A usb stick that is designed to bypass usb requirements on devices at the cost of doubling the deployment time for hacks, the usb stick takes 1 inventory space and it’s weight is 1, deployment cost is $600 without equipment specialist rank 1, it can only be used on devices that require a basic usb, doubling the deployment time for hacks will also cause hacks to generate double the “risk” overall, it’d (potentially) be suspicious when inserted into a device (not while dropped on the floor) and it can be removed from the device (although this may have a restriction placed on the usb causing it to only be usable on the device you used it on first).
So what do you think about this concept? Is it good? Bad? Or does it need a few changes to be practical enough to bring to a mission, but restrictive enough to not invalidate the usb mechanic as a whole?
common keys / lockpick gun make the security key on Lakehouse super easy
pickpocket 1 and neutralizing Mancio on Withdrawal make the security key there easy
The thing is, it’s kinda impractical on Withdrawal, since there’s no big usage for the security pc besides access logs and alarm box logs, the former invalidated by checking manager rooms / la2, and the latter simply being dealt with by going to the archives themselves.
On the other hand, Alert Level does screw all besides reducing the amount of Awareness you need to monitor radio traffic for the Sec-Lead (which becomes free on Alert). Alert Level only really affects disguises, and hey oh, Lakehouse doesn’t have any. In terms of hacks, you don’t really need all that much besides full search, and that’s about it, besides Photo/Op that can get you the important personnel more than half the time.
Overall idk, it’s pretty useless when the things it locks aren’t all that vital to your mission, and in some cases, it’s not that big of a difference, besides skipping security center to use the USB at the network center in Lakehouse.
I was mainly thinking about certain things like challenges where you might be restricted from bringing or doing certain things, but as it is currently it definitely wouldn’t do much, the only thing I can think of would be luring falcon into the basement without grabbing the normal usb stick at the cost of raising the alert level twice due to the amount of risk generated.