There are a few approaches. Most obvious? Mobile bollard. "Manifest yourself there." An earth spirit won't be interpreted as a living entity, so the truck won't make a calculated SINless scum splat on the landscape, as opposed to saving corporate cash by stopping and rerouting.

I could go on, but I'm sure you could come up with a few more approaches of varying degrees of violence yourself.

Other ways to fool the truck:

Magic Fingers to turn the steering wheel.

Hack the truck.

Trid Phantasm to fool the sensors.

Levitate object in front of sensors.

Gotcha! Thought there was some power that did that, that I wasn't aware of.

Bye
Thanee

That would be tricky, apart from the fact, that it probably doesn't even have a steering wheel, or even a driver's cabin, you have to see the target to manipulate it. And, AFAIK, most vehicles in SR have windows, that you cannot look through from the outside.

But, yeah, there should be plenty ways for us to slow it down, stop it, re-route it, etc.

Someone has to open that lock without triggering an alarm, at least that would be good.

Bye
Thanee

Mulcarn, could you let us know relative distance and directions from the club to each of the target locations?

Oh, good. I was about to ask whether I had missed something.

It depends upon the GM's interpretation, but if (for example, which I deem personally reasonable) an earth elemental could be called upon to reconfigure the ground in an area, then the earth elemental could build a modest trench or raise a series of earthen barricades at short notice. That, too, would be an obvious option. It's certainly a classic in terms of the concept of earth elementals.

Use this map for a quick reference. Nothing of mine is listed on it but it should help. Seattle Map

1. The Spikes are in a Tacoma Dive Bar. ETA - maybe 10-15 minutes

2. Humanis are inside one of their Chapter Houses in Puyallup. ETA - maybe 5 minutes

3. Skraacha Gangers are outside one of the Ork Underground Entrances within Puyallup. ETA - maybe 5 minutes

4. Jimmy the Chin is "working" at the Crime Mall. (That one is on the map) ETA - maybe 5 minutes

5. The autotruck is currently cruising through Seattle, on its way to Puyallup. ETA - will take about 40-45 minutes to get to Puyallup.

Possible, yes. Depends on the Force of said Earth Elemental.

I'm going to start the next scene here pretty soon.

@Crossbow:

Hey, guy, I found only your first pass at Smiley in the Recruitment thread, but it doesn't show the levels you have for Adept Powers. Is there an update posted somewhere I missed?

I'm figuring out who is likely to go first, how to shoot at X when Smiley is beating on him, etc.

EDIT: I found Mulcarn's suggestions. Never mind.

Once you do that, it is not longer legit and degrades just like pirated software, BTW.

Bye
Thanee

It will eventually be on the first page of this thread. I will give you a head's up when I edit it. The GM has it close, but I did some tweaking.

That's the registration, not the copy protection.

Hmm... pretty sure I read somewhere that it was the copy protection, but couldn't find anything.

Bye
Thanee

They both come on legit softs. I double checked before making that post. It's the registration which allows for tracking and prevents degradation.

Ok.

Bye
Thanee

You each get a free (and temporary) Armored Leather Jacket. It has the same stats as a standard Armored Jacket and it's not modified at all save for the excess green patches labeled on them and a giant Ancients logo on the back.

Roll 1d6 and the number determines what kind of goody you'll get from inside one of the jacket's pockets.

Willie's jacket roll: 2

jacket roll

jacket: 1d6 3

Jacket Surprise!

Got a 2, same as Willie. We're jacket buddies!

I assume the tacsoft is rating 1? Not something nice like rating 2 or 3?

Selina rolled a 4.

Bye
Thanee

For you guys, you'll need to provide a number of sensors equal to twice the rating of the tacsoft to benefit from it, and we'll need the rating plus two of us to have a proper net. My drones count as my sensors sadly, not as extra bodies.

Scan = 4 hits

I'll let you figure the tacsoft out, thanks SleepIncarnate. Willie has eyeware and ear tech as well as smartlink, which should be enough, no? I will be more than happy to use the extra die!

Looking at the armour we have been given, it appears Selina and IC Princess can't wear the jackets without incurring encumbrance penalties. Selina can alter her own garb to make it look like Ancients jackets, and I guess could do the same for IC Princess if she wants the help.

IC Princess and Can Opener are the thinkers of the group, the rest of us fall somewhat short in the Logic department. Of course, we will all contribute ideas. I will try to (uncharacteristically) keep in the background and in the OOC thread as far as planning goes, at least until Willie gets some more brain power. He will have all kinds of ideas bubbling up and blurting out, though. Neither he nor I will take offense when the weirder shit is shot down. Just, please, please, don't call him a dumb trog.

Willie is far and away the most armoured of the crew, so I suspect he will be allowed to be a shield in front of the softer targets like Can Opener and Selina. IC Princess may hang back as a rigger sending drones in to do dirty work and hacking the Matrix opposition?

Willie is indeed quick, (it would be hard to make a character quicker without getting lopsided in abilities) and will often (usually?) be the first to act in a combat round. In combat, when noise no longer matters, Willie is going to unload a shitstorm of autofire at multiple targets (one per IP) and then Dodge for all he's worth to avoid the return fire and protect the squidgy ones. Good thing bullets are cheap. He is much weaker against magic, so if he can identify magicians, he will try to slice and dice them first.

As far as force multipliers go, I have huge respect for drones and spirits. I'm glad we have both on our side! There's more like ten of us, rather than five.

I assume IC Princess will take over the provided Rover (We have two of our own parked here! Popular vehicle, that.) so Willie will ride shotgun. OK. SMG.

Speaking of which, we don't have any longer range weapon than his SMG. We'll have to fix that should we hang together as a team for further runs.

Why not? We both have Body 4, so can wear 8 armor without encumbrance.

Bye
Thanee

Should be enough, assuming rating 1. What all does your eyeware have on it? Low light? Thermo? Anything beyond just smartlink and normal sight? If so, those are extra sensor channels if I have a higher rating tacsoft.


Actually, I bumped up my body an extra point because I had gotten an armored jacket of my own and suddenly remembered that rule.


Naw, more likely to call him a stupid male.


That's the plan.


Well, three drones from me. The doberman and two snipers.


It's a great alternative to the GMC Bulldog van which screams runner vehicle. And not sure if the provided vehicle is also a Rover or what. IC Princess is just scrambling the drones for ease of transport for the provided vehicle. Her own Rover will be following with extra kit and the doberman.


We do have a pair of sniper rifle equipped roto-drones...

Belial mentioned Rovers.

Bye
Thanee

Logic 3 is average. It's not particularly bright, but it's also not dumb at all.

Bye
Thanee

I'll have to update my notes on PC stats.

I was only half-joking earlier when I said Willie would be happy to be made all glowy with an armor spell. The more he stands out, the less likely opponents will be to shoot at our magicians. 'Cause they will want to.

Willie's back story has a long-term thread of attempts to get smarter. So, his natural of 2 is after some work to improve himself, and then the 3 is from the Cerebral Booster. I'm having fun playing Willie as if he is just figuring out how to do "average intelligence".

Yep.

Bye
Thanee

Okay, so the Crime Mall is first at the south end of Puyallup, hit the Orcs and Humanis in the city proper, then we check the clock for time to hit the spikes, then back to Tarislar.

I have a map, I just don't know how to put it on here.

https://www.directupload.net/file/d/5663/apv9txdq_png.htm

Use an image hoster like this:

https://en.directupload.net/

Bye
Thanee

@SleepIncarnate

Eyeware:

- smartlink
- vision enhancement (3)
- vision magnification
- flare compensation
- thermographic vision
- low-light
- eye recording unit *
- imagelink *
- eyelight system

Earbuds:

- audio enhancement (3)
- spatial recognizer

I don't know, if the map is right, why we can't hit all 5. If the Orcs and Humanis are so close together, they could be hit a minute or two apart. It looks as if a swing by the Spikes, flame their bikes, cut back to Humanis and nuke them, buy off the Skraacha or wiz them into submission, then hit the crime mall, which will probably be the longest event of the night. Then the truck.

Am I missing something?

Even with the original data given, it seemed like we could do all five to me. Maybe 30-40 minutes of driving around still leaves 20-30 minutes of doing stuff.

Here's the direct link to the image with less clutter around.

https://s19.directupload.net/images/191210/apv9txdq.png

Seems like a good order of things.

1) Crime Mall
2) Humanis
3) Ork Underground
4) Spikes (can still decide against it, depending on how the rest goes)
5) Truck (if IC P. can get into its system in the meantime, she can probably re-route it at a convenient time, and also protect it against the other team, maybe)

Bye
Thanee

P.S. As for sensory input, Selina has 3, I think, Vision Enhancement, Vision Magnification, and Audio Enhancement. So, enough for R1, but not much more.

Your commlink's basic video and audio (the things you use for calls) each count as sensor channels, so everyone should have two at minimum, with the possible exception of Can Opener if her gremlins act up. Anything else is extra sensor channels. So Selina has 5, Willie has 10 or so, and IC Princess can easily hit close to 20 with all her drones in the field.

If we do the Crime Mall first, we may be presented with the choice of carrying some freed elf girls with us to the other locations, or setting them loose in the night.

If we do the Crime Mall fourth, we might be presented with the opportunity to drop freed girls off at the Chain on our way to the truck intercept.

What do we think?

I see, I see.

As for astral information on the other team... Fiona has assensed them all, and I will let you know as soon as I do. Give the poor GM a moment to catch up here.

Bye
Thanee

@Pbangarth - You get a Flash-Pak, p. 324, SR4A
@Crossbow - You get a Miniwelder, p. 335, SR4A
@Thanee - You get a Trauma Patch, p. 253, SR4A
@Sleep - You get a Flash-Pak, p. 324, SR4A and roll another 1d6 to determine the rating of the Tacsoft.
1-4 = Rating 1.
5-6 = Rating 2.
@Koekepan - Did I miss your roll?

Keep her/them in the truck after we go there first. The Freeway means we can maybe fudge the time to get the other gang.

Tacsoft Rating = 6, rating 2. That's 4 channels from everyone, and four of us need to provide channels before any of us can get that +2 bonus. What's Smiley bringing to the table?

Mysterious Laésa.

Just for the record, if they were all Initiates with Masking, chances are, that at least one attempt would still have succeeded, right? So we can pretty much rule that out.

Bye
Thanee

A team of Masked Initiates would be the magical equivalent of the Sioux Wildcats. Or maybe Renraku Red Samurai and Ares Firewatch I dunno. Anyway, think PR 3 and not PR 5-6.

Also, from my understanding you guys are going to the Crime Mall first, correct?

Hahaha, it's probably more like beyond even that!

And no, I did not seriously consider that a valid option... but it was the first thought that crossed my mind.



Yup!


At the moment, I am pondering, whether we should speed our drive up a little. But, unfortunately, the Rover has a Body of 13, so it requires a Force 7+ spirit to use Movement on it.

Bye
Thanee

Don't need a spirit. We have Willie.

Bye
Thanee

@Mulcarn: How about adding a little time stamp on the top of your posts from here on out for the next in game hour. That way, everyone is always in the clear about how much time has passed so far.

Bye
Thanee

Give me a moment and i'll do just that.

Cool, thank you!

Bye
Thanee

Mulcarn, did I get any interesting information from my scan of the Laesa? Anything that might indicate someone with a lot of signals coming from them?

Also, what's my target threshold for tracking down the truck?