Hacking

Hacking

Hacking is the art of manipulating computer information to gain access to restricted areas and acquire assets. The stat that measures your hacking power is hacking rate. Some of the hacking mechanics involve the result from rolling a dice. For short representation it’s going to be written as dN where N is the amount of side the dice has (e.g d20, d100)

Hacking rate

The hacking rate is the sum of your base hacking offense (for scout), hacking mods, crew members and guild bonus. Fastest way to increase your hacking rate till level 10 is through use of mods. After that a crew member (Hacker) is advisable. Joining a specialized guild is also a good idea.

Mechanics

Hacking requires 10 Processor (5 for Scouts) per attempt. You are rewarded experience and depending on the target cash, intel, cargo or mods. You can use hacking to replenish or drain shield as well as boost and drain engines. To gain more intel from a successful hack you can increase your intel bonus by using mods, recruiting a crew member (Spy) and guild bonuses.

Drone Hacking

To succeed at hacking you make an opposed d100 roll, this is to say that both you and the drone roll a random number between 1-100 and the higher number wins! Drones add 1/4 of their level to their roll. You, the player, do not. Instead you get lots of cool options like mods, co-pilots, guild upgrades, and there's another extra bonus if you're a scout.

If you're familiar with other RPG systems you might also be familiar with the concept of a 'critical fail' or 'critical success' but please note that there is no such thing when hacking. This means if you roll a 1 and they roll a 100, you can still succeed if your modifiers are large enough.

Successfully hacking a drone gives XP, Intel, and Money. The size of the reward scales with the level of the drone. At this time it seems that failure does not incur any penalty when hacking drones.

Location Hacking

Hacking locations isn't much different from hacking drones, the main difference is that the 'level' of the hack is its modifier, we don't divide by 4 here. For that reason these hacks tend to be a bit more difficult, the advantage is that you don't have to enter a space lane to take advantage of them.

Each location is broken down into 4 different sections:

• The Intelligence Center
• Finances
• Supply Depot
• Military Core.

Each offers a different type of reward.

• The Intelligence Center: Hack here in order to get intel. The base amount recieved here is greater than that of drones.
• Finances: This place gives you money and XP. Nothing else.
• Supply Depot: You hack this place for a random selection of the trade goods that the location produces. The amount of trade goods is determined by the level of difficulty you choose to hack.
• Millitary Core: this is where you hack if you want to not pay mods. You choose which mod slot you are hacking for, but you get a random mod for that slot.

PVP Hacking

The most recent use for hacking. PvP hacking allows you to do a number of things to other players ships. The current abilities are Jettison Cargo, Boost, Drain, Boost Shield, and Drain shield. When you click 'Hack', your Hack Rating + a d20 roll attempts to beat your target's Hack Rating + d20 roll. If you succeed in beating them, you gain XP and Intel equal to the target ship's level are connected to their ship. Each action has five levels: Level 1 is the standard action is guaranteed to succeed. Action levels 2-5 cost intel to attempt, and require another hacking attempt roll. The target ship's defending hack roll is doubled as a bonus defense for each level action you attempt.

Actions
The ranges listed include action levels 1 - level 5

• Jettison Cargo - Send 1-50 of the target's cargo into space. Jettison'd cargo get's dumped into the space lane and is salvageable via scanning for debris.
• Drain Shields - Drain 50-1000 shield hit points. Shields are recharged after combat or when a ship docks.
• Boost Shields - Boost 50-1000 shield hit points. You CAN boost a target's shields above their normal levels. You can also boost a target's shields if they're in combat. Shields are normalized after combat or when a ship docks.
• Drain Engines - Decreases your target's speed by 10% - 100%. Your ship's travel time is NOT affected.
• Boost Engines - Increases your target's speed by 10% - 100.

Rewards
Upon a successful PVP hack/connection to the Hacking Terminal, the player receives XP equal to the target player’s level.

• Level 1 action rewards the player with XP equal to the target player’s level.
• Level 2 action rewards the player with XP equal to the target player’s level * 2.
• Level 3 action rewards the player with XP equal to the target player’s level * 3.
• Level 4 action rewards the player with XP equal to the target player’s level * 4.
• Level 5 action rewards the player with XP equal to the target player’s level * 5.

Extra Tips

• +Intel only affects intel, if you're hacking the Finance center for Money you don't need it.
• Hacking locations means you can easily swap back into a different mod set before leaving.
• Because drones only get 1/4 of their level added to their roll a hack rating of 126 can guarantee success hacking drones.
• to guarantee success hacking locations you need a hack rating of 160.
• Cargo Shielding matters A LOT now. Each ship's base cargo hold size will always be shielded (freighter: 15, fighter: 10, scout: 5) meaning if you're traveling with 15 cargo as a freighter, you can never have any of your cargo jettisoned. If you install a cargo space mod for +5 cargo on your freighter, your new cargo hold size becomes 20. You now have 5 units of cargo that is unshielded/unprotected. If you install a +5 cargo shielding mod, your total shielded cargo becomes 20, thus protecting it all. If you don't want hackers to hurl your cargo into space, balance your cargo space mods with cargo shielding.
• Cargo is jettisoned at random.
• If you fail a hack, the target player is alerted to your attempt. Odds are they won't be thrilled.
• If you succeed in hacking a player's ship, but your hacking roll is within 25 of your target's, the hack will succeed, but the player will be alerted that you have hacked them.

Targets

Below is a more detailed guide on Hacking which includes all their formulas aswell as an indepth view.

NPC ships

For a successful hacking:
Hacking rate >= d100 + (¼ npc ship level)
Reward:

• Intel - Base value + (npc ship level * intel bonus), where base value is 1 for Freighters and Fighters, 5/10/15 for the Tier 1/2/3 Scout
• Money - Random(10 to 100) * npc ship level
• Experience - Random(5 to 25) + npc ship level

Note: A hacking rate of 130 guarantees successful hacking of any NPC ship up to level 60

Locations

For a successful hacking:
Hacking rate >= d100 + target level

'For successful hacking of Military core:
Hacking rate >= d100 + target level + mod category, where for mod category: Armor = 1, Shield = 2, Weapon = 3, Engine = 4, Sensor = 5, Utility = 6

Rewards
Experience d25 + npc ship level + player level , as well as:

• Finances - Money
  • Random(50 to 500) * target level
• Intelligence center - Intel
  • (base value + target level) * total intel %, where total intel % is 100% + intel bonus %
• Supply depot - Cargo sold at the location
  • Random(1 to amount in target level)
• Military Core - Mod in the selected category that is up to +/- 10 levels from the player level
• The drop rate of different tiers is based on a d1000:
  • Tier 100 (white) - 1 to 800 (80%)
  • Tier 200 (green) - 801 to 950 (15%)
  • Tier 300 (blue) - 951 to 999 (4,9%)
  • Tier 400 (purple) - 1000 (0,1%)

Getting caught
If you fail a hacking attempt there is a chance you get caught and lose reputation (rep) with the faction. To get caught you need a:

• d10 = 1 for every location excep Eris
• d10 =< 5 for Eris

The lost reputation is:

• Gem: 125
• Mars, Earth, Jupiter: 25
• Eris: 500

Players

PvP hacking consists of two parts: establishing connection and hacking.

Yous successfully establish a connection when:
Hacking rate + d20 >= Target hacking rate + d20

Rewards for establishing connection:

• Experience = target’s player level
• Intel = target’s player level

Actions

The table shows each of the 5 available actions and their effect per hacking action level.
The cost of actions is:

• Level 1 - free
• Level 2 - 100 intel
• Level 3 - 500 intel
• Level 4 - 2500 intel
• Level 5 - 5000 intel

Action	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Jettison	1 cargo	5 cargo	10 cargo	25 cargo	50 cargo
Drain Engine	+2 minutes	+3 minutes	+5 minutes	+10 minutes	+20 minutes
Boost Engine	-2 minutes	-3 minutes	-5 minutes	-10 minutes	-20 minutes
Drain Shield	-50 shield	-100 shield	-250 shield	-500 shield	-1000 shield
Boost Shield	+50 shield	+100 shield	+250 shield	+500 shield	+1000 shield

For a successful hacking action:
hacking rate +d20 >= Target hacking rate * action level

Rewards for hacking action:

• Experience = target’s player level * action level
• Money = target’s player level * action level