[penllawen]

I find the wireless Matrix quite unintuitive and I don't have my books to hand... how does this situation play out? My PCs are currently trekking through an uninhabited area [1] to attempt to infiltrate a remote corp outpost that they hope is storing some offline paydata they want.

1) Their commlinks will be dead or near-dead during the hike, right? There's no signal out there, and no other commlinks to connect to the Matrix through. So the noise level to connect out to the world is very high.

1a) But the commlinks can talk to each other fine, right? And the rigger can run his drones.

2) Presumably the facility itself has some sort of bespoke connection, so it has Matrix. Let's say it has a satellite uplink. That's within RAW, yes?

3) At some point as they get near it, will their commlinks start routing through the Matrix connection the facility has? There's no mention anywhere that it wouldn't. Most (all?) Matrix connection is peer-to-peer routed, right? And the corp facility has numerous peers. So I'd expect the noise levels to drop off as they get closer. Is that correct?

4) If (3) is yes - the corp cannot detect this? Again, there's no rules that I know of or can find.

5) If a remote decker tries "Matrix scouting" by going to this real-world location in the open grid -- what would they see? Presumably the facility would have a Host, which has a high quality connection due to its satellite uplink. Would it just be a Host floating in a sea of noise?

[1] North-east Aztlan, near Corpus Christi in former Texas, near-ish the coast. It got scrubbed clean of life by the Tsunami in the mid-60s.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

You're asking about how Noise penalties work.  And... it takes some interpretation.

Noise can come from various sources: Static (i.e. lack of service... remote location or you're just in the barrens where cell towers get knocked out of service), Spam Zones, and/or Jammers.  However, no matter the source of the Noise, they all add up to one Noise rating and affect things the same way.  Also: it's awkward, but mechanically simple but Noise is only factored in for the initiating side of a Matrix action.  So if your buddy is being jammed, that doesn't matter when YOU do a Send Message matrix action to make a commcall if you're not Jammed... all that matters from your end is the local Noise you're in, and the distance your buddy is from you.

Also complicating things: there's no way for Noise to stop matrix connectivity completely, even though that's the intent in certain cases (Jamming, very remote locations).  GM/Writer hand-waiving comes into play with when you flatly can't make a call out.

So with that being said, here's how I would answer your questions:

1) Yes, it's established in published missions that areas can by fiat have "you can't call out" written in as part of the local "rules".
1a) And yes, even in those cases commlinks in proximity to one another can still communicate.

2) What satellite uplinks do for you is cap a noise penalty at -5. Doesn't ever get worse than that, but see #1.  When the hand waiving goes on and you "can't call", Gm has to reconcile it.  But yes, remote facilities cut off from the entire matrix except thru a sat dish on the premises is totally appropriate lore-wise.

3) Potentially, sure.  The facility would have to be broadcasting what amounts to a free public wifi signal though, which probably isn't likely.  You'd likely have to hack the site, but yes once you're in the scene where you've reached the facility, you should be able to attempt to hack the host without static or distance Noise complicating things. (they could still have jammers protecting the site, of course)

4) If you're not running silent, yeah a remote facility that has a matrix defense will automatically detect your approach when you get within 100 meters.  Even if you're running silent, Agents, Drones, and/or Spiders should be periodically scanning for new and suspicious matrix icons in the vicinity.  As for hacking into the host: yeah you get discovered when you get discovered... same rules as hacking any host

5) If a site was cut off from the matrix, there'd be nothing to see on the grids.  That'd be the point of cutting a site off from the matrix.  if the decker tries to spot the site while the site is using its sat dish to transmit (or if it's dish is connecting the site 24/7), see the Distance penalties for Noise on the decker's matrix perception test.

[penllawen]

Thanks SSDR! That helps makes things more concrete for me.

You're asking about how Noise penalties work.  And... it takes some interpretation.

I guess this is where knowing about real-world computers is perhaps harder than not knowing, because I'm trying to filter abstract rules through reality.

2) What satellite uplinks do for you is cap a noise penalty at -5. Doesn't ever get worse than that, but see #1.  When the hand waiving goes on and you "can't call", Gm has to reconcile it.  But yes, remote facilities cut off from the entire matrix except thru a sat dish on the premises is totally appropriate lore-wise.

It could also be some other plot-equivalent of a sat-link... private fibre the corp laid itself, maybe. Or maybe -5 noise for stuff in/out of the facility is fine, as long as device-to-device within it has 0 noise (as the devices would all be within the same Host.)

This is where the Matrix 2.0 really breaks my brain, because someone from elsewhere in the Matrix connecting into that Host would not have any noise penalty, right? Because Hosts, or at least most Hosts, are "everywhere and nowhere", so to speak.

3) Potentially, sure.  The facility would have to be broadcasting what amounts to a free public wifi signal though, which probably isn't likely. 

Ah, OK, this is how I can do it: the site has normal working peer-to-peer Matrix connections, but only for devices connected to its Host. If you're not inside the Host, you get no connection. You can see the Host is there if you glance at the Matrix, but nothing else is around.

4) If you're not running silent, yeah a remote facility that has a matrix defense will automatically detect your approach when you get within 100 meters.  Even if you're running silent, Agents, Drones, and/or Spiders should be periodically scanning for new and suspicious matrix icons in the vicinity.  As for hacking into the host: yeah you get discovered when you get discovered... same rules as hacking any host

None of this will happen for reasons I can't go into because my PCs might read this forum And also because my group has no decker, so they won't be hacking it. Which is why I'm a bit fuzzy on this stuff, but of course they still have commlinks and whatnot so they can still look into the Matrix.

[Beta]

An additional take on this.

1) Their commlinks will be dead or near-dead during the hike, right? There's no signal out there, and no other commlinks to connect to the Matrix through. So the noise level to connect out to the world is very high.

====> Yes.  But remember that even in an uninhabited region there may be matrix devices.  There may be condition monitors embedded in any roads or electrical cables that exist, there could weather monitoring stations, wildlife tracking collars, or even random garbage.  So while the matrix will be sparse, if you change your filters to show everything and not just the usual high-level view you may see scattered items.  So a high noise level, but possibly not 'no signal' (unless, as SSDR said, you choose to make it so)

1a) But the commlinks can talk to each other fine, right? And the rigger can run his drones.

===> By RAW, it depends on the noise.  Not by my books, IIRC it says somewhere that if the noise exceeds the device rating (or twice device rating) it cannot function wirelessly.  So by RAW, it depends on what you set the noise to and the device ratings.  But logically? Of course they work, within modest ranges (wireless devices are built to be in an environment rich in matrix devices, so they don't need the sorts of antenna and power/resolution to communicate long distances).  100 meters should be safe (it seems to be a bit of a magic number with matrix perception, so I assume that is typical device range), but with 'noise reduction' I'd allow that to be extended farther.

2) Presumably the facility itself has some sort of bespoke connection, so it has Matrix. Let's say it has a satellite uplink. That's within RAW, yes?

===> I agree with SSDR and you on this one.

3) At some point as they get near it, will their commlinks start routing through the Matrix connection the facility has? There's no mention anywhere that it wouldn't. Most (all?) Matrix connection is peer-to-peer routed, right? And the corp facility has numerous peers. So I'd expect the noise levels to drop off as they get closer. Is that correct?

===> I would expect this normally.  IF you don't want this, I can see a couple of ways around it.  If it is a self-contained facility, they could have Faraday caged the whole thing, keeping signals from getting in or out easily.  Or, to go into an area that the rules doesn't say anything about either way, if the facility is fairly tightly clustered (say all within 100 meters of the center), perhaps all devices could be set up to ONLY communicate with the host, and all communications go that way.  This would keep the team cut off until one of them gets a mark on the host.

4) If (3) is yes - the corp cannot detect this? Again, there's no rules that I know of or can find.

===> There is nothing in the rules that would detect them using the host.  And actually I think this makes sense.  The very distributed/mesh wireless matrix would have to be set up so that a) you can't spy on the data passing through your matrix devices, and b) you don't even know what is passing data through your devices.  Otherwise the security implications are staggering.  So assuming anything like standard matrix devices, they'd pass information automatically and without really knowing it.

===> If they are using the matrix in such a sparse area, they will stand out!  As SSDR said, if the facility is security focused, they should have a spider (or software agent) regularly performing matrix perception on the area nearby.  If the Runners run silent they might not get noticed, but dice can be cruel.

5) If a remote decker tries "Matrix scouting" by going to this real-world location in the open grid -- what would they see? Presumably the facility would have a Host, which has a high quality connection due to its satellite uplink. Would it just be a Host floating in a sea of noise?

===> Real world scouting won't necessarily show them the host.  All hosts are 'up in the sky' and their location there seems only loosely related to any physical location.  The big grid providers are omni-present, while smaller hosts do show up in the right place ... roughly?  The fluff suggests that finding a host is not all that hard, but they have also implied that there are a LOT of hosts 'up there' which would presumably make it possible to have a fairly innocuous host not be immediately associated with an exact geographical coordinate?  Presuming that they can navigate their way there, they would at the least be able to see the devices which are out on the grid.  Getting a mark on one of those devices will also give you a mark on the host, which will let you know which host it is.  (bonus question: if there is no grid provider 'out there', what does it mean exactly for a device to be 'out on the grid'?)

===> IF the facility has an online host, then yes it should be possible to go directly to the host from anywhere in the world, and to suffer no noise once inside.  Because, how does that passage go in 6th edition 'hey dilly, ho dilly' or something like that?  Presumably something to do with the fundamental nature of the matrix and hosts that has never been explained.

===> Also note that it could be an off-line host (as introduced in Kill Code).  Presumably they'd occasionally open a matrix connection to the world, but could run in their own little matrix bubble most of the time.

[Xenon]

Think I already answered this post somewhere else.... but here goes, again.



Either you are connected to the matrix. Or you are not connected to the matrix. Its binary.

The only thing that can cause you to not have a signal is if you are:

• Inside a Faraday's cage
• At such a remote location that no matrix access is possible without using a satellite link, and you don't have a satellite link
• Your commlink/cyberdeck/rcc is bricked, have wireless disabled or is currently rebooting

In all other cases you will be connected to the matrix but you might get some latency due to noise. Game mechanic wise noise mean two things

• You get a negative dice pool modifier to matrix actions such as remote controlling and hacking
• If noise levels are high enough then equipment that normally gain extra wireless bonus functionality for being connected to the matrix will no longer get their wireless bonus functionality (been clarified on this very board, by Aaron IIRC)

If you are not connected to the matrix (because of any of the three reasons above) then you can not take matrix actions (such as send order to your drones, make commcalls, remote controlling your drones, hack devices or enter hosts etc).

SR5 p. 237 Matrix Actions
Matrix Actions are only available in the Matrix.
Matrix actions are special because certain rules apply to them, like noise and the Overwatch Score.

But you can still communicate without using the Send Message Matrix Action. Micro-transceivers comes to mind. And Yelling. Also hand signals....

If you are in such a remote location where no matrix connection is available unless you are using a satellite link (2nd option above) but you are using a satellite link then you will suffer a noise rating of 5 due to the static zone but you will be considered connected to the matrix (which mean you can send orders to your drones, make commcalls, remote control your drones, hack devices or enter hosts etc). Send Message is also not associated with a test so for this specific Matrix Action it doesn't really matter how much noise you are in, as long as you are connected to the matrix (which make sense, doesn't really matter if your text message is delayed 0.2 seconds or so).

All hosts in the entire matrix are immediately obvious from anywhere in the matrix. The distance to them is zero. They don't have a physical location. They don't originate from any one physical location. They are 'cloud'-based if you like. Normally hosts will appear on the matrix 'sky' while devices appear on the matrix 'floor'.

Devices that are inside Faraday cages, devices that are turned off or don't have a wireless capability or in such a remote location that no matrix connection is possible without a satellite link and currently don't have access to a satellite link would not appear as a device icon in the matrix at all.


Disclaimer: While all the above is supported by rules as they are written (RAW) in core, some details might or might not have changed later in supplements such as kill code (which I don't have access to).

there's no way for Noise to stop matrix connectivity completely, even though that's the intent in certain cases (Jamming, very remote locations).

Jamming was being looked at by the Errata team last time i heard, but this was quite a long time ago now. Honestly don't think there is an active SR5 errata team at this point.
Very remote locations are still valid for No Signal unless you have a Satellite link (in which case you will have a matrix connection with 5 noise rather than No Signal).

SR5 p. 439 Satellite Link
This allows the user to uplink to communication satellites in low-Earth orbit, connecting to the Matrix from places where no local wireless networks exist (which is rare but unfortunately extant).

SR5 p. 231 Spam and Static Zones
Remote place with satellite access only

You also get No Signal by using a Faraday's cage:

SR5 p. 231 Noise and Matrix Use
*Faraday cage:  no signal, action blocked*

bonus question: if there is no grid provider 'out there', what does it mean exactly for a device to be 'out on the grid'?

A device is on the public grid. Or a local grid. Or on one of the 10 big grids.

In this case it would probably be on the public grid. Unless the registered their own local grid (not likely). Or is using one of the big 10 grids (plausible, at least if the facility belong to one of the big 10).

[mcv]

I guess this is where knowing about real-world computers is perhaps harder than not knowing, because I'm trying to filter abstract rules through reality.

Sometimes it's easier to see the Matrix as a kind of device-based magic than as having anything to do with real world computers or telecom.

[steelybran]

I wonder if locations like the NRQZ still exist and what role they could play.  (The National Radio Quiet Zone is an area around the radio telescopes in Greenbank WV that strongly restricts what types of signals are around, especially radio and Wi-Fi).