I wrote that prophecy before I looked up when actual sunset is at that time of year

Just consider the two hours between 1800h and 2000h to be the most likely time of arrival.

Are they? I have absolutely no idea.

Bye
Thanee

Not really:

Mage Mask is 2R at 200 Nuyen
Containment Manacles are at 6R and 250 Nuyen

Mato stands corrected!

But there's still the question of whether we can acquire Restricted goods on short notice in Texas.

There are also Magecuffs (which are AV 5 and 1,000¥).

Street Grimoire p. 215

Bye
Thanee

Well, time to hit up some contacts or look at Craig's List

- I'd rather keep an hostile mage sedated.
- Sorry for not posting RL has been too intense to think clearly, and I don't want to derail the game by doing something stupid due to not enough attention.

I don't know what we might be willing to budget towards items to try and take them down, and what our damage dealing options are like.

Conceptually it shouldn't be too hard to make some large moltov-cocktail-ish bombs for the Pellipers (an igniter is the challenging part, but we can probably figure something out). But I don't think there are rules for those? So better to stick with grenades to drop -- we could tape together smoke and tear gas and explosive, if we can find all of them, and see what has how much effect if it comes to that. It is just a question of availability and time to acquire.

Ammonium nitrate explosives might be available (avail 5), but are pretty weak. Any other explosives are harder to get.

If we do wish to watch some places, I'm thinking some number of dodge scoots (3knY each) with a kanmushi riding them. Tamarind can send them to wherever we want them to park, and the Kanmushi can keep watch (pilot and sensors 3, instead of the 1 on the scooters). Or we could try and pick up some Aztechnology Crawler drones (good rural drones, may see some use in farms and ranches, so the availability of 4 should hold. they are 4knY each, and have a pilot of 4. They could be dropped off almost anywhere and get themselves into monitoring position.

Tamarind however has no contacts useful for this, here, and no useful negotiation skill, so it is unlikely that should could acquire anything with a non '-' availability rating on her own.

Hitting up our existing contract works just as much as using your own Cha+etiquette rolls

As for setting up watch posts - rest stops are your best option. Not only do the passengers have needs, they likely also want their car to be topped of before they get to their destination.

Or all of it (sedated, blindfolded, (mage)cuffed). Better safe than sorry.

Bye
Thanee

By the way, here are the Molotov rules again form No Future:

MOLOTOV COCKTAIL
GRENADES DAM AP BLAST AVAIL COST NOTES
Molotov 8P –6 –4/m 6F 15¥ Fire damage (p. 171, SR5)

Though you should remember that you likely are dealing with some kind of hostage situation here - even if the hostages are throwing fireballs at you.

That's the worst kind of hostages!

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, to Jack's point I was going to say that we want to be wary of anything with indiscriminate AoE damage. I think we can be fairly lethal toward Victoria but we want to be decidedly non-lethal to the other two, or at least Tien IV.

For Mato, there are a couple decision points:
1) try to snipe from a distance (like with a hunting rifle), or,
2) sprint in to get up-close and personal.

My instinct is to do this at a distance, preferably leveraging drones as much as possible, since that's an advantage we have that they don't. If Mato can find a rifle (and I presume that hunting rifles are children's toys in this part of Texas), then he'll try to pick up a variety of ammo to keep the team's options open.

Then, we need to determine if we should:
3) try to KO Phillip and Tien IV first to isolate Victoria, or
4) try to alphastrike Victoria first.

It's tempting to nuke Victoria first, but that may not liberate Tien IV instantly. I'm guessing the IV will be the one with a huge, nasty, bound spirit(s) in tow, which might be the most immediate threat. Phillip is a healing specialist. So maybe we hit Phillip first so he can't repair the other two, Tien IV next to try to neutralize any spirits he has in orbit (although bound spirits may continue to fight), and then take out Victoria once she's isolated. If she is a shedim and her body is broken then do we need to axe the spirit on the astral too? Where's Jawsey with his cane sword...

Thanks for finding the molotov cocktail rules, Jack! I would not have thought to have gone looking in No Future.

I agree that it is worth it to have a priority order for targets. I don't expect things to work out quickly, but just in case they do it is good to have! I'm good with trying to take out the healer first, but I'd also say that if we can partially or fully incapacitate IV, even for a turn, that reduces his ability to command spirits. He may have fallback orders worked out that will trigger them to do certain things, but those may not always be the best of options (especially if the spirits are chafing against his control). So I'd maybe say gasses and electrical effects on IV if we can, drop the healer, then consider if we can stun IV in some way.

We have two trucks so can start heading out to position drones on two paths. Not a lot of detail on that part today because I need to go back and read the current farm description to think which all drones I want to try and get in there, and maybe bring up google maps to get a feel for the lay of the land (or at least where the highways are). But that is going to be tomorrow, after which I'll suggest more detailed dispositions.

I can highly recommend drone recon of the farm

Yeah, with those spirits around, drones make a lot of sense.

Bye
Thanee

They do.

To be honest, I'm so used to not having drone support in this game that I'm not in the habit of thinking about it. But now that we have it we should definitely leverage it.

I was looking on the Obsidian Portal page for the drone that we kept after the Pike Hall chapter, but I don't think it is there. Does anyone have it written down? (just looking through our drone resources for what should go where)

I checked the SIS pages but I did not write it down, unfortunately.

I'll try and do some sleuthing, unless Jack has it written down somewhere

The drone was a HORIZON CU^3 with the professional Upgrade, integrated weapon mount for a modified Savalette Guardian with two magazines.
One magazin was loaded with APDS, the other with Blight. Trigger removal, gasvent 3 and electronic firing.

HORIZON CU^3 (MINI DRONE)
HANDL 3
SPEED 2P
ACCEL 2
BODY 1(0)
ARM 0 (Chameleon coating)
PILOT 5
SENS 4

The drone was running an Agent R 6 with a modded Sleaze of 2 (2 permanent matrix damage in exchange)
Virtual Machine, Smoke and Mirrors, Smartsoft, as well as Electronic Warfare, Piloting and Targeting software at R5

Thanks Jack.

If it's a mini-drone with Body 1, how is it large enough to have a weapon mount? Drones have to be Body 3 before they're big enough for a weapon mount, or is there something in Rigger 5 that allows it?

Rigger 5 has weapon mount sizes
Heavy pistols need only two mod points
Reduced handling produced the second.

Same rules I'm using to put concealed tasers in flying eye drones. Jack, the pistol is obvious, right?

Yes, the drone is basically constructed around the gun

Is Tien III bankrolling reasonable equipment purchases or are we on our own?

For consumables you can consider him paying the bill

Been visiting Europe for a few days and very busy which is why I was quiet. I hope to get going again this weekend.

Work or pleasure? I've been three times but would like to go more.

I'll try to keep us kicking along until then.

Work this time. Twice in the last month, it was a bit crazy, but CS conferences are no longer virtual.

Mato only has a thousand nuyen, the legacy of rampant cyber-singularity seeking.

Beta, can Tamarind float him a bit. Pay ya back.

@Gilga

Nice, where did you visit? Another trip to Italy?

And yes, cosider this Bobby Ray to be the online shop from Jagged Alliance 2

@Gilga

Nice, where did you visit? Another trip to Italy?

And yes, cosider this Bobby Ray to be the online shop from Jagged Alliance 2

Rachel also has 5,840¥ at the moment, if that helps.

Bye
Thanee

1. (Tec) AM has circa 18k if Mato needs a favor. I have been saving for a nice motorbike or perhaps a focus.
2. (Jack) I had been to Barcelona this time and Rome two weeks ago, but being to is a bit of a stretch because I only went to the conference and hotel and then back home as fast as possible. I didn't do tourist days this time because the timing is uncomfortable (I prefer to go to conferences in the summer when I don't teach, and the kid's schedule is more flexible).
3. I love Bobby Ray and await to see if Jagged Alliance 3 is good. The graphics seem fun.

Great, thank you both!

Going to roll Firearms to see if Mato has heard of the Mannlicher Marpingen:

Logic 5 + Firearms 3: 8d6t5 3 hits

Gun looks great. Couple questions here:


Mato only really needs the smartgun system, since his cybereyes cover the functionality of the scope. Is the scope a separate add-on or is the rifle only available with the scope?

Edit: Separate question - would the Narcoject Trackstopper require an Exotic Weapon skill?

Yes, you can leave the scope off.
And yes, it's an exotic weapon - though if you have two karma, you can use a knowsoft to teach you one level in minutes

No karma here. I've been breaking the piggybank recently.

Hrrrm, i was positive that I'd posted that tamarind could front Mato, but it doesn't look like it came through, sorry.
ETA gah, IC post didn't make it either! I had a shopping list embedded in there. Will be the morning before i get that sorted again, sorry.
Edit 2: most of her list has been addressed (firing platform, cammo tarps, most ammo). But she is checking to see if he has any blight rounds, or other specifically antimagical ammo.

Jack: what is Jagged Alliances?

@Gilga the frustration of business travel that takes to interesting places without the opportunity to actually enjoy them. At that point I'd rather be going to the dullest place, and not feel all those attractions just out of reach!

Jagged Alliance - especially the second title in the series happens to be the best small unit tactic simulation ever produced (and it came out 1999, so there is quite some anticipation on my part for part 3)

If you have 99 cents to spare and at least a potato to run it on, give it a look
https://www.gog.com/de/game/jagged_alliance_2

I've been looking for a new game to play, so maybe I'll see how I like small unit tactic simulation.

Tamarind's thought on the Narcoject Trackstopper is that using a drone swarm doesn't require everything having the same weapon. If she can get a drone to mount it on with a half-decent auto-soft, she can use swarm to bring up the dice pool and accuracy. Pinning one of them in place would not be as good as knocking them out, but might set them up for the knock-out blow.

I thought I had played Jagged Alliance 2 but, upon review of my Steam library, I see that it was Jagged Alliance Flashback instead. Which was fine - I put 25 hours into it and beat it - but didn't stand out. But now that I search around a bit, I see that most people thought that Flashback was much too basic and stripped down compared to JA2, and that JA2 was superior even though it was older.

I adore "small unit tactic simulation" games. Looks like JA3 comes out in four weeks so I'll see how the reviews come in.

I can only recommend playing JA2 - it holds up really well and with a bit of rescinning could be a cyberpunk game😎

Yeah, JA was a pretty cool series. I think, I played JA2 at some point. Been a while, though.

Currently playing XCOM2: War of the Chosen, which is a similar style, but a lot more modern, of course (guess, you guys also know it).

Hope there will be an XCOM3 at some point.

Bye
Thanee

I am doing it on ironman commander. It is amazing.

My reaction speed and hand-eye coordination make my sweet spot in computer games "anything turn based" (I've played some non-turn based things, but mostly ones with more emphasis on strategy or macro planning than on micro, precision, or reactions. Like Star Craft campaigns I could get through, but I'd never try PVP. And I got through the campaign on Mechwarrior back in like 2000 or something, but it ran slowly enough on my computer than I could handle it, lol). I look at all these cool games that people love with longing, but will have to give most of them a skip :-/

tl;dr I probably won't get most of your video game references, sorry.

Hey, all that stuff above is turn-based.

Bye
Thanee

Turn-based games are my favorite.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown absolutely blew my mind back in 2012. It was actually a fellow Shadowrun player who recommended it to me. I wasn't familiar with it, but I was hooked in seconds.

Potentially unpopular opinion: I thought XCOM: Enemy Unknown (and the Enemy Within DLC) was better than XCOM2. I liked XCOM2 quite a bit and played through it twice - it's rare for me to play any game twice - but I played through Enemy Within at least six times. That's enough to make it one of my all-time favorites.

I'll check out JA2!

Oh yes, XCOM was my favorite too - I loved my sharpshooter build focused on hand guns.