Hi all,

Firstly I have to say this is game is freaking awesome! Played it two days straight, wish I had found this game sooner.

Unfortunately my criminal career screeched to a halt after trying to steal from a bank. I had transferred 1.7 million into a dummy account I had setup but no trace was triggered and I had deleted the statement of the transfer. Then within a minute or two I was busted. I was going to clear the logs but since no trace was triggered I wasn't in a huge rush, I thought it would take them a few hours to notice the transfers.

I have a few questions on how to avoid this in the future:

A) I had a (1x) motion sensor and self destruct security features on my gateway yet I didn't get any warning that someone was right on top of my gateway. I had the motion sensor software running; how does it warn you when someone is close? I didn't see or hear anything, I expected it would sound an alarm or something.
B) I've never used the self destruct nuke software before. To destroy your gateway do you just have to run the nuke software?
C) This may link into the answer of A but what is the purpose of having more than one motion sensor? Some gateways have 4 security slots, yet there are only two security devices; the sensor and the destruct sequence.
D) What are the steps required to make sure the bank doesn't catch you trying to rob them? :)

Thanks

A) The motion sensor puts a small horizontal bar just to the left of your process sliders. It's normally dark gray (blank). When one guy is near your computer, such as when an Uplink employee is installing new hardware in your gateway, it turns yellow. If multiple people are near your gateway, it'll turn red. (Note that if you choose to install a bunch of hardware all at once, it can turn red from all the employees installing stuff, but you aren't actually in any danger. That's why they send you an email beforehand; they don't want you to nuke the tech support.) There is no audio alert. However, if you're running the game on the by-minute or by-hour modes, it'll automatically switch back to real-time mode as soon as movement is detected.

B) When you run the nuke software, it adds a small "use nuke?" option in the upper-lefthand corner of the screen. Clicking yes will kill your gateway, and clicking no will close the program. I normally don't leave it running all the time unless I actually expect to get caught. You generally have a decent amount of time to start it and then press yes after the motion sensor goes red but before the feds arrive.

C) There is no purpose whatsoever. It's possible to add more security devices through mods, however, and it could then be useful to have more than 2 slots. Similarly, there's no reason for a gateway to have only 1 slot, because the two basic security devices need to work together to be effective.

D) The Guide how to not get caught and Banks threads both have good info. There's also a very in-depth bank hacking guide by TheaN on GameFAQs.


EDIT: On hacking banks, the most important thing is to delete BOTH statements recording the transfer: the sending statement in the first account and the receiving statement in the other account. You need to delete both of them within about a minute of sending the transfer or you'll get disavowed. The standard passive trace that you can clear via InterNIC takes a couple of hours, but the traces on unauthorized transfers are extraordinarily fast.

Thanks man, in my new profile I grabbed 3.2 million, cleared the statements and then nuked my PC lol. I've subsequently managed to steal another 1m by deleting the statements and clearing the logs from one of the chain computers rather than nuking my gateway.

I have to say this game can feel extremely tense when doing stuff like that knowing that any moment the feds could bust down the door.

The motion sensor thing sucks really, the bar is so small that when I'm concentrating hard on another area of the screen it is easy to miss. An alarm would have been much better.