Get to the boat, and I'll walk you onto it, that's a chapter point, which means edge and karma(aren't you excited lol). It may seem a bit early, but I'm doing it anyway, and I doubt anybody will object to karma.

Karma award.
2 karma, for not doing anything that angers me, lol.(with my normal group I announce that before each session)
1 karma, for being creative, that is doing things that aren't on my outline.
2 karma for supurb roleplaying.

I was going to award each of you different totals, but I decided that even the less active players were still doing a good job, plus to be fair I'd have to send everybody a PM, which is more time than I care to spend. It may seem high but I assure you, you'll need every ounce of it, and if I had gone by the book for karma awards you'd all have been awarded 11, which is too much.

You can spend your karma, per normal rules. If the thing your improving requires more than 32 hours, it is considered done before the boat lands. Oh by the way the boat ride will take aprox. 32 hours(or a day and a half if you prefer).

cool... i'm back, and it seems ginger has been helpful enough to move us to the boat... YAY KARMA!!!!!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!hehehe

Anyways, moving on, uh, I guess we're waiting on gore then we ship out?

Karma expenditure

1700 = 5 PM... so, dunno who you waving to...

I think that may have been a typo on Adams part, since he said that we would be leaving his flat at about 6:45

Oh, I almost forgot.

You all get Jack Crawford as a contact. he's (2/?).

Kiedo was the requested medkit left out on purpose or accident? I had a colorful post from Patch going, ranting about Jack, but then thought maybe Jack didn't forget but the GM did.

Karma expenditure:

Rokur, sorry about the 1700 typo. Edited it.

Kiedo - hoping for a ruling on armor - the Armor and Encumbrance section on 149 is pretty ambiguous. First they say layered armor only counts for highest single rating, then say that helmets etc. are the exception "and so do not count as stacked armor." So, "stacked" refers to the situation where only the highest rating applies?
Then in the next paragraph, they say if EITHER armor rating exceeds Body x 2 then there is a penalty. Then they say if multiple pieces are worn, add the ratings together. Seems like a direct contradiction to me. And does it mean add their base ratings, or their effective ratings after stacking?
To my mind, very poorly written. Of course, I have some interpretations that I'd like to go with, but I am not the GM.

OK... here's how it works... you wear a Chameleon Suit over an Armor Jacket. This will cause you to only use Armor Jacket for your armor values, although it should still offer you chameleon like blending.

However for encumbrance. You are still wearing a lot. So, to move easily around without any modifiers, you would need a body of 7. (Since encumbrance would be (8 ballistic + 6 ballistic) divided by 2.) when they say EITHER armor rating they're talking about either ballistic or impact armor. So in this case impact armors added up would be 6 + 4 = 10 and a body of only 5 would be necessary. But to get encumbrance modifiers you use the highest value between EITHER ballistic or impact (Most cases the higher armor rating is the Ballistic)

Rokur - thanks for the help. That sounds reasonable to me, and I will go with it barring some ruling otherwise.

umm... bump?

hehe along with that though, I kinda glossed over the planning discussions we'll probably be having... and just wrote out what Avie will be doing when others sleep. I was wondering if I would have to roll for these simple datasearches at first? maybe you could give me a general idea of stuff and I'll roll to find the more obscure stuff.

@Gingerkid Yes it was me who forgot the medkit. It's there at rating 4.

@Adam My ruling for armor will be this:

Stacked armor: if the armor specifically says it stacks with others, then it is added to the total armor. So if you had an urban explorer jumpsuit with 6/6 and you had on underarmor 1/1 you'd have an effective total of 7/7.

If the armor does not say it stacks then it does not and the highest, nonstacking armor value is used. So if you had on an a Chameleon Suit (6/4), an Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (6/6), and the provided under armor(1/1), you would use the impact from the jumpsuit and either, but not both ballistic armor ratings, giving you an effective Armor rating of 7/7.

Encumbrance
While the armor ratings sometimes cancel each other out, the wieght remains the same. If the total of either ballistic or impact armor exceed your body times two the divide the total armor rating of a specific type (ballistic or impact) together subtract the body and then divide by two(round up), this number acts as a negative modifier to agility. So if you have a body of 4, and your wearing a Chameleon Suit (6/4), an Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (6/6), and the provided under armor(1/1), which have a total emcunbrance rating of 13/11 you would take a -3 penalty to agility.

THank god for body 5

Karma expendurature

First off - can someone help me understand if I am doing something wrong with the spoilers? It seems like every time I post more than one spoiler in the same post, it posts just fine, but next time I log on, the second spoiler is gone. I just now had to reenter my second spoiler on the tats on Al's lower body. Is this just a glitch, or am I doing something wrong?

Anyway,
Kiedo - can you give me the number of successes I need and an interval on an armorer test to bring that camo suit down from a 4/4 to a 3/3? I will start by simply removing shock plates from the kevlar lining.

How about we just call them 3/3, and leave it at that, it was my goof.

As a side note it's also interesting to see who is taking what, I based the contents of the box solely off your backgrounds, and didn't take into account the actual player, I was right on the money with Al, but I completely missed with Patch (I had him pegged for the jumpsuit). I'm not going to tell you who I chose what for, because I want to see how the gear is distributed, Though obviously the "Troll sized" cloak is for Gore...

He's going into a war zone and wants to pose as a doctor for the international red cross. Patch wouldn't think SWAT on his back would be a good idea. And of course he brought his own helmet.

Well that's true, but you might note have to use that plan...

[edit]like I said I STRONGLY recommend talking to raven about your entry point.[/edit]

Likewise Avie will more than likely just keep his own armor. He doesn't want a huge parka with helmet that says SWAT on it while going "ninja" sneaking into these cave networks.....

Hey Kiedo, can I do a quick change on my Karma expendurature?
It occurs to me that with shoddy Wireless, I shan't be needing sprites any time soon, but a specialization or two in my combat skills will probably be of use considering that we are entering a warzone.

Kiedo - thanks for the help on the spoilers. To avoid back-editing earlier posts, I simply took your ruling on the armor as an auto-success on my test. Everybody happy now.

Ok, here is my perception roll. This is just long term while I pace the deck some.
Intuition 3+perception 2+cybereyes 3=8

I flip through regular visiion and thermal, zooming in on anything interesting.

I'm going to assume you roll that in open water, instead of being at the dock.

There are numerous fishing boats with hundreds of seagulls following each, nothing too out of the ordinary.

I didn't want to take us to morning because people may still want to do stuff the first night, but Patch is just memorizing maps and sleeping. So he is done until morning.

so.... anyone got a plan?

I hope this game is still going. I really like this group of characters.

I do too... I think plan's are usually best forged out in OOC.... most plans are on tabletop gaming....

On the boatride down, most of us seem to be doing the same things... either more research and memorizing maps. Maybe we could do a move-along to either morning time when some of us talk to el capitan again? or even further to the CFS?

I heartily agree with the last two posts -

- This is a great group, and I definitely intend to stick with this game.

- OOC can indeed be a good place to forge plans, or at least to encapsulate plans that have been simmering in a disorganized fashion strung out over a long IC thread. The problem here is that our plan can only be as concrete as the info we have (both as players and as characters). Now, despite an apparent dearth of knowledgeable contacts, I think we have all made solid contributions to our data pool through knowledge tests and Matrix searches - but we sorely lack eyes on the ground, and that may well remain the case until we are there.
Also, as the GM has pointedly suggested, and as Ginger has concurred with IC, we should ask Raven for advice. That counsel may well change all our plans.
That said, given what we know now, I think we are currrently running on nearly as good a tentative plan as we can hope for -
* Disembark Humboldt Bay.
* Secure vehicles (this could be done in advance) and go east on 299 to Weaverville. Get as much info as possible there.
* North on 3. From there, either into Scott Valley and then over the mountain (no road) to the target coordinates, or up the eastern fork of the road parallelling I-5 and up back roads straight to coordinates (I like the latter - but we should probably wait to make the final decision till we see what we see.)
* Once things get dangerous, we have two alternate plans - off road on horseback, or on road masquerading as some sort of neutral medical unit (NGO or something?) The latter seems more popular, but again, a decision best made once we see conditions on the ground.
* Use Sebastian's mock up to plan our tactical approach to the coordinates themselves (the cave? near the cave? any help with that question, GM?).
* At coordinates, find her or else pick up her trail/clues.
* Hopefully in the meantime, Gore will have found out more about the artifacts.

Again - much depends on A) info we get from Raven and B) info we gather as we go. But what we have, I think, is enough to proceed with, and is almost as good as we can reasonably do from what we know at this time.
I say ALMOST because between the five of us, I am sure there will be valuable suggestions and modifications, which I look forward to.

- After reviewing recent posts, I very much agree with Rokur that we have all sufficiently stated our intentions for the night to move on to morning. However, as the GM hinted at possible goings on, and we are 'in the field' now, I thought I would wait for him to announce the arrival of dawn (or whatever he may have in store) before waking Al up.

Excellent thoughts.

I agree that there are advantages to stolen vehicles. (For one thing - free is a very good price.) Obviously lifting cars should be a piece of cake for shadowrunners, especially someone with the skills Avenger seems to have. We would have to take certain precautions, however, to minimize the downside. The downside is that if we rent/buy a car, no one will be looking for us until we do some other naughty thing. But if we steal a car, we will have law enforcement forcing us to keep a low profile and watch our backs all the way from the coast, and all the way back. There are ways around this, but it is a pretty big negative to keep in mind.

Walking - excellent idea, as it adds a third option to our choices of what to do once we get a better idea of the conditions. Walking is both simpler and quieter than our other two options. On the other hand, it is the slowest - and I think we should keep constantly in mind that we are both CHASING her, and RACING against whoever else is after her, so speed of approach really should be a major consideration.

Spirit search is an excellent option. Obviously we will have to hear from Gore on that one (does he have materials, strength, inclination?). Then we will have to weigh whether we use that idea and risk having our efforts spotted while we are still some distance off, or instead get as close as possible to the coordinates we have before risking tipping our hand. Personally, because the site is actually in the area controlled by Hestaby, I would use the spirit search as a last resort if we dead-end on other leads.

These are all great options for our repertoire. The only point I have to really take exception with is your last. The sat-linked general store one of us found was on a search for active nodes in Scott Valley. Unfortunately, we have since found that the coordinates of her last known location were actually outside Scott Valley - on the other side of the mountains that form the valley's eastern wall. There are no east-west roads across that line. That is why I found the road that splits off of CA3, Gazelle-Callahan Road, which hugs the east side of that range, running north-south roughly parallel to I-5. That feeds onto the minor roads I found that lead to under a mile from the coordinates/cave. Whether we walk, ride, or drive, that really seems like the best route, based on what we know now. FYI, the closest community to the coordinates is about 5 miles down the mountainside - we'll pass through it if we use my route. It's called Gazelle, and has a 2070 population of 68.

Sorry for dropping off the face of the planet for a few days. I took a roadtrip to Atlanta, and forgot to let you guys know while I was making my final prep.

But I am back, and trying to get back into the swing of things.

umm, I can probably spoof license and registration for the car, and if they are wired enough, I might be able to make them think they we are their legitimate owners, and that they never had any others. I don't actually know how wired cars are in 2070

Three days ago real-time, Ginger expressed his hope that this game wasn't going to end, with Rokur and I seconding his opinion. At that time, I suggested we hold off on bumping the timeline forward, as now that we were in the field, the GM might have something nasty in store for us, and we should wait for an all-clear from that direction.

Well, with two days real-time elapsed since Kiedo got back from Atlanta, I think my advice may have been bad. Our IC thread is in the 'Page 2 Graveyard' for the first time since the game started, and another review of everyone's most recent posts tells me we have all stated our actions for the night. I think everyone is waiting on everyone else. So I am going to go ahead and sheepishly break my own advice and move things along - not all the way to dawn, but just to 3 am.

I hope it's not a problem - but I really like this group, and the story seems very promising - and I think it's time to get proactive. Taking a cue from Kiedo's most recent OOC Zompocalypse post - if I am moving too far ahead I will be more than happy to back-edit.

SO, Kiedo - specific info I am looking for -
* Idea of total crew size - just Raven, Papa and Vivi (the latter two Al has not seen yet), or are there more? Plus idea of who is on watch at 3 am-ish.
* Location of life preservers/boats/lines. Don't need you to answer that one, just need to know Al knows.
* Location of fire-control gear. As above.
* Armaments?

Crew size: 3, Raven, Papa Doc, and Vivi
life preservers: some on deck others on the shelf in the cargo hold, no boat, and there is rope everywhere.
Fire-control gear: none, save a pump built into the deck that is used for cleaning on a legit shrimp boat. Besides most of everything is stainless steel anyway.

Armaments: none visible, but it's only natural for some to exist.

Kiedo, I asked this a while back (june 6th), but I geuss you missed it. Can I change my mind about what my Karma went into? I said that I want to learn compiling 1, but instead I think I want to Specialize my Blades skill for (one handed). For both RP and mechanical reasons I think its too soon to learn compiling.

yeah that's fine Z, just so long are your happy with it, I haven't gone back and written down what everybody did yet.

Which reminds me. Would everybody post the new gear they've aquired, and karma expenditure in a spoiler tag in thier next OOC post. Also include total remaining nuyen. You don't have to do an itemized list with cost for each, I can look that up if need be, but just post something like this:

I'm taking a series of pictures with the main goals of deturmining
a) how many people are on board
b) how are they armed.

To to this I will snap several shots with normal vision at high magification (up to x50), and also some shots in the infrared spectrum with the goal of counting heat signatures.

Intuition 3+perception 2+cybereyes 3=8

3 hits

As requested.

And as requested -



Does head door open in or out?
What is it made of?
How secure is latch?

@Z
A. three, that you can see
B. Guys on deck have assault rifles, and there is a mounted gun on the bow.

@ Adam
1. Door opens away from the hold, but there is a door on the ceiling, which also opens out.
2. Access door is steel, cargo door is the same
3. the access door latch is a standard ship latch, spin the wheel to open/close, the cargo door is secured by large shakles, top side.

And you guys probably thought they were going to board and search, lol. Originally they were, but I left it up to the dice and they said no. You'll get a chance to have some real action once you make land fall, this is, as it were, the calm before the storm.

research - since it looks like the movealong has happened... I will put up a movealong post for Avenger soon...Avenger will take the time that he doesn't have to sleep to do some hacking....

His Agent's work = data searching - these topics
history of the mark - just general datasearches on the girl on all matrix. (Reference Shadowland node for extraneous rumors)
history of artifacts - more general datasearches on the artifacts using whole matrix (Reference Shadowland node and MiTT node for extraneous rumors)

construction work done in the area. All construction work blueprints ever done within 10 miles of where the target was. (Reference Gridguide and city hall)

recent battles - who's been fighting who, and when, and where, and why? (like they stole fuel drums or armories of other camps, or they just terrorized people around... etc etc.) (Reference Shadowland node and Newsnets)

leading generals/warring factions - who are the big important to know people down there. What are the major banners, and what are each of them capable of (like do they carry big assault rifles with underbarrel grenade launchers and full body armor as standard? or just armor jackets and some shotguns) (Reference Shadowland node and Newsnets)

Rolls:
Agent (4) + Browse (4)

Avengers personal actions:
Telling his agent to go do some datasearching -
Going full VR and scanning for the calfree military node (Sure it's not hard to miss)
Probing the Calfree States Military Node (hacking the long way)
Telling his agent to do some datasearching in the hacked node.
Taking a look around at some info on whatever's going on down there.... see what I could maybe shake up to help us out.

Rolls:
ElectroWarfare(3) + Scan (6) = 9 dice


gonna probe the target - CalFreeStates Military node.....
Hacking (3) + Exploit (6) = 9 dice (Extended test, Threshold = Firewall +3 for security access, 1 hour interval)

(They get one free test of seeing me 1 test of their analyze + firewall vs my stealth which is DEFINIETLY on )

edit: Oh yea