I personally like the idea of making it look like the Roses did the job. They get the credit for it, it makes them look more powerful other gangs in the area, and it would be the easiest for us to make the PD believe. But then again, then the PD know exactly where to go to get Duke back, well the general turf area anyways.

They'll know that regardless. Even if they thought some other gang sprung him, if they thought that gang would let him live, they'd probably check his old haunts first.

True dat. My character would want to set up it to look like The Spikes, or whatever the New York equivalent of the all troll, elf hating gang is, but that would be for personal reasons

Here's my blueprint for the mission, so far. Feel free to add/modify/comment, but Zed wanted a plan together by tomorrow - so I hope this will give him something to go on.

So, step one will be rescuing the Carters.
* Scorch will go VR and watch from the security node.
* DR should probably do an astral scan of the area ahead of time (look out for spirits, wards, magicians, etc)
* He will set the door locks to pop at the same time the next routine log in should occur.
* He will wait for the user to access the node, and blackhammer them.
* DR will move in astrally, ready to handle any spirits that may be there
* At the same time, Yargo and Dakka'Dakka move in, and take care of the 4-5 remaining gangers
* Scorch will provide overwatch, and can even create some sort of tac-soft to give a few bonuses.
* Yargo and Dakka'Dakka grab the wife and kid, and get out.
* We need a safe place we can stash them

Vamp, as he can't be seen at the Carter extraction, so he will be spending that time:
* Using some gang knowledge skills or using some info Yargo or someone else can pass along to pick a likely gang
* * Going with the roses, by default, sounds fine to me - will tip off the roses that we're onto their deception though
* Get us some clothes to go match that look
* Maybe research some things we could say, or some symbols we could leave on the scene

Either before or after the extraction (doesn't matter to me which, maybe both, if we have time) we need to recon the most likely point for our strike (the bridge?)
* We should get some maps made of the area (drones?), and Vamp should park the van close by
* DR should get familiar with the astral landscape
* Scorch will do the same with the matrix
* Yargo and Dakka'Dakka should get the boat nearby, and get a feel for the waterways, as a swift exit is going to be critical
* If at all possible, someone with demolitions should plant some explosives on the bridge
* * Security will be a problem (someone will see us) unless Scorch or someone with some EW can find and hack the cameras nearby

Then we wait. We don't know when they'll be coming by, and with drones, we might be able to spot them farther up the road and get some warning
* When we see them, we shoot our big stuff at the bridge and the patrol vehicles.
* It doesn't matter as much how hard we hit the bikes and patrol car - but we can probably KO the cops on the bikes, so that's a good idea
* We need to blow a big enough hole in the bridge to stop the van
* * If possible, we want to put the hole so the van will drop through, or put holes on either side to collapse the thing
* * THe bridge is probably REALLY structurally sound, though - so unless we can plant the explosives, I wouldn't expect us to be able to do more than stop the thing there
* If we can sink the van, we move the boat in to rescue Duke or his body
* * Otherwise, we need to move in to physically blow/hack the doors, and probably deal with the two cops riding in the transport vehicle

Once we have Duke or Duke's body
* We all get to the boat, or go back to our bodies
* Meet up at whatever safehouse we stashed the family at
* Wait a day or so to be contacted by the Roses or the Johnson
* * We tell them we have Duke, and will hand him over when we get our final payment, and that we want the Johnson handed over to us (the jig will be up by now)
* * * We specifically neglect to mention that Duke is dead, if that is the case. We can still "hand him over"
* Then we set the location for the final meet ourselves (assuming we have our leverage), to avoid any kind of double-cross

Substitute the "Spikes" for the Roses in the plan above... but making us all look like trolls would be a trick.

So like does anyone have demolitions skill... People have admitted IC to knowing how to fire of BFGs, but not the demolitions.

Depending on the security the gang employs, it may be possible to spring the family with less risk of the rest of the gang finding out. We know the J is out of contact, but not with his family? With the right distractions Dire Radiant can get in, get the family out, and make them think they are still there. Depends a bit on the layout and how the gang is set up in the place. If we can get the family out, and not have the gang know about it until after we pull the main extractions,a nd or get to the J again, that would be really useful.

If Vamp doesn't want to be seen.... he can be made so he can't be seen....

Would getting a micro drone with a micro tap onto the prisoner transport make it easier or more likely for us to consider hacking that vehicle? Might be fun to have it drive off the bridge. Save the explosives and grenades to cover a getaway.

First aid may be required at the scene, trauma patch etc for wounded extraction target.

Also need to consider the escort team backup may contain mages or spirits who will arrive very very fast after a signal.

I like that idea. It certainly couldn't hurt to try - although a microdrone will have a hard time catching a moving van. A microtapper would need to get to an exposed optical cable, and depending on how you read the rules for optical taps, that would only allow you to use Sniffer programs to listen to the traffic. A small drone like that could relay to the van, making hacking easier if they're running with a low signal rating. I suspect they will be running rating 3+ encryption on the van, though, which would make it unhackable for Scorch. The only way I can imagine them not running with a good encryption program is if they are running offline (wireless off), figuring they are pretty safe from hacking. Scorch could connect, but would need to really touch the thing - also, optical tap drone idea might work (again, depending on how you read the rules).

With availability 8, though, we might not be able to get ahold of one in the next couple of hours.

Force 5 spirit Movement powers.... speed....

Lol, well, that would work - but the drone might not survive the impact. Yeah, its worth a try, if we can get one. Scorch has plenty of money to cover the drone's cost, if we can manage the 8 hits we would need in a few hours (with an interval of a day on the test).

Nah, no worries, just ideas, I have the suspicion we're just going to have to wing a lot if this initial one. I bet no one has demolitions skill for example.

I think you can default to demolitions. We just need someone with high logic... or a lot of edge.

How are we going to use a microtapper on a moving vehicle? Are we stringing the cable from the boat and hoping we tag it as it gets on the bridge? Having Scorch rid piggie back on a drone that dakka is controlling is more of a plausible idea. Provided they can access the node.

I think the idea is that if the van is running with wireless off, but we can get a microtapper (with wireless on) to attach itself to one of the van's optical cables, than it can "patch us in".

That said, on Unwired 199, the rules for an optical tap only let you perform the "Intercept Traffic" action, which isn't really what we wanted. Also, we might not be able to get a microtapper in the timeframe we have.

Dakka's drones already exist, which is a big plus, but if the van is in offline, or in hidden mode, we still can't get in in time, unless scorch touches it. He might be able to ride on the back of one of your drones, but that sounds dangerous.

Could we use amgic to make Scorch, himself, faster and invisible? You won't have to overcome object resistance, so that's probably easier. If he coudl run up along-side the van, without the cops (or the van's sensors) noticing, he could just reach out and hack in (if that is even going to be an option).

For anything under 200kg, Force 5 Levitate, 5 hits = 25 M a turn * Force 5 Spirit Movement = 125 M a turn
Step Van Speed = 50 M a turn
For extra goodness, divide the vehicle speed by 5 if Movement power is used to slow it down.
While Improved invisibility will work for most things, it won't be good against vehicle sensors since they almost always incorporate a non visual sensor. So it's not that simple. The intersection between physics and magic rarely is.

Yeah, but the threshold for picking up a metahuman body on radar, for example, is pretty poor. I like the idea.

One thing i'll want to understandis the time lines as you want to do things. so for instance when do you want to hit the carters vs when do you want to hit the van etc...

I foresee a team split so want to move things to a simultaneous time line when we do .. timing can be critical.

Also, talking of time lines you've a 6 hour window when the prisoner is moved... might want to take some time to narrow it down a little

Yeah, it'd be good if we could - but other than having a drone spotting the transport team earlier on the route, I'm not sure how we would go about that. That's the sort of information that would probably be pretty secure, and prone to last-minute changes if they suspected anyone would try anything. Getting a specific time from someone - and finding out at the last minute that we were wrong - is probably more dangerous than needing to assume that we need to set aside the full 6 hour window.

But, if someone has some ideas, I'm sure we can work in a little more legwork in that direction.

Timelinewise, for the other stuff. I think we should set about a quick look at our target point (the bridge), immediately - just in case there is any huge reason why that isn't going to work out (construction, huge wards, or something). Then head over to the Carter's and get that first extraction out of the way as soon as possible. Depending on how the logins line up with our arrival (and how much we care about timing those together) that could take half of our prep-time, right there. We also need to get the safehouse that we intend to put them in, get into our disguises, and need to have time to swing by and pick up the boat, at least, before getting into position before 9pm.

Watchers
Buy Hits summon 5 watchers for two hour duration, buy hits for drain

Spirit
Magic 5 + Summoning 3 Force 4 Air Spirit Optional Power Fear (8d6.hits(5)=2)
Logic 5 + Willpower 5 Drain (10d6.hits(5)=5)

Order of rolls, not necassarily the order of activity.
1. Astral scout J's family
2. Astral scout bridge route, including a peek at the prison facility.
3. Location Duke is being delivered to
Assensing 2 + Intuition 5 (7d6.hits(5)=1, 7d6.hits(5)=2, 7d6.hits(5)=5)
Infiltration 1 + Astral Agility 5 (6d6.hits(5)=2, 6d6.hits(5)=1, 6d6.hits(5)=1)

DR will turn over the following drones for the techheads to use, all off the shelf standard.
- Shiawase Kanmushi Microdrone
- Lone Star iBall Mini Drone
- MCT Fly Spy mini Drone

I figure in the next hour or two the astral scouting can be accomplished, which will give some more information.
I suggest Scorch and Dakka'Dakka setup matrix and physical surveillance.

Has anyone checked where the prison transport is parked, is it moved to and from the site, how many are there? What kind of vehicle is it? The vehicles must interact with the manhattan grid guide, if only to let other vehicles they are there, can we pull the rfid tags for all the vehicles and track them in the system? Even if the control system is offline from the matrix, the vehicle itself needs to make itself visible to the other vehicles. Could we plant our own tags one any prison transport we can during the next few hours? Are we watching how the escort team gets into work? We may just have id numbers, but they belong to people. If we do some analysis we can narrow down which group of guards it might be.

BTW, hacking/spoofing the grid guide to discover traffic data should not be a huge deal, it's part of the normal data traffic for the system to be queried about where vehicles are. I think actually changing or manipulating the data and systems is where you'd run into most defenses.

Nope. We also have id numbers for the vehicles (not a VIN, I assume) but no way to compare that to any vans, bikes, and patrol cars that might be used. The grid-Guide connection is a good point - but also means that whoever is driving the van will almost certainly be using encryption of some sort, at a minimum.


I would think that the usual use of GridGuide wouldn't even require hacking. We could probably check traffic data/updates on our commlinks the way people can in real life. Changing or manipulating the data, as you said, would run into defenses, because I think that would require hacking the GridGuide node, which is probably encrypted fairly strongly.

For the van, encryption is probably a deal-breaker, because even if Dakka (or some other party member with electronic warfare skill) could decrypt it, it would take too long after we identify which node belongs to which vehicle, and which vehicle is even carrying Duke.

GridGuide might be more doable, if we had someone start cracking the encryption of the node now. I don't know how much of a hacker Dakka can function as, but I suspect we have one guy who can get into the system and do what needs to be done... but who can't decrypt even rating 1 encryption, so it stopped in his tracks... and one other guy who can probably decrypt the node, but who doesn't have the necessary programs or skills to get into the node in the first place.

I could be wrong though, I don't really know what you guys can do.

Wow...you guys were busy yesterday and today. It all looks good. As far as demolitions, Yargo does not have it. He does have a 4 Logic and 2 Edge. Not great, but not too bad. As far as getting the Carter's out, I (Yargo) was thinking of tossing in some Breathtaker and knocking everyone out. Quick, and possibly painless. The reason for hesitating is, it has the possibility of being lethal:




He'll throw the idea out there and see what the group thinks. Also, it might be a liability, but we could stash the family on the boat, if no one knows of any safe houses. Or we could call Sammy.

I guess at this point, Yargo will try to keep up and pay attention to all the Astral and Matrix chatting at the table.

Have you tried? Have you looked at a typical NYPD Inc vehicle and seen if you can or cannot do it?

Dakka is not a hacker, he is a rigger. All his programs are pretty much for that purpose.

Yeah, that's what I expected. It wasn't a criticism. Its really my fault for not having EW of my own.

No, that's what I meant by the "nope" in the quote, but it got lost among the other things.
We haven't tried hacking into the NYPD, or even just looked at a patrol car to see if they have #'s on the side like taxis.
This is certainly worth doing as part of our initial recon of the area - someone could try to (inconspicuously) pop over to the location we expect the convoy to start from, and look for big vans.. or at worst, find any other patrol car out driving around.

The idea would be great against just the gangers, but I don't think we'll want to risk the family if we don't have to. In addition to the warnings in the fluff, IIRC, gas grenades stay active for a few rounds, so anyone who passes out in round one from the effect would also take another batch of stun damage from the grenade for the next few rounds, and it might add up to enough to do physical harm.

As for storing them on the boat, I like that idea, if we're going to keep the boat out of danger, but if we're going to drive it right up to the van (assuming we can knock it off of the bridge), it might also put the family into a lot of danger, depending on how hard we expect the PD to retaliate.

I got EW the skill. Also good for Droning and rigging vehicles. Thats not going to be a problem.

Okay, looked up a few relevant rules...

According to Unwired (p97) accounts/backdoors/exploits created by hacking on the fly cannot be shared, and must be used right then. So, even if Scorch could hack into GridGuide, or the NYPD nexus, assuming its encrypted, he's stuck, and won't be able to switch out for Dakka to decrypt the system and then switch back. Also, being a TM, he can't pass his hacking programs to the rigger, and just have him do it.

Unwired says that if the time is taken to probe a target, it may be reusable, but it'll take 3-6+ hours to probe GridGuide, and set up a backdoor account that Dakka might be able to use to log in and start decrypting (which could take anywhere from a few combat-rounds, to a few days to complete). So, probing the target may be out of our time-budget, at this point.

In my mind, that means any hacking of those two systems has to be ruled out of our plan, unless we think for some reason, the NYPD or the NYGG would have skimped on basic encryption software. It would only take a few seconds to find out, I suppose (we could have Scorch try to hack on the fly, and see what happens at either location) but even if he makes it in by some miracle, I expect a few alarms to have gone off, and the heavy duty security IC to be there to welcome him.

We could alternatively try the probing hack, and risk waisting 3+ hours if it doesn't pan out. The test will have an interval of an hour, and Scorch could buy 2 hits per hour (or roll, and do slightly better on average), and the threshold is equal to the system+firewall of the target (probably 6-8 for GridGuide since its a public service, and probably 8-10 for the NYPD since they are security-level.. but possibly higher). Basically, it will take about an hour for every rating of the device, and I am expecting the device to be from 3-5, but could be higher.

Encryption, then, has an interval anywhere from 1 combat turn to 24 hours (if strong encryption is used). Also, if Dakka doesn't have a Stealth program to run, he'll probably be noticed long before the encryption is foiled.

I guess those are our options:
1. Forget about hacking either of those nodes
2. Try to hack on the fly (Scorch only) to test for encryption, and risk tipping our hand
3. Try to probe the target for an exploit Dakka can use, and risk spending a lot of prep-time on something that won't pan out.

I think the team could probably get by with most of our last-minute preparations without Scorch (assuming he's otherwise occupied). He could even pass off the account on the carter's security node that he created to Dakka, if he would need to handle matrix overwatch during that extraction, and to give the rest of the team access to the building's locks.

Some food for thought. IIRC we thought we had about 4 hours to prep, which means if we're going to have Scorch try to hack something, he needs to get started on it immediately, and we need to assume he'll be busy doing that almost until the point that the real mission may possibly begin.

(Double-post)

General questions, for zed et al.

- given an NYPD Inc employee number, is there a way to look up who that person is? Are there public records of MDC court cases they are involved in? Can we run that employee id number through a certain level of SIN authentication system?

- if I attempt a Capture Wireless Signal (EW + Sniffer) and I do not have EW skill, can I still roll just the Sniffer dice?

- If I connect to a grid guide node on the Franklin Island bridge, will I be able to do an Interecept Traffic (Hacking + Sniffer) test?

- Who is on the public most wanted Neo Anarchist group list posted by MDC and NYPD Inc?

- The master bedroom where Danielle Carter and her daughter are held, does it have an external window? Can Scorch unlock it? What is outside that window?

Since Zed is probably looking for our first step, to get us moving along, we can probably start with reconds (physical, astral, and matrix) of the bridge-area, and then move on to the place where the Carters are being held. Thsoe shouldn't take long, and its a good idea to get this info, before committing to any large time-consuming tasks.

Only one I might have an answer for

EW is "default: no" so I don't think you can. If you had a device that let you roll its device rating + EW, it might work on its own, rolling device-rating only, but in the case of a sniffer program, I think you can't.

It's one of those standard questions. It would be nice if the FAQ cleared it up about defaulting and those particular tests, though I will note that I've seen it run a certain way by certain people, and there's a way I usually run it.

Of course theres a way. What you will get might not be enough but you'll get somehting dependant on how deep you choose to probe. At some point though you may need to go into the NYPD's personnel records


If that particular use needs EW then id argue no. Ill double check defaulting though, it might be ill allow a straight Default on Sniffer. But not sure what information you'll get without adding in the EW.

Yup. Not a problem. Without RFID's though your just going to get bombarded with information. Of course after a point in the night i'tll be much quieter and therefore easier to pick up what your looking for.


Good question. I want a search roll on this one you will see why.


Yes it does. And it's likely it ll be connected to the local house node so yes id say he can easily open it since he has backdoor admin access.

- Who is on the public most wanted Neo Anarchist group list posted by MDC and NYPD Inc?


Blackhat, can Scorch do this one? DR could, but it would be one dice,

He can, but he won't be much better.
Threading Rating 3 Browse (dropping the encryption on our skin-lan for a bit, since its pointless anyway).
He'll probably also want to drop into VR for an extra 2 dice - so make sure to maintain contact with him.
Data Search 1 + Browse 3 + VR 2 = 6 dice
First roll: [1 hit]
Since its (probably) an extended test, he'll keep going.
Second roll: [2 hits] (even if he loses a die on each roll)

If we're using the rule where you lose a die on each subsequent rolls (to limit extended tests), he'll buy a 4th hit on his third roll (4 dice) and then quit before he glitches.

If we're not, and we're instead using the rule where your number of rolls are limited to your dice pool size, here are his final 4 rolls:

[2 hits]
[3 hits]
[2 hits]
[2 hits]


Also, future extended tests, like this, will go a little faster if Zed could clarify which of those two rules we're using. IIRC they're both presented as options in the BBB, but not called out as optional rules.

WE can do the former So loose a dice as we go along on extended test so your not rolling 100d6:)

Right 4 hits takes you 5 minutes to hit pay dirt

The Blood Rose gang are viewed as one of the upcoming major threats to the Rotten apple. Especially since about 3 months ago one Mark Carter, Detective (Murder Squad) broke up a major BRG cell who had been using intel to blow a rather large hole in a dockside warehouse that the NYPD's drug squad were about to raid. The result was 5 BRGs were arrested including one .. you guessed it ... Duke Torres, believed to be the brains behind that particular operation.

There are 3 other gangs on the watch list but the BRG's are seen as the leader of the NYPD shoot to kill table. The other groups include a troll gang, an Ork poser gang, and a mixed group known only as "V" who keep popping up and intefering with law enforcement duties.. (false tip offs, stun grenades and knock out gas when the PD raid various places)

Carter...

Oops, the name changed (From Joseph to Mark to Harry). Not sure if this is the J or not.

Edit: "Mark" came up in a PM where Zed asked me to edit my previous post where I said Joseph.

I can edit my last one too, if the Detective is Harry and not Mark (maybe a relative, still).

The idea is Carter here is the hubby/father of the two in the house - identified as Mark Carter. I totally didnt check the previous posts or notes and 'guessed' thinking id (wrong) not given a name.

Definatley honestly Mark Carter

Ive changed the above OOC post as well to reflect that fact.

With the information at hand you can probably work out the following;

Mark carter investigating some murder or other stumbled across part of hte BRG's who were planning to hit a drug squad with a warehouse full of semtex whilst they investigated a tip off.

He led the team that busted the group which included the BRGS currentl rising star Duke Torres.

Miffed at this and the fact that they've (BRG) found out Duke might be open to talkign for leniency they decided to move on this. Rather than do it themselves they thought it would be funny to get Mr hot shot detective to set up and carry out the mission ...

Which is where you come in the rest is probably incidental ... in a funny way

Ahh...the pieces start to come together.

I'll try and get an IC post in soon to get us through the astral recon step hopefully.

To avoid bogging down are we ready to move to the action?

I think so. We can toss around the idea of looking up the Jay's partner while we recon the bridge and head to the place where his family is held. We're going to need to do those two things no matter what.

Apologies for the absence. School holidays left me with less time than i'd have liked to catch up and move forwards.

So id like to launch back into moving things forward over the next day or so and will make some assumptions if im not correcteD:

1. DR's astral reconnaissance is of the Bridge and the house.

2. Scorch and Vamp will not assault the house directly. Scorch will provide matrix cover whilst the rest of hte team hit the building.

3. You will then scout the bridge from approx 9pm until you see the van coming at which point you will either blow the bridge or the van up. Not sure on your plan of recovering Duke alive or not yet (i think its yes.)

okay ill post some recon later

We hope for "yes", but if he dies, we would still like to try to recover the body so we can pretend we recovered him alive if that is necessary to recover the Johnson.

Assumptions look good to me.

That sounds good. I don't think we are going to try to blow the bridge via Demolitions skill, right?

Its worth a shot, but I don't think we have the right kind of explosives, and don't have anyone super skilled in demolitions. So, short of someone defaulting to logic, and using edge to try to buy enough hits to makeshift a rocket into a placed-charge... we're probably out of luck there. That person would probably need a lot of hits to get the DV up high enough to exceed the structure rating of the bridge, as well.

If we feel like we're heavy on ammo, it certainly wouldn't hurt to try - particularly if we could set the trigger so that multiple set-rockets go off at the same time, while the vehicles are within the blast radius. Then we'd probably only need a hit or two on each charge to avoid blowing ourselves up.

This is where things can get a little tricky. We've discussed lots of options OOC. That's all cool. There are some things I haven't mentioned yet because I have asked IC, and not gotten answers IC.

For example, in a pinch, OOC, The Dire Radiant can get 8 or 10 dice in Demolitions. These can be used for the task of setting demolitions. They may not be useful for determining if it is possible for a charge to demolish the bridge. However, the team hasn't admitted that it does not have Demolitions Skill IC, and IC she is somewhat reticent about revealing this possibility. (Though she did ask IC about mining the bridge, which is where the charges are preset and triggered as the target vehicle passes, which is a lot more controlled then firing off rockets from the shoulder or boat.)

I think it is safe to assume, particularly as we drag into abstract planning time, that if DR asks (again?) she'll be informed that we do not have mines (just rockets and grenades), and that nobody raises their hand as being formally trained in demolitions. I think part of the reason it went by uncommented, before, was that nobody wanted to speak up for everyone else - since none of us knew, IC or OOC, whether or not anyone could use demolitions, or had any of their own.

At this point, I think its become clear that DR might be able to get some hits, but the rest of us would suck at it... and that we'd be working with rockets and grenades rather than C4 and mines.