RCC you say? Next time I encounter a Rigger, I know what I am going to send my Agent to find.

After all the digital chaos Drave has caused, I wonder what his OS score is at this point?

Also, I am going to be leaving in about an hour to do some work for my Dad, gonna be gone a while, and I have D&D in the evening. I will try and check in between 5-6PM, and help keep things moving if people are waiting.
Drave has sent his Agent to find Officer #2's Icons for his weapon, commlink, or other weapons in the car. And then to look for the Rigger.
Drave will finish off the vehicle and then take out any weapons the guy might be going for (If my Agent manages to find any Icons)
Is there anyone in the other car? Is it even running?
If it starts moving on the Riggers IP, I will start attacking it immediately when it comes to mine, skipping the switch off for Decryption and using a Forked Dataspike against both Vehicles.
If not; I may want to swap Data Processing and Sleaze after taking out the first vehicle, so I can MARK it in case the Rigger gets any ideas.

Edit: Curses... rethinking options...

Well, I know what it is

If you want to take a Free Action to swap Baby Monitor in, you can know too


As far as your next action, I can tell you ahead of time you aren't going to be able to Data Spike the car again. The rigger goes before you, and it is a free action to shut the wireless off on the car, and try and let the guy inside drive (He felt that last Data Spike, and doesn't feel like getting dumped)

Now, the advantage that gives you is that if Grease wants to try and chase him down, he will be a much better driver than the guy in the car (since shutting the wireless off will prevent the Rigger from controlling it - but bear in mind that Grease is being hit with 4 dice pool worth of penalties right now, so that evens the odds a little.

You haven't yet sent your Agent, in that you have not had a Simple Action available for you to do so yet. (You only get 2 Simple Actions OR 1 Complex Action per turn, and you have been using a Complex action each time). That is something you can do, however, this turn.

The other car is not running, the doors are closed, (and police vehicles are among the few that do have the mirror glass) - so you can't see if anyone is inside. Odds are, however, that someone inside would not still just be sitting there.

Question answered.

If the car moves; I am going to just swap out Fork for Decryption and Dataspike it, if it doesn't move... I may just Dataspike it anyways as a way of saying "Don't even think about it..."

Or if all the immediate threats to the team are obviously in retreat, I could Check my Overwatch Score and Send my Agent to find the Rigger and make sure he is getting out of here.

Not that it matters (at the moment), but I think my initiative is 2 lower (from wound penalties).

Additionally, if I wanted to give chase, what would be the best way to do it?

My current plan:

Simple action 1: Jump into car
Simple action 2: send command to car, "go git 'em!"

next action,
Complex action: control vehicle

If OK wanted to control my car to go pick them up, he could do that with a simple action, right?
-DrZ

I thought Baby Monitor only let you know what OS accrued while it was on. Maybe that's just a house rule. Still, you can check your score as a matrix action if you really need to know (although hilariously the act raises your score).

Are you jumping into the Taxi?

I will wait to check my OS score and use the control device action to drive the BMW to Amy, Chomsky and Greeley's position. and send my Agent off to find the Rigger while I keep on walking to meet up with the team at the BMW.

Gotta run, see you guys later.

Yes - sorry, I didn't subtract the 2 points from the wound penalty.

You are currently not even in AR, as you were completely dumped out of the Matrix.

So, you could
Simple Action 1: Access AR
Simple Action 2: Send Command to car, "go git' em!" - which, basically, means it starts to accelerate.

Btw, my rule of thumb is that you can change speeds in between turns equal to your Acceleration rating.

Thus, the Patrol 3 (which has a Speed of 5 and an Acceleration of 3) can go from Speed 0 to 3 on turn 1, and 3 to max on turn 2 - without a Rigger Jumped in to it. Your Shin-Hyung could go from 0 to 3 on turn 1, and 3 to 6 on turn 2 without you, if you were jumped into it, it could go from 0 to 5 in one turn

Overkill can control your car if he would like - depending on what he wants it to do, it could be a simple or complex action. Just telling it to drive somewhere is a simple action.

RAW, it "keeps track" of your OS score.

In my PnP game, we play it the same way you describe. I didn't discuss it with the group, so, for this instance, we'll say it works, but in future, it will only tell you the OS score it tracks while it is loaded.

my reading is that while I am attached to my RCC, I can use a simple action:

"Jumping into a vehicle is a Complex Action if you’re in AR, or a Simple Action if you’re already in VR when you make the jump. If you’re using a direct connection and already plugged into the vehicle or RCC, you can jump into a vehicle directly from your meat body by taking a Simple Action."

Additionally, I'm a little fuzzy on the acceleration rules. I know that they allow you a maximum number of "range changes" in a chase scene, but the transition from tactical scene to chase scene is a bit hazy.
-DrZ

I'm sorry - I didn't realize (although it makes complete sense) that you have a wire connecting your CR to the BMW (as you are inside it).

The rules for transition from tactical to chase are hazy. Basically, if one side is not in a moving vehicle, and the other is, use the tactical rules (so I had to use them to determine how far away the Patrol 3 is going to be by the time you get the car started and in gear. Once both sides are in the car, then it is Chase Combat, and we are just doing Catch Up/Break Away actions.

OOC question I may (or may not) know IC; is RHex dead-dead? Can I repair him?

The rotodrones; are those something I could throw in the trunk, and then repair at home (somehow figuring out how to re-register them to me, possibly with Overkill's help)? Bearing in mind these things would be thoroughly bug-scanned before I took them anyplace sensitive.

-DrZ

I guess the net-net of my question is, full physical condition monitor: repairable? Fulll matrix condition modifier: repairable?

Considering drones seem to be made of papier-mache in SR5, I hope to hell Rhex is repairable.

Full matrix condition monitors are repairable, but the device is permanently dead if you critical glitch, IIRC.

ETA: I hate the drone rules in SR5, they're so stupid.

Here is what it says on Repairing Drones:
Drones have two damage tracks, Physical and Matrix.
Fill up either one and it’s bye-bye birdie as the drone is
either irreparably destroyed and joins the spare parts
collections, or it gets bricked and it’s time to completely
rewire its guts. But up until that final box is filled, damage
done to a drone can be repaired.


So, unfortunately, Rhex is irreparably destroyed

As far as the Rotodrones are concerned, 2 of them were destroyed outright by the Spirit of Air, and are non-recoverable.

The other two were bricked, and then crashed. One hit a car and blew up, basically, the other one crashlanded in the stream, and may be recoverable. You would then have to fix its Matrix damage:

If you have a device with Matrix damage, you can repair
it with a toolkit, an hour of work, and a Hardware
+ Logic [Mental] test. Every hit you get can be used
to either remove one box of Matrix damage or cut the
time required in half; the first die spent toward time reduces
the time to half an hour, the second to 15 minutes,
and so on, to a minimum of one Combat Turn (3
seconds). Bricked or not, the device is off-line and unusable
during the repair process.
If you critically glitch on the roll to repair your device,
that’s it. The device is permanently bricked. You can use
it as a paperweight, an object lesson, or (if you need
one) a brick. If you glitch, the device can be restored to
functionality, but it becomes a bit glitchy (the gamemaster
will tell you how at an appropriate moment).

Mind you, this will require you to get a toolkit

As far as repairing the physical damage from the crash, you can do so, using a B/R test, but of course the rules don't tell you what type of test, how long it will take, or how much it will cost to do so.

Finally, you are going to have to wipe the owner status of the drone, as otherwise the drone's owner will just pilot it away from you once you've fixed it

So, the TL:DR answer is, full physical condition monitor is destroyed, full matrix condition monitor can be repaired.

ETA - you still can recover any Autosofts, and the actual weapon and ammunition from Rhex.

Ok - just took a shower on my lunch break (there are advantages to working at home) and was thinking about this, as it doesn't seem kosher.

Potential house rules to follow shortly with regards to fixing damage to drones (even ones that had their condition monitor filled).

In the meantime, just waiting on Chrome (throwing a reminder out there since there have been pages and pages of stuff and he might have missed that it is his turn in the initiative order.

Well, we're at the end of the fight, and this might be the last chance Amy gets to do anything useful. She's already at her limit and she's really frustrated with that guy. She's also afraid he might one day come back to hurt those she wants to protect, so she feels compelled to act in a significant way. A strong enough ball lightning could put an end to the fight, gimp the car and/or driver enough that we can more easily catch up to him. So she'll cast a F6 Ball Lightning on her turn. Target is the top of the driver's seat. She has a wound modifier of -3 (3S, 8P boxes on her tracks), so she rolls 9 dice to cast. 13 dice to resist 5S drain.

Learning from last time, I won't roll this myself right away.

ETA: I was just catching up on all that rigger talk and stuff, but I'm here

So, in an attempt to make it so that playing a Rigger is too cost prohibitive to contemplate, here is my first take on Repairing Drones:

Matrix Damage is fine - there are already rules for fixing it.

Physical Damage.

All physical damage is categorized as two types: Structural and Non-Structural.

Non-structural damage would be bullets, electric shock, anything that leaves the structural integrity of the drone intact.
Structural damage includes explosives, fire, and crashes - damage which will destroy the chassis itself and force you to replace wholesale sections of the drone.

Cost:
Non-Structural damage costs 1% of the cost of the drone to repair per box.
Structural damage costs 5% of the cost of the drone to repair per box.

Difficulty:
Every 3 boxes of damage you are attempting to repair (Round down) increases the difficulty of the Extended test by 1.

Thus, repairing 1-2 boxes of damage is an Easy test. Repairing 3-5 boxes is an Average test. Repairing 6-8 boxes is a Hard test.

Structural damage increases the difficulty by 1.

Time:
Non Structural Damage has a base time of 30 minutes
Structural Damage has a base time of 1 hour.

Required Tools
Non-Structural Damage of up to 6 boxes may be done at no penalty with a tool kit.
Non-Structural Damage of 7 or more boxes must be done with a shop, or suffer a -4 dice pool penalty.

Structural Damage of up to 6 boxes may be done at no penalty with a shop.
Structural Damage of 7 or more boxes must be done at a facility or suffer a -4 dice pool penalty.


So, for instance, in the case of Rhex, Grease would need to spend 400 and get a total of 18 successes on his Build/Repair test, and each time he rolls, it takes him 30 minutes. Since he does not have a shop, and it is over 6 boxes of damage, he will roll 4 less dice.

Thoughts?

I'm not really involved here, but my gut would be to try it and see how it feels using those rules. They seem reasonable, but play-testing gives a clear picture.

I'll just add that I'm fine with RHex being dead-dead, I was just asking for clarification. I think it'd be better to have it remain as is; so if you're full on your physical condition monitor, then it's bye-bye birdie, but if the machine has any boxes left it can be repaired. Otherwise, it's significantly cheaper to just repair mostly destroyed drones.

I'll also add that RHex performed heroically; he basically saved Amy's life! So I think I got my money's worth (going in I knew that drones in SR5 were weak, but I didn't realize they'd be THAT weak). My drone habit will be a temper to make sure my drug habit doesn't get out of hand.

They look pretty solid to me. Like Chrome said, we can playtest them here, it's not going to break the game.

Some thoughts:
- Is it intended that structural damage cannot be performed with a kit? It's not explicit, but seems pretty implicit. If so, I fully agree. If not, I think you should consider it.

- I don't see it listed, but I'd consider throwing in the Critical Glitch consequences from the Matrix Damage side of the house.

IP 1
Amy 27 - Ball Lighting
Rigger 25
Officer#2 22 (reduced to 17 by Amy's spell)
Overkill 16
Grease 7

Ok - here we go

Force 6 Ball Lightning - rolls 9d6 due to wound modifiers:
9d6.hits(5)=2

It scatters2d6=3 - 3 meters, but still means that the car is within the blast area.

Resist Drain:
13d6.hits(5)=5 - so no drain

Resist Damage of 6DV with an AP of 6

Body 10, Armor 8, reduced to 2
12d6.hits(5)=3

So the car takes 3 boxes of Physical damage, and 1 box of Matrix damage.

Now the Officer needs to make a resistance test:

17d6.hits(5)=5

So he takes one point of damage and is suffering the effects of the Electricity damage

I'll have him make a crash test:

Default to Reaction (-1 for Shock)
7d6.hits(5)=3

Despite the shock, he is able to keep it on the road.

The rigger jumps out of the vehicle.

The Officer keeps driving

Overkill: Simple Action, send message to BMW to drive to Amy's position, swap Fork for Baby Monitor (free action) - OS =25, simple action, command Agent to start Matrix Perception.

Grease jumps into the vehicle, increasing his initiative by 3d6:

3d6=12

IP 2
Amy 17
Rigger 15
Grease 9
Officer#2 7
Overkill 6

At this point, the patrol car is basically around the corner, and out of Amy's LOS, and we are into Chase Combat - assuming that Grease is going to try and chase this guy down. If so, both he and the officer spend 1 action to control their vehicles, and we are back to initiative.

Sure thing. Are either member of the team able to jump into the car as Overkill drives it up to them?
-DrZ

All I am going to say is the Cut-Off maneuver seems balls awesome.

That was the idea - you need a shop to fix structural damage.

I agree with the Critical Glitch idea as well. I'll throw it in, and add them to the first page of the OOC thread - with the Rigger and Decking rules.

@Grease

I agree that Rhex went out doing what a good dog should do, save one of its masters.

I'm just trying to make it so that you don't go bankrupt trying to play the game.

Amy can get in if you slow down a little bit. Overkill will be there in one combat turn - which might let them get away.

ETA - just so you know, the scene around you is pure chaos. The volunteers are not trained for this, and have started to run away with the crowd. I'm thinking that somebody should grab Chomsky and Greeley to make sure they aren't run over or trampled.

I will try to pick up at least one member of the team before hi-tailing it out of there in pursuit.
-DrZ

I am sure that Overkill would get in with you.

@Chrome,

Would Amy get in the car with Grease, or stay behind with Greeley and Chomsky?

Amy hasn't had the time to reflect on what happened, but she'll be immensely grateful to that drone and its pilot. Her opinion of Grease will change for the better after this. He volunteered to do something important to her at some risk to himself and his possessions, paid the price, and saved her life (and the day, more or less).

What a great fight scene. Looking forward to that chase scene now.

Here's what I have in mind next for Amy: she wants to check the identity of the guy who was shot down and recover the keys for the handcuffs if possible (was it him who handcuffed Greeley and Chomsky?). She'd run head down towards him while pulling out her survival knife to hold to his throat so he doesn't try anything if he wakes up when she pulls up the visor. I'd imagine all of this would take around 2-3 IPs but you tell me.

ETA: Stay behind, she hasn't been told what's going on. She will come if it seems like the right tactical move according to someone else.

That's the thing though. With the small condition monitor and increase in weapon damage, there are not going to be a lot of situations where you're not going to max out a drone's physical condition monitor if you land one or two hits (even from something like a Hold-Out pistol). The armor values of the security drones should really be increased, IMO.

Yeah I agree. I like that they are a bit glass cannon, but right now they're way too much glass and not enough cannon. A guy with a dice pool of 7 and a predator (and say an armor jacket) can win against a drone on auto-pilot, especially if he shoots first..

Ok then

No need to worry about him waking up, he is actually dying, the spirit did a LOT of damage to him and put him into overflow. (although Amy doesn't know that yet) Yes he is the one who handcuffed the two of them. Shouldn't be too hard to find the keys. As you say, 2-3 IPs.

That being said, we can come down out of initiative for Amy at this point. With Grease and Overkill taking off after the car, she'll be left to deal with the aftermath

I'll put up an IC post that covers Amy's last spell, her rushing to the downed officer and grabbing the keys, the same post will cover Overkill getting into Grease's car, at which point Grease and I can handle the chase OOC

Are both cars involved in the chase or is there one left behind for Amy to put the VIPs in?

Not a big deal at this moment if there's no car for us just now.

I don't know where Grease's taxi is - I'm assuming he left it at home. The 4 of you (plus Rhex in the trunk) arrived in the BMW.

Now it's down to Grease and the other driver:

Initiative
Grease 4d6+5=16
Officer# 2 3d6+8=18

So he will go first. You are in Handling Environment. He is about 125 meters away from you - so Extreme Range.

He rolls to try and Break Away:
7d6.hits(5)=2

He gets 2 hits. You need to get at least 2 hits on your Catch up Action in order to keep up with him.

Reaction 7, Skill 6, Specialization 2, -4 dice for wounds and dumpshock.

11d6.hits(5)=3

You got 3 hits, so you close to Long Range (about 75 meters)

Next, he will use his action to Control Vehicle so he doesn't crash. Do you want to do the same, or try and catch up again, and risk crashing?

IP#2
Officer 8 - Control Vehicle
Grease 6

@Chrome,

Feel free to post IC now with what Amy is doing - you can interact with the spirit (who will be vanishing momentarily as it has fulfilled its last service, but in case you want to RP that, plus any interaction with Shannon and Greeley

Has he really? I can't say that Greeley and Chomsky are in a safe place just yet, but it's really up to the spirit to interpret the service how it sees fit

Do I recognize that elf as Lynx from the pictures we've seen of him? (I can't remember if all we've had up to now were physical descriptions or if Amy has seen footage of him)

IC, your command was to "Save them" and you listed all the hostiles, so for the spirit, he's done his job.

OOC - between you and I, the danger to them has passed - unless you plan on putting them in more danger that I'm not aware of

This person is not anyone you have footage of.

Oh I can put them in danger all right!

I understand that for the spirit saving them is one thing. For Amy, saving them is putting them in a safehouse with guards!


Damn this game is really turning into ShadowElf. Does it look like this was an actual policeman?

How will you assess if he is an actual policeman? (not being a wise-guy, just seeing what Amy would do.)

I will control my vehicle, Grease is too beat up to be doing anything too fancy with this chase.

With Overkill in the car, doesn't he also get turns? Shoot at them out the window, hacking their tires, somesuch?

-DrZ

He does technically get actions. However - he hasn't been able to find any of the Officer's icons, and the car has had its wireless shut off, so he can't actually impact the car via the Matrix, and his only weapon is a Machine Pistol, and you are currently out of range.

ETA - I lie - he has his holdout pistol as well - but that is out of range too

BTW: Great fight scene. Touch and go there for a while! I think the idea of having you post (to keep up the pace) makes a lot of sense. One thing I think would be good idea would be if we could post internal dialogue, minor (unrelated) actions to flavor out the posts (so it isn't just you posting walls of text).

Like, "Oh drek, I'm going to feel that one in the morning". Not anything that requires a IC response, but just something we could add to the story with. Make sense?

-DrZ

Good question. Just in general, the clothes, possessions, badge, equipment that looks standard-issue (commlink, which she will pocket if she can turn it off, pistol, etc.), that sort of thing. She doesn't have any specific knowledge about it, but you'd assume a certain level of uniformity with the stuff that's on him. In particular the badge and commlink, and I'd imagine seeing a lot of Lone Star insignia everywhere. Bottom line, she'll do a quick body search. After that, I'll post IC with all this info.

ETA: Is he dead or dying? Or stable??

Thanks (and thank you too Chrome for your compliment earlier)

As for posting other stuff, no problem at all - just tell me the post# and put up in the OOC what you want to insert, where you want it, and I'll be happy to edit the posts and put in flavor

I'm just saying, an elf-sized suit of FBA (with the LS logo conveniently painted over) would be hella useful in certain situations...

Amy makes a First Aid check to see if he is alive or dead.

1d6.hits(5)=0

You aren't sure, but he doesn't look good.

A quick search yields a badge, commlink, and pepper punch spray. There is a container for handcuffs, but it is empty.

His armor does have the LS insignia on it.

Only the armor, or are there Lone Star logos elsewhere on him? What's he wearing under the armor?

Ok - next round - the driver has shaken off the effects of the Ball Lightning.

Grease4d6+5=15
Officer 3d6+9=21
Overkill 2d6+9=17

So, Officer attempts to Break Away

8d6.hits(5)=2

Bringing you 1 out of Extreme

Overkill delays

Grease Catches Up
11d6.hits(5)=5 - bringing you to Short Range

NOW Overkill goes at 14

I'm going to let Overkill tell us what he wants to do, since sticking his head out of a moving window opens himself up to getting shot at back

P.S. You are about to make the turn onto E. Iliff, which is going to require a Vehicle Test to do so.

I was thinking more for the future, not necessarily retconning the current posts (if that makes sense).
-DrZ