Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks, he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. They are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic. Its not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the other and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence.
Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?
I haven't been playing very long, but something that seems pretty obvious to me is hacking's apparent lack of prominence despite being able to code virus and commit computer crimes.
I propose to change that. In the virus tab under the spot where you begin coding viruses, I suggest that a place to hack specific individuals, companies, and factions is added. it will be done using ID numbers instead of names (new ones will be given to companies/factions), and the IDs of companies/factions will be hidden to those not hired by the actual company or faction, meaning that hackers will need to pay off or infiltrate companies or factions themselves.
The first thing you would do is select a target and a virus, then you would select your desired outcome/information. If its a person you might want to know what mail they've sent/received, or maybe you want to see their stock portfolio, or how much cash is in their wallet. If its a company or faction you might want to see what upgrades it has or how much is in the vault, you might even want to take a crack at stealing some money out of it.
Granted, different outcomes and targets will be harder to pull off than others, stealing money being the hardest, and stealing money from a company being nearly impossible.
Hacking someone is pretty difficult and risky without the right skills or prep, failing will mean that the target will know exactly who tried to hack them, on top of wasting the large amount of time it takes to hack them. Hacking difficulty and time will be determined by the hackers level, hacking skill, and the target's level and hacking skill and will also take into consideration what their goal is (steal money or just gather info) as well as anything else that affects hacking stats.
Assuming an equally leveled and equally skilled hacker and target;
Simple Virus will have a 30/70 shot of succeeding or failing
Polymorphic Viruses will have a 35/65 chance of succeeding and are also used to make upper tier viruses (will go into detail further down)
Tunneling Viruses have a 50/50 percent chance of succeeding
Armored Viruses have a 40/60 but take half the time to hack a target
Stealth Viruses have 40/60 but do not alert enemies when/if the hack fails
Coding viruses would also change, though only slightly. In order to code anything other than a polymorphic virus or a simple virus, one must buy a virus coding toolkit and use it to change a polymorphic virus into one of the better ones. all of this seems pointless but I'm trying to aim for a version of hacking that takes time, money, and investment, but pays off greatly, like most other things in Torn that I've seen so far.
Finally, in an aim to allow hackers to have a higher goal to aim for, I suggest that a new item be added to the Point Shop. A Desktop PC. What this would do is function exactly as a laptop, but it'd have another tab devoted entirely to fitting new parts and software on it, much like the car parts in racing. Some might increase hacking speed or coding times, Some might increase hacking success or the amount of cash that can be taken. Others might take entirely different approaches and get parts geared towards defense against hackers.
Something to consider though, is whether or not to add something like racing points to it to prevent people from instantly buying the best PC possible and pacing them.
TL;DR Hacking becomes actually worthwhile for many more people.
Let us assume you were fiddling about in your inventory. You have no purpose in mind but you, by sheer coincidence, discover a glitch that turns your entire inventory into gold AKs. Now after further testing you realize the glitch does nothing but change the appearance of all your items, it has no effect on your networth, does not function as a weapon, and the second it leaves your inventory it reverts back to whatever it was prior.
You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you've never before visited), drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. Be careful of that guy, you are told. He is a man with a past. A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar; he also sits alone. You ask your acquaintance who this new individual is. Be careful of that guy too, he says. He is a man with no past. Which of these two people do you trust less?
At long last, somebody invents the dream VCR. This machine allows you to tape an entire evenings worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don't agree to this, you cant use the dream VCR.
I think the most important part has been left unsaid, what are the powers? What negative effects might befall you if you sell them? How long will they last?
I personally like the merit as it increases loyalty and employee retention, but perhaps as mentioned earlier in the thread, it would be better to model after factions with increments in hundred days instead of years and numbers being retained after leaving and then reapplying, to mitigate any unlikely issues caused by directors
You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you've never before visited), drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. Be careful of that guy, you are told. He is a man with a past. A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar; he also sits alone. You ask your acquaintance who this new individual is. Be careful of that guy too, he says. He is a man with no past. Which of these two people do you trust less?
Is the, now fallen, rice free for anyone who wants it?
There's gotta be something more to it if an international news station is reporting on this event. I think most people would care if a moon sized bag of rice dropped out of the sky; solving world hunger and destroying a large chunk of the planet at the same time.
At long last, somebody invents the dream VCR. This machine allows you to tape an entire evenings worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don't agree to this, you cant use the dream VCR.
Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a so-called super gorilla. Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, and an IQ of almost 85, and most notably a vague sense of self-awareness.
Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be borderline unblockable and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made is clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.
You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?
Even assuming that more than ten people would seriously use this, and that that redundant list isn't a troll, wouldn't they need to make new icons for seventy odd different genders as well as turning the newspaper personals into an unreadable mess. Sounds like a pain
Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while he head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but he is completely immobile. And let us assume that for some reason every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes.
Let us assume you were fiddling about in your inventory. You have no purpose in mind but you, by sheer coincidence, discover a glitch that turns your entire inventory into gold AKs. Now after further testing you realize the glitch does nothing but change the appearance of all your items, it has no effect on your networth, does not function as a weapon, and the second it leaves your inventory it reverts back to whatever it was prior.
Me and a few friends play Stars Without Number (imagine sci-fi dnd) on fantasy grounds and are looking for a fourth player for the party. Sadly as I cannot afford the ultimate license, you have to actually own a copy of FG to join us
Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks, he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. They are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic. Its not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the other and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence.
Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?
the only thing I can manage to pull off without waking myself up is generally lowering the gravity to moon levels, tho there were a few times I just kept messing around swapping the room I was standing in but the walls ended up really flat as if I were playing doom or something