HaP: Do I get the extreme response if I start hacking in the positive?

[Matt Damon]

Like the title says, if I'm positive HaP and perform a hack that puts me into the negative, do I get the extreme reaction from the AI?  Or does this extreme reaction only happen when I begin the hack with negative HaP?

Thanks.

[Toranth]

Your HaP changes whenever a hacking action completes.  In the case of something like Knowledge hacking, that's every few points of K acquired.  On the other hand, for something like an Advanced Factory hack, that's only at the end of the 15:00 countdown.

The current HaP is what is used whenever an AI reaction occurs.  So, during a K-raid, the difficulty gets progressively harder, but it remains constant during the course of the entire Adv Fact hack (unless the HaP changes for some other reason).

If, when the AI reacts to a hack, the current HaP is negative, it acts as a near exponential multiplier to the response.  Having the HaP go negative at the end of a hack is not necessarily a bad thing.  But hacking a lot while the HaP is very negative will almost certainly kill you.

[Matt Damon]

So hack away at that ARS and take that 100 HaP loss even if I have currently have 12 HaP?

Thanks for the reply, I think I understand now.