Grendel - So there is an Air Traffic Control Tower (and associated system) in our target airfield. They direct the actual takeoff of our target plane.

There is a flight service station that services multiple airfields that is probably not physically located in our target airfield but nonetheless is responsible for the flow of aircraft from our target airfield. It is at this flight service station the Azzie plane would file their flight plan, but they would not need to do so until an hour before take off.

The Air Traffic Control's matrix security would be tougher than the flight service station's.

Am I correct in all that?

Quick Update

Grendel and Cedric - OOC planning discussions continuing, I'll keep up to date with this.

Vegas - IC post for you is up.

3S (Scrap, Sedna, Slip) - I believe I caught Sedna's question, and we're still waiting on Scrap's Initiative Roll for CT 4 and Slip's IC post or Initiative roll.

Sedna - Reply to your email hopefully tonight, but very probably not until tomorrow.

If I missed something for someone, let me know.

Yes, you're correct.

No rush on e-mail. It was only elaborating a comment from a couple of e-mail exchanges ago anyway. It won't slow down anything here, and you've got other (life) priorities rushing up quickly.

For now, you answered everything I can think of to legitimately ask, anyway

grendel: any rolls for placing the 'nades?

If you want to roll demolitions you can. Otherwise, no.

Oh, I think I'll go with the write up in this case...

You know I'll never run out of questions, legitimately birthed or otherwise

However, I do try to pre-censor them to the limits of senses. For example, it occurred to me to ask other things -- but then I realised that in the mindset of professionals, weapons are just another tool.

Specific to Scrapheap and Slipshade:

You're both out of hearing range, as are the dependent NPCs and our other allies. That had been the major reason I'd reserved three words beforehand, just in case.

You could easily eliminate the problem permanently and mortally by shipping me over to grendel.

I think the poor guy has enough on his plate. Besides, if you were gone, who else could keep me forever occupied with an endless stream of conversational topics?

He wouldn't have it on his plate for long. And the answer to your question is already looming large in your near future.

Oooooooh. Yes. Please, let me GM for Alleycat. I love Aztechnology.

*wince*

Pulling up new character sheet now, sir.

Do I get bonus karma if I'm the first to use Blood Magic in LitS?

...

Creative is one word for it. Virgil might be able to think of others.

Sadistic? Cruel and unusual? Sucky? Horrendous? Painful? Terrible? Agonizing?

Consequential. And don't forget, I know where your PCs' nuyen came from.

Breaking off, before someone gets the wrong idea ... or the right one ...

WR1-

I am inordinately pleased by the fact that my players are arguing over which is in deeper trouble.

ok finally got a post up.

WinterRat;

1. I do have some Neuro-stun grenades(5), they're in the trunk.

2. My inclination is to perhaps hire a vehicular backup, drones make great equalizers in my opinion, to deal with the numbers. I can spot the cash to hire.

3. At a place like this would each group have it's own private hanger but all have some kind of central staff and support equipment? They'd all draw from the same gas tank, probably using the same gas truck, that kind of thing. It makes sense because that's the point of pooling resources to build and run a small airport. Maybe we could get in as the guys driving the truck full of highly volatile jet fuel?

Pause to allow Grendel to dream of the possibilites THAT would create.

Additional pause to allow WinterRat to get his heart re-started at the thought.

And we continue

If Grendel didn't blow us up in it, a gigantic car bomb makes for one hell of an equalizer. We'd have to secure the kid and make sure we weren't within the blast radius but once that sucker went up I doubt many people would be interested in chasing us down anymore. Much more inclined to put out the fire threatening the 1.8 million nuyen private jet.

I'll give karma if you can pull this off

Cedric -

Mmm...neuro-stun grenades...do we have gas masks to protect us from our own gas so we don't knock ourselves out?

Vehicular backup could be a big help, but with Grendel's post that Roberto is coming sometime in the next 16 hours and we don't know when, do you think we can get the help in time? If so, I'm definitely game for hiring some backup, especially magical to protect us from the mage they're almost certain to have.

Oh my god...tell me again why we want to be driving the truck of highly volatile jet fuel? Especially when Grendel is our GM?

OK, I grant that IF Grendel doesn't blow us up in it (and let me note, while Dragon is one tough SOB, even he has limits) then it would be one hell of an equalizer. Of course, tell me again why we want that big of an explosion near the little kid we're trying to extract?

See, I was thinking we could just fire a grenade or two at the plane to cripple it from taking off in the first place. I don't think the Azzie security will worry about the 1.8 million nuyen jet or protecting it from fire so much as waxing the evil runners who've put said jet in danger and are trying to keep them from completing their job.

What do you think about trying to get the gas inside the plane? With remote detonators, we could set it off after they're all already on board the plane, saving us the trouble of fighting them in the first place.

If we can get the gas on board the plane and hide out in the hangar, we can just wait until they board, set it off, let the gas safely disperse, then waltz right on board, take Roberto back, and be gone before anyone even notices.

What do you know? I did discover more questions.

Drawing on the mental map of the past several days:

This warehouse served as a shelter, with a kitchen and (occasionally) hot food. That implies utilities of some sort. Where is the kitchen? What was used for heating? Supplies (what and where)? (Hate to limit this, but mostly interested in things such as cleaning supplies, maybe a propane tank, heck, even soda bottles -- can't see there being much more here other than dry/soy food, though I'd be curious about flavourings. There'd also be odds and ends of cigarettes/matches or lighters and similar stuff around.) Pipes, water or other? When faucets worked, what was the water pressure like? Electricity: wiring or generator?

It's a given that there isn't a sprinkler system or a firehose

Anything Blaze or anyone else did that actually left things smouldering?

(Definitely logging off for the day now -- sleep needed badly and I was almost there when this thought jerked me awake. Returning to pillow now )

The kitchen area is clearly marked on the map. It's actually almost right beneath you, on Floor 1. All supplies were stored in there. Cleaning supplies, propane tank, soy/dry food and soda bottles were all stored there. Flavor choices were quite varied. You could have any flavor you wanted, as long as it was soy. Faucets worked in the kitchen. You don't know what the water pressure was like because you were never allowed in there. Basically, that's where all the good stuff was. That's also why it was always locked.

Heating was a fire in steel garbage cans people gathered around.

Electricity was via a generator. That was conserved in use. You get the impression it was either not a very big or reliable generator, so it was used sparingly.

Hmm...right now I would say no, there is nothing anyone has done that has left things smoldering. Remember, rain is still pouring into the warehouse, so it'd have to be something fairly significant to start and keep a fire going.

Think I covered all the questions there, or did you want more detail?

Warehouse Group

Here's what I have so far for Combat Turn 4 Initiative Order



By the way, I'd really like to implement Down in the Gutter's Combat System. It's not perfect, but it's blazingly fast. I've managed to make it through 3 Combat Turns involving 9 people in only 2 weeks. That's ridiculously fast by forum standards.

The main flaws are the somewhat removal of the 'fog of war' and the lost ability to 'micromanage' in combat. I think the lack of micromanaging does add a certain element of realism, and in my opinion, the 'fog of war' loss is more than offset by the fact that combat actually goes somewhere without taking literally months to resolve!

By way of comparison, we're starting Combat Turn 4 in DITG after about 2.5 weeks since starting the combat. We're starting Combat Turn 4 in the Warehouse Fight after almost twice that many months of being in this combat.

So I strongly encourage consideration of its implementation. Here is the link to the Guidelines for reference, and to the aforementioned Combat so you can see how it actually works in practice.

DITG Combat Guidelines
DITG Combat Example

Let me know what you think.

-- exactly the wrong side. It would be on the part of the printout that was cut off.

No salt or pepper or hot sauce, then. Where is the generator?

WinterRat1:

Okay, I'm thinking about this here are some of our issues:

1. I like the idea of getting onto the plane ahead of time and executing an ambush from there. Enclosed space, fewer people to deal with, gas would be more effective in that environment. I think we'd need to be on the plane though cause one of these SOBs is going to have a toxin sensor and internal air tank or something.

If we're on board we'll need a rigger in the next couple of hours, one who could fly the plane, cause I don't want to visit Azatlan. We take over the plane and set it down in Auburn, send it on it's merry way. It might be hours before they know we grabbed the kid.

If we can get on board the plane we could rig a small explosive to the control systems to disable the plane on the off chance we can't take control, put it on a timer and the plane sets down somewhere in Seattle which would keep the kid local. This way we have a fall back in case things go wrong.

2. Forget the gas truck, bad plan.

3. Okay, we'll need some gas masks, I'll post something about calling my fixer to line us up with some gear once we figure out what we need. It'll cost more for rush delivery but such is life.

4. How about an vehicular ambush? The google map thing suggests only two ways to get to the airport on the ground. It wouldn't take much to have one of the approach routes closed due to gang problems, like a couple of grand maybe to a local gang. That means we could predict the approach route and maybe execute a vehicular ambush. This assumes they wouldn't be using a helo to get the kid out to the airport, but why would they?

Warehouse Group

Scrap - Go ahead and take your action for CT 4, IP 1.

B7 is going to continue moving East on Catwalk 3 and hold action for now, so he can get a clearer view of the situation before acting. He obviously is moving to confirm his targets before firing on your group.

Slip - Jump in with an Initiative Roll if you need one, but I believe you are just continuing to move NE, correct? Plus, there's no way your Initiative roll could move you before Scrap anyway so we're ok here.

Do you want me to try the combat system mentioned above?

I'll leave it at your discretion for now. I'm ok with doing things person by person in the canonical way, but I've found the above system is great for speeding things up, which can be a tremendous positive under certain circumstances.

For players like Sedna, who are always creative in what they attempt during combat and active in their micromanaging, the above system is more of a negative than a positive, because they have a quick response time and high post activity. For players who have life issues or other things that make it difficult for them to check and/or post frequently, I think the above system could help facilitate speedier play.

So really, it's up to you for now. I'm pretty much back to full speed these days, so if you want to do it the normal way that's fine. But if you think you're going to have problems moving through CT 4 at our traditionally brisk clip (i.e. the pace we had before the whole Warehouse Fight got derailed ) then perhaps you may want to consider giving the above system a whirl. When you make your IC and OOC post, just let me know which you want to do and we'll go from there.