Another optional rule allows you to increase your Detection factor on the fly by allocating hacking pool on a 2 for 1 basis. 2 hacking pool dice gives +1 detection factor up to a limit of +3 or 6 hacking pool dice. These dice are unavailable until the next Combat Turn when the hacking pool refreshes.
The other option is to buy a utility with the Stealth and Sneak options: One is for attack utilities and one for operational utilities.
These special options increase the size and subsequently cost of those programs.
The Stealth option for attack utilities will muffle the "death cry" of IC by a number of rating points equal to the Stealth rating. It's easier to explain by example: I buy an attack utility called Sniper Rifle, sniper rifle is an Attack S 6 program with rating 4 stealth on it. It's size is effectively 10x10x4 = 400 (I believe that's the attack multiplier) because it's design rating is 10 (6 + 1 for each additional stealth rating) When I use Sniper Rifle, which consequently, looks like a suppressed sniper rifle, it will crash a system icon and muffle 4 points of rating that would normally be added to the security tally. So if I crash that annoying Probe 6 IC that keeps generating more security tally it would added 2 to the security tally if I didn't supress it after crashing it with Sniper Rifle.
The Sneak option for operational utilities increases the effective detection factor of your icon when using that utility in a System test. It's design rating modifier is +2, so a rating 4 util with Sneak 1 would have a design rating equal to 6, sneak 2 is 8 and so on.
Pertinent to character creation
A decker character should allocate some knowledge skills to a set of skills called "System Familiarity" skills. These skills give the character an edge in certain systems in the form of additional hacking pool dice. There are a variety of system familiarity skills that cover different kinds of systems and hosts. For example: Banking, Satellite, Online Game, RTGs, LTGs, Accounting, Chokepoint, etc. Specializations of these skills are specific systems, like, Air Traffic Control (Los Angeles International)
To use System Familiarity, the first time the decker logs onto the the system the GM rolls their system familiarity against the host's/grids security rating. For every success the decker gets 1 additional hacking pool die. These skills give decker's much more differentiation than your standard lot, allowing two deckers in one group, one who specializes in intense combat inside Chokepoints, Killing Jars, and other highly secure systems and another who specializes in snooping for files, defeating encryption and manipulating data.
