Surfin' the 'trix, Three Sites for Deckers to Play With Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Ancient History]

RealCafé
A homey coffee bar greats you, all 1950's chrome and black leather, with soft glowing cone-shaped lights and unnecessary fins and radials. MeCafé, the RealCafé mascot, mans the counter himself doling out sim-program taste samples of the various RealCafé brews.

The Deal: RealCafé is an upscale coffee and stimulant bar owned by one of Aztechnology's subsidiaries' subsidiaries, and is popular throughout the northeast UCAS, from Nova Scotia down to Maryland. One of RealCafé's biggest promotions is an ongoing lottery-style give-away of coupons for a free cup of java. Each morning, thousands of people wake up to find an electronic certificate waiting in their Matrix account's mailbox.

The Paydata: A smooth decker can snag as many free coupons for coffee as they want. Attempts to insinuate worms to guarantee continual free cups of coffee fail; a corporate security decker pops by every week (or more often if it looks like they're some funny business going on). A "book" of ten coupons takes up 1 Mp of space.

Green-3/3/4/4/6

Trigger Step - Event
3 - Psychotropic Black IC-3 (Positive Conditioning)
6 - Ringworms IC activated. Each book of coupons downloaded after this mark contains a Ringworms-3. The decker becomes a walking advertisement for RealCafé ...and the laughingstock of his friends.
12 - Passive Alert. Databombs IC armed. Each book of coupons downloaded after this mark contains a Databomb-2.
18 - Probe-4
24 - Active Alert, Inferior Security Decker
30 - Shutdown

_____________

UCAS Patent Office
This unimaginative host appears as an infinite number of filing cabinets floating equidistant in an infinite, grey space. A monochrome black rectangle serves as a doorway, and another smaller one serves as an access screen.

The Deal: Copies of all patents ever issued in the UCAS occupy this node, going back to the primitive scans of paper patents from the disparate Canadian and United States Patent Offices. Patent applications and request forms arrive by mail, and trigger a dissapearing SAN directly onto a UCAS Patent Office Clerk's cyberterminal.

The Paydata: While some deckers may be hired to "catch" an incoming patent application, this public host is often too crowded for proper shadowy shenanigans. Rather, "scroungers" sift through the masses of patents for good bits of technology, code and magical techniques they can use. A decker with an idea of what they want and a good search engine could find almost any do-it-yourself project they could ever dream of sitting in here...

Orange-6/9/9/5/5

Trigger Step - Event
6 - Probe-8
10 - Scramble-9
14 - Passive Alert, Trace-8
18 - Active Alert, 2 Matrix Marshals (see Target: Matrix)
22 - Matrix Marshal every Combat Turn
_____________

The Scriptorium
You are surrounded by gleaming lines of code, tinted black or red. Stacks of virtual bills trade hands and massive screens list notations unfathomable by all save the black accountants who dwell here.

The Deal: The Scriptorium is a well-hidden host for the shadowy side of the money market. Unlike Brokerage X, the Scriptorium deals in various real-world credits and currencies, the exchange rates set by the Matrix-savvy fixers and brokers who make their quick deals "on the floor." 1% of each monetary transaction goes to the Host, a grim skeleton in a suit made of corporate scrip bills, who maintains the host, its privacy, and its security. Failure to tip the host results in a fine: all monies of any currency the offending decker has on their deck or accessible online accounts. Those who don't pay up are killed...and then their bank accounts are raided.

The Paydata: Deckers can trade out any currency they want for any other in relative privacy and security while "on the floor." More ambitious deckers may try to insinuate worms or seek out Host's secret vault (rumoured to possess over ten million nuyen in different currencies). Less ambitious deckers can get free SoyCola™ from the vending machine.

Layout: The Scriptorium is hidden through a trap door in a pre-simsense SoyCola™ vending machine's Index. Deckers who don't think to look for it would never guess it's there. Once through the trap door, however, the decker moves into the hidden host and has access to a normal simsense feed. This host is the Scriptorium, and a security decker (there are always three online at any time) will come down and explain the rules. What only Host knows is that his vault does exist-the Scriptorium is only a Virtual Machine. The actual host contains a triggered SAN to an old solar-powered weathersat. This is the Vault.

Coke Machine:
Blue-2/2/2/8/2/2

Trigger Step - Event
12-Passive Alert, Probe-2
24-Active Alert, Trace-2
36-Shutdown

Scriptorium: (Stats and triggers/events for actual host in italics)
Virtual Machine: Red-8/10/10/12/9
Actual Host: Red-10/12/12/14/11

Trigger Step - Event
6-Probe-10 with armor
8-Passive Alert, all cred transfers infected with Dataworms-6.
9-Passive Alert, Equal Security Decker
12-Tar Pit-11 with shield
14-Active Alert, all cred transfers halt. SAN to the Vault is triggered and whatever cred was in the process of transferring is uploaded into the Vault at 50Mp/turn.
15-Active Alert, Construct-10 (Blaster-8, Trace-3 with trap Ripper(Bod)-5)
17-Command line triggered, detonates a kilo of C4 within the SoyKola™ machine.
18-Cerebropathic Black IC-12 with cascading
21-Superior Security Decker
24-Superior Security Decker
26-SAN to the Vault closes.
27-Shutdown
29-Shutdown

In the Vault itself, the decker only has to face a single challenge...the cold, greedy and psychopathic decker known as Host.

[Backgammon]

I do not believe an AI of your sophistication would "accidently" post THREE times a post about THREE decker hotspot. I'm on to you, machine!

[Ancient History]

It really was a flub. I kept getting an error message. It's so embarassing. I haven't done anything like that in months, at least. :sleepy:

[Supercilious]

Triple post FTW.

;-)

[Lady Door]

I believe you AH. It did the same freaking thing to me. :)

[fistandantilus4....]

excuses excuses :D

[Kyuhan]

I didn't fall for the error message, muahahaha. :P

[Ancient History]

So no-one liked the coffee coupons, eh?

[bclements]

Real coffee is a nice thing for a decker to be able to hand out at will...and even better for a face-decker guy.

[Fortune]

[fistandantilus4....]

I thought that the idea was great, as well as the advertisement worms. I just happen to hate coffee with a passion normally reserved for small yappy dogs.

Most people were probably just thrown off because the coffee wasn't cursed, there's no Immortals behind the coffee, and the coupons aren't part of some ancient grimoire for creating servitors.

Branching out?

Good stuff though!

[Yoan]

Lovely. I will be using these hosts in my game. :P

[sanctusmortis]

I'll be using them as an inspiration to make some more. After all, make sites while the Otaku's young :D

[Supercilious]

Well if you are feeling a lack of response, here we go...

I liked it. And much like the rest of your material I intend to use it at some point in my game. My players are greedy enough that my decker will no doubt get Ringworm'd (which will be quite interesting).

[Ancient History]

Worms are under-used. With the early low-grade Psychotropic IC and the worms, I think RealCafé has some serious potential to screw over beginning deckers and otaku.