Ideas for Virus Coding Changes

Firewalks are demanding a high price. I think it's reasonable to want to prevent their cost from eclipsing OC rewards so i wanted to brainstorm some ideas on how to prevent that.

I want viruses to stay hard to get but i dont want them to spiral to the point of being unrealistic. I have three possible solutions for this i think would work to varying degrees:

First Option: Merit Upgrade

Each level improves virus coding time 2.5% rounded up. From the 42 day base, this means each level reduces development by one day.

32 days per firewalk would help a great deal i think, keeping it in demand without them dwindling so rapidly. It would allow the viruses to be closer to being stablized letting the job perk or maybe a future crime or just more OCs being added to stabilize the price longterm.

I think this is most likely option to come to fruition and would be solid.

Second Option: Cracking Update

At 90 CS and the proper EDUs, can spend ~50n to run your rigs for a chance to remove a day (min 3 days remaining) from Virus development time with the added caveat that overheat amount translates to an equal chance to destroy that unit on the rig.

Right now, each "day" of virus coding is worth about 500k. So 50n would make it 10k/n minus the items destroyed if a rig with 100% success could be made. I think this is very reasonable and puts a ceiling to how much firewalks can end up costing.

I like this even more than the first option because it creates value for other cheaper and abundant items. I expect devs to find it a bit contrived that "cracking" does it though, but the rigs are very cool and would be fun to see some longevity in the crime and those items.

Third Option: Shoplifting Update

Cyberforce could have cluster ring like requirements with a lower drop rate for providing firewalk viruses.

Would work but may cheapen them much too much and feels exploitable in a way.

Or... Something else?

If you have different ideas on what should be done, I would be interested to hear, thanks!

Edit:

While the demand has dropped recently, i believe this is temporary. Firewalks are being used for lvl 7 OCs, so future hacker roles could very well demand them too.

I think it's inevitable that the OC selection gets diluted over time, but cyber crime is a whole category so more crimes and OCs with "hacker" roles will come out over time too and maybe need firewalks too (though likely much more diluted)

Exactly why i think nothing too drastic needs to happen though!

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It's a good idea, rate it up dammit!

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I think so since cybercrime is one of the main criminal categories. As new OCs are added, more "hacker" roles will appear, and i struggle to see what items they would use other than Firewalks, particularly for elaborate OC lines. Just because it's diluted right now doesnt mean it'll stay that way

It's very possible under optimal conditions, but that's assuming firewalks wont be used for any other OCs, and i seriously doubt that since cybercrime is a major crime category and it's required for a lvl 7 already.

It's a reaction to the new OC.

It basically cuts the demand for firewalks in half for now