Need Opinion on NET Arch access point Homebrew

Hi all!

Need your opinion on a homebrew rule that came to mind today. Last night, I was running 'Reaping the Reaper' from the Tales of the Red for some friends (awesome mission btw). One of the player is a Netrunner. At some point in the mission, the players are sent to pick-up a scanner in a container port and are ambushed by a heavy drone carrying a NET Architecture and 2 air swarm drone cloud.

In the book, it states the large drone stays out of hacking range, but moves closer once the first air swarm is defeated. My Netrunner wanted to hack the NET Arch on the heavy drone by using the air swarm as an access point. I ruled against, stating they were programmed to receive commands, but not send back information in the Arch. GM magic to follow the book intended strategy.

Considering the rulebook is vague about what is an access point and that I let the player connect to NET Arch through security cameras in the past, I had the idea of creating connection tiers for hardware that would allow hacking through most hardware, but with limitations. Here's what I got so far:

New mechanic — NetArch Bandwidth Tiers. Any hardware used as a path into a Net Architecture (e.g., wireless cameras, drones, turrets, access points) is assigned one of three Bandwidth Tiers. When a Netrunner routes NET Actions through that hardware, their available NET Actions through that path are capped by the tier.

Tiers:

• Poor — 2 NET Actions / turn max. Examples: listening bugs, poor-quality wireless cams, cheap door locks, intermittent relays. Unreliable, lossy, high latency.

• Standard — 3 NET Actions / turn max. Examples: consumer drones, high-quality cameras, turrets, typical security systems. Stable, frequent telemetry.

• Direct / Unlimited — No cap (full NET Actions). Examples: Architecture main access point, dedicated console, mobile gun platforms (robots), advanced technologies.

For People using a cyberdeck with neuroport from CEMK that enhance the range for connection (like my player), then this could allow a multiple connection strategy as well:

• Multiple simultaneous connections. If the Netrunner maintains multiple independent connections into the same Architecture (e.g., two different cameras, or a camera + a drone link), they may split NET Actions across those connections — each connection’s cap applies separately.
  • Example: connected to one Poor camera (2 actions) and one Standard drone (3 actions): you can perform up to 5 NET Actions that turn if you route specific actions through the appropriate link.

There's also a couple other optional rules that could be added, but I'm affraid to had more stuff to a class that's already pretty meaty:

• Burst Mode (Risk / Reward): A Netrunner can attempt a bandwidth burst on a Poor/Standard link to temporarily raise its cap by +1 NET Action for the current turn.

  • Make a Hacking/Interface + Tech check (GM sets DV). On a success, the burst applies this turn; on a failure, the link glitches and boost efficiency for defenders (give them +1 to actions against Netrunner). Use sparingly.

• Channel Saturation: If >1 Netrunner uses the same single physical device as conduit simultaneously, cap the total NET Actions through that device to the device tier (players must split those limited actions).

What do you guys think? I mainly want to patch the vague definition of an access point in the rulebook, but liked the flavor these connection tiers bring. This is my first campaign though, so I'd appreciate some veterans opinions on this.

Thanks!