Agreed. Though summoning sprites and doing the troll ninja plan would definatly mean ending "rest" mid-hour. We could start a whole new hour on the road, that's fine by me - but if we could somehow avoid that, then the last half-hour of rest wasn't wasted. Of course, there is a very little chance of us driving away from here without that SUV (or its friends) pulling something that causes you guys to become "un-resting".

Hmm, good call about the Gabs thing. I'll put something up IC asking her if she knows anything about it - and offer to take care of it for her if she doesn't.

Well, there will always be a reason. You double-crossed a mob-boss.

Read the IC post one more time.

Well, Sledge only quickly passed the small break in the blackberries, so she couldn't really see.

But for the record, reviewing the IC posts, Rocky went out on the front porch and then apparently back into the front room, from where he is keeping watch.

As for the barn, I ICed the doors being closed remotely by Gabs, but as people got out there were suddenly some doors open. I will say that it's a big barn and there are multiple large doors. The doors facing out onto the road that the van pulled into are closed, but some other big doors at the rear were open. Right now, Cerberus, Angel, and Fort are outside the van but in the barn.

Of course Smith is upstairs with Gabs.

And I think it is relevant to your question that this was your first sweep of this particular road, so you don't know how long that car has been there....

Noted.

But until I hear otherwise, you are in the barn. Even if you leave, you are in the middle of some wide open, astrally lush spaces - need a good perception test to spot a spirit that wanted to keep a low profile and was not in the immediate vicinity.

Ah... my bad. I read 'a black s...' and my mind read suv and not sadan...

Ok, that's what I needed to know Adamu. Thanks.

Now to think on it.

Think of cell phones. Thats all commlinks are. They transmit stuff to a public satelite and then the satelite beams it down to the right cellphone. The satelite doesnt stop and screen calls(unless they make it do that), so you dont have to hack anything and there woud be no modifier for going through other nodes because how would they know who to prevent from sending data? The satelites would have to be military or corp run or something.

Uh...I would think it would have to be at the location of the thing it is trying to affect. Unless of course Caittie was sending instructions to an agent or something and then the agen would be at the target. The agent or icon is just data flying through the air. Think of a music file that moves from one place to the other. Except in 2070 transmission speeds are insane like downloading a 3 hour movie in less than 10 seconds, probably less than 1 second.

I think the effect they're going for is not so much a cell network (which is based on towers, not satellites) or a satellite network (which requires your commlink to be able to talk to outer space, a place that is very out of the range of a signal 1 commlink) but a mesh network.

A cell network requires that your phone broadcast to the nearest cell tower. That tower then talks to other towers or satellites which eventually talk to a land line or the recipient's cell phone. This still requires potentially miles of broadcasting distance.

A satellite network requires a clear shot at the sky and a signal strong enough to talk to outer space. I imagine that comm modification called satellite uplink gives you access to this.

In a mesh network every device that talks to the network is running some low level programs to reroute data. Every computer/toaster/other device is designed to talk to any other computer/toaster/other device. The aggregated effect of all of this low level networking is that a piece of data can wind up bouncing through all kinds of devices before getting where it is going, but it the sender only needs to be able to talk to the nearest (longer range) wireless device in order to get better transmission.

In SR4 the matrix is a mesh network with a cell backbone (the repeaters adamu keeps mentioning) and satellite premium service.

In game terms it means that as long as there are a sufficient number of devices in an area to make useful wireless coverage any node can talk, for free, to any other node. Whether or not the other node wants to listen is where hacking comes in.

(As Blackhat pointed out, this could of course be different in high security environments where they might lock down mesh functionality or play some other hacking tricks.)

(As Blackhat also pointed out, providing the mesh software and cell services is big, brutal business. However, in Shadowrun most lemonade stands probably have stables of Shadowrunners at their disposal so it isn't all that surprising to see some throats slit over the network that everyone uses )

In the first test, Caittie couldn't see the target at all since the signal wouldnt reach, though could in the second one. If we use our current in game ranges, the car and occupants would have to have a signal of 5(4km) or 6(10km) to reach Caittie. If they dont have that, then she wouldn't be able to pick up a signal from them and the commcode by proxy.
IMO, you cannot gain a commcode by hopping through a repeater unless within direct contact with an icon.
More later when I'm not be bombarded by work.

That was always an option, but I was explaining the mechanics of the Scan test. Just substitute Caittie for Sledge and it would work the same.

IC now though, I dont have to worry about the Scanning anymore since Adamu gave me the info I need, which means they should have a signal 5-6 on thier hidden commlinks. Now I can perform my matrix actions through a repeater with no problem.
IE - everything is cool right now, I just need to write up my IC post, which would be in 2-3 hours from now, and perform the rolls for the hacking and whatnot.

This isn't just a limitation on TM's but all people and things that use the scan test. You cannot use a repeater to perform a scan test unless you have access to the repeater (Hacked/Legal) and use the repeater as the point of test (It is the center of the test instead of the TM/Hacker.

TM's do not require any physical opbject to perform any matrix action. They require the same thing a Hacker requires to perform their digital magic: Their Commlink(TM's use their brain) and another matrix item(Target Commlink or node). The only thing that both would require is the automatic use of repeaters, which are a background item used in communication and datasearches.