You could make it more like FTL, have a drone block that the hacking computer connects to, and gain access to all the blocks in a set radius around the drone (or full takeover when it hits a registered cockpit) until firewall/enemy player hacking blocks disable it and require it to recharge as below:

To compensate, the drone hacking block takes a lot of energy and must be recharged. To make it as though it's a timed item.

You could limit its use to having to build it next to the main cockpit. ie. the ship would have to be breached and gotten into for it to work. as well as firewalls.

I've found a second use for these hacking computers: defence

If you place 4 or so on your own station not only will you be able to steal the ship of anyone who docks, but it will also prevent any hacking and anyone trying to hack you will give you more power.

To balance this, I think the machies should be less powerful alone, but if a player plays a mini-game then they will become much more powerful.

Edit: As more blocks are hacked, power of hacking could decrease, this is another way to make defencive hacking less powerful.

Very cool unique mod.

Allow server admins to set who can use these, time it takes, components it takes, firewall to hacking ratio and rather there has to be physical contact to the ship, distance. If you can do this, then we can use these as we wish.

Another idea is to have an ammo type that we use to attach a hacking component to the ship we . This way we would have to sneak in a drone or something and shoot the ship with this hacking ammo before we can make a connection.

If you add a mini game, Please make it optional. I always hated those things with picklocking, hacking unless you make it like indirection (I think that is how it is spelled) in elite dangerous where the person being hacked is fighting to keep something alligned with the person hacking. That might not be a bad one.

A robot like r2d2 that fits in a upgrade slot and can be changed out that helps protect the ship would be really cool looking. While your at it make them have different voices or beeps like, OH DEAR! I hate to inform you but a hack attempt has been started on your ship or beeb boop deep bob.

Also you can make it so they cannot be built, Only found on advanced alien ships or lost advanced civilizations. Finding one in a game then would be a huge boost to your empire. Or make it so that there is a VERY rare mineral needed to build a component on it. Maybe that can only be found on certian planets.

Its early, I will post some of my other ideas if someone else dosen't post them by then.

Originally posted by QuantaCat:

You could limit its use to having to build it next to the main cockpit. ie. the ship would have to be breached and gotten into for it to work. as well as firewalls.

This is a good idea, at least I think so. As I've just been able to take over nearly any ship I encounter, mind you in creative, by jsut placing 4-5 hacking blocks anywhere on the ship. Perhaps somewhere close to the main cockpit/control station, or at the base of an antenna/beacon.

Originally posted by Korthos:

Very cool unique mod.

Allow server admins to set who can use these, time it takes, components it takes, firewall to hacking ratio and rather there has to be physical contact to the ship, distance. If you can do this, then we can use these as we wish.

Another idea is to have an ammo type that we use to attach a hacking component to the ship we . This way we would have to sneak in a drone or something and shoot the ship with this hacking ammo before we can make a connection.

If you add a mini game, Please make it optional. I always hated those things with picklocking, hacking unless you make it like indirection (I think that is how it is spelled) in elite dangerous where the person being hacked is fighting to keep something alligned with the person hacking. That might not be a bad one.

A robot like r2d2 that fits in a upgrade slot and can be changed out that helps protect the ship would be really cool looking. While your at it make them have different voices or beeps like, OH DEAR! I hate to inform you but a hack attempt has been started on your ship or beeb boop deep bob.

Also you can make it so they cannot be built, Only found on advanced alien ships or lost advanced civilizations. Finding one in a game then would be a huge boost to your empire. Or make it so that there is a VERY rare mineral needed to build a component on it. Maybe that can only be found on certian planets.

Its early, I will post some of my other ideas if someone else dosen't post them by then.

These are al really great ideas, I would be excited to have a config setup. Not really a big fan of the minigame idea, I was just paraphrasing from an old topic that was made a while back.

Ultimately though Kage will need to decide what to do if anything.

for me, a good balance is by using firewall block number on a ship: firewall block prevent a hacker form activating a hacking block on the grid, or convert it for the owner. if a ship connect to the grid (connector) with hacking blocks on it. the mod will see if there is more hacking blocks than firewall blocks (small hacking block and firewall value is halved). if so, the firewall will try to slow down the hack but the hack will work. if not, the firewall will prevent hacking form happening until the balance change.

Instead of a "firewall" block, why not a general "security" block. Allow it to have "cards" built in an assembler and put into the "security" block. In this case, different "cards" would buff the security of certian blocks by either passing the hack attempt to a lower priority block (I.e a interior light instead of the damn oxegen systems) or increasing the chance of failure. More expensive cards could react by damaging the hacking terminal a little bit every now and then until A, the hacking computer breaks or B the security terminal is hacked / destroyed. More powerful cards require more materials for the sake of balance aswell as take longer to build. The more cards a terminal has should also increase the power usage of the security terminal aswell as increase the chance of it being hacked by a hacking terminal. Hacking terminals could use their own version of this system where some cards increase the speed it hacks, or increases hacking success. some cards could do really neat things like stopping the ship (all thrusters no longer accept an imput but do apply inertial dampening (the ladder could be ignored because turning off the thrusters is neat)

Originally posted by One very drunk space monkey.:

Instead of a "firewall" block, why not a general "security" block. Allow it to have "cards" built in an assembler and put into the "security" block. In this case, different "cards" would buff the security of certian blocks by either passing the hack attempt to a lower priority block (I.e a interior light instead of the damn oxegen systems) or increasing the chance of failure. More expensive cards could react by damaging the hacking terminal a little bit every now and then until A, the hacking computer breaks or B the security terminal is hacked / destroyed. More powerful cards require more materials for the sake of balance aswell as take longer to build. The more cards a terminal has should also increase the power usage of the security terminal aswell as increase the chance of it being hacked by a hacking terminal. Hacking terminals could use their own version of this system where some cards increase the speed it hacks, or increases hacking success. some cards could do really neat things like stopping the ship (all thrusters no longer accept an imput but do apply inertial dampening (the ladder could be ignored because turning off the thrusters is neat)

I like the idea of being able to target certain areas like stopping the ship. Make it so you can only stop the ship in the orginal hack and then have to place one in the middle of the ship (inside for large) This would make it so you would still have to get past the defenses and be able to repel boarding parties.) Electronic warfare is one of the few features missing from SE and this is a chance to really flesh it out.

The firewall idea is neat. Firewalls of an owner must be hacked before other hack-able blocks. This way owners of a station have some defense of their hacking computers, and the balance is slightly more complex than "most hacking computers wins" because it will also favor someone who has a lot of firewalls/ a bigger ship/station.

Also has the advantage of the initial "cyber-warfare" fight happening in the firewalls before spreading to the rest of the ship.

Not sure if you came across the thread where similar ideas were discussed but I like the idea of having separate hacking and firewall blocks. I also think power should be a real consideration as well, hacking blocks using lots of energy and firewalls using comparatively less. This makes energy management more important for defenders. If a ship has a large surplus of energy that can work against them. If power input/output is well balanced then hacking would basically be impossible without disabling/destroying energy sapping blocks first.

Another consideration might be that hacking (and maybe firewall) blocks have an inventory and burn up computer parts to do their job. So an attacker won't just need the resources to build a hacking block, they'll need sufficient "fuel" to run the hacking block as long as possible.

Overall I think the advantage should lean towards the defender of a hacking attempt. The players/NPCs most vulnerable to attack would be the ones that don't prepare for it.

I love that some one has finaly created an electronic warfare mod (i have been hoping for this for a long time) as to balencing it could be that you must own a certain number of blocks or percentage on the grid that your trying to hack so you would still have to convert blocks but not having to tear apart the ship so you can find the ones hidden in walls or under deck plats. Also you could posibly make it so that certan blocks have a hack timer not a chance based system so it would always take atleast x time to hack y block (i dont know how easy it would be to add metadata to blocks in this fashion). I also like the idea that certan blocks need to be hacked before others (firewall) wheather thay are firewall blocks or the hack block its self.

I like idea of hacking being a mini game within game - a bit more action than just build it, wait, and all your base are belong to us. Some thing out of the old William Gibson Cyberpunk novels perhaps, with Black Ice killing or hurting you when you jack in?
Other possibilites:
Wallbreaker - to crack that fire wall
Pacman - to evade antivirus software ghosts
Master Mind - to crack that password
Asteroids - because of the LOLs?
Space Invaders - because space
Tetris - no reason I can think of but it was a fun game and I someone already built a tetris game in SE https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UHYXby5_QFA

I think you can make some fairly quick improvements.

1. Reduce the hack chance or increase the time between attempts. It's a little too aggressive right now.
a. If you had a GUI (see #4), you could set the block to require X successful attempts.
2. Require the block to be placed on a conveyor. (Trying to avoid simply placing the terminal on the hull and expecting results.)
a. Ideally, the Terminal hacks only the things connected to the conveyor.
b. For 'internal' systems, the terminal needs to be attached to a reactor or placed within X blocks of an otherwise connected system. This would give access to reactors and gyros.
c. The cockpit, in whatever form it's in, should never be hackable. This forces a player to fight to the bridge. It also wouldn't simply hack the thrusters for you either.
3. Have the terminal automatically shut down turrets. Having them fire at the same ship is distressing. I would assume simply telling the terminal to "turn off" all blocks would be better if you can't isolate turrets.
4. A GUI or other simple interface that indicates what it's working on, if it's failed, etc.

Other ideas:
1. Each terminal should have a given lifespan if placed on an enemy ship. (Internal battery or some such.)
2. Flag the terminal as a decoy. This should make turrets target it.
3. Selectable targets. i.e. "Turrets" (since we have access to all the systems via the terminal, we could create block groups for it to target).
4. If possible, tracking successes and failures. A block needs a certain number of successes to become "yours". After a certain number of failures the block either cannot be hacked by the terminal, is destroyed, etc.
5. Hacking the ship to self destruct. (Overload the reactors in a get-in, get-out assault.)

you know, a month ago keen was doing a stream and mentioned rethinking hacking... if you don't, then maybe you should start a suggestion thread there about this.