Nope. It's in the rulebook. You can't attack the Virus until you have all 3 AVDs. As for the secret codes, they were just a way to let you know you found the Virus without revealing the location to the other players.In post 49, Rhinox wrote:besides its not like you haven't made some other changes from the original. For example I remember something about passcodes and also being able to attack the virus before having all 3 weapons
The only actual game mechanics I've changed are making the turns simultaneous and standardizing the number of energy shields you get. (In the original game, every time you were attacked you would randomly get to pick 1, 2, or 3 shields; but I wanted to avoid needing multiple submissions for a single turn.)