Hyperbaric

Hyperbaric 3[credit]

Program: Icebreaker - Decoder
Memory: 1 • Strength: 0
Influence: 3

When you install this program, place 1 power counter on it.

This program gets +1 strength for each hosted power counter.

Interface → 1[credit]: Break 1 code gate subroutine.

2[credit]: Place 1 power counter on this program.

Illustrated by Cat Shen
Decklists with this card

Midnight Sun (ms)

#26 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Midnight Sun
Rulings
  • Updated 2022-09-10

    Can the Runner use Rigging Up to put an extra counter on Hyperbaric?

    Yes. Hyperbaric’s “when you install” ability resolves in between the instruction from Rigging Up that installs it and the instruction that gives the option to charge it. By the time the latter instruction resolves, Hyperbaric has a hosted power counter and is legal to charge.

Reviews

This is basically a reprint of Study Guide, with very small changes:

  • It starts with one power counter on it, saving you a few credits.
  • It's one less influence to splash it now.

Give that review a read first, it's great, and a lot of the trade-offs are still accurate.

This is going to be very attractive to Rielle "Kit" Peddler: Transhuman decks -- instead of pumping Gordian Blade's strength once per run, now they can pump it once for the entire game, and as long as they can successfully turn everything into a code gate, then they will break everything pretty efficiently.

(But, see also the study guide reviews, because you have a pretty big tempo hit if you need to pump the strength up to Ravana 1.0 and Tollbooth levels for example.)

Maybe this can be mitigated a bit with Rigging Up -- you save 3 on the install cost that way, and save 4 pumping (compared to Study Guide) if you start with two power counters, so if you encounter Tollbooth you "only" need 7 more credits to get in now.

On the other hand it may also be attractive in Captain Padma Isbister: Intrepid Explorer, because you can charge it using the ID ability and save yourself 2 each time. Not clear if that is a better use of the ID ability than charging the boat though. Maybe you can get value this way in the very early game when you haven't installed the boat yet.

(Midnight Sun era)

I don't know how much the influence change will matter - 3 influence vs 4 influence for a breaker are still both pretty steep. But the other change, (starting with one power counter) seems very significant.

I'm sure that part of the reason they had it start with a power counter was to make it a potential target for Rejig. But since most codegates are greater than 0 strength, it basically saves you an extra 2<span class="icon icon-credit"></span>, which is a lot, when talking about icebreaker install costs. (I know this isn't technically part of the install cost, but since it's a cost you have to pay before you can use it for most things, it's similar.)

I guess it´s here to make it charge-able, which Study Guide isn´t (or at least not when you install it)