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BlackHat
QUOTE (TheOneRonin @ May 28 2008, 05:27 PM) *
Feel free to donate a point for $5000 worth of explosives. cool.gif


Well, I've definitely already spent 50BP on gear, so the left over 9 need to go somewhere else.
Busy couple of days, but I will try to have things finalized by the end of the day (gear might take a little bit after boat details are posted).
Method
Ok sorry for the delay:
QUOTE
Blohm & Voss Wellenkraft 3 (Small Cargo Ship): Measuring about 75 meters in length the Wellenkraft 3 is a sturdy ocean-going vessel that is popular with smaller shipping operations all over the world. It has seen an up swing in popularity in recent years with the advent of desk-top manufacturing and smaller “micro-industry� factories that have reduced the demand for large-scale shipping. It is also popular with some pirates and smugglers who use heavily modified Wellenkrafts as mobile bases of operation.

Standard Upgrades: Improved Amenities (Middle x 12), Satellite Communication, Heavy Winch (non-canon and really big)
Suggested for the Odyssey: Extra Entry/Exit Points (Moon pool)

B&V Wellenkraft 3 (Cargo)
H: -1
Ac: 10/20
Sp: 40
P: 1
B: 25
Ar: 10
Sn: 2
Av: 8
$: 200,000 nuyen.gif


Now the question becomes what to do with it. We could say that Carter owns ship and then BlackHat could use the cash he spent on his boat to modify this one. Otherwise you guys could take up a BP collection to raise some cash for modifications.

As far as lifestyles: Individual players could choose whether they want to reside on the ship or maintain a residence at port. If you live on ship your lifestyle costs go toward the upkeep and port costs for the ship, and you can pay more to represent special luxuries you've brought on board.

---------

crizh: The custom vessels sound pretty cool. I'll have to review the rules.



pragma
Here' s a mostly complete, failry playable version. Background could use a little sprucing up and skills and gear still need a little fiddling. Contacts being fleshed out.

[ Spoiler ]
BlackHat
QUOTE (Method @ May 29 2008, 12:38 PM) *
Now the question becomes what to do with it. We could say that Carter owns ship and then BlackHat could use the cash he spent on his boat to modify this one. Otherwise you guys could take up a BP collection to raise some cash for modifications.


I'm cool with whatever the team decides. As far as your comment about extra exit/entry points (moon pool) would that be sufficient to store the Odyssey inside this vessel? or just necessary to drive a vehicle in (since the normal exit/entry points are for people, and I would have to also use up storage room to make enough space for a fishing boat? I think the rule of thumb they give in arsenal for storage space is 1 modification point worth of space for every 4 points of body (so a body 16 boat would need 4 points of space in a larger vessel). Since those points don't cost anything, and only limit the amount of modifications you can still fit on the larger vessel, it is fine by me.

Did anyone else want any particular mods on our group ship?
crizh
A Mage Sight Fibre Optic Security System might be useful...

(Arsenal p66)
BlackHat
Good call, actually. Were anything to go down on the ship, if its 75 meters long, it could take a while for us to get there. Having our mage able to see all over the place from the security room might be helpful.
Method
Sorry. I was assuming that if Carter were to captain the ship it would be called the Odyssey per your background. My mistake. If you choose to keep your own boat the ship will need another name.

I was thinking the moon pool would be handy for launching and recovering minisubs, divers, diving drones, etc. As far as storing the Odyssey on the ship, it could certainly be done, or you could tow it. Towing it might be handy because I could imagine loading and unloading a Body 16 boat might be quite an operation whereas if were towed you could just push off and run about in the smaller boat as needed. Its entirely up to the team though (and up to you whether you want to keep the smaller boat or not).
BlackHat
Ah, I see. Yeah, either way. I basically don't want to claim the $200,000 ship without other people's buy in.
If its the case that its a team ship, we could give it a name, and Carter might keep his old ship (with some different modifications) - because there are times where that might be more useful. Another idea would be to say that he ditched his old ship when he was trying to fall off of the map, and just invest that money into some drones or minisubs or something for this ship.

Suggestions welcome from the team
Method
Alright, I am getting ready to head out of town for the weekend. I don't know if I'll be able to connect from the hotel, so this could be my last post until Sunday. In the meantime please feel free to discuss your characters and finalize backgrounds. Story elements are more important than numbers- I'll allow minor tweeks to stats until we get a few weeks into the game.

You guys can decide how best to use the ship amongst yourselves and what mods are essential. If no one replies with any input I'm going to leave it up to Captain Carter (i.e.- BlackHat).

If everything is hammered down by Sunday I'll throw up the IC/OoC threads on Monday. If people are still uncertain about their characters we can always take another few days, but they all look pretty close to completion. Let me know.
TheOneRonin
Here is a post I put up over on the main board about explosives.

QUOTE (Method @ May 29 2008, 12:38 PM) *
OneRonin: I reread the rules for breaching/cutting and I think you're right- there is something a little off about the amount of standard explosives.

Have you done the calculations using the linear cutting charges? Maybe the rules were written with those in mind, though it seems odd that cutting charges are always considered untamped. When you read the description of the cutting charges it sound like they have built in tamping (the angled iron that "focuses the explosive blast onto the line to be cut"). Anyway that -5 AP will make some difference, but not enough to correct the massive amounts of explosives you need for cutting. Doesn't make much sense.

One thing I noticed was the note about rubble obscuring up to half of the hole you create with breaching. It gives the impression that breaching is a really messy affair, but cutting has no such rule. Maybe that is one distinct advantage to cutting but I don't know if thats worth the extra explosives either.

As far as the rules in Arsenal superseding the rules in the BBB- my interpretation was that the multiplier from the Positioning Table on page 90 basically replaces the "DV x 2 against barriers" from the BBB. In other words the BBB assumes that all charges are placed "Higher above ground than hole radius, untamped" (x2) for the sake of simplicity.


How about this? Let's treat linear cutting charge DV just like breaching DV, and assume that they automatically get the x3 DV multiplier for being above the ground and tamped. So we end up with the following math:

The DV formula for cutting is: (sqrt of kilos/meter)*(Rating of explosives) *(DV multiplier for above ground + tamped)
We also get 1 additional AP per net hit made on the demo extended test (assume no net hits, so no extra AP)
Base AP for Linear Cutting Charges is -5 AP

So the lowest rating linear cutting charge you can get is rating 4. And there is 1kg of explosives per meter.

So we have: (1)*(4)*(3) = 12DV. Our sec door has Armor 8 and Structure 9. With the -5AP from using a linear cutting charge, the door doesn't have enough dice to buy any hits, and our 12DV is more than enough to cut it. Of course, we do end up using 4kg of explosives, but that's not too bad.

If the cutting charges only had .56kg of explosives per meter, then we would come out RIGHT at 9DV. And we do it with a little over 2kg of explosives rather than 4. I could live with that.

So here are some sample numbers for cutting when using the 1kg linear cutting charges from arsenal, and assuming the x3 DV:


Heavy Material: Armor: 6 Struct: 7
Example: hardwood, dataterm, lightpost, chain link
*Rating 4 charges will do the job easily


Reinforced Material: Armor: 8 Struct: 9
Example: densiplast, security door, armored glass, Kevlar wallboard
*Rating 4 charges will do the job easily


Structural Material: Armor: 12 Struct: 11
Example: brick, plascrete
*Rating 4 with just barely do the job. 4 or more net hits on your demo test will guarantee it.


Heavy Structural Material: Armor: 16 Struct: 13
Example: concrete, metal beam
*Rating 5 will just barely do the job. 4 or more net hits on your demo test will guarantee it.


Armored/Reinforced Material: Armor: 24 Struct: 15
Example: reinforced concrete
*Rating 6 will work only if you get 4 or more hits on your demo test. Otherwise, you will need rating 7.


Hardened Material: Armor: 32+ Struct: 17+
Example: blast bunkers
*Rating 8 will work only if you get 4 or more hits on your demo test. Otherwise you will need rating 9.



That works for me.
pragma
I've 4-5 BP available for the bigger boat if we decide we want it. I think including rating 10 ECM would be nice. The electronic warfare specialist on the boat could probably put it to good use.

It is unclear to me whether method intended for us to buy the B&V boat he offered us or if it was a gift to the team. Knowing whether we have to scrounge up 40 BP between us for the thing would be nice.

Also, finally done.

[ Spoiler ]
BlackHat
I was under the assumption it was a gift, and that we needed to scrounge up money for modifications (in theory).
Also, rating 10 ECM is probably unavailable, because you can't get things higher than rating 6 to start with.

For my last 9 BP I am going to pick up Industrial Mechanic 1 (Salvage 3), which I think Pragma dropped, but which I thought was a good idea for salvagers to know how to take apart industrial machinery to get it to the surface. I'll also throw a (Visual) specialization into perception.

I forgot all about knowledges.
[ Spoiler ]


As far as gear. Assume I got rid of the Odyssey for now, but keep the following modifications (transferred to the new big ship).
[ Spoiler ]

This will free up $29,100
Which I will put into
[ Spoiler ]

... got about 4K left, no idea what else to buy though. Suggestions welcome.

I'll consolidate all of this on the OOC page for later reference. We can either come up with a new name for the current ship, or say that Carter has owned it for a while, and that this is actually his Odyssey
TheOneRonin
I can always use some cash for linear cutting charges, especially if Method uses my rules suggestion.

Here are the minimum requirements for cutting a 1 square meter hole in a surface:

Cost: Rating x $200 per kilogram (x4 kg needed for 1 meter hole)

Rating 4 (minimum) will easily cut structural material ($800/kilo)
Rating 5 will barely do the job on heavy structural material ($1000/kilo)
Rating 7 is needed for Armored/Reinforced material ($1400/kilo)
Rating 9 is needed for Hardened material ($1800/kilo)

I don't even have enough leftover cash to buy 4kg of the weakest (rating 4) linear cutting charges.
Method
Alright... 11 hours of driving and I'm back. wobble.gif

To clarify, the boat was a gift. No need to pay its cost, just any modifications you guys want.

OneRonin: I'll look over your example in detail tomorrow, but at a glance I think your fix seems pretty reasonable.

Now... must... sleep.... dead.gif


BlackHat
QUOTE (crizh @ May 30 2008, 10:59 AM) *
A Mage Sight Fibre Optic Security System might be useful...

(Arsenal p66)


Unfortunately, the prices listed are per meter of cabling, which isn't very useful for abstract vehicles modifications. The vehicles is 75 m long, so what does Method think would be a good rule of thumb for how much cabling we would need to rig together the ship so that a mage can sit in the security room, and peek into most if not all of the other rooms?
DireRadiant
What are the list of contacts we want to have? I have a few BP in contacts to assign, and would like to hear from you what you would like!
BlackHat
QUOTE (DireRadiant @ Jun 2 2008, 09:10 AM) *
What are the list of contacts we want to have? I have a few BP in contacts to assign, and would like to hear from you what you would like!


Never hurts to have more contacts whose sole purpose is to bail us out of a jam. I picked a SeaCop contact to help if we have trouble coming to or from port, and not sure who could easily help us elsewhere... but some sort of CrashCart contact with one of those rescue-choppers might be useful. Especially if someone manages to sink our ship. biggrin.gif
Method
On the Mage Sight FOSS: a great deal of the ship would be open deck and cargo space, especially if we consider it having enough room to carry another vessel on board. I was picturing something like THIS or THIS. In either case only the forward part of the vessel would require cabling.

Problem there is you might need almost as much cable, since there are two to four decks... I am open to suggestions about how to calculate total length needed. Maybe 50 meters would be appropriate? Thats 2 meters per point of body, although I don't know if that correlation really means anything in this case... Anyone have any good ideas?

Also: I'll throw up the IC/OOC threads tomorrow. I spent all day moving so I didn't have a chance to do that yet.
BlackHat
Yeah, without a floorplan, it is going to be impossible to calculate a realistic number (which is why I was sad they handled it in meters - given that you always want to rig a 3d environment). Judging from the second one, the forward part is roughly half of the 75 meters in length. So it would take at least 37 meters of cable just to reach the front of the ship. Assuming we have to go at least that far on all 4 decks, we're talking about 148 meters... but that's basically for 4 long "spines" running down the middle of the ship. We would also want pieces coming off of those spines and going off to each room. No idea really how to figure those out, but I figure out lower-bound on cabling is 150 meters or so - with greater visibility over the area of the ship the more we're going to invest into it.

Even that much is $8,000, which is more than Carter can afford. So unless someone else (the mage?) has a lot of money left over, its probably not worth spending any more time calculating.
TheOneRonin
QUOTE (BlackHat @ Jun 3 2008, 08:29 AM) *
Yeah, without a floorplan, it is going to be impossible to calculate a realistic number (which is why I was sad they handled it in meters - given that you always want to rig a 3d environment). Judging from the second one, the forward part is roughly half of the 75 meters in length. So it would take at least 37 meters of cable just to reach the front of the ship. Assuming we have to go at least that far on all 4 decks, we're talking about 148 meters... but that's basically for 4 long "spines" running down the middle of the ship. We would also want pieces coming off of those spines and going off to each room. No idea really how to figure those out, but I figure out lower-bound on cabling is 150 meters or so - with greater visibility over the area of the ship the more we're going to invest into it.

Even that much is $8,000, which is more than Carter can afford. So unless someone else (the mage?) has a lot of money left over, its probably not worth spending any more time calculating.


I'm finalizing Des, and I dropped one of my skills by a point, giving me 4 extra BPs that I put into resources. So I have over 20k to play around with. Much of that is going towards explosives, but I can certainly donate $8k or less towards the cabling.

BlackHat
Acutally, I was wrong, its 9 K for the barebones package described above... but if Carter throws in 4K, and Des throws in another 8K, we should easily have the beginnings of a optical magesight surveilance system, with $3000 worth (50 meters) of additional wiring for girth across the ship - going out to major rooms.

We could probably always upgrade down the road, too, if we want better coverage - but I suspect we'll always be using a vague system regarding whether or not our mage can see a particular point on the ship.
TheOneRonin
QUOTE (BlackHat @ Jun 3 2008, 09:06 AM) *
Acutally, I was wrong, its 9 K for the barebones package described above... but if Carter throws in 4K, and Des throws in another 8K, we should easily have the beginnings of a optical magesight surveilance system, with $3000 worth (50 meters) of additional wiring for girth across the ship - going out to major rooms.

We could probably always upgrade down the road, too, if we want better coverage - but I suspect we'll always be using a vague system regarding whether or not our mage can see a particular point on the ship.


Sweet. Consider my $8k earmarked for the magesight system. I also have an idea for a contact with a chopper that could bail us out. That will finalize Des, so I'll put him up here in a bit.
TheOneRonin
Final Draft, Desmond Connelly:

Desmond Connelly
Nicknames: "Des", "Connelly", "That Crazy Scot!"
Scottish Male Human
Age: 37
Height: 6'
Weight: 200 lbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Build: Average/Fit

[ Spoiler ]


I have $145 left after giving $8k to Blackhat for the magesight system.

Method
IC/OoC Threads are now up.

IC
OoC

Lets start with some day-in-the-life RP to establish the characters and then I'll move quickly into a small job. We can continue to discuss last-minute character touch ups, modifications to the ship and other rules stuff here.
crizh
OK, I've made some final tweaks and added gear...

[ Spoiler ]


I'm still not sure whether 'Manipulation Fetish' should be in gear or negative qualities....
Method
QUOTE (crizh @ Jun 4 2008, 01:26 PM) *
I'm still not sure whether 'Manipulation Fetish' should be in gear or negative qualities....


Good thing there's not a "Discipline" spell category... biggrin.gif
BlackHat
Hoping to put an IC up tonight, and will copy the final version of my character sheet into the OOC thread (for my own reference as much as anyone elses).
Method
I reserved that one slot in the OoC thread in case people wanted to compile their character descriptions and sheets. If you want to post a final copy here I'll cut and paste them all into the OoC thread under name headers and spoiler tags.
BlackHat
Final Sheet Turned out my old total only added up to 437. Feel free to double check my math, but I had:
200 attributes
-5 disadvantages
172 skills
20 contacts
50 gear
------------------
437

So, I have 13 points still to spend. I'll spend 10 on edge, and 3 raising one of my contacts from connection 2 to connection 5 (the SeaCop)
[ Spoiler ]
BlackHat
IC should be coming in today. Crazy time at the office, but definitely before I call it a night, today.
pragma
What are we spending on the boat -- I've got at least 2 completely unused BP burning a hole in my pocket if we don't buy the rating 6 ECM, for example.
DireRadiant
Ok, how does Bart hook up with the group? I am going to presume the team, or some members of the team on another job, "catch" him doing something and work out a deal, I have a scenario for that that incorporates some other PCs.

What I'm concerned about most is the details of character traits. e.g. can the group handle it if Bart is somewhat metaracist, and some other less then desirable character traits?

Bartholemew Smith

[ Spoiler ]


I'll flesh out the contacts tomorrow. And IC intro post as well.

I like everyone's characters and look forward to interacting with you all.
BlackHat
You have my permission to use Carter as you like for your introduction - I'm going to be defining who he is as we go a little bit, and having other poeple mention him in their posts helps with that. biggrin.gif Also, I have no problem wit hthe other stuff, but my character is a Human, so I am not sure that counts for much.
BlackHat
QUOTE (pragma @ Jun 5 2008, 01:30 PM) *
What are we spending on the boat -- I've got at least 2 completely unused BP burning a hole in my pocket if we don't buy the rating 6 ECM, for example.


I don't currently have ECM on the boat. We've got sort of a pool for the magesight system going, and Carter bought some mods that he expects to make use of himself. If you're interested in ECM, you're welcome to pitch, or buy it for yoruself too. I'm pretty much tapped out, though.
TheOneRonin
I hate to keep harping on the explosives crap, but I think I've actually found a way to have the Breaching/Cutting stuff make sense, and not stray far from what is presented in the books.

First off the Breaching formulas remain the same:
DV required = (Radius[m] x Structure Rating) + (Armor Rating ÷ 4)
Explosive weight = (DV ÷ DV Multiplier ÷ Explosives Rating)squared in kg


In this case, the GM rolls my demo test and tells me what Des thinks is the right quantity of explosives to use.


The cutting formula is just a backwards interpretation of the Breaching formula, but has a key difference.

DV = (Explosive Rating) * (Explosive Multiplier) * (sq root of kilos used)
Depth of cut in meters = [DV - (Armor/4)]/Structure Rating

The General Multiplier should be x2, unless you are cutting underwater, then it is x4.

This way, we determine how much thickness or depth we wish to cut. And we assume this formula works for a single Linear Meter of explosives.

In this case, the player rolls the demo test, and each hit adds to the effective rating of the explosive. The base time is = 10 turns/kilogram of explosives used. The GM still keeps the rating of the structure and it's thickness to himself.

This formula makes cutting generally more efficient (less explosive needed) than breaching, even if we assume it takes 3.14159256 linear meters of explosive to cut a 1-meter diameter hole. However, as a structure's thickness increases, the efficiency of cutting worsens and approaches that of breaching.


Linear Cutting Charges, or LCCs, are handled similarly, but used under slightly different circumstances. LCCs are used for DEEP cutting, and designed for cutting thickness that is usually measured in feet rather than inches. LCCs generally are not more efficient than cutting/breaching, unless you need to cut very deep holes.

When cutting with LCCs, use the formulas for cutting, but with the following modifications:
-Explosive Multiplier is x3 instead of x2
-Multiply the depth of cut by 2. This is to reflect that the entirety of the charge blows into the target, instead of just half of it like in untamped cutting/breaching.
-Net hits on demo test add to the base AP, which is -5. They do not affect the rating.

Here's an example of how it all works:

Target: 2m thick bunker wall that needs to be breached/cut. The bunker is considered Hardened material (Armor 32, Struct 17)
Goal: You need a hole at least 1 meter in diameter to be able to climb through, and that hole must be close to a meter in diameter on the far side of the bunker wall.
Supplies: Unlimited quantity of Rating 8 Foam explosives, and x4 1-meter long, Rating 8 LCCs.

Option #1: Breaching
-Since the blast of a breaching charge is circular, you'll need enough explosives for a 4 meter radius hole to make sure the far side is big enough to pass through.
-With Rating 8 foam explosives, that comes out to roughly 22.5 kilos. BIG BADABOOM!

Option #2: Cutting with the foam explosive
-Assuming we have a professional Demo expert (2 hits), our explosive is treated as though it is rating 10
-We need 4.5 kilos per linear meter to cut all the way through the bunker wall
-Assuming we need Pi meters of explosives, we come up with 14.14 kilos of explosives to cut a 1-meter diameter hole all the way through the bunker

Option #3: Cutting with the LCCs
-Assuming two net hits on the Demo test, we have a final AP of -7 (the bunker can only buy 6 hits with armor instead of 8)
-A single LCC at rating 8 will cut 2.12 meters into the bunker wall...plenty far enough for our purposes
-Using 4 LCCs, at 1 kilo each gives us a 1 square meter breach at the cost of 4 kilos of explosive

In most cases, LCCs will be overkill, so I will probably save them for very special occasions.


So, what do you think, bossman?

crizh
Looking at these numbers made me want to try some of my own. These are very rough and I could be full of crap so bear with me.

Shape (Metal) allows you to shape (Force) in structure points in one combat round. It's a bit vague but I'm going to assume that when one has accumulated points equal to an objects structure rating one has created a breach or hole one meter square and 10cm deep just as you would with a weapon or explosives.

That would translate into (Force/Structure)*100 liters of material 'shaped' per combat round. For steel that equates to 25 liters, which isn't a very big hole.

However, using the same logic as the cutting charge idea, you could create a circular trench 1m across and 1mm wide in cross section that was approximately 8m deep. You could even angle the cut slightly, in or out, to make a truncated cone rather than a cylinder that could then be easily pushed in or slid out depending on how you angled the trench.
TheOneRonin
QUOTE (crizh @ Jun 5 2008, 02:50 PM) *
Looking at these numbers made me want to try some of my own. These are very rough and I could be full of crap so bear with me.

Shape (Metal) allows you to shape (Force) in structure points in one combat round. It's a bit vague but I'm going to assume that when one has accumulated points equal to an objects structure rating one has created a breach or hole one meter square and 10cm deep just as you would with a weapon or explosives.

That would translate into (Force/Structure)*100 liters of material 'shaped' per combat round. For steel that equates to 25 liters, which isn't a very big hole.

However, using the same logic as the cutting charge idea, you could create a circular trench 1m across and 1mm wide in cross section that was approximately 8m deep. You could even angle the cut slightly, in or out, to make a truncated cone rather than a cylinder that could then be easily pushed in or slid out depending on how you angled the trench.



Oooo...daddy likes!

crizh
QUOTE (TheOneRonin @ Jun 5 2008, 09:16 PM) *
Oooo...daddy likes!



It's not quite a UCT as it only works on metal and the drain is pretty harsh.

There's lots of things that it will be more effective to just blow up but I think we can come up with some pretty creative uses for it....
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