Just want to double check. I can find no duration for any of the offensive hacking programs. In particular I was looking for one for Carbonite. Normally I'd just figure that it wasn't there, but since this is a change from N3, where programs that cause immobilization would "wear off" on turn changes I wanted to double check I hadn't missed something, and it really was that simple.
They do not run out. They cause states that have their own duration: lasting until successful reset or engineer roll.
Thank you. I did note the other ways to stop the Immobilized states, but was wondering if the duration was in a chart or sentence I had overlooked. I was also surprised that this didn't seem to make it into a couple of the N3->N4 transition posts I found. The change over to no duration makes things like Carbonite actually useful, IMHO, in a way they were not in N3.
Carbonite usefulness was overshadowed by spotlight/FO not having a duration anymore (And being able to do it as an ARO)
lol. Honestly it seems situational to me. I get what you're saying, and yet shutting down a REM or TAG that's hard to get to and then being able to ignore it for a while seems better than bonuses to targetting.
Spotlights main strength is for part 2: guided missles. Spend first order or 2 blowing up the model with bombs is better than letting them attempt to reset to effectiveness later.
Carbonite and Oblivious still have plenty of uses. In the active turn when you want to shut down a hackable target quickly. Especially if the target is a TAG with ECM(Guided). In the reactive turn when you need to stop the attacking piece now, not on your next turn. Or at any time, if you didn't have the SWC for a missile bot or your opponent has already killed your missile bot.