CyberHack

You can travel between the Commercial District, the Slums District and your Safe House using the directions on the gamepad. Press the A button to reveal the menu of options available to you.

You are a skilled netrunner and are adept at injecting malicious code into the unprotected buffers of servers. When hacking a server, you will be presented with a number of hacks that you can install. The more hacks you install and the longer those hacks are, the more money you will earn.

To install a hack, enter its code into the server’s buffer via your terminal. The buffer length will ultimately determine how many hacks you can enter and the purchase of advanced CyberDecks will increase the buffer size for you. However, you can maximise the number of hacks installed by overlapping common codes from the one to the other.

Let’s play a simple example:

The first thing to note is the buffer size which in this case is 6 characters wide.

Looking at the hacks, you may notice that there are common strings of characters at the end of some hacks which overlap with the start of some of the others. In the example above, these hacks can be logically rearranged as shown below. Arranging them this way allows you enter the codes `3F E7 16 06 06` into the buffer and install all the hacks. In this particular hack, only five of the six buffer positions are required to complete the hack completely.

However, not all hacks can be solved this easily. In the example below, it is not possible to arrange the hacks so that all can be achieved.

Rearranging the top four hacks happens to provide a sequence that fits into the provided buffer however it does not use all of the available hacks. This happens some times!

When presented with a puzzle like that above, you should look at solving as many hacks as possible. Additional money is awarded for longer hacks so always consider those first.

To help you visualise the hacks, you can press the B button to enter a mode where you can scroll through the elements of each hack on the right-hand side of the screen and have corresponding cells highlighted on the left.

Once you have determined which hacks you are planning to complete. You can start the actual attack itself.

Hacks are entered by selecting an element from the highlighted row, followed by an element from the selected column, followed by an element from the selected row and so on until all hacks are complete or unable to be completed or your buffer is full. You are also racing against the clock – your window for entering the hacks will be shut when the time runs out.

Let’s start entering the hacks. In our example, we are planning to enter codes 3F E7 16 06 06 to complete all hacks. When the hack begins, you can only scroll horizontally on the first row.

Selecting the 3F from the top row adds it to the buffer shown at the bottom of the screen and changes the selection mode to allow column selection. You will notice that the 3F on the hack in the right-hand side is also highlighted – showing that this hack is in progress. The 3F in the top row of the grid also has a small check mark beside it to show that it has been selected previously and cannot be re-used.

Scrolling down and selecting the E7 again adds it to the buffer. This time the E7 is highlighted in the hack we had previously started and at the start of a new hack – we are currently completing two separate hacks simultaneously as the characters overlap. The selection mode has also switched back to row again.

Selecting the 16 further completes the two active hacks and starts another.

Selecting the two 06 characters in the bottom-right and bottom-left of the grid completes all of the hacks and the hack is completed!

In more complex puzzles, some of the hacks will be marked as failed as you install other ones as there is simply not enough room to left in the buffer to accommodate them.

The time you have to complete a hack is dictated by the complexity of the puzzle and the CyberDeck you are using. If you run out of time, only those hacks you have installed will be rewarded.

You need to make money from your hacks in order to proceed. As mentioned earlier, longer hacks earn more money than shorter ones and you will need to balance the completion of hacks against each other.

Hacks of 2 characters earn $3. Hacks of 3 characters earn $8. Hacks of 4 characters earn $15. Hacks of 5 characters earn $30.

Furthermore, each breach attempt has a target amount - shown in the top right corner which you must achieve for the hack to be successful. Failing a breach attempt will cause your threat level to go up.

In the example hack below, the target is $24. The value of each hack is also listed and you can see that various combinations of individual hacks will get you to your target. Attempting the first, third and fourth hack will earn $3 + $8 + 15 = $26 and complete a successful hack. Completing the fifth hack alone will earn $30.

When moving between locationsyou may be spotted by the corporation’s guards which will increase your threat level. Use obstacles in the street to hide behind or hack a building door to reveal a hiding place. Lamp posts can also be hacked which will distract the guards allowing you to run past them.