You know, reading all this is just so enjoyable.

~J

As shagadelic as she is, she's not so distinctive... sure, there'll be wandering hand's no doubt, but she can supress the urge to break and mangle until after the hostages are clear, then she'll got to a roughneck bar and clean house...

Search everyone using a cellphone? You do realize that'd be just about every single person there... not exactly low key. No doubt the grunt cops already have everything in hand for crowd control. We're more 'leet than SWAT, we don't do crowd control.

Hey, if Kara does beat the tar out of someone in the crowd, we can hit her with our stun batons, eecuting a perfect non-lethal takedown, cart her away without telling anyone shes actually a cop herself, and that will deflect some of the criticism we are getting for brutality. In fact, maybe we should do that tomorow. Staging some textbook minimum-force "arrests" could be good for our image.

Also, let's see if we can find out who these guys are. If we can get DNA samples, I can blast them all with a ritual stunball.

I never said we would search them ourselves. In fact, I specifically said that the patrol cops already there would do it.

Ah yes, provoke the girl who's got a habit of filling her teammates full of lead, and who visibly didn't pack non-lethal rounds....

As for the cellphone issue, it's a matter of personal freedoms. The cops start grilling people with cellphones, and they invite the crowd to get angry with them for hastling them while there's a hostage sitch going on. That, and if one of the team starts ordering the cops around, we risk blowing the element of suprise. Personally, unless absolutely needed, I don't think we should even interact with the regular Star.

Okay then, I can always mind probe if I have to. But of course you don't know that IC.

Ok, so while the rest of the team's rescuing hostages, you can busy yourself finding out what reporters and onlookers are thinking while they talk on their phones... no skin off Kara's ass...

We should use the media to distract the gunmen. Maybe right before we strike, we have a uniformed SWAT team with full gear form up on the oposite side of the building, standing in plain sight? Oh, and we should assign one of the perimeter cops to watch our decker and unplug him if he gets knocked unconscious. Given that the building is surrounded by cops, the only way the perps could possibly escape, aside from successful negotiation, would be to get to the roof and have a chopper swoop in for them. I recomend having the Strato-9s hovering over the roof to guard against backup, and take out any enemies who try to get up there. Of course, if the room with the hostages has a window, one of the stratos should cover that.

Better idea to have the Decker stay in the van with me and I can watch him. We should try to deal with this on our own as much as possible, only using cops for crowd control. It gives an air that we know what we're about and can get the job done on our own.

Exactly, we're the elite, not just any other cop unit.

On having a decoy SWAT team: Let's not. I doubt we'd have the political leverage to get one anyways, and it also telegraphs that we're actually planning to move in - the terrorists might see that andreact just as if they had seen us.

If the Decker and Rigger are in the van, that leaves ... 4 of us to make entry (5 if Kara joins us). I'm sure that (IC) Kara will have a way of meeting up with us once we get there; if not, that's just something to add to our report afterwards.

I just realized ... do we need Riot shields? We might want that when we first go in.

Is it safe to assume that we have radio connectivity among the entire team? I bet our rigger has gear that can handle most of that. Does Kara have a headset/earpiece? We'll need to be able to stay in contact.

BTW, in cutscene-time I will be informing the team of my eye-ware (image link, notably, for building maps) and comm-stuff. Hopefully, we should have our team setup with linkd communications beforwe get on-scene (we can do tests and stuff in the van as we drive, for example).

On another note, I extend the "detecting magic" rules to noticing a mindprobe in progress, though I don't apply visual modifiers to the target of the spell (except to cancel out the Shamanic Mask Visible modifier under certain circumstances). TN 4+Magic-Force.

~J

Ok, so why can't I be there when everyone starts being active all of a sudden!?

-We should definitely negociate with them and try to find out what they want and at least promess them that we'll get it for them. Ideally, it would really help to figure out _why_ they are doing all this and I insist on the distinction between what they want and why they take hostages. Do they just want money/media coverage/whatever or are we likely to find out that this is part of something BIGGER along the way? Maybe there's a larger group of them breaking into another building to kidnap the president of the company or something. (I hope I'm not giving ideas to the GM here )

-As for distractions while we get in. The important thing is to know how much of the building they occupy. Where they are located, what have they done and what are they doing right now. How many they are and what their abilities seem to be. To do this, we'll have to spy on them and to make sure they can't spy on us at the same time, not my PC's area of expertise per se (except for good stealth), but the tech guys can take care of that.

-We have to make sure they can't escape first. Be it by air, underground, plain sight fighting their way out (which I don't think they can do anyways). I don't think this is going to be a problem but it's worth mentionning.

-I want a ballistic riot shield (I'll post IC later), I might want to use it for the initial assault (it would give me an awesome 12/10 armor rating and, I think, no slow down )

What's funny is, I was going to just shrug, except I then realized that is more than twice my character's armor rating =D

I'm completely in agreement on miportance of recon, and on figuring out the reasons for this situation.

The topic of armor brings up an important question... do you allow the Optional Athletics for Dodging rules from the CC?

The one where you take a Complex Action to dodge using athletics? Yes.

~J

Perfect...

Kage and Panzer, I've sent PM's to both of you.

Okay, let's grab the stuff and head to the site.

What are we waiting on anyway? Just out of curiosity, not in any way a criticism of any person living or dead. (I have a cold, so I am not in any great hurry to get started now; later is good, less cotton-wool in my brain)

I think we are just waiting for Kagetenshi.

Yes, basically. My laptop's in the process of getting the main logic board replaced, but I'm hoping to get my stuff together to move things along tonight. Many apologies for the delay, but it has allowed me to work out a bit of where I'm trying to go with all this.

~J

Wow, I was starting to give up hope. Nice to know its still gunna happen.

I'm keepin' the faith...

I'm glad this isn't dying. I must negotiate!

Yay! I'm going to Hawaii! Yay! ... huh I mean .. Yay! The game is not dead

Sensors (5 + 3 Clearsight): 16 14 10 05 05 04 02 01
ECCM: 09 05 04 01 01
Electronics Warfare: 15 08 07 05 04 03 03 02 02

Let me know if I need to roll anything else.

Has Kara been able to get a good handle on the tactical situation while on scene? Been able to case the joint?

What data did Connor get?

@Rick - great idea on the handcuffs, I feel silly for not thinking to grab some. Are you going to be holding them all, or will we be each taking a pair?

@our rigger / EW specialist:
- Any chance of tapping into (listen-only, of course ) the terrorists' radio frequencies (if they are using any)?
- Can the mapsoft be broadcast over radio/etc to those of us with headware image-display gear (like the image link eyeware)?
(would we need headware mem for that, Kag? If so, I sense a big Oops coming on and a plan for how to spend my next few paychecks )

What's the highest rated tranceiver and encryption people have? My headware radio is rating 3 with encryption rating 2.

Tranceiver 4 encrypt 3. And I assume everyone except Bearclaw and myself have headware radios and commlinks?

Encryption 2 and 3? Why don't you just open the channel up to the bad guys and let them in.

Kagetenshi, can we please as part of our starting package have been giving rating 6 comms with rating 6 encryption? Anything less is just stupid for a team like ours to be using.

I've got rating 8 already, but I'd settle for 6 (and I can still use the 8 with my drones).

I'll change my IC post if I actually receive something better than rating 2 for my radio

I hope you don't think I'm trying to be all down on you guys, but why didn't you get better radios? It is a key element for the group to be in communication and for that to also be as secure as possible.

I never really used radio headware in my teams before, mainly cause there was always at least an adept and a mage (one of those being sometimes me) so I never really learned what was necessary in terms of radio cyberware, encryption etc. I should have asked you, Grey, though, but heck, we'll see what Kage has to say about it ... Can we had this stuff to our char sheet?

Even encryption 1 is secure against about 99.5% of the bad guys. In fact, in an urban environment with cluttered airwaves, a comm link with 6 or better channel capability and switching every 30 seconds is going to be secure against at least 95%.
If you've got the cash to spend on decrytion, and you're a criminal, shouldn't you be spending your cash on the drug habit that got you into the lifestyle in the first place?

That being said, I got a transciever 1 and no encrytion. I'm a mage, I didn't have the budget.

On a different note, does our GM have a map for us?

Encryption??? My shopping list is gonna need work... (why do I forget the basics? First clothes, now encryption... I bet I find there is some essential part o my deck I forgot too...)

Got a power cord?

Well, barring Kagetenshi's disapproval (I think he will approve my updated sheet, hehe), I /can/ chip that map now; If those of us with a need can get a copy of the map, I'd appreciate that.

On a side note, I'll be out of town for the weekend (and my GF's computer is literally unable to handle Dumpshock), so no posties from me until Monday morning (after this evening).

Aside from commlinks, which should be issuable, there's only one piece of gear I didn't think to add which'd allow the map to be chipped. A pair of shades with a 200MP H.U.D. in them... gotta love the HUD...

errr, is this still going?

I doubt it.