There is no paid ability window during the resolution of a trace, so no you can’t pop the Hop during the trace. You can use it during any paid ability window you want.
Sensor Net Activation has a paid ability on it. When you use a paid ability, it then exists independently of the source card (this is why Sneakdoor still works if trashed during the run, why ITD sticks around after trashing, etc.). If Sensor Net had a separate ability in a different paragraph – something like “When the turn on which you use Sensor Net Activation ends, derez the bioroid rezzed with Sensor Net Activation.” – then it would be avoidable by getting rid of the Sensor Net after using it.
You cannot use paid abilities (including Sports Hopper) in the middle of a trace. You can use sports hopper during any other paid window, including 1.1 on the corp turn (i.e. before the draw).
Hm… I’m not actually 100% here, but I think your friend is right, but for the wrong reasons. Your friend is sort of right that these have different triggers – BN is looking very specifically for the end of the turn in which you scored it, whereas Sensor Net is looking for the end of the turn in which you used the paid ability. That distinction matters for something like 24/7 (because you never actually score BN in this case), but in the case of EoI it’s kind of irrelevant: both of these trigger conditions will be met. The real issue with EoI/BN is that the agenda’s text is inactive in the runner’s score area when the trigger is met; this is true of EoI/Sensor Net as well.
I think (and, again, I’m not 100%) the meaningful difference is with the way the abilities are printed. BN’s “when the turn in which…” is printed as a separate paragraph; i.e. as a separate effect. Technically speaking, the second effect (losing tags) could fire even if the first never did – I don’t know of any way to achieve this in the current card pool, but as a hypothetical we could imagine a resource that says “Ignore any ‘when scored’ abilities on agendas scored by the corporation.” This would nullify the first part of BN, but the second, as a separate effect, would still fire. By contrast, the paid ability on Sensor Net is printed as a single effect, meaning that once the effect begins it stays in play until it fully resolves – think about Test Run or Sneakdoor here. Test Run is always trashed before its effect actually resolves, but the effect ‘hangs out’ nonetheless; likewise if Sneakdoor gets trashed mid run.
Watchdog: yes, this should stack.
Edit: @jakodrako beat me to it, but at least it looks like I was correct in my reasoning.
Second edit: As an editorial, I think most of us would agree that this is why if BN was rewritten today, it would probably be written as a single effect. It seems doubtful that LL was looking ahead to peculiar edge cases with EoI or 24/7 when he was drafting the core set cards.
Is it just two paragraphs that makes the distinction? Or, is there something to the wording that clues the player in that if the agenda is no longer active that it still has a derez effect?
Yes it’s just the two paragraphs. The second paragraph of BN is considered its own ability, that’s why it triggers separately (and cannot if the card is no longer active).
Oh, interesting. Do we have that paragraphs make multiple separate abilities in the rules anywhere? I have not been able to find it in the latest FAQ or Core Rules.
If not, that would be a great FAQ. I would want to make sure that players with good reading comprehension and comparison analysis can figure out a ruling like this on their own (with the help of the rules and FAQ). Maybe whenever they update the FAQ with the Exchange of Information/Breaking News interaction, they can just add that the second ability in Breaking News doesn’t fire because it’s a separate ability in a new paragraph that’s no longer active.
EDIT: I originally wrote this referring to John Masanori when I meant to say Joshua B.
I find the “new paragraph” explanation pretty unsatisfying. I still feel like Sensor net should work like Breaking News to be playable.
From what I can tell, the argument that it does not is that Sensor Net’s rez/derez is a paid ability, purchased with the token. Like John MassanoriJoshua B, when you trigger a paidan optional conditional ability, it resolves completely even if the card that triggered it is no longer in play.
By contrast, the Breaking News conditional ability uses the same language structure, but breaks into two paragraphs, which has led people to say that the second sentence is a different “trigger.”
I think the well-established breaking news effect plus the similarity in language of the cards demands an official faq entry because it is just, for me, halfway between massanoriJoshua B and Breaking News, semantically.
i don’t see why it demands an official faq entry. the precedent has been well established, and the difference is something you’ve noted.
i don’t think anyone is really happy with the two-paragraph structure of Breaking News. i think if the designers could have done it over again, they’d probably redo it a bit, but it is what we have.
The problem is that there are two competing precedents, with different outcomes.
Precedent 1: Joshua B, which says “When your turn begins, you may gain . If you do, take 1 tag when this turn ends.” The argument is that the conditional ability is optional (sort of like a paid ability) and that the whole thing starts when it’s triggered, and the second sentence resolves even if the card is trashed in between. Note that the second sentence begins with “If you do,” (In fact, FFG’s official answer calls out the phrase “if you do” as the thing that makes the second sentence part of the first conditional ability.)
Precedent 2: Breaking News, which says “When you score Breaking News, give the Runner 2 tags. /
When the turn on which you scored Breaking News ends, the Runner loses 2 tags.” This is also a conditional ability, but you don’t have a choice about whether to do it or not. But the second sentence, which has a new evaluation and a new condition, “when the turn … ends” has been ruled a separate ability that is evaluated and resolved at a different time than the first ability.
Sensor Net Activation lands right between these two. It’s optional, and its two sentences are not separated by a line break. But the second sentence has a new conditional trigger, and is worded with the same “When the turn ends” format as Breaking News (Implying it is evaluated and resolved at that time). Also, agendas have the added rule that their text box is blank when they’re in the runner’s score area. So the Joshua B ruling, which applies to a resource that has been trashed, may in fact be different than Sensor Net’s effect if it is swapped or forfeited.
If they took out the line break in Breaking News but didn’t revise the ruling about how it worked, that, to me, would be an argument that Sensor Net functions the same way, since both are agendas. To me it’s absolutely reasonable that a player who knows the Breaking News / Exchange trick but doesn’t know the Joshua B ruling would think Sensor Net functions this way, and I think a ruling is needed to clear this up.
i agree with you that it’s confusing. a lot of netrunner minutiae are.
but Sensor Net Activation is not really ‘optional.’ it’s a paid ability that clearly lists the effect after the cost.
sure, if Sensor Net said “if you do…” it would be easier for you to template it, but it’s not an optional ability like Joshua B. it’s a paid ability that cannot be used unless you actually rez a bioroid ice (due to the ruling of altering game state). there is no ‘if you do…’ to check for derezzing it at the end of turn.
If you guys are unsatisfied with the answer here, feel free to write FFG. They may decide to include it in the FAQ.
But I think you are both placing too much emphasis on the BN “precedent.” BN is a weird card, written before templating was a major concern. I’m reticent to say that it is an “exception,” because it isn’t an exception to the rules, but let’s just say that it has unusual formatting in that they wrote it as two separate effects*.
The “competing” precedent is a fundamental rule that the game would basically break without. It covers dozens of interactions that we’re all familiar with and use all the time. Sneakdoor and Josh B. have already been mentioned. But consider every card with a trash ability - these will all be in the heap/archives (and thus inactive) before their effects fully resolve.
*Just for clarity: having multiple effects in separate paragraphs isn’t that unusual - this is what makes every card with multiple paid abilities (e.g. basically every breaker) or conditional effect(s) and paid abilities (e.g. NACH) work the way we think they should. What is unusual is that the two effects on BN seem/feel/look like they were clearly related and the possibility of resolving one without the other isn’t immediately apparent (or even possible, at the time it was printed, short of ending the game in the interim). For those reasons, it seems/feels/looks like it was probably intended as a single effect even if it wasn’t printed that way.
I really am not trying to be a pain. I just want to get it to “click” in my head, and thus far I haven’t been able to. I might have to set that aside, but since this is a place to talk about rules, I thought this would be a good place to hash it out.
Sensor net is optional in that you get to choose when to spend the counter to do the effect. That’s what I meant, as opposed to Breaking News and Joshua B which are both conditional and happen whether you choose to do anything or not. Joshua B’s second sentence is explicitly conditional on the first, though. Sensor Net’s is not so clear. If they had written “Derez that bioroid at the end of this turn” instead of “when the turn ends,” I think I wouldn’t be so confused. But the “when the turn ends” language usually indicates a conditional.
I don’t see how sneakdoor is related – its effects happen “when successful” and don’t happen otherwise. It also doesn’t use a separate sentence with a “when the” clause. NACH’s two clauses have separate triggers, clearly
I understand what you’re saying about Breaking News, except that it’s a core card whose interaction has been ruled on and they haven’t errata’d it. They produced another card, also an agenda, using the same wording. It’s not unreasonable to think it would work the same way.
Perhaps this is a mystery I just can’t resolve in my head, like why four socks go into a dryer and only three come out, or whether amputees get their limbs back in heaven.
Thanks for the insight, everyone!
ps - I posed in the rules forum over at FFG, just to see what they say.
There’s a bit of discussion about keeping Netrunner healthy and seeing what can be done to for it to grow, which is mostly out of scope in this thread. But, there is a rules burden for new and casual players for any mature game. I don’t get why there would be disagreement that FFG should document unwritten rules in FAQ. The fact that a new paragraph makes a new ability on Breaking News is not documented anywhere.
If they want to get away from a paragraph structure that’s fine. I wouldn’t be sad if they errata Breaking News to one ability either.
Just want to note that, even if they did errata BN in such a way, the “line break” ability segregation extends beyond BN (ex: Beth + Palana interaction), and would still be a candidate for a FAQ entry (or a broad sweep of erratas, which I wouldn’t want to see; want to limit functional erratas).
