I'd say Diving would be swimming using external air sources. Swimming means you only breath from the atmosphere. So free diving is swimming, scuba is diving, and combat swimmer operations using an oxygen rebreather is diving. And cave diving with a mixed gas rebreather is still nuts, but uses diving skill.

So someone with professional level parachuting (6 dice) has roughly a 40% chance to fail at least one of those 4 rolls. In general I'd limit parachuting tests as follows: roll 1 time. If you botch, something bad happens (now would be a good time to spend edge). If you fail, you have to make a body test vs some amount fo damage. If you suceed, you get where you want to go.

After all, the parachuting itself is not an important part of te run, it is either a complication or window dressing. Requring the players to roll until he fails, then cackling gleefully as his character makes a crater in the groud is just silly.

The issue with doing things like HALO or HAHO is that you need a rather large and capable multi-engine aircraft to do this. And if you have a tens of millions of dollar transport jet that you can whistle up to do this, you are not exactly running a typical 'PCs are criminals working as deniable assets' game. I could live in STYLE for the cost of the flight crew, maintenance crew and support contract on a jet.

Diving for infiltration is a lot less equipment heavy, as you can just use one of them $12,500 "opulent luxury yacht"s to get there.

You could probably also rent a private plane for a few hundreds buck and jump from a little lower height (say, 5000m).

To do a HALO or HAHO jump, the plan is that the target not notice the aircraft. So you are typically jumping from high altitude (like 25,000 feet) at typical aircraft altitude. This way their radar doesn't show anything suspicious, like your plane flying directly over their facility at 5000 feet and 150 knots so you can safely unass the plane like they did in WW2.

This means you are jumping from an airplane moving at commercial flight speed and altitude. You can't just calmly jump out the side door of an airplane at 600 knots and 25,000 feet. For one thing, you can't open it unless you depressurize the plane: the doors open inward, against the tons of pressure difference. The other thing is that the wind is really intense at 600 knots and will most likely do really bad things to you as you bounce off the airplane (assuming you don't get sucked into the tail mounted engines).

Which is why people typically jump from the cargo ramp of planes designed to allow the cargo bay to be depressurized in flight.

If you can charter a plane to do this that would work, but they will have to know exactly what you are doing to fly the correct profile. And be willing to do things like depressurize the plane and open doors in flight. Not the kind of thing that insurers and licensing organizations like. Probably a small number of these operators, but if you have the right contacts, and enough money you could do it. But anyone who would fly this sort of mission is a pretty serious operator themselves, and it really won’t be cheap. (Expensive equipment + high risk + low competition = high cost)

With a HAHO jump you can also get a 20-40+ km offset, so the plane doesn't need to fly anywhere close to the target. It also allows you to do things like cross international borders that you might have difficulty getting permission to fly over. Guys with parachutes have a hell of lower signature than a cargo jet.

rust buckets, props, cesnas, etc can fly high enough to do the jumps. Most parachut schools use planes that are 20-30-50 years old. Doesnt need to go real fast (and probably shouldnt), and only has to get high enough for you to jump out, count to at least 3 before pulling the rip cord.

levitate is not that common. Ok it might be fairly common with mages, especially running mages but most people can not do it. As for drones, yeah they are out there but most of them will be Corps or LawEnforcement types. The average Joe can not afford to buy/maintain/control drones. I know riggers that are runners have them but the average joe doesnt.

Most security is against the widest breath of attacks (the average Joe). Now as a site/company ups it secuirty, it take the "average joe" defenses and adds to it.

Think about it this way. First you did when buying your house (or condo or getting your apartment) was change the locks on the doors. This defeats the common Joe. Then you might add a security system or a dog to the house (escalating to the next level of threat protection). But how many of us have on site armed guards, dogs, security systems, electronic and mechanical locks, video survaleince, etc in our homes? not many. Most of us have not past the mechanical locks on the doors/windows. Maybe to the dog or security system level. Remember as the site/company adds more security to the location the more of a beacon it becomes for people to come there to "do bad things" but also it costs more/month.

so depending on where you are going to, parachuting in would be an effective way to enter.. then again it may not.

dog

These kinds of planes do easily go high enough to do parachute jumps, but HALO is not just a parachute jump. It's technique to get you to the ground without anyone noticing the airplane 5-7 miles up or the parachutists jumping out of it. On radar it looks just like another comercial flight, more or less. You get some offset from the target buy not much, so it's not used when flying over the target gets you shot down.

HAHO is a jump at those altitudes when you can't or won't fly near the target. Typical off-set ranges are 20-40 km, with some new gear promising 100 km+

These are both much more demanding than traditional static parachuting, with lots of ways things can go seriously wrong and either screw up the mission and/or get you severely messed up. They are used for getting into high threat areas where safer and less complex approaches, like a helo landing you on the target, won't work. Parachuting in a conventional low altitude drop is an easier and safer approach than HALO/HAHO.

The running out of air and freezing solid part would sort of suck. . .

Something like this makes sense, but it this is a common problem.

While every skill in SR costs the same, in reality some are far easier to learn than others and some have more utility than others.

For example, it's easier to learn to shoot a pistol well than to learn how to fight unarmed well, or with a sword. It's easier to learn to shoot an AR or shotgun well than a pistol. It's much easier to learn how to parachute than it is to learn how to fly a jet fighter, or fix a jet engine.

I'm not at all sure how to fix this, but it's more of an issue than just parachuting.

It's an abstraction. Sure, you could have fifty pages to explain how humans learn, and the hows and whys of skills having different costs because one games designer had a harder time learning to tie his shoes than he did learning to build houses, but what would be the point?

It would be a waste of time, both in design and in play. Especially if you tried to do it in a system that was claiming to streamline and reinvent itself.

As to utility, that's up to the GM, and the player picking the skills. In one game, parachuting might not have a whole lot of use. In another, you might need it at the beginning of every job.

Use parachuting to lessen falling damage!

Bad plan. You'll get sucked into a jet engine!!

Nah. Just burn a point of perminent edge. That will let you survive about anything.

edit: karma -> edge

"Parachute? What the hell for!? I got a helmet!"