Sounds good to me.

Upon re-reading my posts, I think I'm going to pull back on the more obvious drawl aspects of Ash's dialog. It's starting to piss me off, so I can just imagine how it's affecting other people. Suffice to say that he's from the South.

Now I gotta go figure out what vehicles are left.

Subtle hints are good

Ash don't do subtle!

There's the south, and then there's The South. Ain't no mistaking the two once you've experienced them.

Haha...now THERE is a man who know what he is talking about. To someone like me born and raised along the Gulf Coast, the REAL mason-dixon line runs through Alexandria, LA.

There is certainly a cultural divide between the northern south, and the "deep" south.


FYI, the Eurocar Blackwind is something I patterned after the BMW HP2, which is actually an off-road/on-road motorcycle. But seeing as how it really won't hurt the game any, I'll go ahead and let it be a car. Just use the stats for the Westwind in the BBB.

It will probably look something like this:

http://www.leftlanenews.com/audi-a5.html

Ok, let's have a roll call on vehicles. To recap, we have ...

The Blackwing is an off-road bike. (No sports car for j0o!) I missed Mosby taking the truck; I'll edit my post for the SUV in that case.

Extra vehicles shouldn't be a problem as I'm assuming they're all rigger-enabled and come with a pilot.

Ah ... I guess the Eurocar part threw me. I'll edit my post as well then, being that using that bike would be stupid. Technically Ash should take the (one and only) car but since that is spoken for (at least in the OOC), he'll have to take the other useful bike. He can't really be expected to go and do forward scouting in a moving van.

Fine, take the damn SUV then. I'll take the van and then show you clowns how it's all about the skillz if something comes up. Aww yeah. <flexes>

Too bad we don't have a Mini though. Gotta love car chases involving Minis.

I read it as the Eurocar Blackwind being strapped to the back of the SUV on a bike rack per Doc's request.

so while there are 7 vehicles only 6 actually need to be 'driven'.\

Edit: And to my mind, 'Eurocar' is BMW + licensing issues

With hindsight I should have let Doc take the truck, I got muddled up between the model differences. Not used to American cars/model names. Bah! We'll work it out later:)

Figured I would update the vehicle list properly.

Ford Americar (Vincent)
Ares Denali {w/ trailer} (Nick)
Ares Courier (Sam)
Toyota Monolith {w/ trailer} (Mosby)
Ares Spartan (Ashley)
Yamaha Ballistic (Ivan)

So, just so I don't look like a total idiot while writing IC: we've got all the requested gear?

Pretty much, yep.

Plus a late request for some IIA vests so you can go for something concealable with your securetech too

As far as I know, the vests I asked for are concealable.

Ohh, I read the armoury rules as IIA is concealable from anyone without a physical inspection, while IIIA will be noticed by a trained observer watching you closely.

Hence my desire to have both.

Will facepalm if wrong.

It's cool to have both.

Ash is wearing a real vest.

On another topic:
I think our priority #1, after the meet itself, is going to be "finding a place to stay".
I was looking over our gear listing.... and we just can't keep all that in a couple of trailers. Someone stumbles on it? We get it stolen? Etc...

As for how many places we need, I think that can vary a lot.
I remember Cthulhudreams suggesting we might want to divide the them in two smaller teams of 3 (or in duos). I think that would be a pretty good idea... since 6 people, living in the same exact space might be a little "weird". So, we'd need at least two houses/appartment/living space.

It would also be nice to have a place where we can conduct some more... nefarious business. Interrogations. Detaining people. Things like that.

We might also want to stuff a bunch of our firepowers in dufflebags and stash them in various places around the city.

Anything else?

Tangential note: I thought I was the paranoid one, and now you guys are running around with vests and big guns galore. Sheesh.

As for priorities, my thoughts exactly. I suspect moving as pairs might be a good idea, it maximizes the spread. However I can also see it being hard to find places to rent for 'fake people'

I'd suggest we get at least one houses with garages - it means that we have lots of room for the vast assortment of crap, and if we get something 'expensive' in a gated community we can probably count on our stuff being pretty safe. While I doubt this would ever come up, I can just imagine some punk kid breaking into our garage(s) and going 'Woah' as his eyes alight on a variety of ordnance.

The other option -> apartments means we are entirely too close to other people for my taste.

I do agree that stashing some gear around the place is a good idea - and I think it's a good idea not to just limit ourselves to this city. I think having 'go bags' in some U-Stowits around the country/near by towns with say a SIN, a couple of weeks of ration packs, a pistol, a long arm, cash and some clothes and maybe an armored vest is probably a good idea. Distributes the gear and gives us a fall back if we get sprung by the cops.

As we don't have a day job (hurhur) the commute into town isn't even an issue, so we might even be able to get something with a reasonably sized garden - and thus a reasonable distance between you and the neighbors.

As a tangential note, We actually have 105 guns of various types which is enough for an pltn(+)/insurgent action.

As for advancing the game, can I suggest we all start using our agents to find us a place to stay and implement that part of the plan and fast forward to the meet? i'm not sure what else there is to do?

Hey, can I just clarify some stuff about our comms.

I totally get the first two options (the secure military grade stuff) but I'm not sure about the third one.

How does a comm link even work without wireless capability (Doesn't it need that to connect to the matrix)?

I assume your trying to get at one that doesn't have any ability to set up a PAN but can still do a matrix connection.

Basically. It can't be controlled wirelessly (by you or anyone else); it's just a baseline commlink set up to transmit and receive standard information as found on the SIN module. All input has to be done manually and it has no connection at all to your PAN.

Almost none of my comments are meant to be taken seriously.

It looks like you guys are ready to go.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

1.) You probably finished up the briefing with Cmdr. Haney and the vehicle/gear prep somewhere around 0530 hours (Eastern). The drive from Atlanta to Baton Rouge is in the neighborhood of 8 hours. The meet is schedule for 1800 hours (Central). That means, even if everyone stops for breakfast before getting on the road around 0600 hours (Eastern), you'll be getting to Baton Rouge somewhere in the neighborhood of 1300 hours (Central). That gives you 3 hours, give or take, to get ready for the meet.It also puts you getting BR well ahead of rush hour traffic. Using Spirit Movement shouldn't be necessary unless you guys get held up in traffic or something while on the way.

2.) Bourgeois is looking to meet you guys tonight (Wednesday), and pull off a job tomorrow night (Thursday). While finding places to stash your vehicles and rack out are good secondary plans, there is no guarantee you will be in Baton Rouge any longer than it takes to do the job. If you pull the job off like the pros you are, he might have more work for you. If you fuck it up, it will probably be a while before he calls on you again. Either way, I wouldn't be signing any apartment leases, at least not until after the job is done.

3.) On the topic of the "Morphing Eurocar Blackwind"...
A.)From what I've read in the fluff, Eurocar is a consortium composed of companies like BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc. And yes, BMW makes Motorcycles.
B.)My original intent was to have the BMW HP2 fill the slot for the requested off-road bike. However, when Fortune mistook it for an auto, I happily retconned it to be another car.
C.)And my retcon was summarily ignored. Which is fine. I'm okay with it being a bike like I intended, and I don't want to ask Fortune to re-write his post again. However, I'd really like for you guys to do a better job of reading my posts before progressing on. Attention to detail is going to be very necessary if we are going to do this right, and while I don't mind a retcon here and there, it gets very frustrating for everyone if we have to keep going back and re-editing posts because of stuff we missed. And likewise, if you aren't sure about something I've posted, PM me or ask in the OOC thread. I'll answer it as swiftly as possible.

4.) Fortune's post about the weapons loaded into the vehicles and trailers + the ones he has modified is spot on. I'm sorry about all the confusion. The effect I was trying to achieve was one of having to react to the unforeseen. The life of SpecOps is full of crap like that...sometimes they tell you have a week to prepare, but then it's boots on the ground in 12 hours. Other times they tell you that you will be deploying in 12 hours, and you sit around for a week waiting. The point was, you thought you had prep time, but you ended up not getting it. It sucks, but that is the sort of shit that is going to be happening throughout this campaign. You need to be ready for major upsets to your plans. And I apologize if it pissed off those of you that put a lot of work into what your characters would be doing during that week of planning. But I will say, this isn't the last time this sort of thing will happen in my game. Be ready for it.

5.) Armored vests. Basically, my description of them is fluff. I have not statted out the mechanics on protective vests being spotted, but a good rule of thumb is what Cthulhudreams mentioned. Level II and Level IIIA vests are concealable, and won't normally draw attention. However, a trained observer (one who wears such a vest regularly, or knows how to spot one) will have a chance to notice that you are wearing a vest when not actively looking for one. A Level IIA vest, however, is the most concealable, and a trained spotter is not very likely to notice it by casual inspection, and still isn't very likely to notice it when checking for it. Of course a pat-down will reveal all three types of vest to anyone who isn't a total moron.

6.) The actual meet. I don't know if anyone has checked it, but I posted satellite photos of the parking lot where the meet is supposed to take place. You can see streets, surrounding buildings, other parking lots, and other shopping centers. Please, if you can, take a look at the images so you have a feel for what the terrain looks like, and can plan your side of the meet accordingly.

7.) Hit Location system. I'm still ironing out the major kinks. I won't use it until I've posted it for review, and I won't post it until I'm satisfied with it.


If you guys are all set, I'll plan on posting the scouts arrival to the parking lot in the IC thread sometime tomorrow morning.

Okay, let's see if I can clear this up.

1.) When I changed the vehicle names so I could give you all pics of what the vehicles generally looked like, I picked the BMW HP2 to represent the offroad bike, and labeled it a Eurocar Blackwind. Unfortunately, I didn't specify in my list exactly what type of vehicle it was. And without doing some google searching like Doc did, I can see how it was easy to mistake it for a car.

2.) And Fortune did just that in his IC post. He figured that it was a car, since the only other vehicle with the "Eurocar" tag in the BBB is a sports car.

3.) After reading Fortune's IC post, I figured it wouldn't hurt to retcon the Blackwind to actually be a sportscar. I preferred to do that than make him edit his post. At 8:47AM yesterday, I posted my retcon and turned the the Blackwind into an Audi sports car.

4.) Several hours after that, Fortune posted an OOC vehicle recap, commenting that he thought the Blackwind was a sportscar. That was fine since I used my magic GM wand to change it from a bike to car. My guess is, however, he missed my post right above him that explained what I did, and even had a link to the photo of the Audi.

5.) Minutes after Fortunes post, Doc pointed out that the BMW HP2 (and thus, the Blackwind) is indeed a motorcycle, and not a sports car. So while Doc was spot on with my original intent, he too missed my post where I magically changed the bike into a car.

6.) Minutes after THAT, Fortune edited his post to reflect that the Blackwind is, once again, a motorcycle. I didn't check the boards at all last night, so when I came in this morning, I noticed the confusion and all the posts that followed it. So this morning, I decided that everyone was on the track I originally intended (Blackwind = Bike), I waved my magic wand and turned the Blackwind back to a bike.

So the Blackwind is now, will forever be, a motorcycle. I am aware that posting a description as well as pics (working on that part) would have mitigated all of the confusion. Yes, the Blackwind started as a bike. Yes, I changed it to a car to fit Fortune's IC post, but everyone seemed to ignore that. And Yes, I changed it back into a bike because I didn't want everyone to have to retcon their own posts again.

Most likely, next time I will leave things as is and not make changes to fit peoples IC posts. It just seems to create a lot of confusion.

Yeah, I explained my mistake a couple of times above, but I have to admit that I somehow totally missed this post until now.

Freewebs is a BITCH.

Finally got the auto pics up.

http://www.freewebs.com/theonerronin/vehicles.htm

I think the 'missed post' thing was a freak incident of the board, since it seemed to happen to Doc as well, so I wouldn't be worried about posting corrections here in the future.

As to the rest, well this is the most important part ...

First of all, glad to see all the effort in reducing tension, keep up the good work.
I'll abstain from adding my 0.02 , gladly doing the 'innocent bystander' routine (including the 'I didn't see anything, officer' innocent whistle) instead.


On the matter of settling down:
I think TOR has a point there, might be too early to argue the interior decoration of our comfy suburban house with big garden in Baton Rouge, parking lot for the vans should do the trick until we learn more at the meet.

As to the movement power: Err...I blame Ashley.

Seriously, I completely invented and included that "Targets equal to force" clause. I swear it was in there last time I read it! D'oh!

My bad.

*grins*

On of my mates nearly had a really nasty accident doing that - he was coming home from visiting his folks on a 600RR in winter late at night (who live wayyyy out in the boonies), and he went to brake as he came up to a roundabout, but his leg started to cramp so badly due to the cold that he couldn't move it. Was lucky not to splatter himself - managed to avoid any accident at all.

Anyway, my lack fof a real grasp on american geography is showing - if they want a lift most/part of the way, lets do that.

Or just handwave it

As for riding the bike ... I have personally done quite a few cross-country trips on a motorcycle (in Canada and the States). Eight hours isn't too bad (much worse in winter ), but there is definitely a reason that Ash picked the Ares over the riceburner.

You may also be using a bastardization of the Great Form rules, where LOS powers like Movement become an area-effect power (with the spirit determining who within that area is affected). It's in the side bar next to Invoking in Street Magic I believe.

It might be that, or maybe I'm just slack and didn't read the damn Power properly and just made a bad assumption.