Unfortunately, that's the way it works

Page 48
Extended tests cannot last forever; at some point,
characters reach the limit of their abilities, and further
efforts will do them no good. To simulate this, with each
successive roll on an Extended test, players should remove
one die from their dice pool. Eventually they’ll
have no dice left, and the test will be over.

So, I can have you keep working - just realize that you start with 5 dice (3 for Logic and 2 for Aeronautic Engineer).

Logic 3 + Aeronautic Mechanic 2
5d6.hits(5)=1

So, you've got one of your 12 hits necessary.

I roll again, and now you have 4 dice.
4d6.hits(5)=2

Now you've got a total of 3 hits.

Ok - I will roll one more time:
3d6.hits(5)=1

That is a 4th hit.

Now, at this point (after 1 hour and 30 minutes) you've gotten 4 hits.

I could roll again, but you are down to 2 dice, which means there is about a 1 in 4 chance of you getting a critical glitch. (which permanently wrecks the drone).

I'm not going to roll that until you confirm you want to. If you don't, you can rest 8 hours, get your edge back, and start again (although this time you will be starting with 3 dice, as you will still be feeling the let down from the Novacoke).

ETA - I picked 8 hours rather arbitrarily, as it is the amount of time that you need to gain an edge back. Does that sound fair?

Sure; I think I'd wait until my headache went away before working on the drone more (I think we figured out it was 10:30 in the morning).

I've got 4 hits; the drone is now functional, right? I don't think I'd like to roll when I have less than 3 dice.
-DrZ

Ok - no problem.

I've actually redesigned the repair rules (you can see them in the first post of the OOC thread to make it so that each test heals boxes, as opposed to having to completely repair ti.

So, with 4 hits, you have reduced the amount of non-structural damage to 1, so the drone has 5 boxes of damage on it (4 structural and 1 non-structural) and is functional from that perspective.

Before you can get it to work, Overkill is going to have to repair the Matrix damage (at least one box), and then he is going to have to change the owner over to you.

Let's have him fix the Matrix damage:
13d6.hits(5)=8 - reduced to 7 by his Mental limit.

So in one hour, he repairs 7 of the 9 boxes of damage.

He tries again:
12d6.hits(5)=4

Getting 4 hits, 2 of which reduce the damage to 0, and the other 2 reduce the time to 15 minutes.

So, basically, by the time you finish replacing circuitry destroyed by the water and crash, Overkill unbricks the device.

Now, I figure I will have Overkill spend a couple more hours trying to change the ownership, and then rest.

13d6.hits(5)=2

Not an auspicious start...

12d6.hits(5)=5

Better

11d6.hits(5)=3

About average...

10d6.hits (5)=1

Ok - clearly Overkill is getting tired - he probably will want to get some sleep.

@Jack

Ok, so, I figure that before the meeting, Overkill can have his deck repaired, and then he can start on the repairs to the drone.

He can access the meeting via AR, and I suppose if necessary he can stop working on the drone to lend you a hand - it would be his first roll that would be interrupted.

What are Jack and Amy doing before midnight (as Grease and Overkill are busy).

Jack's going to check out the backyard/patio area. Not sure if there is a fence in the backyard, but if so he's going to check it out to see any obvious holes/openings. He won't do anything about them, but wants to know in case they get attacked (either to cover with a weapon or to flee out of, if necessary).

When midnight hits, Jack will send Overkill a text and find somewhere in the house or outside to go VR.

Whatever you're up to, I'm curious! Can't wait to spy the IC post.
-DrZ

Hopefully it will be enlightening.

@Lobo: Do you want me to advance the timeline and post something IC about it?

That would be lovely

Ahhh, the wonders of multitasking in AR.

Amy needs to rest. She'll ask the spirit to keep surveillance on the house and near surroundings and (wake her if needed and) alert her telepathically if a spirit, magician or critter comes and does anything threatening. She'll release the spirit before dawn.

She'll tell the others about it, and that it won't really cover physical surveillance which they are in charge of.

Then she'll go to sleep for an hour, heal herself, and then go back to sleep after letting everyone know that she's in good health again and willing to take her turn keeping guard.

I'm running Browse and Signal Scrub, not running silently. Since Jack doesn't really do VR, he doesn't really know dick about matrix etiquette. I imagine most serious matrix dwellers change their iconography.

Looks like you double-posted in the IC thread. You could probably just cut the first paragraph off the 2nd post and have it continue into the 2nd (not that double posts in the IC thread make my eye twitch, it's totally fine... )

I don't know why its starting to do that. It's like I'm turning into Overkill I'll just move all the matrix action to the second post.

The board is wonky. Whenever I'm posting from my tablet I have to log in 2-3 times to actually get a post up. Fairly annoying.

-DrZ

Attempting a Matrix Perception check on the icon:

Matrix Perception: Computer (2) + Intuition (3) - Noise (4) + Signal Scrub (2) (3d6.hits(5)=1)

If that hit isn't resisted, I'd like to know the programs the icon is running.

So.... fly in the ointment. I can't go VR. I forgot you needed a sim module as well. I should still be able to do everything in AR, but I need to change a bunch of stuff in the story. How do you want me to handle it?

ETA: Sorry, I totally overlooked that when I made this plan.

No worries - as you said, it can be done in AR, AND since you have a DNI through the trodes, you can feel, see, and hear everything as if you were in VR anyway. The only difference is you are slower, don't get the bonus for VR, and don't take biofeedback.

You can go ahead and edit what you need to.

In the meantime, your one hit on the Matrix Perception test does not beat its resistance.

OK, for the sake of moving forward, I'm going to reply to him now. I'll edit my earlier post a little later (the wife and I are heading out tonight). Jack's still going to be in the back bathroom, but he's going to be standing at the window there, rather than laying in the bathtub.

A note about the "live" footage - the idea is that the video feed is that it isn't strictly live per se, but that it is happening now, i.e. the video starts around 11:55 PM, so Jack is effectively watching it with a 5 minute delay or so.

Gotcha.

This is really useful information, although I feel like we need to clarify with Ramirez if we can just kill these guys and then turn over proof of their involvement in the Lone Star murders. I don't know how we're going to take down two of these guys without tipping off the rest of Lynx's crew, not to mention the rest of the conspiracy, if we have to move tomorrow or the following night.

Great, an adept on top of everything else.

ETA: How much did the girl on the X resemble Renata?

The girl resembles Renata closely, although it is difficult to say with 100% certainty.

Do you have any further questions for him, otherwise when you put up your IC post, you can have him fade away as he jacks out.

P.S. - for continuity, can you edit the time stamp on your last post to be 12:10 AM?

Thanks!

I'm gonna have Amy join the others around 12:20, after her hour of rest and her heal spell.

Ok - so whenever Jack and Grease finish their conversation (or at least assume that 10 minutes have gone by) just one of you cue Chrome and he can have Amy come in).

I wasn't sure if Overkill wanted to opine. I figured I would wait a little bit to see if he had anything to say before coming up with a response.

Ok - no worries

Let's see what OK has to say

I threw up a quick response to Grease with a question to Overkill. For right now, I guess Overkill could be a soldering iron deep into his deck and not really available to talk. If DrZ wants to respond, I don't think it would be problematic to continue the narrative, but I think it would be best if we accelerated it so that Amy could be part of it.

I'm cool with waiting for Overkill to respond, or fast-forwarding to Amy.
-DrZ

Personally, I wish we could find some fucked up personafix chip that would make Stinger think he was a toddler or something (I'm sure there is a fetish out there), gecko tape a datachip containing video of all his misdeeds to his shirt, and push him out of Grease's taxi at a local ZDF station and let them figure out the rest...

I'll just fast forward to 5 minutes later since it probably doesn't really change anything.

Cool, unless someone else wants to put in anything, we probably should advance to like 9AM or so?

Can we get a final request to Chapel to send out before we advance the timeline? He's going to need some time for some of it.

Just gotta post who takes what hours of guard duty. Amy will do her part however she's told but won't take the lead to organize it.

Also, I edited my IC post to include a message to Hubert to let him know Amy plans to visit him.

From a timeline standpoint, Grease will be up until around 1:00 AM fixing the drone, and Overkill will be up until 4:45 with the rolls already made. If he sleeps 8 hours from then, he'll get his edge back, and then can continue working on changing the ownership on the drone with a refreshed pool.

Given that we have a drone/spirit surveillance net, I'm thinking that Jack and Amy start sleeping from 12:30AM. Grease taps out at 1AM. Jack wakes up at 4:30 to start guard duty. Overkill taps out at 5AM. Amy wakes up at 8:30AM, Jack goes back to sleep at 8:30AM. Grease wakes up at 9AM. Jack and Overkill get up around 12:30 to 1PM? That way we at least have someone awake at all times, with the drones and spirit doing most of the work.

Ok - that works, I think then the only thing you guys need to resolve before we jump time is a final list for Chapel (since I'm assuming you want to give him the time while you are sleeping to start working on getting your stuff.

I have a rough plan coming together for the Truck takedown. It's going to be a little challenging given the presence of multiple threats and a hostage, but I was thinking we could try to boobytrap the area with smoke grenades. Wouldn't do much to Truck given his thermographic vision, but unless there are dwarves in the group, the casters should be slightly screwed between visibility and light conditions. We could also just try to get a Flash-Bang and set that off to kick off the jam. My concern there is that we need to be careful of the hostage (which would go doubly true if Amy is using Ball Lightning), but if we are able to prep the battlefield at all, we should be able to set-up the grenade far enough from the crosses to not hit the hostage. One of the big unknowns is whether they have any spirits present for protection.

Jack's List:
- Colt M23 w/ Internal Smartgun & Shock Pad (1300 , Avail: 6R/2)
- 4 Spare Clips (25 , Avail: 4)
- 120 Regular AR rounds (300 , Avail: 2R)
- Other stuff I would buy, but I'm broke. 63 left. If there is AR ammo left from the drones, I could save spending 300 and could go for a Flash-Bang instead.

There is still 230 rounds of Explosive ammo from the rotodrone, plus whatever is left from Rhex - 250 rounds of regular, minus 2 rounds of Suppressing fire from the Yakuza fight, plus the shots at the Lone Star officer - that is 50 rounds, so 200 left.

(Can we put Ammunition up on the Expense Report - it is going to be difficult to remember otherwise, and it will be easier than going through pages and pages of OOC threads).

Also, Grease fixed 3 boxes of damage on the Rotodrone, that is 150 in parts.

Assuming that Grease is willing to share his AR ammo with you, let me know if you want to buy the Flash-Bang.

I really only need 80 rounds. If I could get 40 regular from Rhex and 40 EX from the rotodrone (the latter of which seems like a group resource anyway), I'd be set. Overkill is going to need AR ammo as well, probably from Rhex. If that is green-lit, I will ask Chapel for the Flash-Bang.

I can try to put together an ammunition tab; the easiest way to track it would be to consolidate the ammo. I'll try to get something rough put together.

I have no issue giving out some of the EX ammo from the rotodrone. I would like to keep at least 150 in the machine itself, however.

-DrZ

I like the schedule you put out for the evening, Jack.

In the fight, Amy's not going to use ball lightning, it's not a good idea against a single target and not damaging enough against a troll. She has another indirect combat spell she might use (Clout) but I was thinking that anything affecting his mind will be much more effective (and she has no direct combat spell to do that), so mass confusion (which will affect others around him as well) and if an Influence can work, that can buy some extra time. Phantasm might give him a false target or put up a false to focus on or provide a false full cover for one of us. I think those ideas will be more useful than casting ball lightning.

If we can setup a reasonable 50-100 meter ambush, I'm a lot less concerned about Truck than the other four (probable) mages.

That would be very scary. I'm thinking that they might not all arrive together.

Overkill's Shopping List:
5 Spare Mags (I will load up two Mags of the Explosive Ammo we recovered. Or just 1 if we really need it for the RotoDrone.)
Shock Pad
Gas Vent 2
40 Rounds of Stick & Shock (AR)
80 Rounds of Standard Ammo (AR)
Smartgun System, External(Top)

Given that these are Mages we are dealing with, I am not sure what Drave will be able to do other than fire as much as possible. I doubt they will have much in the way of tech I can exploit, though I may be able to hack a few of their likely unguarded links for intel.

Once we get an answer from Chapel on the gear, we'll have a better idea of our options. I would think we should plan it based on the intel we have, which would be the video we have from last night's sacrifice. I went ahead and marked the map with a rough approximation of where the incident took place. We have overhead video of it, so I would guess we would have a reasonable understanding of the topography.

You can easily take the standard AR ammo out of RHex.

Also, should I be loading Gel rounds into this Drone? or Standard Ammo? My guess is he will be used mostly for supressive fire.

@Jack: We can easily send a fly-spy or two to the site during the day to get a better lay of the land. I can even pilot it directly, if that means we're more likely to see something (rather than just relying on the drones autosofts).

-DrZ

Jack's List:
- Colt M23 w/ Internal Smartgun & Shock Pad 1300
- 4 Spare Clips 25
- Flashbang Grenade - 125

The spare clips, grenade, and Shock Pad he has on hand, the Colt it will take him about 8 hours to get a hold of - total cost 1450

Overkill's Shopping List:
5 Spare Mags - 31
Shock Pad - 62
Gas Vent 2 -500
40 Rounds of Stick & Shock (AR)- 400
Smartgun System, External(Top)- 250

He has everything on hand - total cost: 1243

Grease or Amy have anything they need?

Good Idea. Scratch the Standard Ammo, and I will fill up a couple mags from Rhex.

I think I'm good for now.
-DrZ

I was thinking the Flash-Bang was 160. I know Explosives were, but I may have missed a separate Grenade line.

I would just use the cheapest ammo for suppression. I do think we need to contact Ramirez and see if we can get our contract amended with a clause that would allow us to kill any of these guys if it was to prevent a murder or something similar.

Grenades are listed in the Ammunition section of the book, and so cost 1.25% of the normal cost. Explosives would be the stuff on page 436 of the SR5 book (commercial, foam, and plastic explosives, as well as detonator caps).