Feasibility of hacking a ship via comms

[Blue Duke]

Title is the question in brief but in more detail: my GM has been runing Belt Strike - despite my and another person in the group both having read through it and the gm and i having played through it up to the belt war part......and as i am feeling a little angry with them and published adventures in general i am trying to figure out ways to counter stuff i know is coming.

Is it meta gaming and probably bad ? yes but i'm at a point where i dont care as far as this adventure goes so here is the real question: we will eventually have to face off against a merc cruiser while we have basically no weapons and a ton of people to protect, is it in any way feasible to piggyback a comm transmission into a ships systems using a hacking deck that is.....3 TL's higher then the system average? am i barking up the wrong tree with my hope to disable the merc cruiser and either drive it off or force it surrender using my hacking skills ?


Edit: to be fair my character would have been considering this from the word go and has shown a tendancy to build up backup plans for backups and they are on the verge of trying to build macros into the deck to let me run certain commands like 'loop video' and 'seal all doors' once through the walls.

 

[flykiller]

is it in any way feasible to piggyback a comm transmission into a ships systems using a hacking deck that is.....3 TL's higher then the system average?

absolutely. in fact you can bet that any computer/commsystem/database built under the purview of a high-control government will have pre-hacks built into every system as matter of course. the only question is how to access the pre-hacks - backdoors, undocumented passcodes, induced signals, and boobytraps.

but I would encourage you to enjoy the game and think of your effort as an adventure, rather than as angry sabotage.

 

[LeperColony]

Is it meta gaming and probably bad ? yes but i'm at a point where i dont care as far as this adventure goes

This may be a good indicator that it's time to talk to the group about switching activities.

 

[Blue Duke]

well Sonaras is Law 9....that's up there right ? i wonder if i'll be able to use that sort of stuff against Maas in the future.



as an aside and since its my topic: any one whose done the adventure how often is the party forced by an NPC's die roll to side with that NPC ?

 

[kilemall]

IMTU the ship's computer is offline to the outside world, it's effectively an isolated avionic/engineering system.

Came to the conclusion that whatever advantage there would be for governments or evil corps to have remote control capabilities, would be outweighed by the risk of someone else gaining control and smashing ships into very expensive/populous targets.

You could assume that someone, possibly the merc company itself, modified the target ship so they could stop hijackers/ensure loyalty/fly the ship etc. Then it's a matter of getting the information about the specific mods to that ship before doing the hack.

Another reason a warship might be vulnerable where a commercial isn't is combat datalinking, where a relatively light ship like most ACS would connect up to a heavy warship and acts as an anti-missile/fighter screen using the better computer model as it's modifier.

Or the merc ship is linking to it's own fighters to up their computer level.

So you may have that window to get this done.

OR you might have to have a sneak aboard the ship moment, or get some repeater/hacker equipment on- or a robot.

Other ways to even up the odds in small ships vs. bigger ones-

nukes- should be demolitions somewhere in the belt

multi-spectrum decoy sandcasters that are less deflecting lasers and more creating a huge chaffroc-like cloud that throws off targeting

EM missiles that attack enemy computer/bridges without being nukes

throwing kinetic rocks ala The Expanse

 

[Condottiere]

If there is a worm, an exploit, or a deliberate software and/or hardware backdoor.

 

[atpollard]

We install light fixtures in auto dealerships that come pre-wired for wireless control (whether we choose to install a wireless control system or not) because integration is becoming more the norm.

I would expect that trend to continue and who knows where the weak link that was overlooked and might be exploted to 'worm' your way into a ship's systems might be found. New refrigerators are 'smart appliances' these days. Imagine all of the built in smart capabilities on a starship.

You might not even need to hack the main computer, but just hack a monitoring system on the fuel refinery/central pumps to shut off the flow to the power plant for a 1 hour routine cleaning cycle performed at annual maintenance.

 

[Blue Duke]

the issue is the ship is bringing 20 'marines' to board and either throw us off the station or force us to work for the corporation they work for so i need to get rid of the ship or disable it in such a way as to force the crew to surrender. At this point i've also got a backup plan involving mining drones are a poor mans defense system and parking a pair of them in the main hanger to capture the ships boats to try and force the marines to disarm.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I would not allow it without lengthy preparations such as sneaking aboard the enemy ship and accessing the computer directly.

If it was easy it would be done all the time, including by some script kiddies against you every time you come near a high tech world, or every time an Imperial patrol ship wanted a peek at your logs.

 

[kilemall]

the issue is the ship is bringing 20 'marines' to board and either throw us off the station or force us to work for the corporation they work for so i need to get rid of the ship or disable it in such a way as to force the crew to surrender. At this point i've also got a backup plan involving mining drones are a poor mans defense system and parking a pair of them in the main hanger to capture the ships boats to try and force the marines to disarm.

Are they BD equipped?

If not, the ol' 3G floor field, possibly tuned up higher, is always an odds-evener.

As for surrender, bag o' rocks might be a bit more overkill. Smart nuance to not trigger a vendetta by flatout killing them with an ambush and getting the surrender.

Only thing I can think of that wont result in automatic ranged laser fire is nuclear demolitions rigged as limpet mines on the ship, surrender or detonate.

If you do get a hack done, I'd capture the ships boats first, then hack, then induce the ship to jump. That should give a really short period of reaction so they can't break your hack in time, and the ship's boats' likely cost more then their entire Ticket pay and most megacorps are not sanguine about the plus expenses including replacement costs for expensive small craft, so a negotiating point.

Plus those boats could give you travel options if needed.

 

[flykiller]

New refrigerators are 'smart appliances' these days.

"smart" meaning it does everything someone else tells it to do, and ignores you.

Imagine all of the built in smart capabilities on a starship.

sky's the limit.

 

[Blue Duke]

Are they BD equipped?

If not, the ol' 3G floor field, possibly tuned up higher, is always an odds-evener.

As for surrender, bag o' rocks might be a bit more overkill. Smart nuance to not trigger a vendetta by flatout killing them with an ambush and getting the surrender.

Only thing I can think of that wont result in automatic ranged laser fire is nuclear demolitions rigged as limpet mines on the ship, surrender or detonate.

If you do get a hack done, I'd capture the ships boats first, then hack, then induce the ship to jump. That should give a really short period of reaction so they can't break your hack in time, and the ship's boats' likely cost more then their entire Ticket pay and most megacorps are not sanguine about the plus expenses including replacement costs for expensive small craft, so a negotiating point.

Plus those boats could give you travel options if needed.

the only jump drive in this system is the one we brought with us which the systems people don't know about, i cant induce a jump. the mercs and everything are from in system and we are the only outsiders. We also don't have ready access to our ship because....the GM Said so basically so we cant say 'we're done with this adventure bye', he promised a sandbox of traveller fun and then walled us into a tiny kitty litter filled corner of a round sandbox. the best part is he intends to follow this up eventually with trumped up charges and Prison Planet.

 

[BRJN]

Yes, I'm arriving late. (I blame the Jump delay.)

If it's not too late, you need to talk with your group and your Ref. Some change of scenery or of personnel seems to be in order. If the rest of the group also is unhappy, a 'temporary different campaign run by another Ref' might help.

If you are still stuck in that prison-of-an-adventure … can your character invent Virus and infect the mercs' ship? -devil-