5 beginner's tips for hacking

[Mischief Maker]

The in-game tutorial for hacking seriously lacks, and most of my early frustrations were from not understanding the system. Like all systems in Starcrawlers, hacking really starts to shine in the lategame. Hopefully these tips will improve your experience.

1. The point of hacking is to crash the CPU (the icon looks like a sphere with spokes coming out in all directions). Crashing the CPU shuts down EVERY security system in meatspace, including laser tripwires, pressure plates, cameras, locked doors, and maglock safes (but not already-triggered hazards). This is huge in the lategame, especially if you don't have a hacker in your team.

The CPU is surrounded by green-level security nodes. Defeat one of those and you'll be able to access the CPU next.

2. There's a color-coded rock-paper-scissors mechanic with regard to ICE verses your programs. Blue beats Red. Red beats Green. Green beats blue. This goes further than the 30% damage bonus.

For example, Green ICE generally have weaker but more frequent attacks and will overwhelm a player leaning on slower Blue programs, but Red programs are based on inflicting DOTs which will turn the Green ICE's speed against them and disintegrate them in no time flat.

3. All programs of the same color are designed to work together in a complimentary fashion like the active skills in a single meatspace skill tree. Unless you've got something specific in mind, your active skills should all be the same color. The first thing to do when entering the matrix is determine what color the majority of ICE are going to be, then rearrange your active programs to counter them.

(Don't lean too heavily on the Blue Barrier/Green Dupe combo. It's effective (if slow) in the earlygame, but there's a Green ICE that shows up mid game that will RUIN you for not using Red programs against it)

Also note that every color has one or more programs with zero cooldown and you need one of those in your active tree at all times.

4. The most economical upgrade order is FIRST to get at least one of every type of program on your deck at the more affordable 1.0 level, SECOND get the best chips, THIRD upgrade to higher versions of the programs. Simply having the right kind of program installed to your deck can significantly improve skill checks in the matrix and spare you expensive repair bills.

5. Once you've taken over the CPU, before you crash the system, map the network. This allows you to instantly teleport to any node.

Keep ahead of your repair costs by emptying out every datastore node (the icon looks like a stack of three coins) before crashing the CPU. You'll find data for sale and free programs. The datastores won't make a profit by themselves, but all the now-opened security doors and maglock safes in meatspace will bring a greater profit.

I hope these tips help make the hacking system more enjoyable for everyone!

[Zankor]

Thank you for explaining this, I came back to try out hacking and quickly found it very boring and time-consuming with little reward, now I at least understand what I am supposed to do and how to try to effectively use it.

[unwaveringresolve]

What level do you have to be, and how much money would you estimate it costs to have a deck that can crash the Network Core?

I ask because my deck in the early game couldn't handle level 3 or 4 Security.

[Atzu]

Starting out the Deck is a heavy investment, you need a variety of programs (at least one of each colour).
You want to boost hardening (HP) and masking (your other HP) first.
Starting out slow and steady, Barrier and Dupe, let your decoy do the work keep yourself protected. Thud is your go for one low HP foe.
After maybe 3,000-4,000 your Deck can start earning for itself working jobs from the hack merchant if your main focus is Data Caches and you remember the main objective.
Basically Deck is the robotic goldfish pet the Crawlers have they feed a hundred creds now and then when they're drunk/bored and throw at low security systems for a laugh.