Adversary Overview

Adversary System

Adversaries are AI-controlled threats that attack players based on resource thresholds. They’re persistent — tied to the world, not individual games — and cycle between awake (attacking) and sleep states.

How Adversaries Work

Wake Conditions

Each adversary has a trigger threshold (stamps or money). When any player in the world exceeds that threshold, the adversary wakes up and starts its attack cycle.

Attack Cycle

While awake, adversaries:

1. Check for targets at regular intervals
2. Select a target based on their targeting rules
3. Launch a network thread (attack) against the target
4. Wait for their attack interval, then repeat

Killing Adversaries

Hit adversaries with hack spells to deal damage:

• Hack Level 1 = 1 HP (e.g., Foreign Script, Targeted Attack)
• Hack Level 2 = 4 HP (e.g., Trojan, System Breach)
• Hack Level 3 = 9 HP (e.g., Banking Intrusion, BIOS Exploit, Buffer Overflow)

When HP hits 0, the adversary:

• Drops kill rewards (stamps + money)
• Returns to sleep state with full HP
• Stays asleep for sleepTimeHours

Whitelist (Immunity)

Favor From Above (Communications tree) adds your game to an adversary’s whitelist, granting immunity from targeting. However, the whitelist is cleared when the adversary is killed or goes to sleep — you must re-cast after each cycle.

Complete Adversary Roster

Adversary	Tier	HP	Wake Trigger	Attack Interval	Kill Reward
Script Kiddie	1	3	1K stamps / 10K money	72h	2 stamps + 500 money
Corporate Spy	1	5	5K stamps	144h	5 stamps + 1,200 money
Hacktivist Collective	2	8	8K stamps	54h	8 stamps + 2,000 money
Cyber Police	2	12	10K stamps / 100K money	72h	15 stamps + 5,000 money
Ransomware Gang	2	16	80K money	36h	20 stamps + 8,000 money
PLEX-9 (Rogue AI)	2	18	20K stamps	24h (accelerating)	25 stamps + 10,000 money
Gideon	3	28	75K stamps / 750K money	36h	40 stamps + 25,000 money
The Agency	3	32	50K stamps / 500K money	108h	50 stamps + 30,000 money
Darknet Collective	4	36	3K stamps / 30K money	18h (x2 attacks)	60 stamps + 40,000 money
The Overmind	4	50	500K stamps / 5M money	18h	100 stamps + 100,000 money

Kill Efficiency

How many hack spells to kill each adversary:

Adversary	HP	L3 Spells Needed	L2 Spells Needed	L1 Spells Needed
Script Kiddie	3	1	1	3
Corporate Spy	5	1	2	5
Hacktivist Collective	8	1	2	8
Cyber Police	12	2	3	12
Ransomware Gang	16	2	4	16
PLEX-9	18	2	5	18
Gideon	28	4	7	28
The Agency	32	4	8	32
Darknet Collective	36	4	9	36
The Overmind	50	6	13	50

Threat Priority

Not all adversaries are equal threats. Consider both their damage output and attack frequency:

Most Dangerous (by DPS):

1. Darknet Collective — 2 attacks every 18h using heavy spells (Buffer Overflow, BIOS Exploit)
2. PLEX-9 — accelerating attacks (down to every 3h after 15+ attacks)
3. Ransomware Gang — escalating attack tiers, Banking Intrusion at tier 3

Easiest to Manage:

1. Corporate Spy — attacks every 144h (6 days), weak spell pool
2. Script Kiddie — attacks every 72h, weak spells, only 3 HP

Strategy

• Kill or whitelist? — cheap adversaries (Script Kiddie, Corporate Spy) are worth killing for rewards. Expensive ones (Darknet Collective, The Agency) are worth whitelisting.
• Darknet Collective is the early-game threat — wakes at only 3K stamps but has 36 HP. Consider whitelisting early.
• PLEX-9 accelerates — the longer it’s awake, the faster it attacks. Kill it quickly or whitelist it.
• The Agency is sticky — once it picks a target, it stays on them until it sleeps. If you’re the target, act fast.