It will take you a moment to sort through all the AR tags of attendees. Since you don't actually have any skill or program to aid you. It's basically like a modern day computer with 50 or so icons on the desktop. You've got to virtually click on them to open up the bio data and them close it once you know it's not him. So it's not going to be instantaneous, but it's definitely gong to be under a minute. If you want an exact time, roll 1d6 and multiply the result by 10 seconds.

Point. Are/Were you able to get your getaway vehicle in place remotely? If so, then it might be best to keep covering us until we're on our way out. Once we have the target on the balcony and ready to go down, that is. Then you rappell along with us (just down a different building) and run across the street and we all drive away, yeah?

Very clever, because that definitely is something I was considering having him do. It's a good thing the Seattle night is so loud downtown because he's already cursing rather loudly about some asshat hacking his eyes.

Oops. I never responded to this did I? Yeah, you had absolutely no problem at all completely blocking his attempt at call it in.

@Needle So, you've blocked his comm call (and effectively turned off the mic all together so he can't simply make a new attempt after you switch over to the rifle). I take it you are moving into the rifle now?
Inside the rifle appears as if you were in a firing range with the rifle setup and ready to fire at a target downrange. All the functionality of the real rifle is represented in this virtual copy, safety, smartlink, firing mode, magazine eject, etc.

Oh, the poor fool ... watch as he does the safety dance now, his magazine falling out and safety jams and eyes fail and comm goes dead ..

it's like some old mono-trid from pre turn of the century, comedic genius at it's finest

Ah yes, The Safety Dance. Which is what I'm going to do right now.

I want to lock his safety so that it is on and cannot be turned off without taking the rifle apart at some point and doing it manually. I'm assuming Computer + Edit here, so if that's incorrect, please let me know what to roll instead.

Lock Safety: 15d6.hits(5) = 5

Probably not enough hits to lock it permanently, but maybe long enough to complete the extraction?

What I'd like to do now is potentially jack out of his commlink altogether. My only question before doing this (and my character should know this, but want to get a GMs ruling beforehand): if I jack out, will he regain control of his rifle, commlink, eyes, or any combination thereof? Do I need to maintain a presence inside him digitally in order to keep his eyes, comm, and rifle turned off?

You can crash the digital lock with no problem. If he reboots the rifle he will regain control of it though. Likewise, if he reboots his commlink he will again be able to call in and because his eyes and gun are slaved to the commlink, they would reboot along with it. To initiate the reboot only takes a complex action for him to hold down the power button on his commlink basically. However it will take the commlink multiple combat turns before it comes back up: Extended test of System + Response (10, Interval = 1 Combat Turn).

Considering that there are more than two minutes left before the 15 minutes your Johnson gave you guys, he is definitely going to be able to get back online before this is over.

Wait - do we have 2 minutes left to complete the job, or 2 minutes left before we can begin?

I think the group consensus is we have 2 minutes left planning to begin the extraction ... not 2 minutes till we need to be in a van and away.

Personally, the word "Hostile" to me means many things, many things I would rather we were far far away from in as short a time as possible

Seeing as we have 2 mintues before the job even starts....

I'm going to stay in his commlink and monitor things for the time being. Although, is it possible to interrupt the command to reboot? Like, disable the power button on his commlink, maybe?

Yes, that's correct. It's currently 2 minutes 30 seconds left before the Johnson's schedule for you to start the extraction in 15 minutes.

Umm...that just sounds confusing as I read it. So let me put it another way.

You talked the Scion (your Johnson) at 19:45. He told you to start in 15 minutes (20:00). It is currently 19:57:32.

We are currently waiting on a roll of 1d6 from Mr. White to see how long it will take him to sort through all the AR tags to locate the target's seat. Worst case, he will know where Acson is at 19:58:03. Once he finds where Acson sits, he'll still need to take the few seconds to descretely walk up to him and then try to convince him to step outside.

Needle has shut down the snipers eyes, his ability to make calls, and his gun (btw, ejecting the clip especially with him being blind currently would delay any actions he could take with the gun further). She would guess that it would take 30 seconds or less for him to reboot his commlink with associated slaved devices. In theory it could be as little as 12 seconds, but that would be unlikely. So, he will be back in action before the 20:00 start time the Scion gave you.

Power button is a hardware connection embedded into to OS, you'd have to crash the OS in order to disable it. Which would do the same thing as him rebooting the system and cause you dumpshock in the same way. I'm double checking on rules for it right now, but I believe you'd be able to add in a backdoor linked to you access id. So that you could just log out of his nodes, and wait for a sign of his signal coming back online. Then just log yourself back in with full admin access.

Well, I will definitely eject his clip. And if I can add backdoor access, then I'll do that and retreat until his signal comes back online. Either way, I think I may end up having to do all of this again (shutting down nodes and such). Unless we just extract him now.

I wish there was a way I could remotely crash nodes on his commlink. You know - have the back door open, wait for his signal, and then crash his eyes and rifle again. The RAW indicate that I have to be in the node and resist dumpshock - which is going to suck.

Reminds me - will I have any warning that he is shutting down his commlink? Or am I going to have to wing it and hope for the best?

At the very least you could switch over to cold sim to reduce the effects of the dumpshock.

I looked through the rules real fast to see if it allows you to log out of a node if it is rebooting. As far as I can tell, you can't get out if a node Crashes (it specifically says in the Crash Node action that everyone in the node suffers dumpshock, including the Hacker). But if you have the privelege (admin) you can simply Reboot the system (instead of forcefully crashing it). As far as I can tell, it takes some systems a while to do this (needs 10 hits on a System + Response test, taking 1 Combat Turn each test), but I figure because it's just the device's ratings used on the test, it's basically just the device working (think Windows shutting down), and users could probably log off as long as they do it before the system gets the 10 hits. Logging off is a Free Action (assuming no complications), so it hopefully wouldn't be too hard.

Well, that's my observations on at least that part of the convoluted and complex Matrix rules...

Yeah, I've read through the crashing rules. I was just curious if current users are given a warning when the node is about to reboot or be crashed, and if so, how much time do they have to get out before it happens.

You have until the logoff chime finishes playing, good luck!

(To clarify, it's an extended test. Therefore there is no set amount of time that it takes a system to shut down).

Actually, I've got an idea on something to do here that requires the GM's input.

Can I potentially Edit the OS of the commlink itself? I'd like to give the commlink's OS a command to be in a never-ending loop of rebooting itself. So that when the sniper eventually reboots the commlink, once it comes back up again it reboots again. And again, and again, and again.

Would you allow this? If so, would this be Computer + Edit? Extended, I assume? And the threshold?

Were the system doing a controlled shut down via software, there would be a warning as it goes through the extended test process which involves it closing down open programs safely to avoid any possible risk of corruption.

Doing a hardware reset is different though. This only takes a single complex action of holding the power button down to force the commlink to shutdown. Kind of like if your phone locks up in modern times you can hold down the power button to shut off all power regardless of what the software on the device was trying to do.

So, in this case you could suffer dumpshock any moment with each new task you attempt bringing you closer to that moment when you get kicked out. So, for clarification on actions the first IP of this combat turn, you blocked his call into building security turning off his mic so he couldn't try again(complex action), second IP you moved to the rifle's node (complex action), third IP crash the safety mechanism on the rifle (complex action). That's 1 full combat turn for you.

Other actions you have said you wanted to do: eject clip(Simple Action), add backdoor access to commlink (Complex action to return to commlink node from the rifle, create a reusable exploit with an extended test Software + Exploit against Firewall + System with an interval of 1 IP) and log off (Complex Action). ---- Creating a true backdoor involves creating a hidden account which has an interval of 10 minutes for the extended test; given our time though a reusable exploit is all you are going to need.

What of those actions are you doing and please tell me the order in which you are doing them?

Yeah, I've stated so many things that I'm confusing myself. So I apologize for not being clear.

Before I can indicate which I'm doing, I need to know the answer to:


Once I know this answer, I can let you know what I'm trying to do next. And I'll try to slow down, only giving 1 or 2 potential actions at a time so nobody - myself included - gets confused with my ramblings.

Somehow I missed that question in everything. You can't do something like that with just a Software + Edit test. You would need to have something running on the device like an Agent, IC, Virus, or Malware that can do that for you. Rules as written, I believe the closest thing would be adding a bug to software which is listed under Malware in Unwired and has an interval of 1 hour. You don't have the time to do something like that.

I figured it wasn't possible given our time frame and the fact that I have no malware available to me. But I had to ask.

Ok, I am going to do the following, in the following order. If anything happens that prevents me from doing something, interrupt me and let me know.

1. Eject the clip from his rifle.
2. Retreat back to the primary node for the commlink.
3. Create a resuable exploit on his commlink.

Test 1: 17d6.hits(5) = 8
Test 2: 17d6.hits(5) = 5 (only if needed)

4. Log off.

While I'm logged off, I will send a signal to the bus to pilot itself to the front of the building I am currently on. And scan for the sniper's signal to return. And that's the last time I have a post with this many actions queued up.

And now I'll return the floor to the rest of the group so they can play while I wait for the sniper again.

Just as you finish the last touches to your exploit on the commlink, the virtual office disappears in wash of brilliant white light followed instantly with complete and utter darkness. The whiplash of a severed data connection slams you back into your own commlink and slams you hard. Since you were running in hot-sim mode its 5P damage and because you weren't running a biofeedback filter program, you resist the damage only with Willpower. You will be suffering -2 on all actions for (10 - Willpower) minute regardless of how much damage you resist.

Hold on for a second. Can I get a timing of how long this takes me before I try to resist? In a previous post you indicated that his rebooting could be as little as 12 seconds, and I am pretty sure 12 seconds hasn't elapsed yet? I'll roll and take damage if I have to, but I'm confused as to the timing here.

Or am I confused by the timing you gave? Is that 12 seconds from the time he pushes the power button? Or did I have 12 seconds remaining before he was going to shut down?

I ask because I was operating under the assumption that I would have about 12 seconds remaining (at the least) before I was about to be booted. And I don't think 12 seconds elapsed from that point based on the actions I took.

Let me know if I'm confused or not?

That time is related to when the commlink will come back online, not how long it takes to actually shut down. As I said, initiating the reboot via the hardware button on the commlink is only a single Complex Action. Then it takes the System + Response (10) test before it is actually back online and ready for him to try calling in again.

edit: This has been spread out over a bunch of different posts. So i understand if there is confusion. Sorry about that, but I was trying to be clear at each step of the way.

1D6 => 3

So, after 30 seconds of sitting at your table and waving at the air to sort through AR icons, you finally are able to identify Parker Acson as one of the people sitting at the table closest to the stage directly in front of it. You heading up there?

I don't have a good feeling about this, but yeah, I'm going to go and speak with him.

Actually - how about this. I'm going to time my time about it, so that I can be standing right at his table when our 15 minute timer hits 00:00.

No need to apologize - I've posted multiple things in multiple posts as well, so there's plenty of confusion going around. And the Matrix is a tricky thing, so if I get dumped that's on Needle not paying attention to all the things she's done and getting out in time. So it's time to roll that Willpower +....well, nothing.

5d6.hits(5) = 1

Ouch. Ok, page 74: Spending a point of Edge to re-roll all misses. Rule of 6 does not apply.

4d6.hits(5) = 2

NOTE: On my edge roll I rolled the incorrect number of dice. I hit the back button and rolled edge without changing the dice count, so I had to roll again with the correct dice count. Doing so did increase the number of hits on the edge roll from 1 to 2; if I need to take the 1 instead of the 2 just let me know and I'll update accordingly.

Overall, that's 3 successes, meaning she takes 2P in damage. Not enough to have penalties yet, but still hurts. She is also at -2 on all dice rolls due to dumpshock for 5 minutes (10 - WIL 5).

At this point, there isn't much time left before the extraction takes place. Having -2 dice isn't a big detriment to hacking, but it's not going to not suck. If you follow that.

IC post coming. Let me know when the sniper's signal is back in range.

That works for me if that's what you want to do.

I'm cool with the reroll. So the 2P damage stands which isn't enough to suffer additional penalties. Just the -2 from dumpshock.

Looks like his commlink will be coming back online in 24 seconds.so roughly 19:58:00 (I think). I assume you just dive right back in with your reusable exploit.

That is correct. If I have the admin account, I will follow the same track, but with modification. Shut off his sight, then jam/block his microphone, eject the clip (assuming he put it back in), then log out.

Let me know when it's my turn to roll dice.

As you login I'm going to let you see that he is going to try making a càll first thing, because otherwise the call will get initiated while you are in the other node.

And no worries about the gun's magazine, he hasn't had time to locate the ejected mag or even think about it. Hes too focused on your harrassment of his commlink.

Yeah, let's make sure that call doesn't happen before I get in to the other node. Computer + Edit, same as before.

13d6.hits(5) = 5

That should be enough, but I'll let you make that decision. If it is, then I'm moving to the node for his eyes to shut them off. You didn't require a roll before, but if that's changed let me know.

How much time until zero hour at that point?

Here's how its working thus far in actual combat sequence. First IP you logged into the commlink again and he initiated a call to security, second IP you blocked the call and disabled his mic; Third IP you are moving into his cyber eyes node.

Now I'm going to give you a choice of what's going to happen next. On his first IP, he's going to be throwing the commlink over the side of the building which will very quickly sever its connection to his eyes. You would definitely go before him. So if you want to crash his eyes that's cool and he won't have a commlink to reset them with. But you will be suffering another dumpshock. Alternatively, I'll let you register data showing the distance to the commlink dramatically changing giving you enough time to jack out if you want to avoid The dump shock.

ooooh GM is Eeevilll

Seeing as this looks like it might get tense here in just a little bit, I'd like to ask for confirmation. You mentioned that there is in fact a ward around the building (or at least the banquet hall part), does the ward extend out over the balcony? or is it just covering the room inside the building?

And if it does extend out over the balcony, where we are on wall, are we within it?

Yeah, considering I'm already at -2 dice on all actions AND I only get 5 dice normally to resist 5P (considering I still didn't activate a Biofeedback Filter)...I'm jacking out instead of going for the eyes.

Can I get a time check please? I need to know how close to zero hour we are as it will impact my next action.

The ward covers the interior of the building. It does not include the balcony at all.

Well, do keep in mind that dice pool modifiers never apply to damage resistance tests. So you would still get to roll your 5 Will to resist the 5P dumpshock. But yeah, I'm thinking ejecting is the smarter move, and you have effectively disabled the sniper for the time being. Hell, I'll even say that in his frustration he accidentally kicks his ejected mag over the side of the building. So, he only has his one spare mag left.

Technically the timing is about 19:58:18? Something like that. So a little over a minute and a half left. Mr. White has already said he's going to time his approach on Acson to reach him at exactly 20:00:00. If you guys want, we can fudge the timing a little to let the antics up on the roof to come out with the same timing so that the sniper runs to alert somebody and the alarm sounds at the exact same time.

If we don't fudge the time, the alarm is likely to be triggered before 20:00:00.

Considering it looks like we are about to start combat shortly, I hope O'Ryan can get on to post his roll for Eclipse sliding across the zip line soon.

My vote would be to go ahead and fudge it a bit. Unless Needle has something big she wants to do, I think I'm ready to see what happens at 8pm...

MMmmmmmm Fudge !

If everyone else is ok with fudging it a bit, I'm good with that. All Needle was going to do was alert the others that the sniper wasn't completely disabled and an alarm may be raised before they can start. She started a little too early, and she would have warned everyone at this point to just get started.

But if we want to fudge it a bit so everything come down at the same time, I'm good with that. GM's call, obviously.

Guess it depends on if it's important we start at that 15 minutes or not, but I'd be good with just moving it up so it all just starts up at our "start time".

wouldn't it be lovely and co-incidental if White's cover ID happened to be the targets soon to be boss

in the last few seconds Silas will try and get a message to White, to aid in his task by looking for information on his cover ?

Same Department or even same building etc. .. just to aid in targets familiarity
---edit----
May have to hurredly whisper this to Gardner to send the message .. I don't have his Comm.

From the bio info Acson's commlink is broadcasting, Mr. White would be able to see the name of his new boss, and something about it seems very familiar. Oh wait, that's the name on the bio info at the guy sitting right next to the target.

Having the fake ID already being in the same department, is a bit of stretch. But I will allow it if you really want it. Just be aware that Acson's boss is sitting next to him and would know the names/faces of people working in his department.

mmm, sounds like a lot of effort for not much chance of return, particularly with the miniscule amount of time we have left. My vote is that we go ahead and move things forward the minute and a half or whatever, and get this party started...

So far, we have 3 for fudging the timetable and jumping right to the action of the alarm going off and Mr. White reaching the target.
Once we can get at least one more player confirming that, I will post up something IC and we'll let the dice rolling begin.

but at least we know that trying that tack is a bad idea now, I hope Mr. White has an alternative idea for discussion with Acson


Agreed, and in position .. loosing the clasp on the pistol and staying hidden on the balcony floor round the side of the windows.
the drop rope is in a pouch ready to be thown to the ground below for "extraction!"