Hackers, Machines & RAM

Hackers and machines are your passive income engine — each one you own generates hacking XP every tick, without any scripting required. Unlike hacking servers, they never fail and never run out.

Cost scaling

Both hackers and machines (and RAM) get more expensive each time you buy one, following the same pattern:

newCost = floor(currentCost * costMultiplier)

• Hackers & machines: costMultiplier = 1.3 (30% more expensive each purchase, per type — buying a Newbie doesn't affect the cost of a Script Kiddie).
• RAM upgrades: costMultiplier = 2.5.

Buying is a straight "pay listed price, get +1, price goes up" transaction — there's no bulk-buy.

Hackers

Hired from the Resources panel. expPerTick is the flat hacking XP each unit of that hacker contributes per game tick (before the resource-multiplier research bonus).

Machines

Purchased from the Machines panel (unlocks at level 3). resourcePerTick works exactly like a hacker's expPerTick.

Total passive XP per tick

passiveXpPerTick = Σ(hacker_count[type] * expPerTick[type]) + Σ(machine_count[type] * resourcePerTick[type])
passiveXpPerTick *= 1 + 0.1 * increaseResourceMultiplierResearchLevel   // if > 0

This is added to your hacking XP every tick, unless a resource freeze penalty is active (see Boss Fights) or you're mid offline-catchup (see Offline Progress).

RAM

RAM caps how much script code you can run at once — see Scripting API for how script RAM cost is calculated.

So the RAM track is 4 → 8 → 16 → 32 GB..., at prices 5,000 → 12,500 → 31,250 → 78,125 DWC... Doubling capacity while the price scales 2.5x per purchase means each upgrade gets steadily less RAM-per-DWC — budget accordingly.