Hey all.

I got a player who is playing a slicer/pilot. We've been playing since Saga edition and there was so little love for slicers so the player got happy they finally got a bigger role and class with FFG's rpg.

So I was thinking about the limitations of using slicing methods. Since the Star Wars galaxy has a futuristic technology level than our own it's sometimes difficult to know what is or isn't possible.

In our last game, the players needed access into the Senate building. So the slicer tried to hack in from within their parked starship in a docking bay on Coruscant (but first hacking into another ship nearby so if they would be caught, that ship would be traced instead).

Since I figured it would be pretty much impossible to do that, I set the difficulty at 4 red dice and 1 purple. The slicer succeeded. With this entry, they changed the schedule for droid maintenance for a droid they wished to get from in there and they would then have one other player disguise as a technician worker and steal it.

So my questions are these:

1: Would it be possible to do this kind of hacking so far away from the senate house? I know I should've given some setback die for not having a direct access to it but such an intrusion might have required personal infiltration.

2: Did I set the difficulty too high? It's rare to even naturally add a challenge die for a difficulty check without using a Destiny point but my reasoning is that such an intrusion would yield a lot of trouble if they were caught.

1 - No. keep in mind that this is built around 1970's retro tech. They would need a wired connection.

2 - I actually like the dice pool, but I would have added more black with the caveat mentioned above.

So my questions are these:

1: Would it be possible to do this kind of hacking so far away from the senate house? I know I should've given some setback die for not having a direct access to it but such an intrusion might have required personal infiltration.

2: Did I set the difficulty too high? It's rare to even naturally add a challenge die for a difficulty check without using a Destiny point but my reasoning is that such an intrusion would yield a lot of trouble if they were caught.

1, No, no no no no no. There is not enough no to stop this kind of munchkin nonsense. It shouldn't have been 1 roll to do anything like that. It would be like R2 and the Bunker on Endor. Layers upon layers watched the whole time. This was bad of the Player to exploit your lack of comfort level with slicing... overall BAD.

2. Not high enough I say, as I mentioned above, it shouldn't be 1 roll it should be many. Look at Star Wars: Rebels. they needed a Dataspike which is a crazy powerful and rare hack that required to be inserted IN the building itself.

Like with Force Powers "hackers" need to be reigned in quickly. If you don't set boundaries they will try to do things that would not even be semi plausible in an acid induced dream.

1 - No. keep in mind that this is built around 1970's retro tech. They would need a wired connection.

2 - I actually like the dice pool, but I would have added more black with the caveat mentioned above.

The "this is 70s tech" is a GM cop-out. It was a 70's way to display what they thought was future tech. Just because it was displayed one way doesn't mean it "works" that way. As I mention above, take Star Wars: Rebels, they remotely activate a Holonet Transceiver, but do so because they pre-installed a physical dataspike that enabled the remote connection.

1 - No. keep in mind that this is built around 1970's retro tech. They would need a wired connection.

2 - I actually like the dice pool, but I would have added more black with the caveat mentioned above.

The "this is 70s tech" is a GM cop-out. It was a 70's way to display what they thought was future tech. Just because it was displayed one way doesn't mean it "works" that way. As I mention above, take Star Wars: Rebels, they remotely activate a Holonet Transceiver, but do so because they pre-installed a physical dataspike that enabled the remote connection.

There is a sizable number of people who will disagree with your opinion on answer one. That said, its an opinion and if you want to have wireless tech in your game more power to you.

1 - No. keep in mind that this is built around 1970's retro tech. They would need a wired connection.

2 - I actually like the dice pool, but I would have added more black with the caveat mentioned above.

The "this is 70s tech" is a GM cop-out. It was a 70's way to display what they thought was future tech. Just because it was displayed one way doesn't mean it "works" that way. As I mention above, take Star Wars: Rebels, they remotely activate a Holonet Transceiver, but do so because they pre-installed a physical dataspike that enabled the remote connection.

There is a sizable number of people who will disagree with your opinion on answer one. That said, its an opinion and if you want to have wireless tech in your game more power to you.

Star Wars: Rebels = canon.

Rebels has wireless tech.

Therefore, Star Wars has wireless tech.

People can dislike it all they want, that doesn't magically make canon go away until the owner (Disney) changes their mind.

If you want to not use wireless tech, that is perfectly acceptable but you are needlessly gimping your Players and hamstringing them for no reason.

That being said, even in Star Wars: Rebels there were limits, aka, they needed the dataspike. After that their range didn't seem to matter. Basically the dataspike acted like a wireless router. The fun part you learned from that episode is that the Empire does not have a means to blanket stop a wireless connection (jamming?) and decided destruction was easier/quicker.

Yeah, I knew it was a bad idea but I honestly lack perception when it comes to internet in general. I have seen in SW media both wired and wireless functions so that is why I didn't say no. I also remember one episode of Order 66 podcast that wireless should be allowed but with a setback die (and this is mostly if the slicer wants to hack a door from a distance and avoid notice from sentries; not this massive operation).

In any case, I think I will limit it to "wired only until a spike is inserted to allow wireless" from now on. I kind of feel stupid to have allowed that roll. :/

One excellent piece of advice previously given about slicing is to look at A New Hope... Artoo can locate the princess but not release her. He can locate the tractor beam power terminals, but not deactivate them. People have to actually be present and use a terminal to get the work done.

Slicing can tell you where you need to go, and maybe make getting there easier, but you still have to physically get someone to the location / server / terminal itself.

In the case of Rebels and the dataspike, it shows that wireless is not a default. It's a rarity... so the previous point still stands. If you want to activate stuff remotely, you still have to physically get the dataspike onto the device before remote access is an option.

One excellent piece of advice previously given about slicing is to look at A New Hope... Artoo can locate the princess but not release her. He can locate the tractor beam power terminals, but not deactivate them. People have to actually be present and use a terminal to get the work done.

Slicing can tell you where you need to go, and maybe make getting there easier, but you still have to physically get someone to the location / server / terminal itself.

In the case of Rebels and the dataspike, it shows that wireless is not a default. It's a rarity... so the previous point still stands. If you want to activate stuff remotely, you still have to physically get the dataspike onto the device before remote access is an option.

You make a very good point. The tech level of Star Wars is very mixed but it is "Star Wars"; not Shadowrun.

Another question I got right now that is kind of related.

The slicer has a friend, an outlaw tech. She likes to steal droids and order her slicer buddy to rewrite them to become hers. This was charming at first but it is now getting a bit annoying with her stealing everyone she sees, whether they were owned by the government, a private person, or a Hutt. This got especially daunting when an old sith war droid was guarding a shadowport docking bay and she (amazingly) stealthed to it, deactivated it, and used a Destiny point to "stumble upon" a perfectly fit crate to store it in. x_x

My new questions:

3: How difficult should it be to actually deactivate a droid and get away with it to her ship? What possible repercussion can happen? Are droids typically tracked when stolen (for example a pilot droid).

4: How difficult is it to reprogram a droid to become your servant and possibly erase any tracking signals it may give out? I would assume droid, like starships, have a burned-in designation that is difficult to tamper with and even more difficult to remove it from databanks.

This weekend I am going to have a player hack into a satellite orbiting a planet to put in a module that can hijack the Imperial Communications satellite and start broadcasting secret rebel messages across hyperspace. They are being asked to do this by the Senator in Exile Gall Trayvis...

So anyway, I plan on the encounter going something like this, but we all know how plans go.

The ship can't get closer than 1 KM or the proximity alarms will go off, but a person should be able to float right on in.

They reach the target and the slicer has to space walk out to it. i am going to ask for an easy Coordination check, which he should pass, Advantages will grant Boost on his next check (Mechanics), Threat will take away Strain, or add setback die to next check.

I will ask for a Fear Check. I will try to describe the sheer awesomeness of him floating towards this big satellite, as he floats in, the camera pans back showing him floating, the camera keeps moving back, the planet below fills the screen as the now tiny figure keeps floating towards this bus sized object. As he looks around, he can no longer tell up from down, he feels as though he wants to keep falling to the planet! Roll Discipline. Average. threat will be Strain, Advantage can boost next fear check, after a total of 1 triumph, or 4 CUMULATIVE Advantages, he will no longer make fear checks for the encounter. As he gets to the Imperial Communications Satellite Array (ICSA), it should take about about 20-30 minutes of work. it is a 10 min space walk to it.

His first act (Computers) is to disable the security system. He can get to most it from outside, but does have a strict time limit of 30 seconds. (This would be were the tech crew would input their access codes to let it know they are authorized)

These are timed rounds at 10 seconds each, so can get three checks in if need be.

Advantages will reduce the time taken, threats will increase the time. 2 Second intervals. Despair, means the message is being prepped to send to indicate trouble. He will have to make an Impossible Mechanics check to get the access panel open super quick, and then next round (not 10 seconds now) he will have to make another Impossible Computer check to shut down the activation of the messaging system. Triumph means that he input the correct codes for the System Administer, granting better access to the ICSA, giving him a boost on Computer checks for the Encounter.

Outside Security disabled in about 10-13 seconds I bet with the Slicer I have.

He has to get the main panel open, Easy/setback mechanics check. (don't let the screwdriver float away--3 threat)

Now he has to squirm his way inside this hulk, and not rip his suit, Average Athletics check, with a setback due to zero G. Threats can reduce his oxygen time, as he is breathing super fast. Each threat will be -1 minute. Suit has 60 mins. 3 threat, and the suit gets a small rip, as a full round action can apply seal, lose -3 min of air. Despair -5 min.

About 15-20 min has gone by now.

Now at the main computer junction.

To open the main access panel to the computer core he will have to pick the lock on it. Average Skulduggery check, with 2 setback, Zero-G, Cramped uncomfortable position he is in. About 1-2 min for this. Threats can indicate a broke lockpick, or increased time. Advantages reduce time taken.

Now in to the core!

1. He has to up-link to the computer and let it know he should be doing this. Computers: Hard with a setback for being a brand new top of line ICSA, Setback for protective algorithms, and a setback die for zero G. (He can get rid of two if not all three of them)

2. Establish a link with the ground to let the computers it will be off line for a minute for "re-calibration". This will be a RRPP check with the three setbacks. (Upgrades are for the sentient computer controllers on the ground)

3. Install the new broadcasting hardware module. The more he want is hidden in the jumble of arts and wires the harder the check will be. A mechanics check at the difficulty level of his choosing. If he can beat that, that will be the new difficulty to spot the device.

4.Bring the system back online. Same as Item 2.

5 Disengage from the core. Difficulty RR, not hard to do, but if he does not follow Imperial Protocol, the system will know something is amiss. Small chance of Despairs.

6 Climb back out. Same difficulty as before.

7 Install the panel back on the correct way. Easy Mech check.

8. Now float on home.

Easy as that! All the while there will be TIE patrols going around scanning the area, the pilot will have to try to avoid them...not likely...Then pick the Slicer back up!

I give this encounter a 92% chance of going off with out any problems. That is from the dice side of things. If the encounter will go like this.. I highly doubt it though.

So this a very brief explanation of my first encounter for my next session. I want this to be a fun and somewhat challenging encounter for him. I want him to think the risk of failure is real, but not feel overwhelmed by the dice rolls. His skills are YYYY for both Computer and Mechanics. So out of this encounter, I am only giving him one super hard check at RRPP. But I am building this encounter to be just that, an actual encounter for him. I am having him make a Coordination, Discipline, Mechanics, Athletics, Skulduggery, and Computer checks for this! That is six skills! Oh, and if he feels like he is running low on time and wants to boost away from the ICSA faster, he can make an Athletics check to "jump up" off it to move faster. he has to get 1 klick away from it.

Again, the other part of the crew will be playing hide and seek as this is going on. They may even have to fight off the TIEs.

Final thoughts:

I do not allow much "wireless" slicing in my games. I do NOT allow a slicer to "hack" into tie fighter to hut down the engines. A slicer could boost the sensors causing a small "overload" (nothing physical) to an enemy ship, perhaps giving the gunner a boost die to attack. Anyway...

I just wanted to show you how I run my computer slicing moments in the game. It is never just one roll. and Slicers are not the GODS of Star Wars tech able to hack into every bank account and military building in the galaxy. As to your question about adding in the Challenge Dice. I do use them sometimes and not flip a destiny point. I do this when there was some degree of skill that imposed the players actions. A quick example... if it would not be a straight up opposed roll, but a set difficulty, but something more akin to an opposed roll, but I don;t know the guys skill that did...like hide an object. But most compter systems are going to be monitored by living beings and droids who also have great skills, sop not all computer checks will be based just off the books difficulty charts. Well, hope you enjoyed my long rant. (Imagine how my players feel)

Another question I got right now that is kind of related.

The slicer has a friend, an outlaw tech. She likes to steal droids and order her slicer buddy to rewrite them to become hers. This was charming at first but it is now getting a bit annoying with her stealing everyone she sees, whether they were owned by the government, a private person, or a Hutt. This got especially daunting when an old sith war droid was guarding a shadowport docking bay and she (amazingly) stealthed to it, deactivated it, and used a Destiny point to "stumble upon" a perfectly fit crate to store it in. x_x

My new questions:

3: How difficult should it be to actually deactivate a droid and get away with it to her ship? What possible repercussion can happen? Are droids typically tracked when stolen (for example a pilot droid).

4: How difficult is it to reprogram a droid to become your servant and possibly erase any tracking signals it may give out? I would assume droid, like starships, have a burned-in designation that is difficult to tamper with and even more difficult to remove it from databanks.

3. More than 1 check, more than 1 check... I am a broken record by now but even "reprogrammed" R2 ran off.

This is not a video game. Things aren't 1 check and done. Droids are alive they can fight back, until they can't. =) Maybe as a battle droid it has a redundant power supply and turn back on?

Have the droid go in the crate, sure. Have the crate loaded into their ship, sure. Then have the Droid return to how they were originally programmed and take over the ship.

4, With a restraining bolt they are controlled by that... until it comes off. Owen Lars seemed okay to wipe the droid's memory and have it theirs so it can't be too hard/uncommon.

The more I hear about your crew the more I dislike them. They seem to be doing whatever to be adversarial to you and ruin your fun. Might want to remind them that just because you are the GM doesn't mean you don't get to have fun. In fact it means you DO get to have fun, and if it isn't fun that should be their clue to calm down.

One excellent piece of advice previously given about slicing is to look at A New Hope... Artoo can locate the princess but not release her. He can locate the tractor beam power terminals, but not deactivate them. People have to actually be present and use a terminal to get the work done.

Slicing can tell you where you need to go, and maybe make getting there easier, but you still have to physically get someone to the location / server / terminal itself.

In the case of Rebels and the dataspike, it shows that wireless is not a default. It's a rarity... so the previous point still stands. If you want to activate stuff remotely, you still have to physically get the dataspike onto the device before remote access is an option.

You make a very good point. The tech level of Star Wars is very mixed but it is "Star Wars"; not Shadowrun.

Another question I got right now that is kind of related.

The slicer has a friend, an outlaw tech. She likes to steal droids and order her slicer buddy to rewrite them to become hers. This was charming at first but it is now getting a bit annoying with her stealing everyone she sees, whether they were owned by the government, a private person, or a Hutt. This got especially daunting when an old sith war droid was guarding a shadowport docking bay and she (amazingly) stealthed to it, deactivated it, and used a Destiny point to "stumble upon" a perfectly fit crate to store it in. x_x

My new questions:

3: How difficult should it be to actually deactivate a droid and get away with it to her ship? What possible repercussion can happen? Are droids typically tracked when stolen (for example a pilot droid).

4: How difficult is it to reprogram a droid to become your servant and possibly erase any tracking signals it may give out? I would assume droid, like starships, have a burned-in designation that is difficult to tamper with and even more difficult to remove it from databanks.

Deactivating a droid could be harder than it looks. In the movies, they just switch Threepio off when he's annoying, but I doubt most non-protocol droids have such convenient switches, much less that they'd be willing to let someone flip them off if they don't know the person.

Take a look at Jawas. Clearly, astromechs don't have an external switch or the ion blasters wouldn't be of any use... And ion blasters make a lot of noise to attract attention.

The Jawas apparently don't do a lot of slicing to deal with Artoo's serial numbers or anything, but a restraining bolt seems to keep most droids in line. A government owned droid will probably be resistant to restraining bolts and lack an on/off switch, and all loyalties will be hardcoded in. That's going to be a doozy to disable, and if they're government military droids, you can bet your shiniest credit that they will have a way to track it, which won't just be something you switch off with a test while steal the droid.

A lot of the issue, then, can be that the player will need to pull an ion blaster to put the droid down, and then the droid will need repairs. Sure, it just overloads the circuits, but as a Computer Science major, I can tell you a power spike to a computer can cook a part or two regardless of safety.

Now you're selling used / damaged droids, and have to haul them away from the scene of the crime. Moving anything bigger than a small probe or drone will be a problem because they're big, heavy, and a brick after the ion blaster... *cough* encumbrance rules *cough* ...Any crate will have to be pretty huge and pretty obvious to hide it. Without a crate, you can forget being subtle.

All in all, try to imagine Jawas doing it and you'll have a better idea of what being a droid thief entails.

EDIT: Corrections to satisfy my inner grammar nazi...

I play it as situational.

The PC's wanted to slice an auction house's upcoming catalogue to get an idea on prices. I allowed this wirelessly, figuring that the equivalent of an 'online listing' would be feasible. Tough, because we know the Holonet is regulated, but doable.

They later wanted to slice a CorSec computer system to get info on visitors logging into a station. I figured that main CorSec systems had a decent chance of being 'offline' and ruled that they'd have to get to a terminal inside the station.

4, With a restraining bolt they are controlled by that... until it comes off. Owen Lars seemed okay to wipe the droid's memory and have it theirs so it can't be too hard/uncommon.

Even then, the bolt can be resisted or overcome by a PC or Nemesis-class droid. Less powerful droids can be … creative … in how they interpret their instructions. And they can be creative in terms of what they tell you that they know and can access now, versus after the restraining bolt is removed.

A restraining bolt is really not much more than a speed bump.

Any kind of combat droid or other specialized droid might have a hidden triple-redundant offline backup that will periodically kick in and restore them to their previous antagonistic state, regardless of how many memory wipes have happened.

Think of every droid being like R2-D2 or C-3PO and how hard they would fight, and what mechanisms might they use, if they were captured by troops belonging to Grand Moff Blarkin and were re-purposed by the Empire.

Typically slicing should follow this rule.

1. Any kind of military or government building can't be sliced remotely.

2. Most Government and military databases use encryption.

3. Physically being there is king.

4. It should follow these rolls:

A. Gain access to network either subterfuge, slicing, mechanics and deception/insert social skill here.

Subterfuge is basically hotwiring the network connection

Slicing is hacking in using an existing terminal

Mechanics is physically plugging your own gear into the network

Deception is talking to someone and convincing them to give you thier password. (Its the most common form of hacking)

B. Avoid detection

This determines if the network intrusion is noticed

C. Stealing what you want or manipulating what you want.

D. Erasing your tracks so no one notices you were there.

So for a single slice your talking 4 rolls

Now for players who claim slicing a door doesn't require those steps see Return of the jedi.

More specificly Han and R2 D2 trying to open up the shield bunker doors.

Now also note if they do attract attention thats where those useless defensive slicing talents come into play to prevent the bad guys from finding out where they are.

Above all else, think “layers”. Sure, four relatively easy rolls to get in that outside door. But there are still many more layers to go, each one harder than the last. Each one protected by more active defenses than the last — not only do you have to slice the door, you have to convince the guard on the other side of the door that he shouldn’t use the secure remote E-Web Heavy Blaster to turn you into a pink mist.

And once you get all the way in and you think you’ve achieved your objective, only then do you discover that it’s going to be far, far harder to get out than it was to get in. Oops!

Yes, there should be wireless tech in Star Wars. A major Imperial facility (prison/weapons research facility) would may have a wireless connection for some data, but really sensitive data would be stored in a separate network.

I play a slicer, and I am aware that my ability to "hack the computer, get the answer, and declare we win" often excludes the rest of the table. Remember the 3 parts to security (listed in ascending order of certainty) are what you have (IDs), what you know (passwords), and who you are (biometrics). Use these layers of security to challenge the group as a whole to get the Slicer to that closed network where he can shine.

Looking at the slicer talents, I am drawn to the defensive slicing talent. That makes me wonder what systems would have a dedicated computer technician monitoring the system (without getting to be too much like shadowrun). You could have opposed computer checks with a Rival-level computer tech. Failure means the PC didn't get in. Threat (even with success) could mean that the system has been alerted to a breach, or that the PC left a data trace behind...especially if using the data breaker (read its description closely).

In the last game I ran, a succesful-with-dispair hide check (and a missed encounter basically hiding UNDER a landing leg) ended up with the slicer/pilot slowed away aboard an inquisition shuttle, which was powered down and left on the tarmac at an imperial base while the inquisitor and his escort escorted the force users (who failed their hide checks, and whom the inquisitor talked into being detained without combat) to holding cells. This left noone guarding the shuttle. The PC gained control of the shuttle easy enough, then wanted to slice into the imperial base network. From inside the base, on an Inquisition ship. He rolled two triumphs.

Conversely, the party droid had a convincing explanation why a normal resttraining bolt wouldnt work, so I gave the cunnin 1 droid a hard deception check to "play dead." Success. (with 3 disadvantage- they lock him in a closet- he's a brawn 6 construction droid, he dont care. I let the check be enough to jump the rails)

3: How difficult should it be to actually deactivate a droid and get away with it to her ship? What possible repercussion can happen? Are droids typically tracked when stolen (for example a pilot droid).

4: How difficult is it to reprogram a droid to become your servant and possibly erase any tracking signals it may give out? I would assume droid, like starships, have a burned-in designation that is difficult to tamper with and even more difficult to remove it from databanks.

Sufficient answers for the first two questions in the thread already I think. For these:

3. Deactivating a droid isn't terribly hard. Doing so without harming the droid might be more difficult. Doing it quickly and quietly would be even more so. Most droids are mobile, so seeing one being carried about will be automatically noteworthy, if not suspicious. Somehow, beings in Star Wars seem to be able to recognize droids quite easily (at least some do), so it's possible a random passerby will recognize a carried droid (and not the people carrying it) and make a comlink call.

Repercussions are limitless. It could harm the droid, it's programming, that stored data that you really want, etc. Legal repercussions shouldn't be undervalued: it's basically kidnapping and grand theft combined. Some droids are probably remote-trackable, but I imagine it's more like a signature then a tracking signal. Even reprogrammed, the droid is permeated with who-knows-how-many serial numbers, hard-coded program blocks, etc. that can be identified if the droid is scanned, or jacks in to a terminal perhaps.

4. Reprogramming a droid so that you become its master isn't terribly difficult unless the droid has been specially coded against it. The standard memory wipe we hear about seems to do it. Then it's a matter of "Hi, I'm your new master." "Yes sir." But even that only wipes what we'd call "operating" memory. If you memory wipe an astromech droid it's still an astromech. Wipe a protocol droid and it still remembers all its languages. That programming is hard-coded in.

To change that kind of hard-coded programming requires an expert slicer, some decent hardware (usually), and (most significantly) lots of time.

Summarizing: you can steal a droid and make it "yours" but without expert facilities and lots of time, the droid might be noticed as belonging to someone else, might revert to hard-wired programming that doesn't include you as owner, could unwittingly reveal its stolen nature via broadcast, jacking-in, or being scanned.

Lastly, assuming they still manage to do all that successfully, consider how many quirks even normally functional droids have. Now consider a hasty, thumb-fingered slicing job...

"What do you MEAN you think landing upside down is better?!? You bucket of bolts this is going to cost a fortune to fix!"

I just wanted to show you how I run my computer slicing moments in the game. It is never just one roll. and Slicers are not the GODS of Star Wars tech able to hack into every bank account and military building in the galaxy. As to your question about adding in the Challenge Dice. I do use them sometimes and not flip a destiny point. I do this when there was some degree of skill that imposed the players actions. A quick example... if it would not be a straight up opposed roll, but a set difficulty, but something more akin to an opposed roll, but I don;t know the guys skill that did...like hide an object. But most compter systems are going to be monitored by living beings and droids who also have great skills, sop not all computer checks will be based just off the books difficulty charts. Well, hope you enjoyed my long rant. (Imagine how my players feel)

I like your plot of how difficult it will be to accomplish the goal, how many steps are needed and more than 1 skill is relevant.

But for me, that is way too many **** dice rolls. I count roughly 12, but might have missed a couple. That skews too far the other way from "1 roll abstracts a large amount of actual effort" which is what the OP seems to describe.

Yes, there should be wireless tech in Star Wars. A major Imperial facility (prison/weapons research facility) would may have a wireless connection for some data, but really sensitive data would be stored in a separate network.

Yes, but I feel like a lot of wireless tech and stuff like the Holonet are more like hardened military communications lines for figuring out Imperial logistics than for casual use. Most stuff isn't connected to the 'Net except for large organizations - Czerka, Black Sun, BlasTech, etc probably have a well protected server system to connect all their parts - and things under Imperial rule, such as the Imperial Governor's office, or a Moff's conputer terminal.

A lot more places deserve networks, but don't warrant rare wireless tech. A spaceport may have a server for traffic control, but it has no need for wireless, so you'll have to find a hard connection.

Make no mistake; this is Star Wars, not Shadowrun. That said, slicing is a thing, but wireless communications between computers is clearly shown to be rare and less practical than physical wires.

1 - No. keep in mind that this is built around 1970's retro tech. They would need a wired connection.

2 - I actually like the dice pool, but I would have added more black with the caveat mentioned above.

The "this is 70s tech" is a GM cop-out. It was a 70's way to display what they thought was future tech. Just because it was displayed one way doesn't mean it "works" that way. As I mention above, take Star Wars: Rebels, they remotely activate a Holonet Transceiver, but do so because they pre-installed a physical dataspike that enabled the remote connection.

There is a sizable number of people who will disagree with your opinion on answer one. That said, its an opinion and if you want to have wireless tech in your game more power to you.

Star Wars: Rebels = canon.

Rebels has wireless tech.

Therefore, Star Wars has wireless tech.

People can dislike it all they want, that doesn't magically make canon go away until the owner (Disney) changes their mind.

If you want to not use wireless tech, that is perfectly acceptable but you are needlessly gimping your Players and hamstringing them for no reason.

That being said, even in Star Wars: Rebels there were limits, aka, they needed the dataspike. After that their range didn't seem to matter. Basically the dataspike acted like a wireless router. The fun part you learned from that episode is that the Empire does not have a means to blanket stop a wireless connection (jamming?) and decided destruction was easier/quicker.

And yet to do the slicing they needed to go into the building and have Chopper insert the data spike. Yes there is wireless tech. You still need to hook directly into the system you want to slice. In the first episode they had to get Chopper into the engineering station to slice the gravity controls. I have not seen a single case of remote slicing in Rebels.

Hell Ezra had to join the Imperial Academy do well to get access to the admin building sneak into an office to get a security encryption module.

Wireless slicing is in the EotE core book, page 237. "Slice Enemy's Systems", hacking an enemy ship from the comfort of your own ship.

Hey all.

I got a player who is playing a slicer/pilot. We've been playing since Saga edition and there was so little love for slicers so the player got happy they finally got a bigger role and class with FFG's rpg.

So I was thinking about the limitations of using slicing methods. Since the Star Wars galaxy has a futuristic technology level than our own it's sometimes difficult to know what is or isn't possible.

In our last game, the players needed access into the Senate building. So the slicer tried to hack in from within their parked starship in a docking bay on Coruscant (but first hacking into another ship nearby so if they would be caught, that ship would be traced instead).

Since I figured it would be pretty much impossible to do that, I set the difficulty at 4 red dice and 1 purple. The slicer succeeded. With this entry, they changed the schedule for droid maintenance for a droid they wished to get from in there and they would then have one other player disguise as a technician worker and steal it.

So my questions are these:

1: Would it be possible to do this kind of hacking so far away from the senate house? I know I should've given some setback die for not having a direct access to it but such an intrusion might have required personal infiltration.

2: Did I set the difficulty too high? It's rare to even naturally add a challenge die for a difficulty check without using a Destiny point but my reasoning is that such an intrusion would yield a lot of trouble if they were caught.

Thoughts about Star Wars technology. Yes Star Wars came out in the 70s and 80s so there is a limit in technology it seems. But in prequel trilogy the tech was higher so there is some advanced tech. Also slicing an enemy system in combat is possible and slave circuits exist so ships can communicate with computers.

Remember when C3P0 is working with the Falcon in Empire Strikes Back he comments about Han's ship the Falcon being rude and talking different. Holocron have intelligent gate keepers. This suggests that computers and technology has intelligence. That means that the ship's computer could be treated like a enemy stat block for opposing. So you could determine what is the star ships skill level. In the rules of Edge you can slice an enemy's starship in combat with I believe a Hard Check. Consider this the base attribute of the standard starship. You can apply a modification to star ships that could increase attribute or add skill. This would either increase the dice pool or upgrade to Reds. Then figure security. Did they install security for setback. Use this method for creating a dice pool. As the computers have intelligence you can also turn a computer hack into a fun RP session as you can give the computer and counter hack personality.

@Kshatriya. Thanks for the input. Perhaps I will should reduce the main part of the slicing to just a few rolls. I know there are lot of other rolls in there too that don't have anything to do with his computers, as this is a whole encounter that will last about 30-60 minutes game time, and should take about 90 minutes of table time, maybe more if the other crew gets in starship combat. I am going to really try for a good narrative approach and space out most of the rolls to one every few minutes. So here is my logician breakdown on why so many computer checks.

This is a huge array that is actively being monitored from the ground.

1. He has to establish a link with the ICSA.

2. Let the ground teams know it is going down for a recalibration

3. Install the new hardware

4. Bring the system back online

5. Let ground control know everything is fine...no reactor leaks here...

Now the reason I am breaking this down so much as I am expecting the other part of the crew to be doing stuff as well, so each round or scene will be than just the slicer doing stuff. I am pretty sure that the TIE patrols will get a good look at the starship, and will investigate, leading to space combat. So while the other two are fighting, the slicer will get to roll as well. While I love the "abstract" combat round length, it can get pretty wierd. I know the book says a round can last a minute or longer, but it also says it should last long enough for a character to move to new location and perform an important action. So when we have combat actions and non cambat actions, how long does each task take? Well if we have a minute long round, the slicer may be able to get a good amount of work done, but what about the people shooting? They get one shot every minute? Perhaps narratively they are taking more than one shot, and only rolling once. I myself don't like that idea. Along the same idea of a medic doing more than injecting Stim packs; setting a broken leg can take a few minutes. In combat a few minutes is an eternity, so either the combat gets washed down to one roll is equal a lot of shots and damage...or the doc is busy for a few rounds and makes one roll at the end. I myself go with that idea, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or one.

Now please don't think I am trying argue with you. I appreciate your feedback, I was just trying to explain why the encounter seems so large and roll heavy. It is, by design. I don't make the slicer do this every time either. But I thought it would be cool to make him wear a spacesuit and spacewalk, which he has never done either, and then to to hack a computer system. I agree with you though that this may be a bit much; if the others don't get into space combat. If that is the case I will combine the first two actions into one action, and the last two actions into one for a total of two computer checks and one mechanics check. In a nutshell, if combat breaks out, I can have everyone doing an action and a roll every round. He also has to be careful not to leave any evidence or signs of tampering.