Security hacking difficulty

[Rilor]

If you make it so wires are unique for each door you guys better nerf packet hacking as well

maybe sec doors cant be packet hacked? or maybe you need some special code or something? I dont really know much about packet hacking

[Froggit_Dogget]

for you non nerds to packet hack a door, you need its address, which you can get by either pinging all the nearby doors, sniffing the door while you try to open it, or screwdrivering it open. You also need its net ID code, which is a number 1-32. You can only get this by screwdrivering the door, or by guessing and checking.

[aft2001]

Yeah packet hacking is actually *slower* than tool hacking, and you can't just cut IDscan and make it all-access. To add onto Froggit's explanation, you also have to:

Open your PDA, navigate to the packet sender program (which if you aren't a mechanic or silicon, you have to get from a specific PDA cartridge), then after you gather the above information you have to then manually enter in "address_1" then the net ID, then "access_code" then the access code found only in the door panel/silicon control panel, then hit Send Packet (you also have to include the command you wish to input, such as Open or Unlock). Tool hacking is laughably quick given how you really only need 3 easily accessible tools.

[Cal]

You can just hit the door with a multitool and see the ID I think

[CommaIndividual]

I like the following ideas:

aft2001: "Make it so that screwdriver'ing certain doors just require maybe 5 to 10 seconds to unscrew the panel"

Mouse: "Make wires unique for each door instead of being shared through all doors."

I really like the 1st one but the 2nd one would be very fun and very chaotic/controversial.

Maybe instead of this, but as a compromise make each type of door have either a different number of wires of unique wires, or just make each type of door be unique to other doors.  Like all med doors share wire types, while all engi wires share types.   having more wires for certain types could be a pretty neat of making doors harder as well.

[AlyasGrey]

I do feel like an unintended consequence of the unique wires would likely be far more accidentally shocked and bolted doors.

[aft2001]

Actually I quite like the idea of different kinds of doors having the same wire types. Alternatively, how about this:

Each round there are, say, 10 different possible wire configurations (the 10 here is an arbitrary number). These are generated at roundstart, and when doors are created at roundstart they'll pick their layout from the list of wire configurations. The configurations will be labeled with a Serial Number (e.g "Serial Number #2E9L" or "Serial Number #K3GU"). Two doors with the same Serial Number will have the exact same wire layouts - if the Security entrance door and the door to the janitor's closet have the serial number of #9Z17, then their wires will be in an identical order.

This is to discourage hacking just 1 door to see what the power and IDscan and bolt wires are for ALL doors, but would still allow for people to plan ahead and know exactly which wires to cut/pulse if they test on enough doors and keep meticulous notes (bonus points if said notes are kept in-game!). The same could be applied to really *anything* hackable. As a further note, perhaps give the AI a cheat sheet of all the Serial Number configurations so that it can still reliably help out with getting QM's fabricators/botany's seed fabs running extra good?



As an additional alternative suggestion that is likely FAR too convoluted and I'm just sharing it because I can (I prefer the above one), why not take a page out of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes? Wire layouts would be entirely randomized, but you'd know exactly what wires to pulse and cut based on various details about the door. Some serial numbers, indicators, batteries, etc. that are visually on the door control panel UI would essentially tell you what wires to fuck with. The 'manual' should be on the wiki, and available as a book in Mechanics, from hacked book vendors, and in various sketchy places. The door has a red LED labeled "E0F" on it? Cut the blue wire to disable IDScan! The door has 2 AA batteries in its battery panel but doesn't have a 10-pin socket? Well you best pulse the clear wire to raise those bolts!

As I've said this last suggestion is FAR too convoluted but if someone else can improve upon it that'd be great, since it'd turn hacking into more of a minigame which I'd personally quite like.

[Deathslayer448]

yeah, maybe make doors of the same department with the same kind of layout(with exception to the armory) so every door for engineering for example would have the same kind of layout(presumably for the same kind of ID detector) and all the doors in sci got the same layout but different from engineering, makes it still relatively easy but you now need to keep notes for maybe 4-5 different layouts(probably keep a universal layout for areas that don't make a difference if hacked into so that it does not become necessary to wright down 15-25 different layouts), you could make maintenance have the same layouts for access doors into the corresponding areas and its own type of layout for hallway and regular room access determined by which wing of the station it is on(north-east/north-west/south-east/south-west)

[THISISANICEGAME]

Oh god, no, unique wires would SUCK massively, it is a good way to make it so NO ONE wants to hack into anywhere anymore, there is balancing and then there is making a feature so frustrating no one wants to play with it.

If you HAVE to nerf door hacking which I don't think you do, just make certain doors have a reinforced panel wich you need to do an action bar with a welder so you can finally open it and let players reinforce donor's panels themselves with metal sheets

[mralexs]

Yeah packet hacking is actually *slower* than tool hacking, and you can't just cut IDscan and make it all-access. To add onto Froggit's explanation, you also have to:

Open your PDA, navigate to the packet sender program (which if you aren't a mechanic or silicon, you have to get from a specific PDA cartridge), then after you gather the above information you have to then manually enter in "address_1" then the net ID, then "access_code" then the access code found only in the door panel/silicon control panel, then hit Send Packet (you also have to include the command you wish to input, such as Open or Unlock). Tool hacking is laughably quick given how you really only need 3 easily accessible tools.

But unlike normal hacking, packet hacking can be spammed more. I've had to repatedly deal with packet nerds wandering into sec just opening all the doors with their PDA broadcasts. Unlike tool hacking, which can be easily undone, you have to stun the nerd, remove their PDA, remove the packet cart, then throw em in the brig for breaking and entering.

[Deathslayer448]

what about making packet hacking and normal hacking require more steps for sec doors?

[RichardGere]

Yeah packet hacking is actually *slower* than tool hacking, and you can't just cut IDscan and make it all-access. To add onto Froggit's explanation, you also have to:

Open your PDA, navigate to the packet sender program (which if you aren't a mechanic or silicon, you have to get from a specific PDA cartridge), then after you gather the above information you have to then manually enter in "address_1" then the net ID, then "access_code" then the access code found only in the door panel/silicon control panel, then hit Send Packet (you also have to include the command you wish to input, such as Open or Unlock). Tool hacking is laughably quick given how you really only need 3 easily accessible tools.

But unlike normal hacking, packet hacking can be spammed more. I've had to repatedly deal with packet nerds wandering into sec just opening all the doors with their PDA broadcasts. Unlike tool hacking, which can be easily undone, you have to stun the nerd, remove their PDA, remove the packet cart, then throw em in the brig for breaking and entering.

There are (objectively) many more steps to being able to packet open doors compared to stopping the packet nerd. In terms of effort, the packet nerd actually has to put in more work than the security officer, currently.

[Zafhset]

Definitely no to this - airlocks have already been significantly weakened with the health nerf - you do NOT want to further incentivize people (no matter how little) to just bash doors down.

Instead of the relative ease of fixing hacked doors, you'd just be left with no door at all.

[palpetinus]

Idea: give sec PDAs a tool that lets them bolt and unbolt doors the inserted ID has access to in a 3x3 (immediately adjacent) radius. It's nothing a screwdriver and multitool couldn't already do, it'd just be more convenient for sec.

[Deathslayer448]

sounds interesting