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toturi
QUOTE (Ravor @ Sep 2 2008, 12:04 PM) *
Once you start dropping planes on your enemies I would imagine that the status quo which keeps Runners safe vanishes in a puff of smoke because it quickly becomes everyone's best interest to put down these rabid mutts. Sure there is going to be infighting amongst the various factions but that doesn't mean the Runners are going to survive the crossfire.

It'd depend actually. It would depend on the people who own those planes and the enemies you drop them on. Certainly the more you do with the plane the more noise is created, but whether that noise is loud enough to create a response strong enough to actually find it is subjective. But if you don't do anything with it, then the plane ceases to be of use.
Kronk2
Sorry for the dupe post.
Kronk2
QUOTE (Rad @ Aug 29 2008, 06:25 PM) *
A few things to clarify:

1: "Various Means" = Pwnd a Mitsuhama strike team with a bulldozer
-----

Killdozer!!!
Kronk2
QUOTE (masterofm @ Aug 29 2008, 07:35 PM) *
Draining fuel and dropping a plane out of the sky could get you in SERIOUS trouble. You don't know who you are going to piss off with stunts like that. Personally you knock over a plane and drain it's fuel and then drop it on someones head expect to probably destroy or take something that will probably get a AAA sending multiple teams and shadow runners at you. If not you are destroying millions and millions of nuyen.gif on a constant basis and dropping it on whoever you don't like. Expect to get thor shotted after you do like 10 million in damages (a.k.a. 5-10 planes.) Doing stuff like this splashes the pond a little too much I would think in a SR setting.


a modern 787 costs 146.0 MILLION USD Boeing plane prices Taking down one would land you on any company's shit list even if it is insured.
toturi
QUOTE (Kronk2 @ Sep 2 2008, 01:56 PM) *
a modern 787 costs 146.0 MILLION USD Boeing plane prices Taking down one would land you on any company's shit list even if it is insured.

Perhaps. But that's assuming they hit the same AAA or AA corp for all those flights. If they were smart and hit non-AA/AAA planes and targeted different carriers at different places at different times, then maybe not. Particularly if they purged the flight recorder data or any other sources of useful data to the owners before dropping the planes off. We don't know enough to make any judgement.
Adarael
QUOTE
Satellites today can read your license plate without fail.


Not unless you keep your plates on TOP of your car, they can't. No sat camera, no matter how good, can aim at an angle low enough to read a plate. That's just basic geometry + atmosphere, and it's likely to stay that way for many a year.
CanRay
QUOTE (Kronk2 @ Sep 2 2008, 12:56 AM) *
a modern 787 costs 146.0 MILLION USD Boeing plane prices Taking down one would land you on any company's shit list even if it is insured.

Yeah, their premiums will increase a drekload!

AND if they get it back, then they have two 787s, one from the Insurance Money, and one that was rightfully theirs in the first place.

And they get revenge. And send a message. And stay in the Black in the accounting ledgers.

The only way the group can get away now is to be worth more than 146 Million USD (About 30 million nuyen.gif ) worth of trouble. Then it becomes fiscially irresponcible for the Megacorporation to continue after you, as it would be a lost gain.

Gotta keep the Shareholders happy and making a profit!
masterofm
The funny thing is you think things will be insured. How can a AAA corp insure itself? That makes no sense. It will want to get it's resources back, or at least kill those responsible. I don't really think when you go to the very highest ups that they have no insurance but their own, which is the kind that kills all those responsible for creating mass havoc so they don't lose face. The corporate world in SR to me is like a tank of canablistic parannas and any sign of weakness shown will mean all the other AA's who are jockeying for position will try to take you down so that they can get a seat on the corporate court. Don't show weakness you are corporate paranna chow.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (masterofm @ Sep 2 2008, 05:28 PM) *
The funny thing is you think things will be insured. How can a AAA corp insure itself? That makes no sense.

Of course it does - like insurance companies themselves are insured.

That means that the insurace will try to get the plane back... at least as long it's cheaper as simply paying up.
And it seems like they are way past that point...
CanRay
Crown Corporations are insured, and they're owned by the Goverment. Don't mistake Mitsuhama for owning everything.

They don't.

They own COMPANIES that own everything, that way they can move at one removeal away and insure things if nothing else.
masterofm
I thought powerful corporations were their own separate entity that governments hold no sway over them, or are even allowed to enter corporate property without express permission from a AAA. I thought it would be like saying does the government now a days have insurance? Not really but they have enough money and resources to replace a smashed toy. I thought the only thing AAA's are held accountable to in SR is only the corporate court. I thought that A's and AA's can get insurance, but AAA's can only really fall back on themselves since most governments SR setting are pretty weak.

There are Ares planes... there are also Ares subsidiary planes which is different. Ares is not the government though. They are not owned by the UCAS or the Cal Free. There are a few AAA's that are part government part company. Aztechnology is the first that springs to mind, but when you are that high up on the pecking order you generally don't have other companies insure your planes especially if they are pretty much their own government.
Rad
Jeez, people get so pissed off--you'd think we were trying to take over their world, not our group's campaign world.

I don't get all this personal offense people are directing toward our group. Just because we accomplished something spectacular doesn't mean we cheated or that our GM was being too nice, it was a combination of luck, strategy, and a lot of things coming together just right.

The facility was located at the bottom of a quarry pit, in the midst of a rating 2 toxic background count. It was narrow, secluded, and hard to spy on--probably why MCT chose the place. We jammed the airwaves the moment we saw the cameras, and blew the place sky high when we left. Our mage got killed, and all biological traces were burned out with white phosphorus grenades. All MCT knows is that somebody broke in, and that the place blew up. They don't even know that we escaped, or that the plane isn't lying in pieces in the rubble somewhere. There were a bazillion technomancers and an AI being studied there so MCT doesn't even know that we were responsible for the jamming, and they're probably more interested in recovering those than us and our plane.

(The AI's with the alliance now, the TM's are dead.)

Our sniper took out one engine of the skytrain with a Barret, not a LAW, so the damage was minimal. The pilot made an emergency landing at the bottom of the pit, and we patched it up enough to limp off to an airfield afterward. Our fixer would die for us, so he's not selling us out, and we were damn careful and extremely lucky on our mechanics rolls, so we got set up and out of Seattle in a big hurry.

As for us beating the strike team, the tominos lost to lucky/careful shots and we rushed the strike team the moment they left the plane and kept them pinned down so they couldn't spread out. We lost two team members: our mage and physad, and our sniper got shot up. Actually, the mage's backup character got fragged too--his ghost popped up as a free spirit and got disrupted with mana static and concentrated weapons fire. This wasn't easy, we were just luckier and had better tactics.

We all changed ID's, left the hemisphere, and never go out without disguises anymore. We covered our route, and stuck to uninhabited areas and the open ocean whenever possible. We hardly ever use the plane anymore, just to keep people from knowing we have it.

Most runners are content to do the jobs that come their way and scratch out a living without disrupting the status quo--we saw an opportunity and ran with it. With the Hong Kong situation, we got a hold of a highly incriminating vid-chip of one of the guys who runs the city, and instead of blackmailing him or selling it off to 9x9, we're doing both and launching a plan to surreptitiously gain control of several city-run utilities and businesses--including the only official airport. 9x9 is supporting this, so there's no fear of reprisal there, and our target would have to A) find us and B) survive the web of sniperdeath we will have tightened around him before making our move. If worse comes to worse, we'll take him out before he can tip anyone off and take control of the facilities without his help.

We'll keep them running like normal, but the proverbial "guy on the inside" will be our clean side identities owning the fragging place.

The bottom line is that we haven't cheated, and neither has the GM--yet. It sounds like he's planning on breaking that truce and pulling a Deus ex Machina on us. I really hope not.

So far it's all just been fun. Nobody's been trying to disrupt his plans, it's just been working out that way. If the GM's got a problem, he should talk to us about it--and if he's got a brilliantly evil plan of his own, he should bring it. But dropping a handwaved TPK on us would introduce an animosity that neither of us wants to see at the table.

My character isn't the problem, he's actually pretty poorly built. I understand the rules better now, and I'm not getting any dumber. Unless Matsci goes overboard and vetos every build that isn't a retard, my next character's going to be just as conniving and better designed to boot.

Let's not go there, eh? wink.gif
WearzManySkins
grinbig.gif
Barrett's do not merely damage a airframe engine.

As for the rest......never mind.....

WMS
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Rad @ Sep 2 2008, 11:56 PM) *
Jeez, people get so pissed off--you'd think we were trying to take over their world, not our group's campaign world.

Perhaps it's simply incomputable to them that people can play an epic game and have loads of fun doing so.
Or rather, they don't want you to have fun playing an epic game - because they can't.
Matsci
QUOTE (Rad @ Sep 2 2008, 10:56 PM) *
Jeez, people get so pissed off--you'd think we were trying to take over their world, not our group's campaign world.

I don't get all this personal offense people are directing toward our group. Just because we accomplished something spectacular doesn't mean we cheated or that our GM was being too nice, it was a combination of luck, strategy, and a lot of things coming together just right.

The facility was located at the bottom of a quarry pit, in the midst of a rating 2 toxic background count. It was narrow, secluded, and hard to spy on--probably why MCT chose the place. We jammed the airwaves the moment we saw the cameras, and blew the place sky high when we left. Our mage got killed, and all biological traces were burned out with white phosphorus grenades. All MCT knows is that somebody broke in, and that the place blew up. They don't even know that we escaped, or that the plane isn't lying in pieces in the rubble somewhere. There were a bazillion technomancers and an AI being studied there so MCT doesn't even know that we were responsible for the jamming, and they're probably more interested in recovering those than us and our plane.

(The AI's with the alliance now, the TM's are dead.)

Our sniper took out one engine of the skytrain with a Barret, not a LAW, so the damage was minimal. The pilot made an emergency landing at the bottom of the pit, and we patched it up enough to limp off to an airfield afterward. Our fixer would die for us, so he's not selling us out, and we were damn careful and extremely lucky on our mechanics rolls, so we got set up and out of Seattle in a big hurry.

As for us beating the strike team, the tominos lost to lucky/careful shots and we rushed the strike team the moment they left the plane and kept them pinned down so they couldn't spread out. We lost two team members: our mage and physad, and our sniper got shot up. Actually, the mage's backup character got fragged too--his ghost popped up as a free spirit and got disrupted with mana static and concentrated weapons fire. This wasn't easy, we were just luckier and had better tactics.

We all changed ID's, left the hemisphere, and never go out without disguises anymore. We covered our route, and stuck to uninhabited areas and the open ocean whenever possible. We hardly ever use the plane anymore, just to keep people from knowing we have it.

Most runners are content to do the jobs that come their way and scratch out a living without disrupting the status quo--we saw an opportunity and ran with it. With the Hong Kong situation, we got a hold of a highly incriminating vid-chip of one of the guys who runs the city, and instead of blackmailing him or selling it off to 9x9, we're doing both and launching a plan to surreptitiously gain control of several city-run utilities and businesses--including the only official airport. 9x9 is supporting this, so there's no fear of reprisal there, and our target would have to A) find us and B) survive the web of sniperdeath we will have tightened around him before making our move. If worse comes to worse, we'll take him out before he can tip anyone off and take control of the facilities without his help.

We'll keep them running like normal, but the proverbial "guy on the inside" will be our clean side identities owning the fragging place.

The bottom line is that we haven't cheated, and neither has the GM--yet. It sounds like he's planning on breaking that truce and pulling a Deus ex Machina on us. I really hope not.

So far it's all just been fun. Nobody's been trying to disrupt his plans, it's just been working out that way. If the GM's got a problem, he should talk to us about it--and if he's got a brilliantly evil plan of his own, he should bring it. But dropping a handwaved TPK on us would introduce an animosity that neither of us wants to see at the table.

My character isn't the problem, he's actually pretty poorly built. I understand the rules better now, and I'm not getting any dumber. Unless Matsci goes overboard and vetos every build that isn't a retard, my next character's going to be just as conniving and better designed to boot.

Let's not go there, eh? wink.gif


I've just got an evil plan, that caches you between a rock and a hard-place. Fortunately, you have a plane.

As you have pointed out, the people you work with aren't the most moral people in the world, Mr send a truck full of exploives into downtown Hong Kong. I don't have a Deus ex Machinae planned. Just some Deus Ex.

Most of my bluster post above is what happens if you manage to do everything wrong. Judging by the evil plans you guys come up with, not only will the situation get turned around, you guys will end up profiting. you always do.
merashin
QUOTE (Rad @ Sep 2 2008, 01:56 PM) *
Our sniper took out one engine of the skytrain with a Barret, not a LAW

sorry, i died in the first few moments, to a crit glitch dodge, then walked into the other room till my backup showed up, so i was fuzzy on how we took it down
Matsci
QUOTE (merashin @ Sep 2 2008, 10:39 PM) *
sorry, i died in the first few moments, to a crit glitch dodge, then walked into the other room till my backup showed up, so i was fuzzy on how we took it down



Wasn't the Law used on one of the Cyborgs?
WearzManySkins
Well I am guessing here but some of us at least do not run NPC's as "Red Shirts".

If that play style is enjoyable for you and your GM, so be it. But do not post about here, and expect not get some hide taken off. grinbig.gif

WMS
merashin
QUOTE (Matsci @ Sep 2 2008, 02:54 PM) *
Wasn't the Law used on one of the Cyborgs?

i think so
Ravor
I have to agree with WearzManySkins, unless something got lost in the translation the battle recount has a feel of a slapstick skit, and the limbed airplane doesn't help matters.
Matsci
QUOTE (Ravor @ Sep 3 2008, 04:36 AM) *
I have to agree with WearzManySkins, unless something got lost in the translation the battle recount has a feel of a slapstick skit, and the limbed airplane doesn't help matters.


It wasn't so much slapstick as the GM rolling horrible, and the players rolling well. I really don't believe in fudging dice, so sometimes players die, sometimes they wipe the field. It doesn't help that one of my players just happens to distort probability around himself.
masterofm
No Rad I'm sorry but you are taking it the wrong way. Our views are conflicting with yours so you are viewing us as "pissed off." It's not that most of us are pissed off we just think the situation sounded stupid with the information we were given. Calling something stupid does not instantly mean I'm pissed off or offended. It's an internet forum for crimminies sake we might as well have a blowing hot air at each other competition for all the good it does. I'm sorry but the way I view SR is obviously not the way you and/or your group views it. From what I have sat down and read fluff wise your GM let you off easy. Is that ok? Maybe not for me but in the end it's not my table and I'm not the GM. Seems like more offense was taken on your end then it ever was on mine thats for sure.


My first point I will bring up however is there are no ghosts in SR. When you die in SR you are dead dead. No ghosts allowed by RAW mate. That whole free spirit thing goes totally against the entire universe of SR. I mean the two things SR specifically talks about, and sadly is totally contradicted in the 1st person shooter game... but the less said on that the better, is that people do not come back from the dead and no teleporting period. Your GM just broke cardinal rule #1 so in my eyes that takes away some of the validity to saying you are playing a totally legit SR game. Is this ok? I don't see why not if thats the way you guys want to play it. Am I pissed? Pfft... on an internet forum? Hell no.

The second is that the repair rules are also given in "whatever the GM feels like" time increments so the fact that you got "really lucky" was actually your GM letting you get away with that. Or that part of the rule book was not looked up or known at the time the plane was repaired. Sometimes it takes more then a tool box to be able to repair a damaged engine when you crack said engine block with a .50 cal depleted uranium armor piercing bullet or maybe it doesn't and you can fix it in a combat round or a handful of minutes with a spanner, some bubble gum, and a toothpick.

The third point is although jamming is awesome, if a camera is a closed circuit feed it does not matter how hard you try to jam or send a spoofing signal it just won't do anything. A closed node is a closed node. Also in my eyes I find it hard to believe that they didn't have some of their camera and vid feed that didn't funnel information off sight just a few miles away in a secret hardened bunker. Best not to have all of your eggs in one basket just in case someone takes a truck full of plastic explosives and blows the crap out of the basket. Then again this is just what I would do laying down the groundwork for a run like this.

On a side note: If you think an AI is going to join your alliance just because you set it free among the world.... well the minute it touches the matrix you might have just opened an extremely large can of worms. It might have totally lied to you so that you would let it out of its cage. Maybe not, but it's something your characters or GM should think about. Might even cause another matrix crash. Also what AI is this that you released? Did you just release a Deus shard? If so guard your loins and prepare for pain. I have also taken the time to write this because I believe these are things your GM might want to take into consideration the next time your players decide to be tricky maybe try to be tricky back in a more subtle way instead of let's send in the crazy cyborg strike team. Yet in the end it's totally arbitrary and who the hell cares. Make them all superheroes, or set the scene during the middle ages for all I care. Not my table and not my GM.
toturi
QUOTE (masterofm @ Sep 3 2008, 02:56 PM) *
Yet in the end it's totally arbitrary and who the hell cares. Make them all superheroes, or set the scene during the middle ages for all I care. Not my table and not my GM.
The players should care. Evidently they are having fun. Their GM isn't running completely by the RAW, but that is his decision to do so and the RAW supports the GM coming up with his own house rules and his interpretations of it. Some people are into sado-masochism, they like their GM to stick it to them in the name of "realism". Other people have their fun in a different way.

The GM isn't asking us to give him our opinions on how he ran his campaign, he is simply asking us to provide suggestions on how to calculate lifestyles. If he had asked for an opinion on his running style, I would have comment on how some things might not be completely RAW; as it is, he didn't.
psychophipps
I would call it a "High" lifestyle and requiring an airport or other dedicated aircraft landing area. You would need access to a dedicated repair facility as jet engines are a bitch to keep running, you also need a cleared area to land safely that is clear of debris as sucking anything you blow up off the road or a building in the sprawl will FUBAR the selfsame engines, and access to a Hugh Jass fuel farm to keep those gas-guzzling jet engines into fuel.
Then there is the hundreds of man-hours annul inspection to stay licensed (let alone the phased inspections every 25 flight hours or so), the bi-annual flight review by the dully-qualified instructor hired by the FAA-equivalent, the beacon updates, the mortgage on your insanely expensive aircraft, hangar rentals, repairs and inspections, the fact all parts have a street index of 5 vs. automobile parts, licensing fees based upon usage and pilot experience/training, the fact that not having this stuff done is a great way to have a seriously pissed off series of Federal Agencies popping a financial cap in your ass for fines starting in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not a literal one if you get froggy when they show up), etc., etc.

Oh yeah, I used to work at an airport for a FBO...
masterofm
Exactly. Yet this is Dumpshock and if topics didn't get wildly off topic it wouldn't be Dumpshock. They can run it any way they want, but people are going to comment on it especially if they feel a curve ball comes into play. There was very little situational instance given, so when more information came into play that is when people had an opinion. If the situation had been described in more detail then just "my runners live in a plane" it would have probably had a different response. In the end there are lifestyle mods in arsenal for living in a vehicle, which could have answered this question days ago.
Rad
QUOTE (masterofm @ Sep 3 2008, 08:07 AM) *
Exactly. Yet this is Dumpshock and if topics didn't get wildly off topic it wouldn't be Dumpshock. They can run it any way they want, but people are going to comment on it especially if they feel a curve ball comes into play. There was very little situational instance given, so when more information came into play that is when people had an opinion. If the situation had been described in more detail then just "my runners live in a plane" it would have probably had a different response. In the end there are lifestyle mods in arsenal for living in a vehicle, which could have answered this question days ago.


The vehicle amenities mod in Arsenal didn't answer the question, which is why our GM posted it here. The closest thing to a core answer was to combine the vehicle amenities rules from Arsenal with the optional advanced lifestyle rules in Runner's Companion, which FlashbackJohn provided in the first reply.

Sorry if I lost my cool a bit, but I can't really buy that there's no animosity involved when people jump in to criticize our group/gm/playing style instead of answering the question. Saying "but if that's how your group plays, then fine" at the end is disingenuous, especially when most of the complaints and advice were about issues of IRL realism that contradict the official mechanics.

But yeah, internet = people hate you, lolz. Especially on an RPG forum. It's the same thing that happens with the ARMA folks and historians over on the fantasy RPG boards. Eventually I just gotta' learn to let the drek roll off my back a little easier.
masterofm
Don't need to say sorry. I really don't care about the whole thing and my comments were more directed as if I was editing someones essay. There were parts that just didn't make sense to me so I added what I thought would make the most sense. Sometimes people take offense to this on a forum or even when you are right there telling them what could maybe make the paper better. Some people happily accept these comments while others get deeply offended, and then decide that you don't know what the hell you are talking about and should go drown in a lake. The problem is that it only becomes a flame war when both people start taking what is said as a direct insult. Then it topic just degrades into uselessness.

Also on the "how it should be done in RL" part is only just a small thing to consider when playing Shadowrun. Personally when I think about Shadowrun I think ok... how would people do it today, and then add the crazy technology factor, and then add the twist that is comprised of the Shadowrun world. Maybe the corruption might be a factor or maybe they would just send four force 6 mages at you. Honestly when given only half of the story it sounded like all of the team made it out without a scratch and after more was explained thought that it would make sense that quite a few of your team mates got gunned down (although the dead mage becoming a free spirit thing I still can't quite deal with mainly because of the rules associated with that.) None of this was given in the situation, and people will still say that taking on a zero point facility or crazy insane strike team head on = death. Some might find it more acceptable knowing the whole story. But like I said in the end it would have been better to either ask the very simple question, or go into a ton of detail on how everything went down.
merashin
the free spirit thing was more of a i got killed in the first few minutes of the game, so they tried to find a way to get me back in, to avoid boredom
masterofm
Oh no doubt that is exactly where I think the GM was going with that. Although I would have liked it if after your mage died he took you aside and gave you one or two characters from the strike team to play against your own party and laid out some of his plans for what was going to happen. Would have been less boring, and at the same time might have made the combat more interesting. If I was the GM I probably would have done that if no other backup characters were on scene and if the players at the table were cool enough to not hold a grudge against you. It's kind of like 2 GMs vs *edit* 5 players *edit* at that point.
merashin
actually we have 6 players
Jewish Children
It doesn't help that one of my players just happens to distort probability around himself.

lol, thats me, in a TM and i roll ridiculously lucky, in RL i have edge 8. It's why in not dead yet, but thats an other matter.

and anyone who questions the ability to repair the engine, well when u have a force 10 machine sprite to help, and roll 24 dies to repair, things go alot faster. cyber.gif
Platinum Dragon
I realise I'm late to the discussion but...

QUOTE (Rad @ Aug 30 2008, 09:38 PM) *
Except that it's not moving, hardly ever in fact. Too high profile. We just got our hands on the means to blackmail our way into control of an airport, as well a various utilities around Hong Kong, so we'll have a better means of fueling and storing this thing soon. Meantime it's parked out in the middle of nowhere and serving as a fully stealthed base of operations from which we launch our fully stealthed amphibious submersible citymaster and fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.


QUOTE (Rad @ Aug 30 2008, 09:38 PM) *
Meantime it's parked out in the middle of nowhere and serving as a fully stealthed base of operations from which we launch our fully stealthed amphibious submersible citymaster and fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.


QUOTE (Rad @ Aug 30 2008, 09:38 PM) *
launch our fully stealthed amphibious submersible citymaster and fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.


QUOTE (Rad @ Aug 30 2008, 09:38 PM) *
fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.


QUOTE (Rad @ Aug 30 2008, 09:38 PM) *
amphibious motorcycle.


...

The mind boggles.
Rotbart van Dainig
Or, put it the emosamurai way: AWESOME!
Falconer
As someone who's been there at the meetings where the financing of the aircraft has been discussed... I'd have to say luxury. I'm only a student pilot myself, but the club aircraft aren't cheap. The wet price for just a dinky little single engine 2 seater is over $100 hour now... hate to see what it is in nuyen for a military grade craft w/ a lot of advanced allows and embedded systems.

Just because people put in luxury amenities though doesn't mean it's livable... EG: just because the limo has luxury fittings doesn't mean it has beds, and dining facilities... it means it has a full wet bar, top flight entertainment, and things to make traveling from point A -> B quite enjoyable. I wouldn't say it included a shower and the like.

They're basically living out of a glorified winnebago. Individual accomodations for 5 or 6 people inside the airframe aren't going to be much better than coffin motel just because of space considerations. So call it low... with maybe some decent common areas (kitchen/entertainment center/cargo-freespace area). If it just floated around like a glorified yacht they're not burning much... and it keeps the maintenance down. There's a problem here though... they can't really do this on the ocean... if the waves are over say 5' they need to be in the air... just because it floats doesn't mean it floats well in heavy wave action (which can damage the wings and airframe quite a bit if not sink the plane). (this is an old problem w/ seaplanes... they need calm bays to land in, and landing on the ocean itself was always a dicey affair).

If you don't believe me chart out the interior of the aircraft. As a tilt rotor, a C-130 would be spacious in comparison. And a C-130 doesn't have all that much space inside. A 130 has roughly a 40' x 10' x 10' cargo area plus the cockpit and a chem toilet. Now start thinking about other bits not included... say you put up coffin type bunks... reasonable space... shower/toilet raises issues... chem toilet is used and discharged after each flight... where are you getting fresh water to run the shower or drink (desalinization is a huge energy hog if you say from the seawater, which brings up the fuel problem). To the GM, I'd suggest actually doing a small exercise w/ the players of mapping their living/cargo space within the plane to figure out exactly how 'luxurious' the accomodations are.

But if they're doing any flying they're racking up the credstick. Airframe parts are wearing out... and they're NOT getting their normal maintenance. Maintenance requires facilities, not just a drone/PC w/ a good roll. We're talking a facility, not a workshop, not a toolkit, a facility. Further they don't have space on the plane for a workshop to even attempt to machine simple metal replacement parts, let alone the advanced synthetics and fancy stuff that's going to go into making this bad boy. I have no issues w/ the story given... and JURY RIGGING a short term patch to the damage. But a jury rig is just a band-aid, not a full repair (the game does include rules stating certain things require access to certain grades of facilities no matter how good you are).

Just my take... rather than being completely silly w/ the arms and such. PC's would be better off selling off the plane in parts (possibly even the entire plane) to other AAA's who want the prototype tech and who can offer protection. Shadowrun is very much a game of connections and part of it when you enter the big leagues is deciding who you do want as allies and enemies.

Hope that helps.
Matsci
QUOTE (Platinum Dragon @ Sep 5 2008, 09:22 AM) *
I realise I'm late to the discussion but...
...
The mind boggles.



Arsenal page 132. It turns into a jet-ski.
Rad
QUOTE (Falconer @ Sep 5 2008, 07:26 PM) *
Just my take... rather than being completely silly w/ the arms and such. PC's would be better off selling off the plane in parts (possibly even the entire plane) to other AAA's who want the prototype tech and who can offer protection. Shadowrun is very much a game of connections and part of it when you enter the big leagues is deciding who you do want as allies and enemies.

Hope that helps.


Well, that would have been an option, but it's not prototype tech. When we got it all it had was an autocannon, then we jury-rigged it enough to fly to an airfield that had facilities we could use to perform the repairs and upgrades in proper. Some of our stuff is pretty SOTA, but it's nothing new or unknown.

The arms are pretty ridiculous, and we haven't actually used them for anything yet--there always seems to be a better option--but sometimes in a game you want something just for the cool factor.

As for living accommodations, we upgraded it specifically with turning it into a living space in mind. The advanced lifestyle rules allow you to mix and match higher and lower elements into an average lifestyle cost, so rather than making a very comfortable airplane, we made a plane that has bunks/showers/cooking facilities/whatever. So yeah, it's a giant stealthed winnebago with autocannons and VTOL capability. It would be kind of fun to map out what exactly the plane has and where, but that hasn't really been a priority for our group, and we're all willing to handwave past the nitty-gritty specifics of lifestyle and get to the part where we blow things up.

I have to say our tricked-out vehicles are nuts. Right now we're trying to steal drums of a vaccine off of a cargo ship. We figured out it's route and had our citymaster (or is it roadmaster? I'm always confusing the two) wait on the bottom along the coast where the ship would be traveling. The amphibious motorcycle snuck up to the side and released a couple Dragonfly drones (the exploding kind) from the motorcycle's smuggling compartment. The drones took out the ship's communication tower, while our demo guy used a framed charge to blow a hole in the bottom of the ship and our TM jammed the airwaves so nobody could call out with a commlink or anything. Then we raised our submersible van into the hole and used the inflatable pontoons to seal it.

At that point, we realized we could use the ruthenium to mimick the floor of the ship, so when the guards came in to investigate they found an apparently empty and undamaged room mysteriously filled with about two feet of seawater.

Then we shot them all dead with silenced weapons through the van's gunports. Also, our 9x9 affiliated surged shapeshifter panda got one of them. (He's a new addition, played by the same guy as the mage and the free spirit that got fragged when we took the plane.)

The plan is to have some of the team run combat/distraction while the rest find the vaccine and any other useful cargo and stuff it into the van, then we drop out the bottom and blow the ship with charges placed along the way. If need be, the aquacycle and skytrain can come in to lend support fire or pick up more cargo/teammembers. If worse comes to worse we can just blow a hole in the side of the ship and jump out.

We were thinking of playing Drop-Bear with the panda by having him jump onto the deck from our skytrain during a low-altitude flyby (he's got insane soak dice, and wouldn't need a chute if we were low enough) but we decided it was easier to just avoid the weapons and drone racks on the deck of the ship and go in from underneath.

We've definitely left technical realism bleeding to death in a gutter somewhere, but the over-the-top action movie feel of our games works pretty well for us. biggrin.gif
toturi
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig @ Sep 5 2008, 06:06 PM) *
Or, put it the emosamurai way: AWESOME!

Ah, emo... kind of miss him around here.

QUOTE
We've definitely left technical realism bleeding to death in a gutter somewhere, but the over-the-top action movie feel of our games works pretty well for us.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying yourselves.
Rad
Indeed we are. biggrin.gif
Ravor
What veer did happen to emo?
Lilt
QUOTE (Rad @ Sep 6 2008, 08:46 AM) *
The arms are pretty ridiculous, and we haven't actually used them for anything yet--there always seems to be a better option--but sometimes in a game you want something just for the cool factor.
Lol. You wanna get a bow with a Min STR of 30. That gives it a damage rating of 32 (33 using explosive heads) plus a maximum range of 1800m. Compared to the maximum range of a sniper rifle, at 1500m, it wins by 300m.

If your GM says it'd be too hard to find, just point him to the availability rating: 2. You should be able to pick one up from your local outdoors centre.

It's legal too, so you don't need a license!

[/twink]

As for pricing the lifestyle, I'd say they pay full price. Sure, they have a place to live, but they're going to need energy and food and have chosen to live in an area where it's hard to come by. They'd also need to pay for maintenance. Sure, they have extremely good repair credentials, but unless they have replacement parts then they're not gonna be able to repair it.

Assuming you're following standard operating procedure for repairs (as anyone throwing 24 dice to repair something will tell you to do), there are a number of standard aircraft maintenance checks that you'll want to be making. From the sounds of it, you'd need an aircraft shop to do an A or B check, and an aircraft facility to do a C or D check. The number of dice you throw at it doesn't help, because there are some parts you just plain won't be able to reach without the appropriate tools, like winches, and some checks you just won't be able to do without the appropriate tools, like the microwave-based scanners they use to check for minute stress fractures. Tiny, invisible, fractures could lead to the craft falling from the sky if left unchecked. Because you're throwing so many dice, you can probably take a penalty and use a kit for an A check, B checks would require a shop. Similarly you could take a penalty and do a C check in a shop, but you'll really need a facility for a D check.

If the plane is mostly grounded, you can probably increase the times, but staying grounded has its own issues even in a climate-controlled hangar. Their plane is floating, so you've got potentially quite violent motion (natural harbours, at-least the good ones, are generally populated) and various sea creatures are gonna start making it their home. Salt-water is nasty stuff too, and being splashed all-over with it is going to necessitate maintenance anyway. I'd extend times, as it's definitely less stressful than flying every day, but a x3 increase doesn't seem unreasonable, maybe x6 if you want to be kind.

If they steal fuel or replacement parts, let-alone try and steal access to a vehicle shop, they start making even more enemies and people start putting 2 and 2 together. To steal parts, they need to be the parts for your model of plane, and they need to be the parts that are needed. Even their modus-operandi may start giving things away, eventually. Electronic theft (generally done by making someone else pay for it) will eventually be noticed, which can lead to honey-pot traps. Physical theft risks witnesses, and wired communication can't be jammed. It's a risky business, one that quite possibly reveals what type of craft is being used, and more info out there means the net closing around you. It could be risked, but it might be better paying the price in the long run.

How much should it all cost? Well, repairing one box of damage on that thing is gonna cost 15k:nuyen: worth of parts, and that's no-matter how many dice you throw at the task. Assuming that a month's normal maintenance is approximately equivalent to two boxes of damage, the amount of damage it can take before 'wound modifiers' are experienced, they're looking at 2 boxes every 3 months. That roughly equates to another 10k every month (5k if you're being kind)... Doesn't sound too harsh, although it does necessitate regular access to shops and occasional access to facilities. They can ignore this cost, but if they do then just start filling-in boxes of damage on the plane's condition monitor.

You also can't assume that the aircraft had a D maintenance yesterday. I'd roll a D4 and subtract 1 to find-out how many years it'll be before it needs a D maintenance, and roll a D12 and subtract 2 to find-out how many months it'll be before it needs a B maintenance. The reason I subtract two from the B maintenance is that one of the plane's engines was shot-out and it was forced to make an emergency landing. I know they fixed it up using lots of dice, but being wicked-good at repairs only lets you do it faster, and says nothing for the main airframe of the craft. Subtract the time that's passed in-game since it was stolen, and either multiply the rest by 3 or count slowly. That's how long it'll be before they need access to a vehicle shop/facility.

How long will they need the shop/facility for? Well, according to this article, a D check normally takes "between 15,000 and 35,000 hrs. of labour", so an average of 25000. Assuming an extended test with a period of 1 hour, and that it's normally being worked-on by normal crews rolling 6 dice (Stat 3 skill 3), that means 2 hits per hour and thus a threshold of 50000. That's talking about a 747, however. The tilt-wing is probably 1/5th the size (a 747 is about 4.5 times the size of an osprey), so an extended repair test at with a threshold of 10000 and an interval of 1 hour seems fair. Given that the job is innately multi-task friendly, I'd total-up the skills of people working on it and use averages. I think an easier way to do it is to convert it into a daily task, assuming everyone works 16 hours. That means a repair test (416, 1 day), but you can increase the contributions of individuals that don't sleep (drones etc) by 50%. I don't know how good your party are at repairs, but if you assume a pool of 60 dice then you're looking at 20 hits per day, taking a total of 20 days.

I don't have any solid numbers for a C check, but I think that a threshold of 2000hrs doesn't seem unreasonable (that's the equivalent of being out for a week). Using the same time estimation system as above, it'd take ~4 days if your pool of dice was 60. If you tried to make-do with a shop, however, you'd need to remember to subtract the penalty from each contributor.

I don't mean to be harsh in these numbers. I'm just offering them as an 'all things considered' system for keeping the craft air-worthy. 10k/month doesn't seem an unreasonable expenditure, but your opinion may differ from mine as to how much longer the craft will keep when not flying. They can in-theory steal everything they need, although they could also steal everything they need to maintain a lifestyle. They just need to decide where the line is drawn. Is it really worthwhile to steal the parts/fuel, given the risks and identification factor, or would they be better-off doing jobs and using it to pay for said parts/fuel.
FlashbackJon
QUOTE (Rad @ Sep 6 2008, 02:46 AM) *
It would be kind of fun to map out what exactly the plane has and where, but that hasn't really been a priority for our group, and we're all willing to handwave past the nitty-gritty specifics of lifestyle and get to the part where we blow things up.

Plus, once you've done up a schematic, you're just asking the GM to use it for combat - usually to your detriment.

Buy the Low Lifestyle and never think about it again? You're perfectly safe. Carefully draft up your apartment with the Advanced Lifestyle rules, sketch out its basic layout and amenities, and use Google maps to locate it in Seattle? You're the FIRST to get ambushed at home.
kzt
The 10% SWAG I offered was from a company where the 20 million corp jet required a 2 million/year support contract. Plus the flight crew, fuel, the one supervisory mechanic, etc. Serious aircraft are seriously expensive to operate.
Lilt
QUOTE (kzt @ Sep 8 2008, 08:36 PM) *
The 10% SWAG I offered was from a company where the 20 million corp jet required a 2 million/year support contract. Plus the flight crew, fuel, the one supervisory mechanic, etc. Serious aircraft are seriously expensive to operate.

Hmm. That makes sense, in which case I'd revise my numbers above (where normal yearly maintenance would come to 24% of the craft price).

A fairer number might be something like 4.1k/month, probably cut to 2k/month as the PCs are doing the maintenance themselves. I'd still insist they're going to need access to a facility, however, to do a full 'D' maintenance.
Matsci
QUOTE (Ravor @ Sep 8 2008, 02:17 AM) *
What veer did happen to emo?


My players shot it in the head, blew up the corpse, and burned down the building that it was in with White Phosphorus.
CanRay
QUOTE (Matsci @ Sep 8 2008, 04:55 PM) *
My players shot it in the head, blew up the corpse, and burned down the building that it was in with White Phosphorus.

So, Cyberzombie Emo will show up sometime working for Aztechnology, supported by a brace of Force 9 Blood Spirits?

I mean, after all, you didn't MAKE SURE he was dead...

...

Sorry, Deadlands moment there.
Matsci
QUOTE (CanRay @ Sep 8 2008, 11:35 PM) *
So, Cyberzombie Emo will show up sometime working for Aztechnology, supported by a brace of Force 9 Blood Spirits?

I mean, after all, you didn't MAKE SURE he was dead...

...

Sorry, Deadlands moment there.


Strapping a Kilo of C-16 to the corpse, then setting it off tends to insure that they are dead.
FlashbackJon
One might think so. smile.gif
toturi
QUOTE (Matsci @ Sep 9 2008, 01:06 PM) *
Strapping a Kilo of C-16 to the corpse, then setting it off tends to insure that they are dead.

Provided that Emo did not have Edge left. Which I doubt. Very much.
Rad
QUOTE (Lilt @ Sep 8 2008, 07:15 AM) *
>long post regarding RL 200X-era aircraft maintenance<


While I appreciate the effort and apparent real-world insight being put into these posts, I would like to point out two things:

1: This is Shadowrun, not Microsoft Flight II: Upkeep Simulator. It's neither fun nor in keeping with the game to spend that much time and detail on micromanaging our vehicles. Do you typically make your characters go grocery shopping and detail what items they have in the fridge? Do you take into account the possibility they could be tracked/identified by their buying and eating habits?

2: The extensive upkeep and associated costs are based on current real-world technology, Shadowrun currently takes place in the early 2070's and includes nanotech that can fuck up your calculations sideways.

...

...sorry, 4Chan moment there.

What I meant to say was that it makes sense that aircraft maintenance would be significantly easier in the Shadowrun universe, particularly if your plane has a nano-repair system. I can't remember if we got that for the plane or not, but it makes sense that modern (ie: 6th world) maintenance would involve heavy use of nanites simply because it's fast, easy, and efficient--all of which would appeal to the corps. Heck, the repair drone we snagged might have onboard nano-colonies, not unlike certain medkits. This reduces our materials cost to generic feedstock gel #12, and makes it much harder to tell what we're using the parts for.

As a final note, what is this Emo thing you guys are talking about? Our team's shot and blown up so many things at this point, I may have missed that one. biggrin.gif
CanRay
Nano-Maintence System does a lot, but it sometimes needs parts.

Such as the last game I ran when they needed to steal a mil-spec jet engine to repair Kane's Blimp. (Yes, the Shadowtalker Kane!).

They could either do a series of difficult runs against various places (One of which was Evo)... Or... They do what they did. Called in what few connections they had in LA, and found an engine that has all the parts in it.

Oh... Wait... They only have ONE connection in LA. An Orxploitation Rap Artist. Whose yacht had been attacked by a upgraded, gold-plated Neo-Hind Attack Helo flown by the Rap Artist's enemy, a DwarfCore Hair Metal Frontman.

You can guess which jet engine they stole.
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