Oooh I didn't know they had voice lines for that. I like that. It's one of my favorite features of Iji as well.
I loaded up Decker again, that simple netrunning RPG originally written in Java but nowadays available in-browser via Javascript:
https://palparepa.github.io/decker/I don't even know how long I've been occasionally playing this for... It's in a category with LCS, though with less updates. Both have relatively easy-to-read code though. Anyway!
I hadn't realized some weaknesses in my traditional stealth-and-programming builds. Attack rating is used when clearing alarms, and analyze rating is used when installing backdoors. I'm even keeping enough Defense rating that I can survive a round or two without getting dumped. My runs tended to end by me getting sloppy and zapped by enough ICE to murder my character from full health...
The big difference is that I've focused on Chip Design over Programming, and diversified my other points. Having top-end firmware encourages a well-rounded approach by essentially giving flat bonuses to all skills, whereas with Programming I always made a handful of really good, really heavy programs which filled up my mediocre deck. This time I keep meaning to update my most important programs but I almost don't need to, which feels strange! I keep spending my home-time on new firmware instead.
Before I started swimming in stat points, I found myself in an unusual situation where I was a crappy hacker, using crappy scavenged programs, but I was still cruising because my *rig* was just that good. Sorta strange to imagine. I started conceptualizing it as the rig having predictive, almost instinctual low-level behaviors. If an AI were involved here, it wouldn't be any particular program- it'd be an emergent system from these various
emotion cores chips.
Or perhaps it represents a decking interface so intuitive, so concordant, that training isn't required. It's like being there in cyberspace.
Perhaps it is both things at once: a sublime fusion of human and synthetic into one being, then back apart, then together again... on and on~
nostalgia and dreams lead my mind in funny directions sometimes <3