Design

Like Nico Campaign, Otto is a three-turn drip, with an extra payout afterwards, but +[click][click] versus +3[$], Draw 1. NB. Nico’s gives you twice as many “units-of-value” (unless you're scoring agendas, spamming assets, using abilities, or so on with Otto’s).

Like MCA Austerity Policy, Otto is a three-turn “countdown”: if you can protect it for those turns, you'll gain two clicks (for a five-click turn, enough to FA 4/2’s or NA 5/3’s). NB. Otto’s last drip (take 2[$] from this and gain [click][click]) funds two basic-advances (1[$], [click]: Place 1 advancement counter.) flush.

Very cool.


However, once they know about it, the Runner has two full turns to trash it (to build up econ, to find breakers/Boomerang or a Pinhole, or so on); most of the value being on the ‘pop’ and not the ‘drip’ (unlike Nico or MCA). So if they trash it on the ‘eve’, you've only ‘drained’ a few credits. (IE.: you're up two credits over the rex-cost, they're down two credits for the trash-cost; you've spent a click to install and they've spent a click to run it, but you've also spent the card itself.)

IMO, Null Signal should print even more such “Dripping-Countdown” campaigns. Both with economy bonuses (like Otto, or costlessly-installing, never-advancing, etc), as well as with offensive bonuses (like damage, tags, trashing installations, zapping credits, de-allotting clicks, etc).


Custom

Relatedly, I had a custom Jinteki asset with Do 2 net damage after dripping for three turns (CF. Urban Renewal), as well as a Weyland one with Trash 1 installed resource. The Netrunner Reboot Project released an NBN one with Give the Runner 1 tag (Engagement Metrics). Although I prefer NSG's briefer minigame of “protect for two-turns-rezzed” (three-turns-total). For example:


[$2] ASSET [-$2]: Advertisement - Hostile [jinteki 2/5]

When you rez this asset, load 6[$] onto it. When empty, trash it, then do 2 net damage.

When your turn begins, take 2[$] from this asset.


[$2] ASSET [-$2]: Advertisement - Hostile [weyland 2/5]

When you rez this asset, load 6[$] onto it. When empty, trash it, then trash 1 installed resource or virus.

When your turn begins, take 2[$] from this asset.


Alternatively, a cycle of in-faction-pie “Fast-Advance Countdowns”, with “Tempo Drips”. For example (these are very messy first drafts!):


[$3] ASSET[-$3]`: Facility [jinteki 3/5]

When you rez this asset, load 3 power counters onto it.
When empty, trash this resource. You may swap 1 facedown card in Archives or HQ with a card installed in the root of a server. If you do, place 1 advancement counter on the swapped-in card for each power or advancement counter hosted on the swapped-out card.

When your turn begins, remove 1 hosted power counter. Gain 1[$] and draw 1 card.


[$3] ASSET [-$3]: Facility [weyland 3/5]

When you rez this asset, load 3 power counters onto it.
When empty, trash this resource. Install up to 1 card from HQ, ignoring all costs. If you can advance it, you may move 1 advancement counter from each of up to 2 pieces of ice to that card.

When your turn begins, remove 1 hosted power counter. Gain 1[$] and draw 1 card.


Scatter Field is a 4s/2↳-for-$3 when singly-protecting a server.

(CF. “Non-Porous Eli 1.0”, or an “EtR-ified Drafter”.)

Notes

Especially when you're protecting an early asset (like Humanoid Resources / Regolith), building your secondary remote (alongside Mahkota Langit Grid), or rushing an agenda. Even if you'll double-ice that server next turn anyways, an SF can act like a Gatekeeper (CF. This ice gets +4 strength if you rezzed it this turn.).

To fully-break a four-strength three-sub ice with turn-one decoders, it should cost the Runner four-to-five credits (IE. more than its rez-cost). For example:

  • Buzzsaw costs 3[$] + 1[$] (but just 1[$] with a Leech).
  • Unity costs 3[$] + 2[$] (or 4[$] with a second icebreaker).
  • Euler only costs 2[$] + 0[$] (if they facechecked-then-installed, 4[$] if they didn't).
  • Shibboleth costs 2[$] + 2[$] (even at threat level ≤ 3).
  • Cat's Cradle costs 3[$] + 2[$] (wouldn't tax you +1[$] to rez, unless they pre-installed it for some reason?).
  • The new Sang Kancil only costs 1[$] + 2[$] (if they Bravado or Clean Getaway into your SF; 5[$] if they basic-run).

Of course, besides breakers:

  • Boomerang costs 2[$], [trash].
  • Physarum Entangler costs 2[$] to bypass.
  • Botulus can fully-break it after a second turn (or can pass it the same turn it's installed, but only by firing off “½ Drafter”).
  • Overclock) costs 1[$] (with the decoder).
  • Bankhar just costs Suffer 2 net damage (but needs a whole turn to set up).
  • Arruaceiras Crew can't destroy it by itself. (EG. would need 4[$], Take 2 tags, [trash] and needs a second copy).

Thoughts

Design-wise, I love ice with some “incidental positionality” (like Turing, which is both “pro-Remotes” and “anti-AI”).

It's fun to “expose-by-deducing” (“Why didn't they just install this card into their empty remote with an already-rezzed barrier, and pay the one credit to install this in front of there?”).


Compare its ability (While this ice is the only piece of ice protecting this server, …) to other “Vertically-Positional” abilities.

  • a “Flexible Curtain Wall”: EG. If this is the outermost or innermost piece of ice protecting a server, it gets +4 strength.
  • an “Inverted Seidr Adaptive Barrier/Surveyor”: EG. This ice gets −1 strength for each other piece of ice protecting this server.

PS. Given Asa Group rotating, can this “Singly-Icing-matters” effect (along with the non-(◆) Mahkota Langit Grid the new “Installer IDs”) incentivize some more secondary/tertiary remotes? For Fully Operational and to “expose-by-deducing” (or try to!), like “Why didn't they just install that card into their empty remote with an already-rezzed barrier, and pay the one-credit to install that ice in front of there?” I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Custom

However, among the most powerful ice, Gatekeeper is (IMO) still one of the most interesting. With it rotating, I would've liked (one or two) new “Gatekeeper–likes” (IE. with a When you rez this ice, it gets +_ strength for the remainder of the _. and an ↳ End the run.) to be printed per set released, and across factions. Compare with Liberation & Escalation “completing” Ping (Tatu-Bola / Ablative / Descent / Flyswatter).

Besides Haas-Bioroid’s many derez effects (Élivágar Bifurcation, Stegodon MK IV, Warm Reception, etc), powerful On-Rez abilities synergize with both:

  • Jinteki’s (HQ/Archives) swap effects: Like Tatu-Bola, Mitra Aman. For example, rezzing an Anemone (to do damage), the swapping it out (to re-install and re-rez again).
  • Weyland’s “sacrificing”: Like Extract, Azef Protocol, Stavka, etc. For example, rezzing that Stavka (to destroy some programs), then sac’ing it later (for value).

(Daily Casts is banned.)

Side Hustle (🛵🛍️) is like a “run-based Environmental Testing”: after 5 runs begin, you profit by Gain 4[$]. Draw 1 card. (five clicks, five “units-of-value”)


For example:

  • If (against Asset-Spam), immediately after installing it, you check two remotes this turn and three the next, then it pops after a single turn.
  • If (within Criminal) you opportunistically run your mark with Carpe Diem (or for Sable), play a Bravado or Clean Getaway for cash, and try to land a Transfer of Wealth, then ditto. (Your actions aren't just [click]: Run any server.)
  • However, if running is too expensive and/or just not valuable enough, it won't profit at all. Unless you have parallel triggers (like Pennyshaver or Leech), you can't even spam an uniced/faceup Archives (since your actions would just be like “[click]: Gain 1[$] when your next turn begins.”, which is very much not “[click]: Place one +1 strength counter on an installed Aumakua.”) Although, two simultaneously-installed Hustles (being non-unique) would be worth two credits per run.

Note:

  • While beginning a run on any server is the easiest interaction, it's still harder than just waiting a turn.
  • Unlike a “Red Team-ified Casts”, Hustle has still (un)paid out zero credits even at your 4th run.

Daily Clash
[$3] Resource: Job
[neutral 0/5]
When you install this resource, place 8[$] on it. When empty, trash it.
The first time each turn a run begins, take 2[$] from this resource.


Clean Getaway is the “new Dirty Laundry”.


NB. Getaway (post-is successful) earns credits sooner than Laundry (post-run ends). Thus, it can pay trash-costs (like Bahia Bands). For example (with Miss Bones rotating and Daily Casts banned), against an uniced, -4[$]-to-trash asset (like Wage Workers, or Hostile Architecture).

  • Getaway only needs its own play-cost (3[$]). Even assets alongside Mahkota Langit Grid.
  • Laundry needs twice that (6[$]), its play-cost plus the trash-cost.

(So if you only had three credits in pool, you'd need to re-run the server afterwards, wasting [click]. Or, if you only have enough to play the event and break a single rezzed ice once, you would need to triple-click for credits beforehand.)


BTW, before spoilers my guess for this card was just a “lightly-blueshifted” ([criminal 1/5]) Laundry. Like how NSG's Government Subsidy “greenshifts” FFG's Restructure. But I prefer this variation.

Humanoid Resources (🐙🐙🐙) is Haas-Bioroid’s “strict Rashida”.

Notes

That is:

  • If you can protect HR for a turn, then you likewise get a burst of three credits plus three cards next turn (your three clicks funding its three installs/plays, one-to-one).
  • However, Install 2 cards. Play 1 operation. is less flexible than Gain [click][click][click].. (Even though installation is itself a very broad action, you can't advance, triple-install, double-operation, IA/IAA an agenda, and so on.)

In particular:

  • You can't YDL for +$8. (Installing two cards shrink HQ by 2, and must come first.)
  • You can't score out agendas with Nanomanagement, or Seamless Launch. (Unless one of the installs placed an advancement or gained a click, which few can.)
  • While bouncing back from an small/empty HQ (or credit pool), if you've missed drawing into any operations (or can't afford a Hedge Fund), then you've lost a whole click.

[EDIT] TIL an RLC can “fast-advance” this out (by choosing the install-and-click modes). IE.: you spend two credits, two cards, and a click (5 “units”); you gain four credits, three cards, two installs, and maybe an operation (9–10 “units”). CF. Ultraviolet Clearance? You could even do this T1 while still icing both centrals, and earning enough to rez that ice ASAP. (IDK if this is worth it, but it is very fast tempo.)


And like Anthill Excavation Contract, Humanoid Resources is its faction’s “Neo-Rashida. Both:

  • can draw (≥2) cards and earn (≥3[$]) credits, in a ‘burst’.
  • are cheap-to-trash (-1[$]).

Development

See Humanoid Resources: A Tale from Elevation Development (jan tuno) .

Humanoid Resources came from two earlier designs, “Human” Resources:

====
HB Asset
----
Cost: 2, Trash: 4, Influence: 2
----
When you rez this asset, load 3 power counters onto it. When it is empty, trash it.

{click}, hosted power counter: Gain 2{credit} and draw 1 card. You may install a card from HQ.

and Bullet Point Time:

====
HB Asset
----
Cost: 6, Trash: 5, Influence: 3
----
When your turn begins, lose {click}, then resolve any number of the following:

– Gain 1{c}.
– Draw 1 card.
– Install 1 card from HQ.
– Place 1 advancement counter on an installed card you can advance.

See Humanoid Resources: A Tale from Elevation Development (jan tuno) :

We knew that we wanted this [a triple-click ability] to be it: it’s elegantly written, it’s fun to resolve, it rewards deckbuilding acumen, it’s powerful but doesn’t go in every deck, it’s interesting in and out of faction.

(We experimented a little bit with the trash cost and influence, but the card was clearly there. Every Dev member and playtester who interacted with it reacted strongly.)


"This [Humanoid Resources] is like playing RoboRally for one turn"

"This is a cool design, and I don’t think it’s too good in terms of power level. It requires operations (not even any operations) and cannot chain into immediate scoring. I actually have reasons to run Anthill over Humanoid."

"Being able to get Rashida-level of resources and immediately spending them both feels cathartic and is actually impactful. But the installs and operation-plays feel like Kakurenbo – doing the same thing (IAA) but with specific restrictions. Definitely requires more deckbuilding thoughts and decision making than simply jamming Rashida."

"You just have to plan for it and keep the Operation in hand, e.g. not play Hedge Fund too early, which is nice for skill ceilings."

"Locking you into a specific turn sequence is cool. It’s also one of the enablers for Asa-style gameplay."