After I got the engineer skill I chose hacker as my second skill. It has its odd moments but I am having a total blast with it and have had 2 or 3 really nice successes. My record is 325 XP just by holding up a pair of binoculars which I think is worth the effort.
How do you feel about this skill?
What does it do now?
It sounds like it got better/fixed. I got it on a character a long time ago, and I seemed to have chances of, say, 70/30 for failure/success, and “success” for dogs would sometimes mean attacking other dogs. For literally everything else, “success” was always, “stands around doing nothing.”
Considering that, and that the effect timing out would always mean that all the bots knew where you were, I wrote the skill off as a bit disappointing at the time (not exactly useless, but a bit disappointing for a capstone); sounds like it got better?
In the tradition that many of the skills can be substituted with inventory items, I mostly got the effect of EMP (goes for a nap) out of it rather than that of a sticky flare (provokes infighting between enemies). In fact, it was worse than EMP in that you were guaranteed to affect only one target.
When I got the skill, I was kinda expecting epic fights between two tanks, not a 20 second nap. 
I find it is useless on the slow machines - tank and harvester. Results on medium speed machines (hunters) are mixed. I have caused them to fight each other but haven’t yet got a kill. Results on runner packs are really good because runners react fast so you get a lot of your 40 seconds worth of hack time spent in combat.
The best targets are mixed groups so runners escorting a harvester, or one or two hunters among runners. Hack a runner and watch the fun.
I hit a pack of 4 runners guarding a beacon yesterday - the rogue one killed one of its mates then the two others turned on the hacked one and killed it. Meanwhile I sniped one of the survivors leaving only one to rush me who I took down easily as it ran towards me. Two sniper shots to kill four runners.
My second good result was 2 runners and a hunter guarding the Hagaboda radio mast in the Loud and Clear mission. I hacked one of the runners which killed its buddy, then the hunter killed it leaving me just the hunter to deal with.
My best result was a few minutes later when I ran over to the two police cars to get the radio shack key. Several runners and another hunter came at me so I ran away and hid in the trees. The machines stopped chasing me and milled around the two police cars so I hacked a runner and all hell broke loose with one of the machines hitting a police car in the firefight and both exploded taking out the entire group of 6 doggies and a hunter in one big bang.
It is annoying though when the hack fails and a pack of angry hunters come after you. You need good running shoes half the times you use the hacker skill. On the rare occasions it works well, its fun watching the machines having a bar room brawl.
6 dead runners and a hunter near the burning cop cars. It was a good thing I got the key out of the cars first.
It was the first specialism I got during my solo campaign run. It worked as purely a distraction tactic and in the early days ( before the count-down timer & hack success % ) it worked very well against tanks and harvesters. Fair to say though it has caused some serious chaos especially in bunkers, and enjoyed using it.
I would like the option to attack or shut down / along with additional hack success rate improving - based on your combined skill points used in the “tech” skill tree.
A self-destruct option would be awesome, at least on weaker Machines like the Runners. You could chain explosions to take out whole groups at a time.
85-90% of the time for me it either has no effect, or they just stand there looking dopey. 
Have had them (usually dogs) attack things probably five times ever, out of many attempts.
Won’t bother with this ‘skill’ in another playthrough as just doesn’t work well enough.
Yes, its a bit hit and miss. I tried it on another squad of runners at a beacon again last night and the hacked one just stood there and the others ignored it. On a second attempt elsewhere the hacked one got pummelled by his mates then they all rushed me so its a bit hit and miss. I find it fun though so will persevere with it for the entertainment value.
I finally got the hacking skill myself. I was really excited and tested it with a few runners. Most of the time I was not sure whether it worked and the runner just walked away. Even when the light turnes blue often it takes 20 sec before they start to do something.
Than I thought, lets try something with a bit more fire power and more agressive behaviour.
I hacked some hunters (FNIX class). Almost the same. It takes about 10 sec before they start doing something. That it actually worked. They fight each other but the hacked one used its ticks and those are not hacked so they did nothing. The other Hunters also used their ticks and they jumped on the hacked one but did not much damage. And finally the hunters shoot each other two times.
And than guess what? As long as they have directly visual contact with you (Distances does seam to not matter) they direclty attack you. And not just the hacked hunter, no his friends too.
After I killed them by myself I thougth, maybe I should hack something with even more firepower.
So I went to the air field and tryed to hack Tanks. There were 3 FNIX Tanks. Well they only have a successrate of 10 % so it was clear that it would take some time. I spent about 40-50 min trying to hack them (I mostly tried it with the same one) And in those 40-45 tries (60 Sec of cooldown) It actually worked TWO times. I was sooo excited.
But than Gen Zero pulled me back in its reality.
The first time the hacked Tank stood next to the second one. And all he decided to do is … drop two ticks … two ticks in 40 sec of hacking time. TWO ticks. TWO … And guess what, they are not hacked so they didn’t attack. The Tanks light didn’t even turn red, only yellow.
And that was all the biggest monster in Gen Zero did.
Immediatelly after the hacking was over he turned his Autocanon towards me and shot me in my face at about 150 m distance.
Well I decided to run away and try it one more time with hacking. I thought it could not really get worse.
After another 20 tries I was successfull. The second tank was standing about 20 m next to him, so I thought now something cool happens. The tanks light turns yellow, the light of the seccond tank too. And … … … … … … … nothing? … … … … … nothing?? … … … not even useless ticks?
NOTHING!!!
It was this moment when I realized that I just spend almost an hour for this. You can probably imagine how frustrating this is. What a waste of time and fun.
Suggestions:
Conclusion for the current state: not funny, mostely useless. Certainly useless for bigger machines
My comment was don’t bother with tanks and harvesters, they are too slow and if the hacker perk caused tanks to kill each other it would be OP. I have had a good deal of success among dog packs and combined dog/hunter groups. I limit the use of hacking to these now. I don’t consider it a waste of time but merely that the devs have maintained game balance. It is still a lot of fun when it works and worth it to watch the antics.
The undestroyed machines turning on you is probably also a game balance thing, it also makes some sense in that the machines could possibly detect where the hacking signal originated.
That’s a fantastic idea, sounds awesome
In my experience the hacker perk is my most used perk, even if it´s not a garunteed kill. It´s very versatile.
Usually it´s better to hack dogs or hunters neer tanks and harvesters and see the small ones heavly damage the bigger ones.
Also tanks/harvesters use there rocket pods more often vs small targets rather when you hack them.
And if I get a hack on a harvester/tank they 100% ignore you so you can go up pointblank if you want to and destroy them. It´s really easy to get tanks this way.
Tips & tricks about hacking (from someone that uses it A LOT)
Step by step guid (my experience)
Tank:
succesfull hack tank (this must happen for this to work)
Run up to tank
place as much explosives as you can under tank
run away
shoot explosives when directly under tank (perferible a sniper/scoped gun, or if you can´t render the target a shoutgun)
watch it die or get critically damaged (depende on how much you placed under it.
Bonus : If disabel the guns on the tank and then hack it will runnaround and stomp on things… or sometimes just run away… idunno if they are bugged but they are far more agressive this way, great for hacking.
Trick is that tanks have little to no armor on top and below (strangely enough) so this tacktic has a really high chanse to work.
I have tried with harvesters but they are overall more protected so wont work as good, just hack there escort and watch them get shoot in the back.
Hunters:
They attack much faster for some reason when they are melee only.
Runners: just general mayhem, hack the ones with most health and or in the middle of a group so the rest gets crossfired.
Ticks are pointless to hack, unless they are next to tanks as the tank can´t hit it and the tick dose heavy close range damage that hit´s through armor for some reason.
Seekers: Attracts everything in the area after 10-30s good for avoiding hunters/runners, just be fast about it as they run to your “hacklocation” after the hack has run out.
Sorry for long text but I wanted to explain how it works from my experience 
Good luck if you try out this skill.
Edit: added stuff
My thoughts on the Hacker skill:
I would like for this skill to be completely reworked. The succesful hacks that actually lead to anything good/fun happening in the game are rare.
My suggestions for improving the skill with how it is implemented currently would be something like this:
remove the RNG from the skill, let i work all the time, but balance it like this:
The stronger the enemy, the shorter the duration. Examples (and please note, examples!) of duration could be something like this (tier 1/2), numbers in seconds:
Runner 50/100
Hunter 30/60
Harvester 20/40
Tank 15/30
the cooldown of the skill could be increased depending on unit hacked. Again, numbers in seconds:
Runner 30
Hunter 50
Harvester 70
Tank 90
Another option altogether could be an introduction of a new item drop that would be necessary to hack the machines. This item would guarantee a hack, but the item would be used up. Kind of like an ammo system for the Hacker skill, and again balanced so that the tougher the enemy, the shorter the duration of the hack. With such a system the cooldown could be the same no matter the tier of the hacked unit.
response time needs a lot of work for hacked units, it’s not fun hacking a machine and see it just stand there for the bigger part of the duration
hacked units needs a better graphical represenation, why not use something similar to Enemy marking, but with a different color (imho this is high priority)
cooldown indicator in the UI (not only when using the binoculars)
rivals should be immune, but that may already be the case?
Idea for hacker skill (other thread locked):
What if instead of a fixed proc chance and cooldown, the success was depending on the time you spent using the skill.
In this way, if you are stealthy and take sufficient time (say 30 seconds) you would have a 100% chance. But if you only spend 5 seconds, then the chance is low. Also, you needed to spend at least 5 seconds, else success chance is 0%. (These are just numbers thrown in the air, testing and balancing would of course be needed.)
This would further not need a cooldown, because if you tried to use in quick succession using only around 5 seconds, the chance would still be very low. But if you could take the time again (25-30 seconds), chance would be high.
This IMO would be a much better way to do it than the current system. 
I’d suggest “hacker” specialization remove as “ultimate” skill and merge it “upwards” to Remote Hacking skill as 2nd/3rd tier if we have to preserve effects as is. This way players can use something more useful, while keeping ability to hack and even somewhat control machines.
A while back I was thinking I’d rather have a 10-15s hack 100% of the time than a 40s hack 15% of the time.
Trust me - no. Considering how long it mostly takes for the enemies to even do anything, that would make an already very lackluster skill even worse.
I agree, right now 15s on a tank/harvester wouldn’t allow for much. Maybe the lack of responsiveness was to offset the 40s hack time? Either way, I’d still prefer 15s consistently on a biggie than 85% nothing :D. Currently it’s like clicking a broken button.
That being said, there are much more elegant ways to implement the hacking skill - I was just sharing my initial though on the subject.
I have to agree that the Hacker specialization isn’t as great as it could be (even though I would choose it over support’s Commander and survival’s Survivor specializations any day but that’s a different topic). Some people have expressed concerns about changes making it OP. I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Generally, using a single sticky flare currently does more.
I love most of the ideas in this thread and I agree with most of the problems expressed with this. I especially like the idea of the probability increasing as you get closer.
Adding to possible improvements, I wouldn’t mind if you had to maintain focus while holding the hack button. If you lose focus it counts as a failure, and perhaps it’s when you fail on the same enemy (let’s say 3 times for instance), then the enemy gives away your location… as opposed to it always doing so. It should also say HACKED in the details of the enemy in the tech view. At least this way you could tell if your hack was a success or not immediately.
Hacker skill at best is a alternative way of distracting enemies.
For those who expect to hack an Apoc Tank to destroy everything will be sadly disappointed.
I use it often in multiplayer. Mostly on runners and hunters. It’s nice to get some help against the big ones. One time when I hacked a Hunter it ran away not to be seen again during the battle. It came out of the Woods after the battle when we were looting it’s dead friends.
It’s the skill I’ve used most often. I’m on my third play trough. First time with the skill. But I do think it would be great if a scope could be used for it.
