I agree here with HappyDaze, we can't analyze the StarWars Universe compared to ours because one: it's Space Fantasy, and two: it's not our universe. In addition, all ships had targeting aids, but yes, everything was by hand targeting, outside of some examples of turret control. I also don't believe that just because StarWars was shot in analog, that everything was low-tech. Star Trek was shot at roughly the same time and the whole feel of that is much different in comparison.

The fact of the matter is, George Lucas wanted a low-tech, high-tech feel for 'his' Universe and really, the only way to explain nit is using 'StarWars' science, not our own. Just because wireless devices exist in our 'real life' doesn't mean they need to exist in StarWars; perhaps people are okay with commlinks and the holonet, they don't need wireless internet, because they've got droids, hyperspace travel and machines to basically do everything for them. And if slicing is so easy, perhaps having such devices is just walking around asking to be hacked... If everything was wireless, slicers would have a field day! Or perhaps no one every thought of creating it.

Maybe targeting systems of vessels in StarWars with Analog targeting measures were best suited for space combat... We can't think of facts stating that they don't work with our combat fighters and say that they won't work in StarWars.. And, if anything, I believe things like Proton Torpedos and missiles have 'lock-on' and blasters/lasers (miniguns or cannons) are manual targeted (like they still are in our universe).

I just think, trying to compare what 'we can do' to what 'people can do in StarWars' isn't exactly a fair comparison - we don't deal with the same circumstances which the average person in StarWars has to deal with on an every day basis. The world was made to work for them, while in real life, we make things to help us out with our circumstances.

What would be a good alternative to for the slice enemy ship action?

Let's agree at least that with your own ship scanners one can interfere the target ship scanners and communications. Causing system strain sounds appropriate.

Reducing the shields....? For this one I don't see the reason.

Disabling a weapon system? Definitively no.

Alternatives for these two?

-May be blinding the sensors of the target ship giving black dice to the target's ship pilot or gunners? or boost dice to the gunners firing at the target ship?

-With a triumph may be you can upgrade twice the difficulty of the enemy ship gunner because you interfere the targeting system?

Ideas?

Yepes

What would be a good alternative to for the slice enemy ship action?

Let's agree at least that with your own ship scanners one can interfere the target ship scanners and communications. Causing system strain sounds appropriate.

Reducing the shields....? For this one I don't see the reason.

Disabling a weapon system? Definitively no.

Alternatives for these two?

-May be blinding the sensors of the target ship giving black dice to the target's ship pilot or gunners? or boost dice to the gunners firing at the target ship?

-With a triumph may be you can upgrade twice the difficulty of the enemy ship gunner because you interfere the targeting system?

Ideas?

Yepes

In canon, certain things get shut down to provide more power to whatever system needs it. Perhaps the fluff here is as follows:

Step 1: You slice into the opponent's ship.

Step 2: You turn on every energy sucking device you can access; stoves, droid recharge ports, constantly messing with doors, flushing toilets, spooling refractors, other technobabble, etc.

Step 3: With all of that stuff on, it sucks out power and/or shorts a system.

This thought can also be why you can deal System Strain when you successfully slice the systems.

Also remember that a lot of what we have is just mechanical approaches and not fluff descriptions. With this in mind, you can technically "disable" a weapon by overloading the targeting system in a way that forces the weapon to shutdown. You could also spoof the IFF system and, if the weapon was build a certain way, it wouldn't fire because of that.

You can stick with your idea of "blinding" things to cause setback dice if you aren't comfortable with weapons being shut down. Otherwise, get creative!

This seems like a great place to roll against Astrogation when a ship is trying to escape. One side is trying to get the Navicomputer to plot a course quickly, and the other is messing with the Navicomputer.

I agree here with HappyDaze, we can't analyze the StarWars Universe compared to ours because one: it's Space Fantasy, and two: it's not our universe. In addition, all ships had targeting aids, but yes, everything was by hand targeting, outside of some examples of turret control. I also don't believe that just because StarWars was shot in analog, that everything was low-tech. Star Trek was shot at roughly the same time and the whole feel of that is much different in comparison.

The fact of the matter is, George Lucas wanted a low-tech, high-tech feel for 'his' Universe and really, the only way to explain nit is using 'StarWars' science, not our own. Just because wireless devices exist in our 'real life' doesn't mean they need to exist in StarWars; perhaps people are okay with commlinks and the holonet, they don't need wireless internet, because they've got droids, hyperspace travel and machines to basically do everything for them. And if slicing is so easy, perhaps having such devices is just walking around asking to be hacked... If everything was wireless, slicers would have a field day! Or perhaps no one every thought of creating it.

Maybe targeting systems of vessels in StarWars with Analog targeting measures were best suited for space combat... We can't think of facts stating that they don't work with our combat fighters and say that they won't work in StarWars.. And, if anything, I believe things like Proton Torpedos and missiles have 'lock-on' and blasters/lasers (miniguns or cannons) are manual targeted (like they still are in our universe).

I just think, trying to compare what 'we can do' to what 'people can do in StarWars' isn't exactly a fair comparison - we don't deal with the same circumstances which the average person in StarWars has to deal with on an every day basis. The world was made to work for them, while in real life, we make things to help us out with our circumstances.

There was automated targeting. I'm not sure what else you would call an entire droid army and space fleet other than pretty darn sophisticated software identifying, tracking, prioritizing and engaging targets......

In addition when it comes to wireless tech I seem to recall a droid army command ship as the point of Phantom Menace's fighter attack that was responsible for directing an entire planetary invasion. So I'm thinking Star Wars had some pretty rocking wifi too.....

Just my two cents on ship weapons and what level of targeting was displayed on screen in canon(no pun)....

I think the point is less about actual technology and more about themes and character archetypes. In modern media the "Hacker" character is generally represented in the same way as a Wizard is represented in the Fantasy setting (Seriously, watch something like Leverage, the hacker is just a wizard with a computer and an addiction to orange soda). In Star Wars you don't need that kind of Wizard role because... well... Jedi. So in essence the Wizard archetype is already taken by the Jedi character, and adding a Slicer would be redundant.

In EotE though, the Sage old Jedi Master "Wizard" is less likely to be present, so the Slicer "Wizard" is more viable, but doing so does cross a kind of line for some people.

Thanks for your responses everyone... Here's what I'm going with:

1. Wireless slicing by itself is difficult, but slicing with a physical connection removes a lot of difficulty- If you can actually connect a physical device into the target, your hacking device will do most of the work in order to establish control over whatever you want to hack. If you want to hack in a space battle, I'd imagine you could shoot a wireless device and connect to your wireless device to make things work.

2. Some electronic systems are decentralized, and some aren't- It all depends on the user's configuration. If you wanted to hack Anakin's pod racer, you could probably hack just about everything, from dumping fuel to even turning off the power couplings. Reasoning? Anakin can't physically touch those components and he needs to do it FAST during a race... We see him fixing his pod during Ep1 using electronics, so you could probably hack him. I think the Millenium Falcon would be very easy to slice if Han was the only person piloting the ship, because he'd need to quickly access a lot of subsystems from the cockpit without a co-pilot, but during the Battle of Endor, the Falcon was fully staffed by Lando and friends, so it would be extremely difficult to hack because everything's off the wi-fi. Not only does it depend on how much crew is manning the ship, it also depends on how good the overall security measures of a ship is. If you had Darth Vader's password, you could totally hack just about everything on a star destroyer. A star destroyer is too large for accidents not to take out entire parts (which is why we're seeing even tertiary hyperdrives on these larger crafts). For redundancy's sake, like if a reactor leak wiped out the entire starboard weapons bay, I'd imagine you could remotely access these turrets from elsewhere on the ship... but it would be extremely difficult to hack something like an ISS.

3. Once you actually manage to hack a ship, you can do whatever you want with it, provided the ship component in question is connected to the system.

I honestly have a hard time picturing ships with wifi. I consider most slicing attempts to using your radio's and sensors for EM warfare. You overload circuits (strain), jam their targeting computer (disable a weapon), etc. Otherwise you're going to have players that say that they turn off their wifi so they should be immune to slicing attempts.

Most of a starships systems should be hardwired. Even if Solo did need access to everything on the ship, it was probably hardwired up to the controls. Anakins pod was definately hardwired. Why would you drop wifi into a racing pod?

If it is wifi, I would hardwire my ship and turn it off and then I would airgap my radio from the rest of the hardware as well so that I could communicate and transmit needed data without worrying about someone hacking my network.

Hopefully a future book will include an EM warfare pod as a ship modification that gives boosts to slicing attempts, just like you can upgrade a targeting computer.

It does give new meaning to the term wardriving though.

Yeah, I agree. Whoops on Anakin's pod being hackable because it wouldn't have Wi-Fi, but it would be hackable if you could establish some sort of connection to the computer. And that's what I'm currently going with... if the ship has sensors, it has wi-fi. I'm just ruling that it would be very difficult to hack a ship using the wi-fi alone, at least in the SW universe.

The issue of the 'ship having wi-fi' is solved by the fact that ships of all sorts have sensors. Sensors are inputs that are processed by the ship's systems. Any input is a potential vector for attacking a computer system. (Think of how browsers get hijacked by visiting the wrong site, and modern computers systems have been compromised by specially crafted *image files*.)

If you can overload a buffer in just the right way, you can get a computer to do something, even if it's just cause it to crash a process. If you know the details behind what's going on, you can make a computer do what you want it to instead of what it's supposed to do. That's the classic game of 'cat & mouse' played by crackers and computer security professionals around the world.

They don't really work that way though. Especially not military systems which I deal with IRL. Shutting down some weapons by sending information to a sensor is like opening the CD tray by shining light into the web-cam.

Sensors aren't direct connections to a central OS. They have dedicated hardware and software that interprets the information and sends results to a monitoring or communications system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the rules don't work. I just think that everyone who is thinking of it as actuallyhacking the enemy ship is looking at it wrong. But whatever works for their game is great for them. I'm simply offering alternative descriptions that are a little more realistic and avoid the "hack the deathstar" problem.

If a ship had droids on board fitted with restraining bolts, you could slice them and use them for mischief. After all, a restraining bolt is designed to receive transmitted commands and override the base programing of the droid it's attached to. All of a sudden you haven't sliced the ship to shut a weapon down, you have sliced a cleaning mouse droid that just filled the firing circuits of the gun full of Sudso Wonder Cleaner *tm*.

Other than such a narrative driven explanation, I think I would limit slicing effects to EW status "only". Ships would definitely be hard-wired, not wi-fi, in my universe.

Oh as for Darth Vaders password as touched on in a post above, my guess would be "P@dm3"

They don't really work that way though. Especially not military systems which I deal with IRL. Shutting down some weapons by sending information to a sensor is like opening the CD tray by shining light into the web-cam.

Sensors aren't direct connections to a central OS. They have dedicated hardware and software that interprets the information and sends results to a monitoring or communications system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the rules don't work. I just think that everyone who is thinking of it as actuallyhacking the enemy ship is looking at it wrong. But whatever works for their game is great for them. I'm simply offering alternative descriptions that are a little more realistic and avoid the "hack the deathstar" problem.

The next generation jammers being designed will allow the military to do just that though. They will use AESA radar to initiate cyber based attacks directly into enemy defense systems.

" The NGJ will also have cyber attack capabilities where the AESA radar is used to insert tailored data streams into remote systems"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Jammer

http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/feature/rtn13_navy_ngj/

They don't really work that way though. Especially not military systems which I deal with IRL. Shutting down some weapons by sending information to a sensor is like opening the CD tray by shining light into the web-cam.

Sensors aren't direct connections to a central OS. They have dedicated hardware and software that interprets the information and sends results to a monitoring or communications system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the rules don't work. I just think that everyone who is thinking of it as actuallyhacking the enemy ship is looking at it wrong. But whatever works for their game is great for them. I'm simply offering alternative descriptions that are a little more realistic and avoid the "hack the deathstar" problem.

The next generation jammers being designed will allow the military to do just that though. They will use AESA radar to initiate cyber based attacks directly into enemy defense systems.

" The NGJ will also have cyber attack capabilities where the AESA radar is used to insert tailored data streams into remote systems"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Jammer

http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/feature/rtn13_navy_ngj/

I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but I'm not immediately seeing anything that says that signals to the targeting system or communications system can be used to shut down the generators or activate the fire suppression systems (or to blow ballast on a submarine). If there's something out there that says this in plain speak, please link to it.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but I'm not immediately seeing anything that says that signals to the targeting system or communications system can be used to shut down the generators or activate the fire suppression systems (or to blow ballast on a submarine). If there's something out there that says this in plain speak, please link to it.

ECM... ECCM... ECCCM blah... Is really about making a vehicle untargetable.

Generating false targeting information is quite easy. (And is a better way of describing Slicing. Shooting blasters at phantom targets can overheat your gun or worse use up your tiberium gas.)

Submarines are totally driven by Sonar detection and prevention. Subs hide at specific depths because a region of ocean, has a specific temperature salinity profile which will deflect sound waves away from that depth.

Damaging opposing systems electronically can be easily done today. (German section is interesting, Straining an engine so a plane will drop into range of Flak.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon

Hacking into airplanes is happening today.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112821681/security-expert-hack-airplane-with-his-android-app-041213/

They must be using encryption with drones for a reason. This keeps people from spoofing or cracking any telemetry signals. You can bet everyone is trying to solve the decryption problem today.

And lets not talk about Microsoft's brief venture into the Navy;

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/07/13987

"The source of the problem on the Yorktown was that bad data was fed into an application running on one of the 16 computers on the LAN. The data contained a zero where it shouldn't have, and when the software attempted to divide by zero, a buffer overrun occurred -- crashing the entire network and causing the ship to lose control of its propulsion system."

Altering a ships course is easy too.

http://www.storyleak.com/hacked-gps-hijack-ships-planes/

We're getting a little off-topic, but it's still healthy fun discussion that I don't mind.

I mean, current science is finding that regenerating limbs might be possible soon. We might have to open another thread... If we can regen limbs, why can't Luke get a new hand?

IMO the Rebellion lacked the ressources for a re-grown hand so they gave him a cyborg hand.

And he later kept that hand as a reminder to not run into danger reclessly again.

IMO the Rebellion lacked the ressources for a re-grown hand so they gave him a cyborg hand. And he later kept that hand as a reminder to not run into danger reclessly again.

We're talking about the same Rebels that had the resources to clone lungs for Zuckuss, right?

IMO the Rebellion lacked the ressources for a re-grown hand so they gave him a cyborg hand. And he later kept that hand as a reminder to not run into danger reclessly again.

We're talking about the same Rebels that had the resources to clone lungs for Zuckuss, right?

IMO the Rebellion lacked the ressources for a re-grown hand so they gave him a cyborg hand. And he later kept that hand as a reminder to not run into danger reclessly again.

We're talking about the same Rebels that had the resources to clone lungs for Zuckuss, right?

Only from a certain point of EU. You'll findy many of the truths you cling to rely on a certain point of EU.

Nicely done.

We're getting a little off-topic, but it's still healthy fun discussion that I don't mind.

I mean, current science is finding that regenerating limbs might be possible soon. We might have to open another thread... If we can regen limbs, why can't Luke get a new hand?

I always wondered that myself. I assume the answer was it was cloning tech and possibly very illegal as I'm sure the emperor didn't want someone else to clone an army and fight him. Possibly it just took too long and during the course of a war and the frantic pace a bionic limb was functionally just as good and could be installed far more quickly.

If anyone's looking for an example of the hacking the CRB is talking about there's a very good example in M. Stackpole's Rogue Squadron Books, the 2nd/3rd books i believe. Corran Horn's Z-95 gets hacked and he loses control. I think its in the 3rd book, that they really talk about wtf happened to his ship. (I last read this like 8 years ago so forgive me if i miss some details.) THe gist of what they go over is that primary systems, (shields, weapons, propulsion) is very hard/ next to impossible to hack in a ongoing battle, but secondary and tertiary systems are much easier to fool with. In fact, the sabotage to his Z-95 came about by the hacker accessing the subroutines used to move the fighter ground on its repulsors on the ground. In one of the later books in the same series(6 or 7?) one of Rebels manages to mess with an SSD's nav computer and makes it jump to another system. They specifically talk about the main computer is impossible to crack and is too aggressive with primary functions and secondaries. However these are all military vessels they are talking about, so i think its safe to assume that the civilian(ish) vessels used predominantly in EotE have much lower cyber security. Probably Life support and engines are too hard to crack, but since most of the vessels arent designed with pure combat in mind, the weaps and shields would have lower cyber defense.

Yeah, I am not fond of this ability. It was invented to give slicers something to do in space combat but it wouldn't work. This sort of thing would have been engineered out of any communications system. I would much rather the computer expert run targeting algorithms or scan for weak spots.

There was automated targeting. I'm not sure what else you would call an entire droid army and space fleet other than pretty darn sophisticated software identifying, tracking, prioritizing and engaging targets......

In addition when it comes to wireless tech I seem to recall a droid army command ship as the point of Phantom Menace's fighter attack that was responsible for directing an entire planetary invasion. So I'm thinking Star Wars had some pretty rocking wifi too.....

Just my two cents on ship weapons and what level of targeting was displayed on screen in canon(no pun)....

You're comparing a droid army and an organic army. It's never really explained how the droid army was able to 'act as one', just the "master control signal" that Vader used to shut them all down. This could be a specific signal, wavelength or some other type of StarWars science. Could it be wifi? Yes. It's never explicitly explained what it is. It seems very close, but it wasn't ever 'sliced', because I'm sure if it was, the Republic would've been all about simply slicing the signal and ending the war without involving all the clones...

There are targeting computers and targeting assisted systems, but for small-scale space combat, we see analog piloting and firing of weapon systems. The Falcon had ball turrets like B20 bombers, X-Wings had target assisting computers, but everything was fired on the control stick, same with Airspeeders and Tie-Fighters. I'm sure droids have internal targeting systems, but all human vessels that we see outside of capital ships, fire directly from the control of the pilot or gunner.

There was automated targeting. I'm not sure what else you would call an entire droid army and space fleet other than pretty darn sophisticated software identifying, tracking, prioritizing and engaging targets......

In addition when it comes to wireless tech I seem to recall a droid army command ship as the point of Phantom Menace's fighter attack that was responsible for directing an entire planetary invasion. So I'm thinking Star Wars had some pretty rocking wifi too.....

Just my two cents on ship weapons and what level of targeting was displayed on screen in canon(no pun)....

You're comparing a droid army and an organic army. It's never really explained how the droid army was able to 'act as one', just the "master control signal" that Vader used to shut them all down. This could be a specific signal, wavelength or some other type of StarWars science. Could it be wifi? Yes. It's never explicitly explained what it is. It seems very close, but it wasn't ever 'sliced', because I'm sure if it was, the Republic would've been all about simply slicing the signal and ending the war without involving all the clones...

There are targeting computers and targeting assisted systems, but for small-scale space combat, we see analog piloting and firing of weapon systems. The Falcon had ball turrets like B20 bombers, X-Wings had target assisting computers, but everything was fired on the control stick, same with Airspeeders and Tie-Fighters. I'm sure droids have internal targeting systems, but all human vessels that we see outside of capital ships, fire directly from the control of the pilot or gunner.

The droids had a command ship in orbit over Naboo, so that pretty much was explained.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucrehulk-class_Droid_Control_Ship

The Falcon used targeting computers, there clearly is a targeting computer during that fight displaying a ventral dorsal field of fire.

36 seconds

When you look at Luke and Han they are clearly staring at the computer screen in most shots and not looking out any window and aiming with their eyes.

Luke uses one to lock on a TIE. Vader uses his a number of times to lock on Rebel fighters before firing. The Rebel craft attacking the exhaust port use a targeting computer. 4:28, 5:48 and 6:18

In all these examples it is clear no one is using their eyeballs other than to look at targeting scopes. So I'm not sure where this notion that people aim starship weapons of any size with their eyes at targets moving at tens of thousands of mph came from.