Lane hackers..Freelancer's resident IT/Hacker geniuses.
I've been watching a few role plays where players pit rped hacking against AI's and it got me thinking.
Say the following happens:
I carry cargo that represents a role play "secret project". The ship carrying it is destroyed by an enemy and the project is "captured". I stick my tongue out at them and say, "Nyah, nyah! It's encrypted!"
They retort, "Oh yeah!? Well we hack your encryption!"
Both sides then fold their arms and refuse to give away their potential gains and we have a Mexican standoff.
So let's say we resolve it like this:
Player-A goes to the LH and secretly gives them 50 million to provide the "encryption". Player-B, not knowing the bid of Player-A, offers 75 million. The Lane Hackers then declare to both players, your project has been successfully hacked--50% of its content has been recovered (because they exceeded the bid of Player-A by 50%). Both parties agreed to accept the results and voila, role play has been accomplished.
Give the Lane Hackers something to do. In the case of LH versus police, some system can be established--perhaps a standard would be for factions to have a "Core Ship" and the amount of credits carried on it in Sirius credit cards is the degree of protection that faction has on its access--such as gates or base access.
Just the rough idea. Complicated before you do it but I think easily understood once practiced.
Lane hackers have a lot of roleplay potential, but also a lot of powergaming potential. I'm not saying that they do, most don't, but.. yeah. When fighting hackers, I'll occasioanlly invite one of them into our group, saying that it was "hacked".