Ship Security Clarification

deejaay

Mongoose
Scenario: The Travellers have found their way onto an ancient Sindalian war ship. They successfully managed to manually open the air lock system and enter the ship. The reactor is still active and had enough power to keep the ship in a sleep mode. The Travellers are now on the bridge and discussing how to wake it up and test it's systems.

I'm looking for an explanation on how these items are integrated to provide a complete process/challenge to Travellers:
Security System Software (TCB pg. 152)
Anti-Hijack Software (HG pg. 64)

What I am thinking so far:
Security System Software is the difficulty to even gain access to the computer. Normally a Hard (+12) if accessing by outside port. Average (+8) if inside, like on the bridge.
Once they crack that, they will still have a challenge accessing certain functions within, like finding files, gaining authentications access to functions and authorizations to perform such tasks. These will range in difficulties hinted at on page 152 of the TCB.

As far as the Anti-Hijack software:
If I understand the verbiage it is applying an additional negative DM to any of the attempts described above when hacking a computer?

As I am typing this out I think I just answered the question. Security Software designates the skill check difficulty with Anti-Hijack software applying a negative DM to checks.

Just need confirmation.
Deej
 
It's going to depend on the plot and the technology to some extent, but if the ship has something equivalent to what's described in the naval campaign books then they'll be treated as unauthorized intruders, so nothing would be available. If the ship has enough of an AI to assess and adapt to the situation then, depending on how it perceives them, they might get some very general information about what happened without having to fight the security for it.

Bypassing the security wouldn't be easier just because you're on the inside. The system itself will be refusing access and working to keep you out. That's going to make for a very high difficulty if they want to take control of the ship's systems (and take the anti-hijack penalty) rather than just get access to information, which would still be the full normal difficulty. On the other hand, if there's no active security in the ship (presumably all of the personnel are long-gone, and any internal defense systems have failed or are dealt with) then they can take as much time as they need to do it, so that resulting target number of 16 isn't as daunting as it sounds: a few +2s for longer time increments and they will get in and gain control eventually.

The system will probably purge its logs and records when it registers that it's about to be taken over, but while that might mean that questions about the ship go unanswered, it won't stop it from being functional thereafter.
 
Back
Top