I see some people having problems with hacking because seems to be not so effective (I must admit I'm one of them), and some other want tags to be good again, and their propossition is defense against hacking? I'm sure even against ariadna or tohaa, TAGs are not so useful, so hacking is not their problem (In fact, it should be their main problem, not shoting)
Full Daturazi core surrounding a TAG/L&S antenna? Anyway, this and panoplies are edge cases - full auto being declared non-stackable and Ratnik denied a haris were clear signs that we wont see 6 dice shooting in normal conditions and thank god for that.
Add a rule/note somewhere, likely in places like dual weapons rules, fireteams,and full auto, that says something like "IMPORTANT - After modifiers, no BS attack can ever exceed Burst 5. " Panoplies too, I guess. Give the HMC some additional buff, like it has FA L2 effects hard written into the weapon regardless of the user, or a slight points reduction on TAGs
I'd leave the anti-guided ability, though. Add some "Military Attack Barrier" utility, I'd like to make it do an automatic Brain Blast ARO against Hacking.
Brain blast Maybe a bit much, a Gotcha! that auto passes on a 8 is more than enough. Hacking is meant to be a way to counter the "superior" weapon platforms that are TAGs. Giving them a free SWORD program would further invalidate the AHD as now there is essentially a killer hacker that cant be murder hacked first. We already have idiots that complain that the KHD has ruined the game/hacking ecosystem (which it really hasn't), handing out the free SWORD would do this. We have seen how degenerate things can get once you remove it's counters or make them not effective (See the TI "rework"). Honestly TAGs are fine as they are, and are really only punished for being an expensive order where spam and chaff are more valued and Arm is borderline worthless. The stun/imm-1 just provides a safety net in the event that things have gone poorly either on the table or at list creation.
I would rather see some DHD/WHD/EVO program that allows the user to somewhat protect the TAG from hacking (like a TAG version of fairy dust). The EVO can help with reboot, but the main TAG hacking "defense" are KHD ...
I'm just spit balling ideas here so apologies if these have already been voiced. Since TAG's seem to have efficiency problems more than being hacked imo. TA or NCO being given to some or all TAG's could help increase use. Or even potentially let them join certain fireteams outside of just a simple Duo. BUT, they gain no bonus's that FT:Core/Haris typically gain. On the hacking front, I don't think a TAG wide solution is ideal. But giving some TAGs access to a Tin Bot A could go some way to encouraging more TAGs taken. And lastly for Fatality L2, I think it could be changed to something along the lines of rolling a 1 would count as a non critical roll of your modified target number. So would be more powerful the higher you can get your BS target. But wouldn't be of much use when Tarik/Sheskiin is low balling 2's or 3's to hit, since rolling a 1 will only increase the die result by a couple points.
The Firewall rule currently exists and it completely boggles me that PanO, Yu Jing, and Nomads don't have them on most, if not all, of their TAGs (on top of ECM). I also like the suggestion that there be some sort of advanced ARO response to hacking for TAGs, but not quite Brain Blast. Blackout or Counterstrike seem like reasonable automatic AROs, though I don't know that Counterstrike would necessarily be useful.
Hacking is one of very few effective ARO defenses against Sphinx (making it be mindful of its stealth and breaking it) so I certainly dont want TAGs to get any additional anti-hacking measures built in.
Fair point. I mean, the ECM only cancels the +6 for guided, so maybe it should give a -6WIP to a hacker (basically, give Deflector L2). Or basic ECM gives Deflector L1 and Advanced ECM gives Deflector L2.
That would be an upgrade for most TAGs, but what about those that already have ECM + Tinbot A (like the Overdron)? Are there any TAGs that have a Tinbot B and ECM? I think the idea was for them to have an electric pulse-like effect against hacking. Maybe something that disables comms equipment? Autoroll 7 against hacking, if the hacker fails the F2F, disable their hacking device?
It's tricky because there are lots of unintended side effects. With your rules suggestion, a model that has been hit with flash ammo and is currently stunned would be able to enter suppressive fire, while currently they cannot.
Like the Brain Blast the free Blackout is essentially the same thing in that it would lead to AHD not being taken or not used against TAGs due to the device just being turned off permanently until an engineer gets round to fixing it all the while the model remains targetable by SWORD and CLAW programs.
IMM-1 for the rest of the turn (that the hacker can reset out of) would make sense. Big inconvenience but not requiring different list building.
Yeah, I guess there's no real reason why it couldn't just be IMM-1 for the rest of the turn, but perhaps this is all a bit too much (as was stated before)... I mean an AHD is supposed to be the natural predator to a TAG, and all these boosts hurt AHDs as much as any other HD. If this is something that would go on all TAGs to make them more viable, I think AHDs would need a similar boost to justify taking them (immune to the effects of the modified ECM like KHDs are immune to the effects of a firewall?)
I think a free defence bonus to tags undermines the fact that hackers should be a counter to aTAG. Perhaps a bonus supportware program on DHD which allows them to ARO a brain blast or similar through a target HI/Rem/Tag if it is targeted with a hack in the next turn.
It's not so much a free defense bonus, as an alternative to Reset. they still have to declare using ECM as their ARO after all. It's choosing to automatically succeed on a 7 vs rolling a dice on Reset on WIP13 or whatever. Mary Problems is still gonna chuck two dice at Icebreaker looking for 14s, all this is doing is adding a consequence to failure / rolling low. And all the consequence does is slow down the hacker and eat an order or two, versus the crappy game experience of just standing there dicing off and waiting to fail a Reset or BTS save
