[Malevolence]

Nori - Mercer will reach out to her to see if she has posted her article yet, and if not, ask if he can review the article before publication. I'm not sure she has any real information that can jeopardize our operation, but obviously if they learn that we are on to them it might cause them to close up ranks. So far, Nori does not know the contents of the case (or know that we know), which is about the only thing that Sunrise is unaware of - they know we attacked their offices, and that we are likely aware of their scheme as it relates to Hunters. They assume that there was not salvageable info in the case, and so neither they nor Nori are aware that we know about this warehouse, that we know of their cooperation with certain people and AAAs, etc. so they are unlikely to change their plans in regard to those significantly. Is there something I'm overlooking that could make our jobs more difficult if it were made known to the public (and by extension, Sunrise)?


In fact, it might be beneficial to have a hit piece on Sunrise that shines a light on their relationship with Infected. The link between the Yakuza and the Infected was enough to have a high ranking official commit suicide, if we shine a light on the fact that Sunrise is working for the interests of the worst kinds of Infected, it might kill their Yakuza ties, which brings me to "the Plan" currently under discussion.


Ambushing the convoy instead of assaulting the keep - currently, this is a bad idea because of the Yakuza affiliation. If they move them during the day (unlikely) then the mess of people makes it likely that there will be high civilian casualties, as well as increasing the visibility and chance of interference from third parties.


If they move the Infected at night, there is still the Yakuza to worry about. If they are involved in the transfer, then there will be an increased presence, and we will have little idea of their numbers and where they might come from since they would likely be seeded all around the area. Inside the warehouse, the decreased visibility means that the Yaks might never even be aware of the attack, and if they are, we are in a more defensible position with (as we have learned) a back door that they may not know about. It also reduces the number of directions they can come at us from.


So, while Sunrise has the Yaks in their pocket, an assault on the warehouse feels like the better option. If Nori's article can fracture that partnership, then ambushing the convoy becomes a more appealing play.

[rednblack]

@Herr, I think limiting subjects to the Spirit's MAG rating is a great idea.  We'll run with that.

@Zwei, I must be being unclear.  You do get a piece of info per hit.  Ahh, looking back, I did miss some questions.  Kreutz is on the Aztechnology grid.  Ponytail is on the Emerald City grid. 

@Mal, Nori will not let Mercer read the piece before publication, though she promises him that he's gonna love it. 

We've got our pieces in position for the next "scene" so let's move on from Westfield, get everybody a night's sleep, and have everyone regain 1 Edge. 

On that note, Flickr needs to roll BOD + WIL to resist the effects of the corn. 
BOD + WIL: 9d6t5 5
Damn, son!  Flickr wakes up the next day bright and bushy, and ready to geek some zekes.  We'll see what happens the first time he goes to cast a spell, though >:)

Let's take a quick Karma break as well.  Everyone gets 6 all purpose Karma and 4 Knowledge Skill specific karma.  Feel free to hold onto them, or buy a few ranks in whatever as you see fit.  We'll do a more full round of awards once the hit on project CRISPR is complete.

I may or may not be able to get an IC up tomorrow that will carry forward on what the drone in the warehouse is able to upload as well as cover the drone in the sewer.  If you have any additional rolls/searches/summoning/whatever that you'd like to do between say 12:00-18:00 or so, let me know.  We can adjust the timeline as necessary

[Zweiblumen]

Thanks RnB.  By no means proof, but definitely alludes to more segregation between the factions.  SF is *not* setup for running overwatch/surveillance over time.  All of his software is designed to be run through his RCC.  To have the drones running independently and just check in periodically he'll need to get some Software.  Getting Stealth at a rating 5 for his RCC will be useful in general, but for this specific task he'd want to get a rating 3 (pilot rating of the 'zquitos and fly-spys) stealth/manuever(x2 one as can't use the same thing on 'zquitos and fly-spys)/clearsight programs.  The rating 5 is an AV 10 and costs 2500¥, the 4 rating 3 programs are all AV 6 and come in at 6k¥.  Thoughts?

Castle vs. Convoy
We've got at least another day of legwork to dig up more info on the transport to dig up.  Having a 'zquito in there will also help show daily patterns.  And if the "subjects" are locked inside without being able to exit on their own.  If we can deal with half at a time or better, then I lean towards the keep.  I don't think we've enough firepower to deal with all of these at once unless we find some sort of achilles heel or samson hair situation.

Other thoughts:
Anyone got any contacts that could get us some Area Jammers, this is something that SF really should have??  If we could get our hands on a couple of high rated area jammers it could help keep doors locked that we want locked and possibly reduce some of the effectiveness of various toys the bad guys have.  Rating 6 Jammers are AV 12F.  Dunno if you can do TW tests for finding things on the black market or not.  If so, Mercer taking the lead I'm sure between the rest of us we can get him 2-3 more dice which should do the trick.
Just noticed that Mercer has a rating 5 AJ already.  Dunno if AJs stack or not, but if they do, just getting a rating 3 or 4 would do the trick and that shouldn't be too hard to get.
Also noticed that Mercer's drones have rating 6 software... what's the value in that?  They can only use up to their Pilot rating or the DR of the RCC running it.

[Herr Brackhaus]

So, Jaeger is totally up for continuing this mission, obviously, but in-character he has no idea what's going on so he'll need a recap before continuing

Oh, and summoning a Spirit of Earth to take care of the manhole cover while still sustaining the two detection spells. Conjuring 6 + Magic 6 + Power Focus 2 - Sustaining 4 for a total of 10 dice, so keeping this one a Force 1:
Summoning Force 1 Spirit of Earth; Spirit Resistance; Drain Resistance: 10d6t5 2 2d6t5 1 9d6t5 4

Heh, good thing I did... 1 net hit for one service, 2 drain fully resisted. I'll wait until the next IC post to handle that, though. Force 2 Spirit has BOD and STR of 6, for a total of 12 dice. Oh, and as a spirit of earth it would appear as a hulder, quite literally a forest spirit, kind of like the nymphs of various other mythology; if he'd used reagents when summoning he'd have lit a piece of charcoal on fire for symbolic purposes.

[Tecumseh]

ICly maybe Mal can do a "Mercer fills Jaeger in on the details" post. Jaeger could be invited back to the warehouse. Maybe he even joins us before seeing the living conditions, at which point he hastily retreats to Bellevue.

I'd do it but Achak feels like crap and doesn't want to talk, especially to the empty eye sockets. He'll be more social in the morning, or mid-afternoon, depending when he finally wakes up.

The team budget is ¥12,000. Achak is not opposed to drone and RCC upgrades but he probably doesn't want to spend 75% of the operational budget on them. Obviously it would be great if we had the utility of the programs now but if we can't get them until the morning then we're going to lose a key piece of surveillance data.

I might imagine that the programs would be downloadable via the Matrix but GM's call on them being available via a store. Per the Availability rules, all of the delivery times are 2 days due to the gear cost, but again that's up to GM discretion. I don't know if SpitFire's Dealer Connection quality only applies to the drones themselves or if it might reasonably be applied to their programs as well.

If the programs aren't available for a couple days then that undermines their value since they won't have much time to conduct surveillance before we have to move on the target. We'd be better off going sooner rather than later and minimizing any opportunity that they have to find out where we are (or find out that we know where they are).

Regarding the karma award, I'll likely bank the regular karma but might spend the knowledge karma. Rednblack, what's the price for knowledge skill specializations?

[Zweiblumen]

Yeah, the software is kinda pricey right now.  Being a rigger ain't cheap, especially trying to kit out a fleet to be be self-reliant.  Keeping everything tied to the RCC makes it easy, but leaving a bug (pun intended) is bloody costly.  All that said, the current version will work just not optimally.  We can get a recon as it sits.  Having the 'zquito doing random burst transmissions would make tracking the things electronically challenging and noticing a 1cmx1cm non-organic object not moving much in a warehouse is going to be tricky as well.  Not impossible in the sixth world, but should be pretty tough even without special software to make it harder.  As a compromise just get the CS and Stealth programs at rating 3?  That's 3k¥ now and we can look at spending more later.  This shouldn't take 2 days if it's not bought "off-the books."  While it's got a non-0 AV, it doesn't have to be bought illegally.  *shrug* Buying gear in SR never really made any sense to me.  It's pretty arbitrary to say the amount of time it takes to get something is purely dependent on price and has no bearing on the legality or physicality of the product. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for getting data while we are waiting for the software, SF can stay jumped in and relaying the data until the software can be installed on the drone and have it run autonomously assuming we can get it when the Matrix Store opens for business locally.  Again, getting into the really odd acquisition modes of SR... To make the fluff match the crunch, I'd think this is like having to wait to speak with a sales rep to acquire a valid software license... that makes sense to me.  Can download it anytime/anywhere but to make it work you need a valid license key and you can only get a *legal* one from a sales rep yadda yadda... illegal ones are available on the black market and take time to acquire.  Wonder if we could work out some kind of subscription service for these things like they've got for other program types in Data Trails... food for thought.

For karma award, I'd like to spend some/bank some.  2 points of regular karma each on 1 rank of stealth and 1 rank of perception, 1 point of knowledge karma each on 1 rank of Japanese and 1 rank of Aztlaner Spanish.  With a Logic of 4 he can learn 2 skills at a time, and each one takes 1 day of training.  So, he'd be able to learn all 4 skills in two days of training, dunno if that leaves any time for planning or anything or if he'd need to wait until after this is all said and done to actually be able to use the skills.

[Herr Brackhaus]

On Availability; keep in mind that the delivery times mentioned on page 418 of the core book is for buying illegal gear on the black market only.

To purchase an item off the books, make an Availability Test. This is an Opposed Test of your Negotiation + Charisma [Social] versus the item’s Availability Rating. If you win the Opposed Test, you find the gear at the listed price, and it is delivered in the amount of time given on the Delivery Times table divided by your net hits. If you tie in the test, you find the gear, but the delivery time is twice that listed on the table. If you fail the test, you can try again after twice the amount of time on the table.

In other words, you could walk into a store and buy something outright if you've got the cash (and optionally, the required SIN and licenses), or you could download a program from the Matrix version of iTunes or Amazon, but if you do that you'll have that purchase record tied to the SIN you used. Whether that kind of tracking something the character is willing to accept is up to the player, of course.

Tecumseh
By RAW the Karma cost of all skill specializations is 7 Karma; that includes knowledge skills as per the table on page 107 of the core book.

[Tecumseh]

Yes, I know the RAW costs, but knowledge karma isn't RAW to begin with so I am asking if rednblack wants to use different pricing since we are already in house-rule territory.

[rednblack]

I'm fine with doing the programs as a download.  Getting it directly off the sixth world equivalent of Amazon can be done at any time of the day/night.  I'm assuming at least one of Spitfire's SINs is used for the legal acquisition of drone hardware and software, so I'll need to know which one that is.  Downloading directly to the drone will take about 30 minutes, and during that time the drone will need to be Wireless On.  If it's not done before they leave, Spitfire will need to catch it while it's on to override it turning back Wireless Off.  Speaking of which, for the IC, will the Noizquito be turning itself on to transmit data once every 30 minutes or so?

I may run Availability tests for even legal gear if the AV is high enough, but we don't have to worry about that for anything that's been discussed.

@Tec, I think you said Knowledge Skill Specs cost 2 in 4e?  I'm fine with running that, given how cheap Knowledge Skills are in general, and how expensive Specs are by comparison in relation to Active Skills.

I'm going to get to work on my IC, but I may wait a bit to give Mal a chance to post on catching Jaeger up,etc. before dropping it. 

[Herr Brackhaus]

All skill specializations (active/knowledge/language) in SR4A were 2 Karma, rednblack. I'm totally fine with a 2 Karma cost for specializing in Knowledge skills, by the way

[Tecumseh]

2 karma was overly generous for Active skills in 4E. I never took specializations in SR4 chargen because they were so inexpensive to pick up after play had started. You could pick up two after the first mission.

2 karma still might be on the generous side for Knowledge skills but, in my experience, Knowledge skills need all the help they can get. I've been rolling around different house-rules in my head to make them more prominent, especially during chargen.

[Zweiblumen]

If I don't have to wait until morning to buy the software, then I'd install it on a 'zquito in the van and then swap them out so we don't loose any coverage.

Drone will go wireless-on to do the data pushes to SF's RCC every 30+(random.randrange(-15,15)) min. 

Though this is probably moot as it takes 30 min to transmit a program, I'm guessing the sensor data transmission would take longer than that?  This brings up a whole slew of other questions about data transmission and how that works.  Before I go down that rabbit hole I'm gonna wait and see what RnB (and everyone else) has to say about this part.

[Herr Brackhaus]

To my mind it really doesn't matter if the drone transmits for 30 minutes or 3 minutes, because finding an electronic signal only takes a Complex Action, assuming someone is looking. Given that this seems to be a moderately secure setup run by professionals, it's a safe bet that someone is indeed looking.

In other words, the length of the transmission doesn't matter as long as it is more than a couple Combat Turn long, because Shadowun is a game of abstractions. If we assume that both SpitFire and the opponents are moderately good or better at their jobs, the opponents will get at least one chance to spot the drone. One Matrix Perception test which, if successful, is followed by a at least one Brute Force/Hack on the Fly action to get the necessary 2 MARKs for a Trace Icon test, and Bob's your uncle.

Assuming the opponent can get three actions in one Combat Turn we're looking at a worst case scenario of 3 seconds to spot and trace the icon, possibly without SpitFire ever knowing. Worst case he's only got one action per combat turn, in which case you're looking at a best case time frame (assuming he succeeds on all rolls of course) of 4 Combat Turns, or 12 seconds. There are obviously a lot of things that can go wrong; if the drone isn't running silently then it's just a simple "show me all devices within 100m", or even a "show me all devices within 100m that are not door locks or security cameras" and the game is pretty much up.

This one really comes down to the GM; to my mind this could be as simple as a sneaking test if they don't have matrix support on site; can they spot the drone (with a negative dice pool modifier for size and possibly for not specifically looking) against the drone's Sneaking roll. If they do have Matrix Perception, can they even spot the drone's icon on the Matrix? If yes, then it might be worth making some actual rolls against it.

ETA:
All of the above being said, data sizes are specifically called out in the core book as being mostly insignificant due to improvements in technology. So the 30 minute download time is rather jarring to me; I could accept it needing to perform several steps to use the new software, but strictly speaking this should only take 1 Complex Action for Edit File to copy it from the Matrix (or RCC, wherever SpitFire chooses to keep it), and another Complex Action to load a stored program or swap a running program for a loaded one, for a total time of less than 3 seconds.

Again, as per the above the time of it all doesn't really matter as even remaining online for 3 seconds is enough for a good decker to spot the drone, and because Shadowrun is abstracted we won't make one roll for every period of time the drone is online, instead we'll roll once for the entire duration. At least, that's how the game is designed, similar to how you would make one Sneaking check even if 4 different guards got a chance to spot you on an approach.

Of course, you could roll once for every hour but that gets tedious real quick, so I personally prefer the more abstract method.

[Zweiblumen]

@Herr:  Yeah, I agree that if it has to be left unattended for > 1CT it's pretty much over.  However using the numbers that RnB asked for it would obviate the need to do the wireless on/wireless off bouncing back and forth.  Also making it pretty much a no-go from a strategy perspective.  Another option is to have either the MP tests suffer a penalty or the Hide resists getting a bonus for some sliding value of the time on vs. off as a value of the abstraction and then have a single roll per 1/3/6/12/24(some value of your choice) hour(s).

The matrix is pretty wonky in 5th edition IMHO.  Not that it was great before, requiring the mini-games etc etc.  I definitely get what they were trying to do.  I just wish there was a larger/better PlayTesting team for Catalyst. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Malevolence]

@rnb - I'll get an IC up soon. I was going to do it last night but got sidetracked into the discussion on the SG reprint. I was like 75% of the way through that post thinking to myself "what am I doing? I'm not really bringing anything new to the conversation", but by that point I'd invested so much time into the post, I felt obligated to finish it. I'd like to think that it did contribute to the conversation, but I'm not sure it did so tangibly enough to warrant the time I spent on it. Mondays are tough for me, so I can't say when I might get to it.


The 'zquito - The random variance on the connection time is a good call. If it is looking for new instructions when it connects, you don't necessarily have to be available at that moment to give it new instructions, etc. I think that a half hour for a software install might be on the long side, and as you mention does bring up the specter of how long it takes to transmit video. I don't recall RAW addressing these, so they are all GM decisions.