Electronic Warfare Specialists – Further Considerations

 

Electronic Warfare Specialists – Further Considerations

To give low-tech forces a better chance at achieving something through their EW specialists you could give them up to a maximum of two specialists and then increase mid-tech to 3 specialists and high-tech to four specialists.

Also, you could allow EW specialists to share EW points i.e. combine their points to achieve a higher-level EW hack etc. To do this I would say they need to be next to each other on the battlefield to achieve this but will give the low-tech force up to a maximum possibility of 4 EW points. Obviously, they need to spend the points and then roll for success as normal.

EW Hack Recovery

If your force has received a successful hack, you may be able to recover from it, i.e. bring your network back online, take total control back, reassert control over lost drone unit etc.

However, I would suggest this requires the expending of EW points and a test for success just like a hack.

So, to recover, you will need to spend the same amount of EW points as the hack and then roll for success as per the original hack according to your tech level.

Obviously an EMP strike is non-recoverable.

Adding tis in then gives players the dilemma of whether to spend EW points on attempting hacks or hold back points for recovery from successful hacks.

Also, it creates a quandary, especially for a high-tech force, as to how heavily to rely on remotes, drones, and bots themselves, and how much of their force should be physically present human infantry etc.

Quantum Computing

A high-tech force in the future will likely have an all-quantum computer network with their comms, datacentres, and computers all space based either in orbit, on the moon, or on Mars, for example.

Without a direct physical attack on these assets, they will be very hard to hack but not necessarily completely impossible. There will be pirate specialists for hire no doubt.

So, decide whether the high-tech forces in your campaign use entirely (it must be entirely) quantum computer networks. If so, hacking costs are doubled to enemy forces. However, recovery costs for the high-tech force are also doubled.