[Lethrendis]

Thank you, it's much clearer to me now. But I would recommend writing these things to the CRB in case of an errata, because it certainly does not follow from several readings.

I have one more question for PANs: The number of slave devices is very limited. But is it possible to connect the whole PAN to another PAN? For example: Team members have their devices protected by their comlinks. And the team hacker then slaves these comlinks to his cyberdeck.

[penllawen]

Making a call to Tokyo from Seattle for most people is a matter of connecting to the the local hub (so most likely zero noise or at least minimal) then that hub (a virtual host most likely) relays the call to it's Tokyo counterpart that then connects to your "target" on the other end.

Now obviously shadowrunnner hackers don't want this potential monitoring that comes with such service so hacking over that distance comes with a severe price... thus we have the noise rules as written.

Thanks Banshee!

A scenario occurs to me: Face calls an NPC. Keeps them talking (some tense roleplaying, social skill rolls). Meanwhile, the decker traces the call and gets their location. The team scrambles to find the NPC.

Would you allow this at your table? If so, how would you run it / square it with the above?

[Xenon]

The number of slave devices is very limited. But is it possible to connect the whole PAN to another PAN? For example: Team members have their devices protected by their comlinks. And the team hacker then slaves these comlinks to his cyberdeck.

By the rules (both in SR5 and SR6) your PAN can only hold a very limited number of devices while the intent (both in SR5 and SR6) seem to be that all electronic devices you carry on your body (potentially several hundred) are being part of (and protected by) your PAN.


As an optional rule it have been suggested that we use the limit as written for "smarter" devices (such as drones, vehicles and smart firing platforms etc) and/or "regular" devices that you want to protect even if they are a bit further away from you (where noise set the range).

But that your PAN is also allowed to protect any amount of "regular" devices you carry with you or is in your vicinity (where perhaps data processing x 100 meter set the range).


As another optional rule it have been suggest that we are allowed to daisy chain several commlinks and that the whole network get to use the firewall of the top node device (all team members slave their commlinks to the decker's cyberdeck). But that this also mean that if a potential hacker breach the network they will gain access on all parts of the combined network at once.


If you combine the two optional rules your PAN would be part of the larger team network that the decker is protecting, until you venture too far away from the decker in which case your PAN will be isolated and only protected by your own commlink.

Face calls an NPC. Keeps them talking (some tense roleplaying, social skill rolls). Meanwhile, the decker traces the call and gets their location. The team scrambles to find the NPC.

Would you allow this at your table? If so, how would you run it / square it with the above?

• If the NPC is trying to hide then you take an opposed matrix perception test to spot the NPC's PAN. Noise matters. Distance matters.
• Then you probe the network (since brute force will alert the NPC and you don't want that I guess). This take at the minimum 1 minute (but it have been suggested that probe should take longer than that). Noise matters. Distance matters.
• Once you spot the PAN it doesn't matter if the NPC start to run silent or drive away in a car or whatever. So it doesn't really matter if the NPC hangs up or not, but if the NPC reboot his PAN (or if the NPC walk into a Faraday's Cage or possible if the NPC successfully take the Hide action against you etc) then the trace will probably fail before it even got started - so you still might want to keep the NPC talking until you fully traced the physical location.
• Then you exploit the backdoor into the PAN via the Backdoor Entry action and with that gain admin access on the entire PAN. Noise mattes. Distance matters.
• With admin access on the network you take the Trace Icon action. Noise mattes. Distance matters.
• Done

[0B]

I have stated this before elsewhere, but specifically on things like normal comm calls and other everyday issues that come up, it's a matter of being routed through your local service provider.

Making a call to Tokyo from Seattle for most people is a matter of connecting to the the local hub (so most likely zero noise or at least minimal) then that hub (a virtual host most likely) relays the call to it's Tokyo counterpart that then connects to your "target" on the other end.

Now obviously shadowrunnner hackers don't want this potential monitoring that comes with such service so hacking over that distance comes with a severe price... thus we have the noise rules as written.

This makes the most sense- honestly, most shadowrun systems don't work well at simulating "mundane" things. Someone with a dice pool of 6 will only consistently succeed at the most trivial/mundane things, and vehicle handling is specifically built so that you will only roll if there is fictional risk of failure. I can't think of an edition that models mundane behavior well, if you try incorporate rolling into it.

[penllawen]

Face calls an NPC. Keeps them talking (some tense roleplaying, social skill rolls). Meanwhile, the decker traces the call and gets their location. The team scrambles to find the NPC.

I bring this up, BTW, because I feel it's a fairly common scenario, it's something I want to let my players do, and I think it's very in keeping with thew tropes of the cyberpunk genre. But it's poorly modelled by SR RAW IMO.

If the NPC is trying to hide then you take an opposed matrix perception test to spot the NPC's PAN. Noise matters. Distance matters.

So immediately, we can only trace calls within a fairly small distance. Which kinda sucks.

Also: assuming the target's commlink wasn't running silent, would you let the decker spot their persona without a test? Regardless of distance?

Once you spot the PAN it doesn't matter if the NPC start to run silent or drive away in a car or whatever. So it doesn't really matter if the NPC hangs up or not,

We've now lost the (rather nice, to my mind) tag-team interaction between a face trying to keep the target talking while the decker makes hacking rolls under time pressure.

but if the NPC reboot his PAN (or if the NPC walk into a Faraday's Cage or possible if the NPC successfully take the Hide action against you etc) then the trace will probably fail before it even got started - so you still might want to keep the NPC talking until you fully traced the physical location.

Assuming you go in via Probe (in 6e) or Hack on the Fly (in 5e), and so do not alert the target, I think this is very unlikely. Rebooting your commlink after every phone call would be pretty impractical, surely.

With admin access on the network you take the Trace Icon action. Noise mattes. Distance matters.

You missed off that, in 5e, Trace Icon only gives you an instantaneous location, plus an ongoing location as long as you maintain a mark. So you're now accumulating OS as you zero in on your target. At least in 6e, that's gone, and you can continue to Trace Icon as long as you can "detect" the target - which I assume means the same thing as "spot".

[Xenon]

So immediately, we can only trace calls within a fairly small distance. Which kinda sucks.

Define small distance?

With a mid-range rating 3 cyberdeck (MCT 360) running signal scrubber in one of your 6(!) active program slots you can trace targets within 100 km from your current location. Not too shabby if you ask me.


With a high-end cyberdeck and a satellite link you can trace any target via low orbit satellites, no matter distance.

Even with a rating 1 cyberdeck that just cost 24k you can use the signal scream edge action to trace no matter noise levels.

Also: assuming the target's commlink wasn't running silent, would you let the decker spot their persona without a test? Regardless of distance?

In this edition matrix perception work just as regular perception.
You typically don't demand the player to take a test to notice a neon sign
But if the specific neon sign they are looking for is not in the vicinity you might still ask him to take the test.

If the target is trying to hide the test become opposed.

Same with matrix icons really.

Rebooting your commlink after every phone call would be pretty impractical, surely.

It depend on the situation and how paranoid the target is.

Remember back in 2020 you had shady people that not only reboot their phones after each call, they even changed pre-paid SIM-cards or even used cash bought 'burner' phones or both at the same time.... Was it impractical? Yes.

But it also made them harder to trace.

...in 6e, that's gone, and you can continue to Trace Icon as long as you can "detect" the target - which I assume means the same thing as "spot".

In 5th edition it was basically only TMs (with Static Veil and or Cleaner) that could trace a target for more than an hour or so before GOD converged on them.

But yes, in this edition you can typically keep tracing a target for as long as you want.

Or at least until the target reboots. Or you are forced to reboot (because your OS getting getting too high because of other reasons). Or the target specifically Hide against you (this is no longer a hacker only action, but it still require that you have the cracking skill if you wish to do it, and knowing what target you wish to hide from of course). Or the target walks into a Faraday's cage. Or you accidentally walk into a Faraday's cage. There might also be some resonance or sprite ability that can cause this effect. I am sure I missed a few more.

I know where you are going with this, but when they track someone in spy movies they typically keep on tracing for far more than an hour... so I don't see the harm in this change to be honest.