Evolving Perfection

silence is golden
when silence must be broken
make your words platinum
........
........
.............initializing program .//run/jintrapi/return=true
client/sec256IPv7->confirm? /y
3926:0HB7:1001:2NB1:1601:7784:INI

Greetings from the Jinteki Corporation.
We've been expecting you.

The glorious Jinteki Corporation has a long history of evolution and struggle in the face of disaster. You have been chosen to join us in our struggle to become something... better. Some do not approve of our methods. They call them inefficient or luck driven. True, clones do not have the raw power of bioroids, our databases are not as broad as those of NBN, and we work on tighter budget constraints than most Weyland projects. What makes up for it is something we have that makes us truly special - the human touch. Our code gates help us to regulate the paths of runners through our network. Runners fear our servers lined with honeypots and booby traps around every corner. We are known as Jintrapi for a reason, and we use this reputation to our advantage.

Your training as a sysop will start simply. We will teach you how to harness the power of the threat of net damage. Notice my wording since the "threat of net damage" is usually more important than the damage itself. We are the best corp on the net at dealing our particular brand of damage. A reckless runner could quickly find himself flatlined (redacted). Cautious runners find themselves uncertain of which servers to run lest we destroy their precious 'grip'. Use this fear to your advantage. Act unpredictably, leave agendas sitting before you score them, advance Project Junebug (Core) a few turns after placing it. If the runner gets caught up in your shell game they will end up wasting credits and resources in their confusion. With that in mind, Zaibatsu Loyalty (Core) is a Jinteki sysop's best friend.

If you would like to focus on net damage, Jenteki: Personal Evolution is a good place to start. You will easily net 4-5 net damage in the course of the game from it. That's equal to the max size of the runner's grip (barring Public Sympathy (Cyber Exodus)). Be sure to include 3 Neural Katana (Core) to start off your ice. Its strength is just high enough to be a pain for Ninja (Core). Don't forget to lay some Chum (Core) out, preferably in front of a Data Mine (Core) or an already hard to break piece of ice. If you plan on doing damage, always keep 4 credits on hand to activate the Snare! (Core) the runner will inevitably pull. Fetal AI (Trace Amount) is a great way to fulfill two wishes at once, giving you potential net damage and agenda points. It's also an agenda you can safely leave in remote servers for a while since the runner needs to have the credits to steal it. Pair this with Red Herrings (Core) to double the fun. Our upcoming Hokusai Grid (Humanity's Shadow) will punish the runners even further for accessing those Fetal AI's and snares! One single run can leave their hand empty since you could easily do 4 net damage. Neural EMP (Core) usually has met with mixed results. It's good for when you need that last net damage to flatline a runner, but usually one net damage is not enough for this situational card to make a difference.

Remember to supplement your servers with economic assets or you will quickly end up nowhere. All this net damage takes a bit of resources to set up and we don't have many in-faction credit makers. There is, of course, the usual Melange Mining Corp and PAD Campaign. Of those, I would recommend PAD Campaign (Core) since having drip economy helps with all the advancement you will do on traps. We do have a number of ways to reduce the cost of rezzing ice. An over-advanced Braintrust (What Lies Ahead) can go a long way for the rest of the game. Dedicated Server (A Study in Static) is a card that almost instantly pays for itself since you're able to use the recurring credits right after rezzing it.

Someone must teach these runners that running our servers isn't worth the effort it takes. Will it be you? We hope so.

Welcome to the team.