basic starting gameplay/strategy questions

[Conc]

I started just last night. I am reasonably familiar with programming. so not too concerned about the scripts themselves. I have installed augments twice so far. I have written out scripts to automate infection of servers & hacking from them and from home. I'm currently working on automating hacknet purchasing. I'm just curious if there's a tactic that will increase my progression that I'm missing.

Currently I have a "autobreach.script" and a "hfh.script", hack from home, which spawn() each other in turn. The auto breach is maxed to the default 8gb of the homes server, actually at 7.9gb and I run it at the start of a "augmentation". It opens ports, nukes, and installs the "bot.script" in all servers in the first five layers of the network that it can then calls hfh.

hfh then starts and hack()s any server that's hackable and open. If it finds a server that is hackable but isn't open it spawns("autobreach.script"). with these I could walk away and let them earn a few hundred million for the day, but I'd rather not just sit and wait.

Currently my bot.script just weakens, grows, and finally hacks based on thresholds i've set, which are based on the thread count so are as efficient as they can be in their current form.

I was thinking I could adjust all the scripts to choose a single server to weaken, grow, & hack from every other server. But wasn't sure if it was worth it. Is there a glaring hole in this strategy I'm missing? Is there a portion of gameplay I'm ignoring? Any other suggestions?

[Russ]

The durations of weakens, grows, and hacks are determined when they start, and the effect is determined when they finish. With that in mind, we can stack a weaken, a delayed grow, and a further delayed hack such that the hack finishes first and takes half the target server money, the grow finishes right after and fills the target back to full, and the weaken finishes third and returns the target to minimum security.

If you can reliably make them finish in the same order, you can run multiple "stacks" at the same time, with just enough delay between each start to reliably finish each stack at full money and minimum security.

Optimizing this arrangement is a rabbit hole of scheduling bugs and tricky reasoning, but the payoffs are enormous.

[KheL]

there're a lot of strategies you can use..
Personally I prefer to (almost) max out servers money with constant and simple grow and weaken scripts running on my servers, then when they are above the red line, I run hack from home. If now the available money is below my red line, kill the hack script and let it grow again. So I don't use schedules at all.
For that I need to invest in buying servers early in the game, and keep upgrading them.
The trick is to adjust the amount of threads for each script type, depending on where you are running it, so you don't use too much or too few threads, and also can do that for more targets.
At lvl 600 this is my output (look at the timestamp)

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kh4ck.ns: (10:01:44 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 6.18k from nectar-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:01:45 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 230.90m from max-hardware
kh4ck.ns: (10:01:53 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 100.00m from harakiri-sushi
kh4ck.ns: (10:02:13 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 591.57m from phantasy
kh4ck.ns: (10:02:30 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 3.90b from rho-construction
kh4ck.ns: (10:02:35 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 75.00m from hong-fang-tea
kh4ck.ns: (10:02:38 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 3.07b from the-hub
kh4ck.ns: (10:02:40 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 855.28m from silver-helix
kh4ck.ns: (10:02:52 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 250.00m from max-hardware
kh4ck.ns: (10:03:06 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 1.27b from omega-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:03:12 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 68.75m from nectar-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:03:17 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 100.00m from harakiri-sushi
kh4ck.ns: (10:03:22 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 9.19k from harakiri-sushi
kh4ck.ns: (10:03:25 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 462.34m from phantasy
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:02 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 569.41m from phantasy
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:05 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 2.36b from comptek
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:20 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 68.75m from nectar-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:23 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 978.93m from silver-helix
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:23 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 2.65b from netlink
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:25 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 5.75k from nectar-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:28 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 1.19b from omega-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:31 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 100.00m from harakiri-sushi
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:31 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 75.00m from hong-fang-tea
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:41 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 2.00b from rothman-uni
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:42 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 2.80b from summit-uni
kh4ck.ns: (10:04:55 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 555.03m from phantasy
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:10 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 1.68b from millenium-fitness
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:13 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 100.00m from harakiri-sushi
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:15 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 250.00m from max-hardware
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:24 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 75.00m from hong-fang-tea
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:42 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 2.94b from the-hub
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:42 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 567.65m from phantasy
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:50 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 855.28m from silver-helix
kh4ck.ns: (10:05:52 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 68.75m from nectar-net
kh4ck.ns: (10:06:11 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 100.00m from harakiri-sushi
kh4ck.ns: (10:06:20 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 577.73m from phantasy
kh4ck.ns: (10:06:29 AM) HACKED: successfully stolen 1.27b from omega-net

[tclord]

Some of the augments will boost your stats and experience gain for hacking and that helps. The most important stat for improving speed and amount you hack is your hacking level. This goes up through practice (using hack, grow and weaken, either manually or via scripts). As you gain more and more access to ram (upgrading your home computer's ram, buying servers (via script or visiting Alpha Enterprises on the city map), or just using ram on servers you nuke) you can do more hacking, growing and weakening with your scripts, so the total ram available to you is a multiplier basically. Higher hacking levels opens up more hacking factions (follow your milestones to progress) so you can get augmentations from them.

It will all take some time, but it all steadily improves. A really good script will help accelerate it but there is only so much you can shortcut the process. Need to have some patience as well. It is an incremental game at it's core, after all. It sounds like you are doing things well so far.