I wouldn't mind seeing the 'frame a hacker' and 'removal job' missions specifying the player sometimes (Obviously the player wouldn't be able to accept these missions). Then an NPC hacker who takes the mission would try to frame you or change the your GCD record.

Either way, the player could then have a bit of software which alerts them when their Criminal record has anything in it, and you'd have the 3 hours of game time to do something about it.

You can see your criminal record under your Status anyway of course, but it doesn't automatically update if you leave it open. Even if it did, you can't keep it open the whole time since you need other screens.

It would be a good plan if the alerter automatically slowed down game time to normal speed once it detected a change too, such as happens already when the motion sensor changes.

hmm, I actually like this idea.

Why not let the player take missions targeting him/her/itself? You could spoof the company into thinking that you were apprehended. After all, they only know you as a hacker, they don't know who you actually are. (At least, they shouldn't.)

Plus, it puts those auxiliary gateways to good use...

-- Griffinhart

In theory that's true, but the company would wait to see your arrest in the news. Once that happened you'd already be in prison. They shouldn't know who you (or any other uplink hacker) are, but they evidentally do in the existing missons.

That really ought to be redone actually, change the uplink news to them being disavowed rather than being arrested if they're upink agents, and the missions to result in tracing the hackers gateway rather than their personal computers.

Doing this would also open up the possibility of recieving special requests to identify traced hackers once the 'mole' mission was complete, for a bonus.

Hmmm...

Two words: News. Server.

Two more: Falsify. News.

I smell a mission idea.

*Glances around furtively... *

-- Griffinhart

I think a combination of these would work, it should be redone so the uplink agents end up being disavowed rather than arrested, but there's no reason you couldn't edit the news as well.

The only problem I can see is the news articles are rather long for a player to type a completely new article, so it would need to be either:

- A piece of software that types most of the text for you.
- Only allow editing of already existing news.

Good ideas, but how to spoof a company into believing you were apprehended? Simplest way would be to get a hacker arrested and edit the news to say you were arrested. But finding a hacker to frame would be troublesome... Perhaps they aren't trying to get you jailed for being a hacker so a normal person would do... Any more suggestions? With auxiliary gateways?

This already happens.

And what is the 'this' you're refering to?

The 'this' to which I am referring is the phenomenon whereby there are 'frame a hacker' type missions targeting the player.

Which specific missons can it happen on? I'll keep a look out. Lol, I'd like to see "Help to bankrupt a rival" missions targetting the player. That would be fun.

I don't think there are any bankrupt missions that target the player, but there are missions of the "stop this hacker from ever working ever again" and "trace this hacker" variety, I believe. Just go commit a heinous crime (f'rex, destroy a central mainframe) and in a few in-game hours, the mission will appear.

You can't take the mission, though.

-- Griffinhart

And do NPC hackers actually take the mission? I ask because I've destroyed my fair share of machines, but never found I've been caught for something I haven't done.

EDIT: I have yet to see the "stop this hacker from ever working ever again" mission target me, and after experimenting the only one I've seen is the "trace a hacker who recently broke into our systems" mission, which does always come up after you do something like kill a mainframe. Obviously the NPC hacker who takes the mission cannot do it, because I've deleted the logs, which makes this not what I'm asking about.

I was thinking of the "frame a user" and "removal job" missions, which I've never seen target me.

That reminds me, why do "trace a hacker " -missions targeting the player appear? In the Uplink forums people kept saying it's because the logs haven't been deleted, but obviously that isn't the case, since I never, ever get caught, yet the mission list is still swarming with those missions (and yes, I do delete the logs at InterNIC). Probably it isn't Onlink's fault either, since it kept happening on just plain Uplink as well :-/

It isn't really that important, but it's frustrating since I can't be arsed to check if there are any "trace a hacker" -missions which do NOT target myself, since like I said the mission list is crawling with ones which do.

As for missions where other hackers try to frame yourself, yes, that would be interesting. Although there should be some kind of "protection" in the beginning of the game where no missions targeting you would appear, since there's so much software you need to buy before the one which alerts you should your criminal record be modified, especially if you try to hack the GCD to remove it...

Now, if NPC hackers would take missions where they'd hack somewhere, and then modify the logs to frame you, that'd be even more interesting. The question is, how would you know you're being framed before it's too late to do anything but blow up your gateway...

Now we come back to my original idea, the Criminal Record Monitor! Giving you 3 hours of game time to do something about it.

It's interesting because if the company active traces you obviously they've caught you.

If they passive trace you (and I assume their own employees instead of hackers do that) then they'd end up with no proof, but a connection/disconnection log from you. That would mean they'd suspect you, but could not prove you just happened to be looking up something on internic.

I imagine in this case they'd employ a hacker to trace it, starting at the end of the active trace (to ensure their own employees hadn't pissed it up) since they'd have access to the log undeleter and possibly other methods. The other reason they'd do this is because to be caught as a company doing something like that would be a disaster.

That I believe, explains why the player would end up being refused by the company posting the mission.

I do agree that at the beginning of the game you shouldn't be framed, which could easily be explained by saying at that time you're a nobody, and therefore they wouldn't waste the money framing you. So maybe it would only start happening after a certain rating is reached.