Rules Clarification: How much hack can Hacker hack?

[Yenaldlooshi]

Hacker's card says:
"...When attacking with any crew member, you may pay 1 ace to fire a BP weapon that has already been fired this turn"

First Question: Is that repeatable if you want to pay more ace? and if so, can it be the same 1 BP weapon or must be a different one?

Second Question: Does it have to be a 1BP weapon on your own vehicle or can it also be on another vehicle that has fired? (I mean the card don't say you can't and his name is "Hacker" after all)

[HeatDeath]

Unless specifically mentioned otherwise, a given crew member only gets one attack per turn, and the weapon must have fired already this turn, so I don't think it's repeatable.

Your second question is delightful and hilarious. I love the implications. I suspect the answer is no, but as long as the effect is restricted to 1 BP weapons, it might not matter too much - the maximum benefit to be gained would be to fire a weapon from another car with a significantly lower range modifier and/or a laser. [Is there even a 1 BP laser? EDIT: No, there is not. Lasers start at 2 BP.]

[Spencer]

I'm guessing no as well. The weapon would have to be computer controlled and the computer would have to be connected to vehicle communications in order to hack it. somehow, I don't think that Hacker can "use the Force" to aim and fire that weapon.

[Yenaldlooshi]

Originally Posted by Spencer

I'm guessing no as well. The weapon would have to be computer controlled and the computer would have to be connected to vehicle communications in order to hack it. somehow, I don't think that Hacker can "use the Force" to aim and fire that weapon.

I actually assumed that on some level they all are computer controlled. So are the driving controls. The accessories like "targeting computer" or "firing interfaces" are just enhancements over the basic IT package that handles these devices. Else how can any crewman both shoot and drive at the same time at targets barely in their arc. Remember, you can loose either crewman and their abilities suffer no penalty. There is no plunging over to grab the steering wheel if the driver is taken out. We have tons of computer systems in vehicles even today and it does not take much scifi imagination that your basic vehicle in CW might be riddled stem to stern with hackable components...

... I mean, unless Commander Adama has taken his vehicle build into the Car Wars Arena...
https://youtu.be/OPKGbg16ulU

[Spencer]

That ignores the second half of my point: the computer has to be connected to some sort of communications device in order to be hackable by remote. Without a wifi or similar connection, the computer would have to be physically accessed, typically from under the hood or inside the vehicle. While a lot of civilian vehicles today have GPS, Bluetooth and other such connections to their onboard computers, military vehicles normally do not. I honestly cannot see a manufacturer of a combat capable vehicle including such connections for remote access, either, if for no other reason than it would create a major liability issue for them in court. Even if the vehicle did have such connections for navigation and other non-combat apps, I can see the fire control systems being physically isolated from those connections in most circumstances.
Again, this is my opinion, and I would listen to how the player argued the access exists before I made my call.

[HeatDeath]

As mentioned upthread, the simple fact that all 6e cars have seamless failover of both driver and gunnery controls between the driver's and gunner's stations implies strongly that the controls are computerized - i.e. that there is no direct mechanical linkage between, e.g. the firing controls and the trigger assemblies on the weapons themselves. What linkages exist are clearly electronic or optical.

In terms of combat resiliency, there is actually a very strong case to be made for the linkages between the operator controls and the weapons systems themselves to be wireless, rather than wired.

Wires get broken by incoming fire. You can make wired linkages multiply redundant, but there's still a lot of attack surface between the cockpit and the weapon system that, if sufficiently disrupted, could render a weapon inoperable while the weapon itself and the operator controls are still fine. A wireless connection is probably significantly more resilient under incoming fire, even if it is vulnerable to an attack that, if our crew roster is representative of the population of autoduelists in general, requires a very rare and highly specialized skillset. It certainly makes it easier to repair or replace the weaponry.

The BSG example is compelling, but we may be learning the wrong lesson from it. Hacking was neither a rare nor highly specialized skillset among the Cylons - it was literally their bread and butter. That the Colonial Fleet SOP was to harden their naval architecture against it, even to the point of inconveniencing themselves in other ways, was a very reasonable tradeoff and makes perfect sense. That does not appear to be the case among American autoduelists in 2070. The tradeoff between combat resiliency and ease of repair vs. vulnerability to external hacking makes less sense when hacking is more unusual and more highly specialized.

[If hacking were to become a common means of attack in-universe, I could see the utility of a 1 BP "Wiring Harness" upgrade that makes hacking more difficult or impossible. Modeling the slightly increased vulnerability of weapons to attack is probably beneath the resolution of the game engine though. Maybe have the wiring harness be an accessory [its location on the car represents its most vulnerable point] and when the wiring harness gets taken out you have to turn over one weapon as well, if you still have one.]

[HeatDeath]

I have some personal experience with wiring harness vulnerability.

This one time I was driving down from Winnipeg to SLC to visit my then-girlfriend for a few weeks. Immediately after crossing the border my car lost all power and ground to a halt on the side of the road. Getting it towed 50 miles to Grand Forks and repaired (over the July 4 long weekend at that!) was not fun. They had a devil of a time figuring out what the problem was. At least twice I tried to start the car and drive it, for it to last only 2 minutes before a fuse blew. They had given me enough fuses to get it back to the shop, but it was clearly nonfunctional.

It turns out that all of the electronics in the back of the car are connected to the front of the car by 3 wires, and that that wiring harness runs directly beneath the rear driver's side passenger seat. I had placed a 50 lb kettlebell on that seat [strapped in with the seat belt for safety] in precisely the right place to crush those wires and make them intermittently short each other, knocking out the entire electrical system on the car.

If that car had been engineered to anticipate even the slightest trauma to that wire bundle, whether due to incoming fire or poorly placed cargo, that entire wiring harness would have been replaced with a redundant rear battery and a wireless data connection, which would have dramatically improved the car's resiliency under damage.

[Aleph]

Originally Posted by Spencer

That ignores the second half of my point: the computer has to be connected to some sort of communications device in order to be hackable by remote. Without a wifi or similar connection, the computer would have to be physically accessed, typically from under the hood or inside the vehicle. While a lot of civilian vehicles today have GPS, Bluetooth and other such connections to their onboard computers, military vehicles normally do not. I honestly cannot see a manufacturer of a combat capable vehicle including such connections for remote access, either, if for no other reason than it would create a major liability issue for them in court. Even if the vehicle did have such connections for navigation and other non-combat apps, I can see the fire control systems being physically isolated from those connections in most circumstances.
Again, this is my opinion, and I would listen to how the player argued the access exists before I made my call.

I could see it for arena model cars. They could be equipped with dashcams and other monitoring systems that the arena media systems would connect to for POV shots, instant replays, and other things for the broadcast of the match. And once you connect all the cars to the arena network, there's your opening for the hacker seeking an edge to exploit an unintended opening.

[HeatDeath]

I have to imagine some arena managers would get quite peeved if they discovered their network being misused like that.

Peeved as in "Oh look, bollard turret #3 is active after all. What a shocking development."

[Spencer]

That's an argument that I would accept. It suggests another argument which I hadn't considered for arena vehicles: as an added safety feature, some arenas might also have a module which allows them to remotely shut down a vehicle and safe its weapons to protect the audience and pit crews, lest some duellist get carried away and attempt to engage them. This feature would also be useful for ensuring that combat stops immediately upon the end of a time-limited match; the duellists keep steering control, but the power plant is locked out of acceleration and applies the brakes safely...and the weapons all switch into safe and lock there until a signal releases them.
In that instance, Hacker could certainly hack the weapons in another vehicle. Then again, Hacker could possible hack other devices, too...I'd have to consider whether I would allow Hacker to perform any 1BP or less action by remote. I'd also have to consider if the Arena IT staff would recognize what happened, and what repercussions would follow from that recognition.