Hear me out cause this may be a lil difficult to follow.
Basically, beacons don’t really have a game mechanic attached to it and it could. Beacons coordinate and communicate with bots. The hacking skill remotely communicates with the bots to take it over. The 2 should affect one another.
As a game mechanic, I think these beacons should affect difficulty/time a bot stays hacked(whatever is fair). No beacons in an area should give some sort of bonus to the hacking skill. No signal to regain control means that the robot’s internal mechanisms or programming has to take back control. Without that signal, it should be easier to hack a bot or the time should be extended or both.
Incorporating this game mechanic would allow game devs to add more beacons to cover an area and make more checkpoints the players have to pass through that are guarding them. I think this would make the game funner as it’s also a symbol of taking the country back from the machines, beacon by beacon. Of course, the bots have their internal programming and will still be everywhere, but, their ability to communicate with HQ would be limited and that isolation from their home signal should have a mechanical and story benefit.
See what I’m saying? This could be huge.