Sure thing:

Influence group: 6d6t5 4

I'll throw some dice in case a Teamwork test makes sense.

Charisma 5 + Etiquette 3: 8d6t5 2 hits

Rerolling those to see if they add to Bobby's total. Teamwork test: 2d6t5 1 hit

Adding that to Bobby's would give us 5 hits. Pretty good for a couple killing machines.

Indeed.

Bye
Thanee

Looks like the forums are back up. I have no idea what happened.

Bye
Thanee

Weekend hickup and someone had to restart something when they noticed

AM would be impressed!

Do you also show him the video and the items from the room?

Do you mention Marcel's?

Bye
Thanee

The items yes, but no names - the video only if he asks for it

Nice job Bobby -- finally we are narrowing things down (probably)!

Well, you did promise to pay him for the information.

And, of course, that very good roll to calm him down did help quite a bit, too.

Bye
Thanee

Mato thinks of Frost as emotional, and so he's surprised that someone could pivot so quickly between anger and accord. But, yes, the almighty nuyen can move mountains, neh?

I read that anger as a powerplay negotiation style. Urging Bobby to prove that he is serious and show the money.

It is about 12:15 (when you are still at the Rattlesnake Grill). The Hardpan opens at 16:00.

Bye
Thanee

I was going to write a reply to Bobby, but I was not sure if AM was on the scene. I mean, Bobby and Mato are still in the restaurant ordering takeout and discussing strategy, or are we on route to the bar where the kitten's fixer works?

I would say let's have the conversation in the car so that everyone can be involved in the discussion.

Yeah, we are definitely all in the car for the discussion

@Gilga: You do not have a rental car, you have a borrowed truck from Razak.

Also, the food is top-notch.

Bye
Thanee

I was thinking it was a rental by Razak or someone by him. I can edit.

The truck has a drone rack, a full workshop, and a shielded smuggling compartment. Don't think you get something like that from a rental car company.

It is registered as being rented from some car company in Cheyenne, but you are very sure that is faked.

Bye
Thanee

Okay, so analyzing the story with AI is one thing. Today, I asked the AI to write lyrics to a song about AM and then used another site to generate music for it. I think it came out better than I expected, I mean makes me wonder a bit how things are changing.

If you like I made you a link.

https://easyupload.io/i7xykb

I have found AI to be very impressive when it comes to language. I once had it write an epic poem about one of my clients and it cranked out a good draft after about ten seconds. I also had it write bedtime stories involving my son's stuffed animals, and those were pretty solid too. I don't know what grading systems are used abroad, but I would give them a B+. Not bad for a few seconds of work. I've had good conversations that could arguably pass the Turing test.

I have found AI completely unreliable for questions or situations that are more factual. It's foibles are public. Not long ago, I asked it the size of Saturn - which I could have easily Googled, but I wanted to see what it would say - and it quite confidently told me that Saturn has a diameter of 250 miles. I told it, "Mm, I'm pretty sure it's larger than that," at which point it doubled down and repeated the same answer.

I have a job that I imagine will eventually be outsourced to AI. That hasn't happened yet because AI still lacks skills relating to logic, reasoning, and deduction. But I'm still 13-14 years away from retirement, and it's pretty conceivable than I'll be obsolete by then. I may need to pivot or - the dread of all old dogs - learn new tricks.

I find it especially impressive when it comes to music. The ability to write lyrics and have something assemble a song from these is cool. Writing is also very nice, but not so useful to me because it is in English, and in Hebrew, the level is considerably lower. It helps me in academia both in writing and reading research papers. For example, it is much more efficient to ask
questions about the source first and then go and read it once you have figured out most of the things that bother you.


@Jack, I will hack the terminal as soon as AM is aware of it if you wish. Not sure if we have communication to Bobby.

One way: I can talk to the Kanmushi

Improve logic: 12d6t5 3
Drain: 12d6t5 2


AM would hack the device from hot simulation: trying to gauge what is in there and if it is any interest to us.
Hack on the fly: 21d6t5 10
trix perception: 14d6t5 6
To look around and make sense of it all.

If it helps, she can continue to get marks.
Hacking x2: 2#21d6t5 7 5

I think we are all waiting for GM input - or did I miss something?

No, not missing anything. Sorry for the delay. If I manage, I will post an update later tonight, otherwise (if it is getting too late) tomorrow.

Bye
Thanee

@Thanee is there a way to identify the icon or trace it access it from the marks? I have never tried anything like that, but if it is possible AM is likely to go that path.

I have absolutely no idea (SR5 Matrix not my strong suit, so winging it mostly)!

But it makes sense, that you can get some information that way.

So, yeah, you can analyze it, to see where that leads.

Bye
Thanee

There is an action for that:

TRACKBACK (SPECIAL ACTION)
Marks Required: Owner
Test: Extended Computer + Intuition [Data Processing]
(special, 30 minutes) Test
This test is only possible on grids, not inside a host. The datastreams that connect marks to their owners are barely visible wisps of information. Calibrating your filters to see them and not the billions of overlapping datastreams is a painstakingly laborious task. Once a mark has been detected on a device (see Matrix Perception, p. 241, SR5), that device’s owner can try to follow the datastream back the mark’s owner. The number of hits required is equal to 10 + the Sleaze rating of the persona who marked the device. If the Sleaze rating changes during the search, the number of hits required changes as well. If the persona that placed the mark is running silent, the trail will end in its vicinity, effectively letting the tracker know that a silent icon is nearby.


Now, you need to be an owner to use that action.

Having three marks on an deactivated and rebooted device can only happen if there has been a Bootstrap aided Format Device action performed on the terminal

Bootstrap: An IT expert’s tool of choice when working with boot code of a device. Corrupted by many hackers, Bootstrap allows for hidden commands to be input into the device after the next reboot. Popular options include announcing the location of the device when it connects to the Matrix, adjusting the processing of the device so that the default device attributes are the choice of the user, annoying the user with constant demands for ownership permissions, and making a record of every action on the device. This cyberprogram allows for a variety of tasks to be set up in the boot record by way of a Format Device action rather than just setting the device up to no longer function.

If you analyze the boot sector, you should be able to find to which persona the exploit is inviting the MARKs - and if we know the persona, we can search for it and use trace on it.

Ah, great. Thank you!

This requires you to be the owner, though, which you cannot really achieve easily from what I have read about ownership in SR5.

But given that this device is hardly SOTA, you can do the Trackback action once you have three Marks on it yourself.

Bye
Thanee

I have rolled two more times for marks: 7 hits the first and 5 hits the second (in the previous roll). So assuming it gives me marks, lets try to trace back the device with the marks.

she'll replace the improved logic spell with improved intuition prior to handling this trace.
Imrpove intuition: 12d6t5 5
Imrpove intuition drain: 11d6t5 7

wow.

Okay computer 7, logic 9 + 2 hot sim =18 dice.

Trace marks: 18d6t5 5
Trace marks: 18d6t5 8 forgot to take down a die - 7 hits)
Trace marks: 18d6t5 7 (forgot to take down dice - 6 hits)

Sleaze up to 3 after a hour, and an hour and a half to reach sleaze 10. (if I need more time let me know).

Are we running the risk of convergence if we hack that long? Every 15 minutes the Overwatch Score goes up by an average of 7 (2d6), plus whatever hits the system got to resist the Hack on the Fly tests. The OS threshold for convergence is 40, which only gives us about ~75 minutes before the hammer falls on us.

AM can use the Baby Monitor program to keep track of it, but I don't know what other programs it is competing with for the current hack. Or AM could use the Check Overwatch Score action to keep tabs on it, but that's a Sleaze action which will add 2 to the score on average so you can't use it that often.

Yeah, that is the kind of stuff I am not very familiar with.

But can't you just exit the Matrix and come back to reset your Overwatch Score, and continue where you left off?

Bye
Thanee

Well you lose your MARKs when you reboot, so I imagine that you'd lose your tracing progress as well.

I don't know what the threshold is but spending Edge to generate more hits might get things done within an acceptable timeframe.

I only mention it because I once GM'd an otherwise attentive player who forgot about his overwatch score. It was a dramatic point in the story.

There's a program for situations like that

Fly on a Wall: While this program is running, and the decker
is performing no actions other than Matrix Perception
tests, the Overwatch Score only increases by 1D6 per
half-hour (rolled in secret by the gamemaster as normal).
The program requires a Hide action in order to activate
properly, and it does not assist in any way in preventing
any other icon from noticing the decker.

Ah, there you go! That would do the trick.

Yep, that seems useful.

Technically, doing that Trackback might be considered performing an action throughout the duration, but it's vague enough to just say it isn't for this purpose.

Bye
Thanee

Alright, so fly on the wall, and we do it right without danger of convergence. Edge is not effective as the problem is the data processing limit. She can have 4 from the deck, +1 from the overclocker +1 from the software (but we also need to fly-on the wall she has a program module with VM - so 3 programs overall - no problem there.), so I think 6 is her maximum. I don't think we can push it much higher to justify reroll failures, and adding her edge attribute to 'break the limit' would not give us much in her case because her edge is low. Her skill is very high, so a few extra dice are not going to change anything dramatically.

@Jack (or anyone) do you know if there is something to get higher than 6?


So, is the final verdict that AM will eventually use the fly-on wall and complete the search for the mark owner?

Probably a better deck?

Maybe the Practice, Practice, Practice quality (+1 Limit for a single non-combat skill)?



Works for me.

Note: the Trackback leads you to the virtual location of the Mark's owner.

Bye
Thanee

What do you mean with virtual location
Do we need to perform the trace action on the device as well to get their physical location?

That is how I understand it, yes.

The Trackback will allow you to follow the Mark to the Icon / Persona. But that is a purely virtual construct.

Both the Icon / Persona and its Marks exist in the same level (the Matrix). You simply follow the datastream connecting the two.

This part here about the Persona running silent also only gives you the general location of the Icon, which can only be its location inside the Matrix.



If the Persona is not running silent, the trail would go right towards the Icon.


But if you want to know the physical location of the device that Icon belongs to, you still have to mark the Icon / Persona and trace it.

That trace allows you to follow the connection of the physical device to the Matrix (just in the opposite direction), so you can figure out which entry point it is using (pretty much like a cell tower of today's mobile networks; but I assume that the Matrix has a lot more of those, and traces are therefore more accurate).

Also note, that unlike Trackback, the Trace Icon action is opposed.

Bye
Thanee

Only saw this part now (assume you edited that in later, or I just totally missed it the first time ).

But it reminded me that Bobby was talking about switching the devices in the bar on (and possibly off afterwards).

I don't think I was entirely clear here, but the terminal was not offline, it was running already (which shouldn't really be unusual). No need to switch it on.

I somehow doubt it is possible to have Marks on an offline device, so that part was strongly implied (at least in my perception ).

Either way, I don't think Bobby wanted to reboot the terminal, as that would (very likely, unless something as outlined above is in place) kill the Marks and not allow you to do anything about them.

Bye
Thanee

There is not much I can add to the rules discussion/interpretation but I am fine with either interpertation.

@Thanee

I see - I assumed that this was a permanent arrangement. For the MARKs to last they must be legitimately invited - a bit of a chore for every time you reboot your device.

I just wanted to mention that your persona and your device icon become one and the same when you lock in. So tracking down by the rules always gives you the physical location, no matter where the other is in the matrix (except if you are inside a host - then your icon vanishes from the matrix and you can't interact with anything outside the host either.)

It could be. Or it couldn't be. You cannot really see that (I think).



Do you have anything where this is explained in the rules? Because that makes zero sense to me. That would also make the Trace Icon action irrelevant, wouldn't it?



Those hosts also confuse me a bit. Not sure when something is supposed to be a host or not. I think, it is mostly for bigger "sub-systems" (like a corporate facility has its own host).

I understand, how it is supposed to work, mostly, like - as a metaphor - grids are the streets of a city, while hosts are the buildings. You can trace someone to a building from the street, but you wouldn't know where inside the building that someone is, so you need to get inside to figure that out.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, the matrix is a bit of a mess - they should have just made it analog to the magic rules, but yeah...

here are the relevant parts:

p.235 core
Personas are the “people” of the Matrix. Some personas are actually people, users and hackers who are connected to and using the Matrix. When a person uses a device to connect to the Matrix, the device’s icon is subsumed by the persona’s icon, so it’s basically gone from the Matrix until the persona jacks out. You can only run one persona at a time; switching requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
[...]
You can automatically spot the icons of devices that are not running silent within 100 meters of your physical location. No matter where you are in the Matrix, your commlink or deck (or your living persona) only has its own antenna for wireless signals, so this distance is measured from your physical location no matter where you are in the Matrix. Beyond this distance, you need to make a Matrix Perception Test (p. 241) to find a specific icon. For all intents and purposes, there is no “physical” distance to any host in the Matrix. You can always spot a host from anywhere on the planet without a test, assuming the host isn’t running silent. You can always keep track of your marks, so you can
spot an icon you have a mark on without a test, no matter the distance.

p.246
The virtual space inside a host is separate from the outside grid. When you’re outside of a host, you can’t interact directly with icons inside it, although you can still send messages, make commcalls, and that sort of thing.
Once you’re inside, you can see and interact with icons inside the host, but not outside (with the same caveat for messages, calls, etc.).

I don't think that means that you can generally do that.

It is a special case, if you can see the icon in the Matrix, and the device is inside your wireless scan range (the 100m), and not hiding, you can just easily match the two together, because they have the same "signature".

But that does not help you at all, if you do not have the device within physical range.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, that's not what I was suggesting.

At the moment our main problem is, that we don't know which icon/persona we are looking for, so we can't use a regular matrix search to find it (which would also not give us its physical location)
Once we knew which icon/persona we were looking for, we could try to trace it with the trace action.

Now we used the Track Back action - which will only give us the rough area within 100 m if the persona is running silent. We then need to drive there, and search for silent running icons and hopefully detect it by beating their sleaze with our matrix perception. Then we can go to the trace action to pinpoint the location. (Always under the assumption, that the persona hasn't gone into a host)

The quotes were mainly to show, that your virtual location - i.e. what you are currently looking at in the matrix has no bearing on any action. It's always about the physical location of the device your persona is formed on.

I think, I see what you mean.

What really confuses me in that context is this part here:



When you connect to the Matrix and have your persona stroll around there, your device's icon is no longer around, only the persona. Or, they are one and the same.

If an icon's location in the Matrix corresponds to its physical location, then how do you actually move somewhere inside the Matrix?

A persona can move, right? I mean, obviously it can.



So, let's assume this:

There is someone using a device to connect to the Matrix. A persona is formed. The persona moves to a different place in the Matrix. The device, obviously, stays where it is.

Trackback leads you to the vincinity of the persona. If that is the physical location of the device (or its vincinity), then it is not the vincinity of the persona, because that has moved elsewhere.

How is that supposed to work, if it is not purely virtual tracking?





What would you need the Trace Icon action for in your example? Once you are in the physical vincinity and spot the icon, you know where it is located physically, or not?

Isn't the whole point of the Trace Icon action to do that when you are not in the icon's (physical) vincinity?



Running Silent is also weird to me. Essentially, it says that you can only find an icon that is running silent, if you are in its physical vincinity. So, if there is a hacker in, say, Tokyo that is messing with you, while you are in Seattle, and the hacker is running silent, you can do absolutely nothing against them, unless you actually drive (fly) there?

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Just for the record, not trying to say you are wrong, or I am right, or anything like that... just trying to understand how this is supposed to work, so I can give you proper information IC.

Your icon doesn't move - that's the point. You can see things that are far away in the matrix without moving to them - it's basically like having a browser window showing you web pages that are on a server on the other side of the word.

You are interacting with the world by having really long arms to reach out (that's where noise is coming in, messing up your ability to interact - the closer you are physically to something, the less noise you have to deal with)


That's why I said, they just should have used the magic system where you separate from your body and move as a spirit through the astral.
Instead of going to the things in the matrix, you are just looking and interacting with them from afar (i.e. from the physical location of your device). That's really un-intuitive - but that's how it's set up.



If you accept the long arms analogy, you see that your persona doesn't actually move - you just interact with everything in the matrix from afar. Everything about detecting a location is centered on the physical location of the device. Hosts are the exception because they don't have a physical location - which is why they can be seen and visited from anywhere in the matrix without noise.
If you leave out noise from the equation, basically everything in the matrix is within arms reach - you just need to adjust your filters, so you only see the things relevant for you. Running silent is a way to make it difficult for your filters to keep the silent icon in the relevant set.



Yes and no: If you have line of sight to a persona in the real world (i.e. AR enhanced vision showing your Augmented Reality Objects (AROs)) you can correlate the device location with the persona. But as soon as line of sight is broken, you no longer can pinpoint their position.

You either need the Trace action to get their GPS info on a map, or you need to have performed the TAG action to see their icon through walls (see below).

If they are running silent, their persona is only visible after a successful matrix perception test and it is not correlated to their physical location. You basically just see a notification that a silent running icon is within 100 m of you.
That's the reason stealth tags were used early on to hide your silent running persona - because you had to look at each individual icon to identify what it was. (In Kill Code they changed the rules so this trick no longer works, as you can now filter those tags out).


[Spoiler=TAG]
(SIMPLE ACTION)
Marks required: None
Test: Computer + Logic [Data Processing] v. Sleaze + Intuition
You track and analyze enemy movements in real time, giving your allies the edge in engagement.
The hacker may “tag” a number of targets on a single PAN, equal to their net hits, within their line of sight. They can then relay those tags wirelessly to allies. Tagging a target negates up to 2 dice in penalties from Visibility and Light/Glare to any affected ranged attack rolls allies may be making against that target, including blind-fire due to invisibility or shooting through cover. Allies who can see a tag may also take one additional Take Aim Action against that target as a Free Action on each Initiative Pass. Tags may be sustained by spending a Simple Action to refresh the tags each Combat Turn. When using a PI-Tac, the hacker may add the PI-Tac’s level to the number of targets they may tag. Note: In order for allies to receive this bonus, they must have the ability to see AROs.[/spoiler]



And yes, this is confusing as hell - doesn't help that the information is spread out over three books