It's an arbitrary system that I didn't create. So no, I'm not sure. But if they wanted TI to occasionally work vs Comms Attacks there's two ways to do it. Have TI grant immunity to everything (rather than immunity to everything except Comms Attacks) and give everything except Symbiomates Vulnerability (Comms Attack) or give Symbiomates Immunity (Comms Attacks) in addition to TI. Since neither of these things are true, I err to TI continuing to work as it always does.
Hrmm. That seems like an overthought position, especially given the rules for symbiomates are annexe rules that will have taken second drafting fiddle to the core book.
Just to expand on that, by my reading of the equipment I can't see any reason to include the "in addition, the Symbiomate is also used and applied against Comms Attacks" except to communicate that the total immunity effect should also apply. Otherwise, they could just leave it out, and everything else about the rule (the user has ARM and BTS9, if the user suffers an attack or is affected by a weapon or rule that requires saving rolls) would already cause mates to be used against comms attacks. A jammer is an attack, spotlight is an attack, etc. For that sentence to have meaning, it has to mean that the Symbiomate's total immunity applies to comms attacks.
@RobertShepherd fwiw, I created a thread earlier about how Mates interact with Hacking, I don't think it was ever really resolved.
It's already in there, but I'll add this thread to the list of threads on the topic as I am sure it will grow * Total Immunity says it doesn't do anything against Comms Attacks, does a Symbiomate override this when hacked or attacked by a Comms Attack such as a Jammer? Thread: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threa...mmunity-total-against-hacking-programs.38277/ Thread:https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/symbiomate-expenditure.38502/ Status: Unsolved
That position seems just as overthought. It’s much more likely that the Comms Attack line was added - without too much thought to the implications - to make it clear that in N4 Symbiomates do apply to a Comms Attack (since in N3 they did not). This is to say that no thought was given to the idea it might imply expanding the scope of Total Immunity. In which event reading the Comms Attack line as purely a reminder and playing Total Immunity as having no effect on Comms Attacks would be the intent. I like to think - possibly naively - that if CB had made a deliberate decision to have Total Immunity apply to Comms Attacks they’d have implemented it coherently using the tools they built for that purpose with Immunity (x).
