Bouncing Connections Question

[Marcalo]

Sorry, I realise this is a simplistic question, but whilst waiting for the full game to arrive I'm having to sate myself with the demo, and there's one thing I'm curious about:

Is there any disadvantage to bouncing a connection through more rather than less machines? I mean a connection bounced through more takes longer to trace, right? So, surely the logical thing would be to bounce every single hack through at least a few dozen?

[xyzyxx]

yes, surely that would be logical, I suppose.

-Systems with higher security will take longer to trace through.

-If you have an account at the system, it will have a dotted line around it. It takes longer than normal to trace through these.

-If you have the Admin account at the system, there will be a solid line around it and the trace will take even longer.


What most people do is create accounts at all the banks, and the Stock Market, and route through all of them.

[Edwin]

i prefer to route through phone systems, takes less time to trace, but it is impossible to leave a log on a phone (at least, it seems logically impossible.)

[xyzyxx]

it may seem logical but it doesn't work that way.

[gorg666]

Ah i never really bother checking where i bounce. I just go to InterNIC at the beginning, and add the top 20 or so links to my bookmarks.

Then during a hack I bounce my connection through all of these, then when done, head to InterNIC (always my first bounce) and erase all logs except the latest "Connection Established" one. Never been caught

[meh]

i just bounce through the internic first(always) then through all the government systems and then through as many other ones as i can it always works and provides at least 2 mins of valuable time

[Colac]

I use NIC then connects trough all servers with the word public and sometimes terminal. Same net all the time.

By the way. Wouldn't it be great if your "bounce net" would be saved forever so that you can load it at any time even if you restart the game?

//Colac

[Rkiver]

Connecting through public terminals adds no time at all. Bouncing through them is a waste.

[Colac]

Not at all works fine for me. Althoug i do add the banks as well. It add an additional 30 secs. Anyway the reason I choose theese servers is because you can't hack them (except NIC) therefor you can do all mission that's possible.

It's kinda hard to find on the map tough. :p

//Colac

[FrostShard]

You can't hack them. Unfortunately, Passive Tracing Bob can.

[Commanche]

Wouln't the strength of the target server affect the time of the active trace? (I know there is 5 versions for the suririty software)

Say u did 20 bounces to the social security site Would it be shorter than say u were hacking the Academic site??

[Lance Link]

Seeing as how having Admin access slows down a trace, I spent a couple hours hacking every single Internal Services servers and gaining Admin (ok, well, intense maniacal stubborness is a valuable h@x0r trait). My map was pretty, crammed to bursting and all those lovely solid squares...

Not worth it. When you leave the map and come back, all the Admin accesses are gone :( They stayed up the whole time I was doing the hack, so i guess you could do that before, say, invading ARC's mainframe... but i was disappointed my access wouldn't stay.

Now i just add all the banks i've hacked to about 10-15 public access servers and that's plenty time enough to mosey around in a system.

I think the voicemail systems DO have logs, just not accessible to players... but there are some servers that don't keep logs at all, and they are a good place to provide a second firebreak in a trace line.

[Gengar]

I actually have noticed a very minor disadvantage to using more hops... It takes longer for password breakers to get passwords. This however becomes moot after you get your system over the 150 ghz mark...

As for my connection setup, I do All admins i have except for the Uplink Test Server, then InterNIC, then any 'blank' servers (ones with no accounts), then any with non-admin passwords (banks usually), then Uplink Test Server, then the target.

This allows you to get the most time out of it, and keep your admin passwords, since they only pull the passwords if they trace back that far. Since they have to go through alot of crap to get to that point, they are pretty much safe. You can never lose the password at the test server, so that's why that sits on the front line, to buy you more time for your other admins. Depending on the server you are breaking into, you easily get several minutes of time. This is only really available after you get teh HUD:ConnectionAnalysis and Monitor_Bypass progs though.

[Montyphy]

I actually have noticed a very minor disadvantage to using more hops... It takes longer for password breakers to get passwords. This however becomes moot after you get your system over the 150 ghz mark...

I don't think that's true. Higher security systems that longer to password break so perhaps that's what you're experiencing.

As for my connection setup, I do All admins i have except for the Uplink Test Server, then InterNIC, then any 'blank' servers (ones with no accounts), then any with non-admin passwords (banks usually), then Uplink Test Server, then the target.

Is it just me, or does that make little, to no sense at all?

[xMs]

I actually have noticed a very minor disadvantage to using more hops... It takes longer for password breakers to get passwords. This however becomes moot after you get your system over the 150 ghz mark...

I don't think that's true. Higher security systems that longer to password break so perhaps that's what you're experiencing.

As for my connection setup, I do All admins i have except for the Uplink Test Server, then InterNIC, then any 'blank' servers (ones with no accounts), then any with non-admin passwords (banks usually), then Uplink Test Server, then the target.

Is it just me, or does that make little, to no sense at all?

Surly the only thing that makes a difference to the speed of the
password breaker would be your modem speed.
Because lets face it, if you have a 7meg internet connection but a 400mhz processor, sure it might take a year for the browser to appear,
however if you have a 7 meg connection, having a shitty processor
is not really going to change that.

By the way montyphy, I'm agreeing with you, I just didn't want to
quote both of you separately.

And to answer your Q montyphy, he means (I think) that to make a
trace take more time he connects to All links that require a password to get into, then the NIC, then all miscilanious links...
like public access servers. Not that I think that would make a difference
because you still have the same amount of links, if you bounce it around official government connections and then public access servers
(as an example), it wont make a difference simply because you will still have 6 (random number) bounces, even if it were in a different order
you would still have 6 bounces.

Christ did what I say make sense?