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Playing Netrunner Online

Update:

Octgn has since really fallen by the wayside, so if you want to play Netrunner online, the best bet is to play on Jinteki.net , it’s completely web-based and easy (enough) to use with no need for installation at all.

So my favourite card game in the world is Android: Netrunner (ANR). In addition to running the local ANRSA Events group, I’m making an effort to see that more people can play it online, from the comfort of their homes.

What? Play online you say?! The idea should be superbly appealing to anyone who enjoys the game, but many are turned away by the seemingly complex setup of the game. Well, it’s not as straightforward as an iPad app, because it *is* a third party card gaming engine (octgn) with a fourth party plugin made by the dev whizzard DB0, and not officially by Fantasy Flight, but let me tell you this:

It is really a pleasure to behold once you know how it works, and an even more so if you don’t have people to run with nearby.

So the point of this guide is to get you into the world of online ANR play as painlessly and quickly as possible! Let’s go!

Quick Overview

First of all, this is not intended for absolute beginners of ANR. Although the system automates some things, it is not a fully automated commercial game. If you don’t know how to play ANR, get someone to teach you before you even try this and get the crap confused out of you. This guide assumes basic knowledge of the ANR game.

Here are what this guide will cover. These links will take you straight to the corresponding chapters.

1. Installing Octgn
2. Installing the ANR plugin
3. Getting into a game
4. Building deck/s
5. Playing the game
6. Advanced play conventions

1. Installing Octgn

You need Windows. Sorry Mac users, but you can use parallels or bootcamp or whatever method to run Windows on your Mac to play.

1. Download the latest stable version from the official Octgn site: http://octgn.net/Home/GetOctgn
2. Run and install.
3. If your computer doesn’t have the .NET Framework 4.0, it’ll prompt you to download and install it. Don’t worry, it’s not a virus. The install will then continue.
4. Once you’re in the application, remember these two things - the tab menu, and the drop down menu.

2. Installing the ANR plugin

Most of this section is by none other than DB0, the creator of the ANR Octgn plugin: Kudos for the creation + concise instructions!

1. Run Octgn.
2. Register a new account or log in with an existing one if you have one.
3. Go to the game manager tab and click the “Add” button. In the window that will open type: Name: OCTGN Directory
4. Feed URL/Path: https://www.myget.org/f/octgngamedirectory
5. and press “Add”. A new feed should appear on the left.
6. Click on the “OCTGN Directory” Feed. On the right a list of games should appear. Android:Netrunner should be on the top
7. Click on Android:Netrunner and click “Install”. After a short wait it should finish.
8. You are now ready to play. The game will automatically generate proxy cards to use, so you don’t need to download anything else.

(Optional) If you want, you can have card art, instead of proxies

1. Go here and download all the card packs (.o8c) you find. Anything that says “(Censored)” includes cards where the card text has been blurred out.
2. In OCTGN, go to game manager and click on “Add Image Packs”
3. Select the .o8c files you download them one by one and install them. You will see a install window and once each pack is installed, you’ll see a pop-up window confirming this. This should take a few seconds at most.
4. Done! Your sets now contain card art.

Alternatively: Here’s a great guide on how to create an image pack on Boardgamegeek

3. Getting into a game

You’ll want to do one of these things:

• Find an existing open match.
• Find and start your own game, and wait for someone to join
• Find your friends and join their game.

Find an existing open match

• Just go to the Play tab menu, and use the button Hide uninstalled games to see only ANR games running.
• Double click on an open game to go in. The common “LF Corp” or “LF Runner” notation shows the owner of the game wanting a runner or corp opponent.
• In the game chatroom, discuss the terms of engagement (I corp or you run or whatever), and the owner of the game will click start.

Start your own game, and wait for someone to join

• Go to the Play tab, and Start game.
• Type in a descriptive name, like LF runner or LF corp if you’re looking specifically to play a side. I also use [beginner] or [experienced] or [experimenting]. Beginners who announce that they’re new are likely to get people helping them with the interface.
• Choose the game. In our case it’s “Android: Netrunner”.
• A password is optional if you want a completely private game.
• Click the A or B next to your name to change sides - A is corp, B is runner, though it doesn’t really matter now as an update made the game update in the game according to the deck you load.
• When two players are present, press Start to start the game.
• If more than 2 players are in the game, the extra players beyond the two players can spectate the game.

Find your friends and join their game

• To friend people on octgn, go to the Community Chat tab
• Type in the friend’s name in the box - unfortunately offline accounts aren’t shown, so friends will have to be online to be added.
• You can chat via the interface. If you’re in a game, incoming messages don’t have notifications and sit in the main lobby window, so they could be missed.
• Start a game by going to the Play tab and creating/joining the right one (you can see the game owner) as usual.

4. Building decks

Of course you want to build your own decks. This is one of the best things about playing ANR online - not having to sift through boxes/folders of cardboard. There are a few recommended ways of deckbuilding:

1. http://www.cardgamedb.com/

A fansite that was eventually bought by Fantasy Flight Games. They have a great online deckbuilder, the only one with all thumbnails, and you can save all your decks online if you have an account registered. Exports to octgn, but may change (in fact did for a day) due to being officially owned now. Can be a tad slow. Good stuff.

2. http://netrunnerdb.com/

The fastest and cleanest online deckbuilder. Saves and loads speedily, can share, has cool keyboard shortcuts. This is the one I use now after the octgn export function threatened to disappear from cardgamedb. Unfortunately, no card art thumbnails, which I prefer to see as I’m quite a visual guy. Within a day, the creator of netrunnerdb.com changed it to include thumbnail views 🙂 Awesome guy 😀 Use netrunnerdb.com! 😀

3. http://netrunner.meteor.com/

Many players swear by this one, and it’s pretty good. Clean, has card art on hover. Also recommendable, but I haven’t really used it.

4. Octgn built in deckbuilder

Octgn also has a built-in deckbuilder. It works, but it lacks the speed and grace of the online ones. Also it doesn’t report stats. To find it, go to the Dropdown menu > Deck Editor.

All of these has the function to export octgn deck files, so build your deck, and load from octgn when you’re in a game.

5. Playing the game

NB: Whenever you use any keyboard shortcuts, make sure you’re not in the chatbox, or the shortcut won’t register. Click somewhere on the tabletop first to get out of the chatbox.

First things

Load deck	Control + L	Or use the menu bar and file > load deck.
Setup	Control + Shift + S	The first thing you do after loading your deck. Only do this after octgn checks your deck and it is ok. You can also just drag your identity from your hand to the table to do this.
Start turn	F1	Typically, if you want to do anything before the start of your turn, after the opponent’s turn, do it first before you press F1.
End turn	F12
Target card	Shift + Click	Before playing anything with a target (Parasite, Personal Touch, Oversight AI, etc), target that card first.Hosting works with this too. Target the thing your card will be hosted on before you play the card that will be hosted. Works for Caissas, programs played onto Dinosaurus, Djinn, Personal Touch, Oversight AI, etc.

 

General actions

Play a card from hand	Double click it
Click for a cred	Control + C
Draw a card	Double click deck R&D/Stack
Create a remote server marker	Control + S	Use this to indicate that there’s a remote there. Runners interact with the marker to make runs.

 

Corp actions

Rez Ice	Double click it	Usually use this only during a run
Trash a resource (if runner is tagged)	Target, then Control + Del	When rezzing Archer, target the agenda you will forfeit first.
Advance a card	Mouse over it, Alt + A
Install Ice	Double click it from hand, move it manually	Remember to pay for install costs when you install above first level of ICE.
Virus Sweep	Double click the Virus Sweep card on the right	Make sure you have three clicks to do this.

 

Runner actions

Remove tag	Control + R
Make a run	Double click the server marker	During a run the runner signifies where they are by targeting the piece of ICE he is on, and wait for the corp to respond.
Use Icebreaker	Double click it, and make multiple selections

Even after learning all the shortcuts it’s still good to remember that:

1. You can change things manually - this is invaluable for take-backs and mistakes.
2. Right clicking on the tabletop and cards will give you a lot of context menu controls.

6. Advanced play conventions

The above are the basics of play native to the system. Over time, players have developed certain conventions to help make playing the game smoother without having face-to-face communication tools. Knowing them really helps!

• Making a run:

  When making a run, as the Runner, we usually use targeting (shift + click on card) to indicate which ICE we are on. So if there is an unrezzed ICE, target it to indicate you are waiting for the Corp to rez it. After breaking a piece of ICE, target the next one to indicate that you are continuing, otherwise there’ll be a tedious exchange of Corp: “Do you continue?” “yes” “ok let me think”. Bleh. Use targeting! Targeting is your friend to show your intentions!

• Tracing:

  Whenever a trace happens, the corp starts by running the card and running the trace. The Corp will be given the chance to boost that trace. Then the runner must double click on this to set how much they will spend towards their link, remembering that Link will be added, and any recurring credits will be automatically spent (so if you have 3 Compromised Employees and want to spend those credits, you have to set 3c spend.)
  

• Viewing archives:

  When the runner discards it should only got to the face-up archive. If you put it in the face-down, you’re doing it wrong. Put it into the first one. Then, because it’s super useful, you can keep a window of archives open (yours and opponent’s, make sure it’s the face-up one) by right clicking the archive and selecting view > all cards. Don’t bother with visibility.

• Remember to target:

  (shift+click a card) before playing any cards that require a target. This includes Parasite, Dirty Laundry, Femme Fatale, Test Running for a Femme Fatale/Parasite, Psychographics, Personal Workshop (target the card in your hand and double click Personal Workshop), Aesop’s Pawnshop (target the card on the table and double click Aesop’s Pawnshop), and many more.

• Icebreakers and their strength:

  Icebreakers (all except some of the Shaper ones) are supposed to lose their strength after each ICE encountered. However this is not automated in Octgn, so just remember that. You can take the strength counters off manually, or you can just remember that it needs to be pumped again.

• Stealth Credits and other kinds of specific credits:

  It would be best to manually take them off of cards (by dragging them off the card and releasing) and tell your opponent what you’re doing, or you’ll find yourself spending your Cloak credits on your Corroder and running into an Archer with 200 normal credits. There is also the option to right click on the card (in this case Cloak, not the Icebreaker) and find the Reserve Credits selection. Stealth and things are generally tricky to deal with in Octgn.

• Bioroids:

  to break them using clicks you just manually set your clicks down. Some things aren’t automated and you don’t really need them to be.

If you still need it, here is a video made by ANRBlackhats that will show you a how to use Octgn:

Annnnd as a last bonus, here’s the official Octgn ANR keyboard commands cheat sheet for a really extensive play aid. I personally find it a bit too extensive but it’s good to have for completeness 🙂

And that’s that! Enjoy Octgn and ANR online! If you have any problems and questions, feel free to ask in comments, on twitter or wherever 🙂 Run ya later alligator! (Though I enjoy corping more)

Oh, one last thing, fellow South African Netrunners - please remember to join us on our ANRSA Events group where we’ve always got events and things going on!