I have to check my save, but I thought I was running an Accel.

So Piggyback doesn't reduce the cost of defensive programs, only offensive?  This is confusing because Interrogate has a similar description, yet it increases the cost of all programs (both defensive and offensive).  Pirates love using Interrogate... -_-

Edit:  Actually that makes no sense... 15 is 30 percent of 50.  You would need to run at least 50 more bandwidth's worth of offensive programs just to break even on the cost of Piggyback.  Which means you would need to run 100 bandwidth's cost worth of offensive programs to begin saving enough to even be able to cast 1 exrta program (the lowest level one).  Surely you must be wrong? Piggyback only has value when you have empty 100+ bandwidth available to start a new hack?

Am I correct in guessing this is one of those mechanics that is fairly early in the tech tree because it was once more powerful, but was later nerfed into obvlivion? Or was it just useless except for players with massive amounts bandwidth (who honestly don't need more discounts)?  Trying to think how I would rebalance it. It's not a very exciting program to begin with anyway, since it only functions as a simple discount.  Maybe to make it more fun there should be some required interaction with other programs or nodes, or make it more powerful but limit the situations where it is useful, hm.....

Okay, I don't know if the code would allow this, but this is how I would rewrite Piggyback:

Cost: 15

Replaces the previous cost of all programs running on this node only (does not affect newly run programs). If a trace passes through a node with Piggyback, its cost replacement effect is disabled.

The implication is that you need to be able to afford all the programs you want, plus 15 more bandwidth. If you can, then you get a serious discount. You can't do this infinitely because each node you run this on increases your total bandwidth usage by 15, but you could get a lot of mileage out of it.  It's also risky though, because if the node is traced, you now have to pay the bandwidth for all the programs on the node, plus the piggyback.  This would almost certainly cause a player to overload. Someone playing it too riskily would not even be able to get away from a trace in this situation!

DMA64 wrote:

[...]once the hacking program reached that node it was on.

Maybe this is my problem.  I might have played it on a previous node in the hack.  Or maybe I didn't realize it only works once it's reached.  I'll test this and check back.

Edit: Thank you, I believe this was correct. I'm not 100% sure because there was already an Interrogate running against me last turn, so either the Piggyback I placed has negated the Interrogate, or the Interrogate has stopped running. When I'm in a situation where I can definitively test this, I will.

With this understanding, I would say that Piggyback is not a useless program, in fact, if you can stack them on multiple nodes for a stacking effect, it could be interesting.  I'll have to test that out, too.

Piggyback does work, and it does reduce the cost of all programs (not just offensive ones).  I believe the reason it seemed broken when I posted this is because the system I was currently hacking that I had placed piggyback on had interrogate, and they effectively cancel each other out. The hacking system could use a bit more transparency for the player.  Seeing only "cost increased/decreased by external factors" in tooltips is not very helpful.