions (7.3.3), it notes that "you may not engage in a Complex Action and a Task Action during the same Action Phase." I realize this is so that cheeseball players don"t try to have their characters do something that requires most of their attention (like attacking with a beam weapon) while continuing to work on a long term project (like programming a custom nanoswarm). If the person in question has the Multi-Tasking enhancement though, I don't see why they couldn't simply say "I'm using my second and third Complex Actions to assist my primary ego's hacking action." I mean, if other characters are allowed to spend their Complex Action to assist in the attempt, then why not the forks? I guess that the Multi-Tasking enhancement is less useful in action-packed situations. If the character in question has to divide their attention because so much other stuff in happening around them, then they won't get the cooperation bonus. I get the feeling that this is precisely what the gear was designed to do. Though, I don't want to have a pack of cyber-ninjas jump out of nowhere every time someone activates their Multi-Tasking enhancement.

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Wed, 2012-01-11 03:56

ticktock

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

HyveMynd wrote:
If the person in question has the Multi-Tasking enhancement though, I don't see why they couldn't simply say "I'm using my second and third Complex Actions to assist my primary ego's hacking action." I mean, if other characters are allowed to spend their Complex Action to assist in the attempt, then why not the forks?

Because: 1. They're not full-fledged forks. Multi-Tasking does one thing and one thing only, crunchwise - it gives you two extra mental Complex Actions. That's it. Nothing else. The fact that the fluff uses the word "fork" to help justify this doesn't mean a player can choose to get a different benefit from it. If you want real forks, get a ghostrider module or two. 2. You can't use additional Complex Actions from any other source to do "self-teamwork," and Multi-Tasking is not mentioned as an exception in this regard. Multi-tasking means doing two or more things at once, not doing one thing twice as hard. 3. As you yourself noted, allowing this interpretation makes Multi-Tasking grossly overpowered. So, y'know... don't. Because it's wrong. Multi-Tasking is *not* teamwork.

Thu, 2012-01-12 15:21

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Hacking, cooperation, and Multi-tasking

my interpretation of the multitasking, fluff wise is that the ego is partitioned and put to work before made whole again I could be wrong though.

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