After having seen a few episode of the latest GitS adaptation, I've come to realise that hacking have had a severe overcorrection. It's no longer a tactical tool in a tactical game, it's a strategic tool in a tactical game. Your gameplan is pretty much set if you spend the required resources to get effective hacking. Hacking should be, like the rest of the game, adaptive and tactical to use in your gameplan, instead you have models that are only really effective if you (if you use an EHD) or your opponent bring X. What I imagine is to make having hacking devices more generally useful, in addition to them also having unique strengths according to what type they are. This would also make them more expensive, which is fair with an expanded use. All the below would have Target: Any. Spotlight would get Negative Feedback as well. Disrupt: ARO (Negative Feedback) The target's coms get temporarily overloaded. Any message going to or from the coms is affected by heavy static. Any model affected by Disrupt requires two Orders to be Activated. If they're part of a Fireteam, the Fireteam requires two Orders to be Activated. Haze: Order/ARO (Negative Feedback) The target's FiFo module's ability to interpret signals gets frazzled, which affects the ability to lay down accurate fire as the gun occasionally sputters or the sight goes off target. The model affected by Haze has -3 BS this round. Interference: Full Order The target's FiFo is severely affected in a way that makes normal operation impossible. If the model affected is in Suppressive Fire, cancel Suppressive Fire. Spotlight: As now, except with Negative Feedback. The Negative Feedback is to avoid models being absolutely overloaded with these, which would be unfun. Name is to explain the concept as I know that NFB only counts for the model doing it. The idea is that if the enemy model gets affected by another attack that also applies NFB, then the original effect vanishes. So it would be impossible to just stack negative effects on a model until it drowns in them. In addition to this, each Hacking Device would still have some programs that are unique to it. They would become the situational tools, while the above four would be the mainstay, because they can be used against everyone. Even Ariadna has FiFo, else Cybermask would have no effect against them. This would give hackers a general purpose on the battlefield, rather than only be effective if the opponent has X. While the same could be said about some equipment, like MSV, Mimetism is so omnipresent that it's really difficult to make an army without, meaning that you almost always get benefit of the MSV. If an opponent has no hackable targets, which is easy to do for Haqq and, especially, Ariadna, then aside from being a specialist, a normal hacking device can be used to Spotlight, or Spotlight, or perhaps even Spotlight. This would give them more to do, and make hackers a more general influence on the battlefield, rather than only really working against certain targets.
