[Scarecrow71]

So everyone knows, I am waiting on one of the players to post.

[vinnmun]

Anyone else have the hardware skill other than myself? I figured something that I may wanna do.

[Scarecrow71]

Vinnie, I believe you are the only character with the Hardware skill.  However, I'll let the others weigh in on if they do or not.


I also have a couple things I would like to point out to all players, both current and prospective:

1.  If one of the NPC's indicates that he is "pushing" something to your commlink, you need to check your real-life email.  This statement indicates that there is something that I am sending you that your character would be receiving on his commlink that, for whatever reason, isn't going to be posted in the IC thread.  This can be data files, account information when you get paid, or information that only your character (or some characters, but not all characters) might have access to.

2.  Unless you state otherwise, I will assume that your commlink is is broadcasting your real SIN (should you have one) in Passive mode.  If you do not have a real SIN, I will go through the list of fake SINs you have and pick the first one in alphabetical order.

I have added these tidbits to the first post in this thread so all can see them.

[vinnmun]

*Novatech commlink has Analyze loaded and Fake Sin (Arnold Player) installed. Passive Mode

*Battle Commlink is loaded with: Exploit, Analyze, Browse, Encrypt, Decrypt, Edit, Stealth, Spoof, Track, Sniffer, Scan | Dennis Kinley  Fake Sin Loaded | Hidden Mode

In case it was missed, I'll repost my commlink stuff unless you are asking of something else that I'm not understanding. :-) I am going to have to buy another driver's license at some point for Arnold Player sin.

[Scarecrow71]

No, I noticed you had that indicated and it sparked my mind to want to remind everyone of the small issue with what modes commlinks can be/are in.  Just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page!

[WSN0W]

Sent you a PM with the status of my default settings.

And on the Hardware question, regretably, no, I don't and likely won't be able to invest in it either.

[Scarecrow71]

See the first post in this thread regarding commlink settings.  I'd prefer to have you explicitly state what they are every time your location changes so I'm not having to try to remember that you have these settings, and another player has these settings, and so on.  Just makes it easier on your GM's old mind.

[WSN0W]

Will do

[vinnmun]

How are tests going to be done for my matrix rolls for you. Limited, quick, or same dice pool max rolls based on the dice pool.

[Scarecrow71]

How are tests going to be done for my matrix rolls for you. Limited, quick, or same dice pool max rolls based on the dice pool.

We will need to discuss this.

Simple data searches are fine, so long as you are aware that your extended tests encompass 1 minute per hit.  You will be pulling known information, which means you get whatever is in local newspapers, online stories, trids/vids, etc.

However, you will not be gaining access to private data or encrypted nodes as those are completely separate tests that you did not state you are doing.  Just so we're clear. 

Anyhow, 1 minute per hit puts you at over 90 minutes to do your searches currently, so you are going to be out of action for a bit.  I will detail what you find at the directed times (33 minutes from current time for your first search, etc.).  I need to do this to keep all of you going on the same timeline.  Fair?

[vinnmun]

a minute per hit.....seems a bit wacky but whatever. Well if there's any nodes that require me to have some sort of access, that is pretty much included in the tests since we're doing the 1 minute per hit thing than.

I myself like the regular rules, but it's your game man. I'll follow. :-)


So I'm also looking for nodes that require access that would contain the information i'm looking for.

[Scarecrow71]

One of the things I struggle with (honestly and admittedly) is intervals for extended tests.  I am reading the rules on extended tests and time intervals, and I cannot find a standard by which we are supposed to use.  The book does have a chart where we could quickly set the interval and difficulty, which I am more than happy to use.  Difficulty on what you are doing is not that hard for your first 2 tasks, so we'll say an interval of 1 minute.

The difficult thing here is you rolled 7 times on the first task, so I now have to gauge how long that truly takes.  The task is simple, yes.  But without waiting to see if you garnered any information on the first test, you continued to roll until you accumulated a ridiculous amount of hits on something that was the hot news item several years ago.  Finding information on the Mayan Cutter that was in the news is no problem.  My point is that I have to determine how long it takes you with the number of rolls you made, and I'm gonna say 1 minute per roll as you are continuing to search, so that's 7 minutes on the first search.  This will apply to the second search as well, with 1 minute for each roll (although I don't know what you expect to find on Mrs. MacCallister on the internet, but it's cool).

The third search...we'll deal with in-game.

So, we're looking at 7 minutes on the first task, 7 minutes on the second task, and at least 7 minutes on the third task (which we'll deal with in the game itself).

Is that fair?  I'm not perfect, and I'd like to get this right so we can get on with the fun!


EDIT:  What do you know - page 230 in SR4A shows searching the entire matrix as 1 minute, so I guess I'm right on with that.  But, let me know what you think.

[Father_Twilight]

for how long you allow extended tests to occur, there is a suggestion in the book to have the player remove one die with every roll he makes, thus the total length of time possible to use on a roll is limited by one's ranks/attributes relevant to the skill. Thus he may start with 12 dice, but after his first roll he is reduced to 11, so on and so forth until he is out of dice or hits the threshold.

[Scarecrow71]

Which he did.  But when we are talking about large dice pools (such as 16 dice, in this case), it would take 16 tests at 1 minute each before he hit 0 dice.

[vinnmun]

The matrix is way faster than internet is now. Why limited extended tests are done to put things in a time frame. One other way of doing things is setting up thresholds for certain levels of data and me rolling one time for a quick extend. Based on the interval you set, you can give me pieces of info in "real time" as everyone else is doing something.