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[LordBucket]

I had a lot of fun with Uplink, and slavehack was fun to a point but I got tired of
waiting X minutes to do Y*. If it's faster than Slavehack, I'll give it a look.

Well...the pace is definitely much slower than Uplink, but the waiting you do here is a different kind of waiting than the waiting in Slavehack. Here, if you have low level software, things take a long time to do. Like....30 seconds to crack a password. That improves with better software though. I might change my new player advice spoiler to suggest buying higher level cracking software to start. Maybe even taking out a bank loan to buy better software if you need to. It would save a lot of time in the early game. Second, the game is kind of grindy in terms of levelups, which apparently are a limiter for mission quality above and beyond the requirement of having good enough hardware and software to do anything. I suppose that's partly to prevent one of the huge problems with Slavehack: somebody gives you money or you get a lucky bank account early on and then there's nothing to do anymore. But mostly it seems like the game is balanced for players who have never played any games in the genre. Consequently...there's a buildup of what looks like several hours of play grinding fairly trivial missions and leveling up your character before you really get to do anything. I kind of think it was a bad design choice, but it looks like the idea was a progression like: "do a dozen missions with no threat whatsoever on public servers just to familiarize players with the game interface" --> "do a dozen missions where all they have to do is use a proxy and delete their log entry" --> "do a dozen missions with both a password cracker and a firewall bypass in order to introduce the idea of multiple security layers" --> etc.

Consequently, as an Uplink/Slavehack player...I went in on my first mission with a proxy and actually got confused because I was trying to access the administrative panel to delete my logs, but apparently that's a later thing that I still haven't unlocked after ~3 hours of playing. So from my point of view the the early game progression feels very slow. It's taking way too long grinding stuff I already know from other games. Concepts are being introduced too slowly. The game is slow in that sense. But there are more things going on...there are multiple layers of security on host systems that you might or might not always care about depending on why you're there...proxy access, log access and file access are all different things...I understand why they slowed it down, but I admit it's a more gradual progression than I'd have preferred.

That said, again, in general this is way more like Uplink than Slavehack. Certainly there's none of the "log off and come back after a few days of email spamming for money" kind of waiting from Slavehack.

*well, I guess the other thing that bothered me was that when you deleted records of your accessing a server, someone else changing the records might incidentally put yours back on. That sure bugged me.

...yeah, that doesn't happen here. And no need to keep up multiple browser tabs and time your page refreshes, or anything like that.

[Skyrunner]

I'm going to post to watch.
Hi LB!

[Sensei]

So, it looks like when I'm using a server as a proxy, it's still pretty difficult to delete their logs? The only way through to logs I see is admin cPanel access, and I'm not even sure what program to use to get in there (not the regular password cracker, apparently). So I can use proxy servers, but I can still only delete logs on the orientation server.

[Chronomancer]

PTW

[AVE]

PTW. I really liked Uplink, let's see where this thing goes.

[Sensei]

So, can you connect to other players' computers slavehack style at all? Or can we connect to eachother and p2p files?

[LordBucket]

I'm going to post to watch.
Hi LB!

Hi, Skyrunner.

I miss that game we did where I was the body-swapping psycho-girl general who attacked the commander's flying ship, by the way.

So, can you connect to other players' computers slavehack style at all?
Or can we connect to eachother and p2p files?

I'm not far enough into the game to engage in pvp yet, but if you check the software emporium you'll see a number of  programs for sale that relate to it. Also, it looks like the hardware diagnostics rig may be required. It would obviously be helpful if we could save money by exchanging files, but doing so appears to be far more complicated than it is in Slavehack. I've tried asking in kong chat, but nobody online right now knows for sure either.

I'll let you know once I figure it out, but it might be a few days before I have the money to throw around to experiment with rigs.

So, it looks like when I'm using a server as a proxy, it's still pretty difficult to delete their logs? The only way through to logs I see is admin cPanel access, and I'm not even sure what program to use to get in there (not the regular password cracker, apparently). So I can use proxy servers, but I can still only delete logs on the orientation server.

Depends on the server, but in general yes it's more difficult. As mentioned earlier, different systems have different security profiles, and there are usually multiple layers of security. Simply getting access to a system does not grant 100% access to everything.

For example, if I connect to dustard corp and I click on cpanel access, I see this:



But if I click on log files admin login, I get this:



So far as I konw there's no way to directly bypass that. I need to first hack lower levels of access first. So I retreat to the previous menu then click on employee login. It's protected by "password security" so I use  password cracker to bypass it, like so:




Once finished, I now have employee access. From here:




I can access the file servers, and I have options to try to access the proxy and the manager login. Some of those will have further layers of secureity, some might not. In this case I'm not interested in the proxy or file servers, I want log access, so I click Manager Login.



As shown, this is protected by decoder security, so I must use a decoder to bypass it. And once finished, I get the following:



I now have log file access, and can proceed to delete logs. I don't yet have administrator cpanel access. Getting it will require bypssing yet more security first, but I'm running out of time, so I delete the logs and disconnect.

But that's dustard corp. Other systems have different layouts. Sometimes clicking cpanel will give you a login prompt directly with no menu. Sometimes manager access might require a firewall bypass instead of a decoder. Sometimes proxy access won't be available with only manger access.

Different systems are different. You might try server scan software if you want a design map before you connect.

[Vattic]

Not sure if it's working yet but organisations can be set up through yodaddy.cl. It looks like you get one server per organisation. You need to be level 20 and it costs 5k loyalty points and 5mil credits for a basic server. Not sure if this would allow us to share software, but you get a private chat room, organisation tags in chat, the possibility to charge an application fee and monthly fees to members, and there is mention of sharing resources (whatever that means). There is also mention of dedicated organisation servers being expensive to maintain (not clear what this means either).

From the in game description it sounds like you are invulnerable from PvP so long as you don't have a Systems Diagnostics Module installed.

Is there any advantage to deleting the logs on the server you are hacking rather than just removing them from orse.cl?

[LordBucket]

You need to be level 20 and it costs 5k loyalty points and 5mil credits for a basic server.

Hmm.  I'm level 6 and at the point of the game I'm at, even 50k is still a lot. I'm not robbing banks yet, but 5 million might be something we have to pitch in together to do. Though getting to level 20 will probably take some time.

Is there any advantage to deleting the logs on the server you are hacking rather than just removing them from orse.cl?

If all you're concerned about is avoiding law enforcement, then no, breaking the chain is all that matters. I have, however, seen some missions that specify "remove all traces of your visit." Though it's possible that might just be flavor text.

However orse.cl won't always be available as a proxy because the world map is divided into different zones via the various hubs. For example, if you want to hack a system in the european zone, orse.cl won't appear on your list. So to get a proxy you'll need to hack a system directly first. So in that case, yes, you'd want to delete the log directly on your destination system.

[Sensei]

So far, instead of getting data to get into manager login, the best luck I've had is with Log Bot. Not only does it not leave a trace, you don't even have to be connected to the server you're using it on- if you've got enough CPU, you can leave Log Bot running and do something else. It just randomly deleted logs from a server, but it looks like on the normal low-level servers, if it's working, there must not be a lot of other people leaving logs, or other people are log botting, because I quickly end up with no more logs to delete.

[LordSlowpoke]

I heard of this ages ago. Ages! From back when Modlink was still getting updated!

hypehypehypehypehype

[LordBucket]

Log Bot

there must not be a lot of other people leaving logs, or other people are log botting, because I quickly end up with no more logs to delete.

Yes, a lot of people leave it running or orse.cl in particular. I've been hesitant to depend on it when I can delete logs manually for certain, but according to people on kong chat who might or might not be correct, there's at least an 8 hour real time delay for passive traces between the hack and law enforcement action. So...one could probably do anything and everything you want for an entire play session and then simply check the proxy logs on confirm they're erased before logging off.

[LordBucket]

Who is still playing this? I was hit kind of hard by the revert.

[PanH]

I play for 10-30 minutes every day, don't have much time currently.

[scrdest]

Loved Uplink, (though never got to the stuff above basic LAN hacks since I went in over my head with bank robbing, and then Things happened that made me delete it), though for some reason missed Slavehack, so I definitely will check it out.

 Multiplayer certainly would allow new strategies to emerge - I wonder if you could PvP by proxy, pun not intended, by using another player's gateway as a proxy then deleting the logs to point exclusively to that gateway.