Although if we're willing to make logical inference from hypothetical tech, it's just as reasonable to assume wizards would improve their spells to better adapt to the environment in which they function.

So Invisibility (Disperse Hot Jet Gas) might actually be a research topic.

-Siege

Core wars and Concord breaking are the two listed Omega order crimes in Corp Shadowfiles


Edit: wrong reply for wrong thread

I was saying that improved invisibility (the spell that works at any speed) should be half as affective as normal when contesting a sensor sweat sighting ruthenium as the example of why half.

As to what would cause an omega order against aztechnolegy there are several things. Researching technology forbidden by secret treaty of the world court (if in fact such exists), starting an open corporate war and core wars come to mind.

The vehicle was not custom, it was just whatever I could get + armour + ED. I didn’t think you could use ritual sorcery without something a bit more significant than some badly damaged armour plates. I will have to read ritual magic again.

I don’t like bio-weapons. They would kill more people outside the pyramid than in

Edward

You want to destroy an arcology, yet you have scruples about who all goes with it? 80% of the people in the arcology are just Joe Averages, going about their day to day work, trying to make another buck to put Suzie through college. In an arcology like the old Renraku one, probably 20% aren't even raku employees. And don't forget, unlike our local arcologies, the surrounding area of the Aztech arcologies are all supporting Aztechnology as well. The whole of Atzlan supports Aztech in one way or another. You strike a major blow against Atzlan, you strike a blow against Aztechnology.

Sure it does. It gives anyone watching epileptic fits

~J

I'd probably use Flashbacks as a base. Raise the value and the negative effects, or make it variable-level.

~J

That would be some very leniet allowances on the GMs part. The emissions would be invisible when they leave the plane, but I'd rule that you were leaving a thermal wake that stretched for miles. Thermal tracking would see a glowing line going across the sky, they just wouldn't be able to see the source. Similar for sound. Your engines might be quiet, but you're displacing a lot of air, and especially if there is anything in it (clouds, smoke, etc) the disturbance is going to be highly visible. Also, didn't you say you were going to do this a thousand times or so? How are you getting all the vehicles, magic, and equipment?

Back to the Omega order, how were you going to trick the CC into using one on Aztech? Like I said before, this is not something done without clear, unambiguous evidence.

Ok, seriously now, how the hell do you think you're gonna get past a great form blood spirit that can give Ghostwalker pause?

Though that would reduce heat seekers to rear aspect only, since they would'nt be able to lock up on the aerodynamic heating of your leading edges. Also, the missile fuse would probably have some trouble deciding whne to go off, requiring a actual direct missle hit, which is quite difficult to achieve. Then again, considering how smart they are making AAMs these days, there might be a logic mode for 'invisible target' .

Yes, the basic problem would be in getting the missle fuse to go off once it got into the kill zone. Just watching the heat trail and blowing up close would de the job, as long as they don't have an illusionary heat trail projected 100+ feet in front the the invisible aircraft's actual position, or project an illusion of cool air behind your aicraft. If only you conlud puse your invisiblity to try to confuse the missle seeker head...

Of course this can befeated by a mage rigger using astral sight and command guidance of the missle... Just sending over a friendly elemental to bother the other aircraft is probably much easier. At 6K a force 6 air elemental is much cheaper and more readily available than any missile. Heh, US sends elemental summoning components to Afganistan to assist against Soviet invasion...

Still hard on choppers and passenger aircraft though. Are spirits fast enough to goto your likely position, materialize and then do something nasty to you? They have a (Force) meter 'kill zone' don't they?

Weeeelll, if you're a really nice GM, you could allow them to hold an action to Materialize inside the cockpit and then give them an Intercept when the pilot zooms by. But then you've got an almost-still materialized elemental inside a cockpit moving at 800+kph. Doesn't matter much, though, since you've already lost the Service.

I had initially intended to make about 50 attacks. Thus severely damaging corporate infrastructure and scaring people into not working in aztech facilities. This was based on an assumption of 200-250 “face” buildings. After further consideration I revised that estimate to 1500-2000. 500 strikes would be necessary at least. I agree that would not be feasible.

If you where firing at a plane you could not see based on contrail (heat trail, sonic boom or any other trailing effect) you would need to take the blind fire modifier. I will take that as I probably only got +5-6 target number based on invisibility stealth and spirit protection.

Direct attack by spirits would not be very effective. (high armour)air elementals creating wether effects would be the best option or something with the accident power. All that armour would have increased to crafts handling. The question becomes what are the mechanics for the guard power as stated in SR3 it makes crash tests unnecessary. I am all for a better mechanic.

You say you need clear unambigus evidence for an omega order. Unfortunately given the delicate nature of the matrix if somebody did start it everybody would be stuffed before such evidence was forthcoming. I told you how the crash frame DDOS attack worked when used by a single decker. Consider that launched on a corporate scale with data destruction or even hardware destruction frames. It is stated in corpret shadow files that an omega order will be issued on suspicion of cor wared activities. Even if you drop that to reasonable suspicion the termination of most of your matrix links will count. And a teem of skilled deckers could achieve that. Let us give thanks for the fact that skilled deckers rarely are of such a mindset and wen they are don’t often wok well together.

Edward

Interrupted LOS in Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery is +0 TN. If you get a success on the Sensor test, it doesn't matter whether you "really" see the target or not.

50 attacks of this kind will cost about 20 million in cash even if you do everything you can by yourself, don't pay street indices and can steal all the aircraft. The aircraft themselves will be worth at least 100 million (again without SI). I could think of better uses for that kind of money...

The cheapest T-bird out there runs a cool two million. Where are you getting all the money from? Even if you were 'only' going to pull off 200 hundred attacks. I can't imagine you could steal that many without word leaking out, and various authorities saying, 'hmm, someone is stealing lots of T-birds. We should look into this.'

Also, how would you pull them all off at the same time? You could give time between strikes to let terror sink in, but then later targets would be prepared, and EVERYONE would be shooting at you. It doesn't matter if they know your target is Aztech, T-BoDs are a problem for everybody, so as soon as the anamolous reading that represents youe T-BoDs shows up, everyone is going to start shooting at where they think you are. A lot are going to miss, but the numbers are against you.

If you keep succeding in your attacks, then not only is security and firepower at the Pyramids going to be increased, but vital resources and people will be moved out into other less obvious Aztech buildings. Also, what happens if your T-BoDs get shot down, or because of bad luck miss completly? (at that speed, with so much stuff flying at you, I'd say there's a pretty large Piloting TN to hit something as 'small' as a building like that). The first couple of times you have a T-Bod take out an entire city block instead of its intended target, there is going to be a reward out on your head so big your mother would turn you in (and how many of those guys you had to recruit to pull this off do you trust as much as her?).

The Omega order still doesn't pan out. If your cripple world computing like that, it's going to slow down everything, including the issue of the order, and the other Corps ability to act on it, which will give Aztech plenty of time to point and say, 'Hey, look, it isn't us.' The problem with any attack is that the bigger it is, the harder it is to hide. It should be obvious pretty quick that it;s an attack against them. You know what's bad? Being the victim of an Omega Order. You know what's even worse? Being the CC and Megas, and realizing you were tricked. Nor is Aztech going to be helpless against such a thing. They should have their own countermeasures in place. I still say that the best argument that doing something like this is impossible is the fact that no one has done it. If you could bring Aztech low just by hiring one hundred drek-hot deckers, someone would've done it.

The biggest problem here is the sheer amount of money, manpower, and time you'd need to pull this all off, and an operation this big is sure to have leaks. Not even traitors, but with all the deckers, T-Bird riggers (unless they're all going to be suicide runs) and magicians you'd need word will spread that someone is recruiting a lot of manpower, or someone will say something to a friend, who secretly happens to be an Aztech operative, that will get them investigating. Especially, once you start drekking on Aztech property, agencies all over the world are going to start looking at all those missing T-birds, and the sudden recruitment of deckers and mages in a whole new light. That would be right about the time the hurting really starts for you.

Personally speaking, in the interest of sanity, we've ruled that you get half normal modifiers from 'concealing' spells (silence, imp inivisibility etc), against sensors because of their multiple components and software and how they work together. Since they don't get to resist just adding to the target modifier seems fairer than the suggestion in the FAQ of reducing their effective rating. These modifiers stack, but even with imp invis and silence you only then get a +6 sig modifier (which is still pretty hefty, but eminiently detectable on a hot t-bird or even ground vehicle). This makes the spells effective, but not guaranteed. I also make the assumption that in working out a sig for a vehicle things like the heat trail is factored in. Its just easier that way.

If you use manual gunnery and LOS then you would resist the spells or not be able to see to shoot. if using sensor assisted gunnery you just make the sensor test against a higher rating and if you fail, well it hasn't picked up anything, including any heat trail simply because, well, its 'magic'. It doesn't work normally. I know that is a highly debatable point, but what I would say in my defence is that if a character 'knew' something was there but for some reason couldn't detect it, and wanted to then check specifically for a heat trail, I would allow them to make the same tests at a reduced modifier or even without any magical modifiers at the base sig. This is because, as I said above, I assume that kind of thing is factored into the base sig rating in the first place, as I would assume normal motor car exhaust emissions.

Its based on assumption because the sig rating isn't fully explained in the books, and that could just be down to editing, or because they figured it would never come up, or because they forgot, or because they thought we'd assume exactly what I have!

And, as I say, it makes it simpler to keep track of what is already a fairly complicated and slow system, vis a vis, the vehicle rules.

I run a smuggler campaign, and I find this works for simple border running. Running on a facility always involved mages or spirits so the spells are nowhere near as effective, as indirect fire or astral perception don't care if you're detectable or not! I've been playing with this system through the renraku arcology and a three year smuggling campaign, and its as effective as I'd expect it to be - the vast majority of the time their stealthed and magically concealed T-bird remains undetected. Every so often, circumstances and sensor modifiers stack against them and they end up having to deal with being detected by someone's national border radar. And that's just what I'd expect from a magically augmented stealth op.

I agree that all those things really should be factored in the Sig, since that's the sort of abstraction SR is based on. The whole point of the radar and exhaust gas IR detection thing is that Improved Invisibility shouldn't make that big a difference for the Sig, not that they should be separated from the Sig.

The separation of the Sonar Sig is bad enough, since there's no clue as to what does and what does not change that.

Well that's ok then, cos my appraoch does. But only if you're trying to detect the exhaust gas specifically. I might allow a secret test (i.e. just watch the sensor test and ask them to reroll 6s without explaining why) at maybe +4 sig and see if they pick it up anyway though, if you think it should be that seperate or indeed obvious.

Keep in mind that LOS is –3 to Sensor TN.

~J

yup. As I said, sensor modifiers often stack up against the vehicle in question. In a country like UCAS or CAS where they probably have a couple of AWAC style vehicles in the air all the time they're always going to have LOS top-down coverage (I mean, the US has three in the air all the time now - or at least a few years ago. S'probably more now of course).

And there's plenty of other things that can lower that TN. Nothing is infallible, and that goes both ways. Anyone who relies on everything going according to plan is absolutely guaranteed to come a cropper.

Unless someone else is depending on them to come a cropper

~J

in which case - you're double screwed. BWAH HA HAAAH!

But back to the other topic, while reducing Aztech to a two man operation with budget enogh to buy a box of paperclips ever week is probably a bit too much to ask, but leveling a pyramid or two with attack drones, and using an 'unrelated run' or two to steal some of their new prototypes (and wreck the research data and the scientists) will costs them a few billion. Funding the freedom fighters in Mexico will also help.

Actually, you may get one pyramid then you're freaking dead. Probably that day if not the next.

A couple billion is probably a tad generous - when Aztechnology decides to protect an important prototype, they'll have a helluva lot more resources dedicated to security at an R&D lab, certainly more than what smaller corps could manage to field.

And given how many people have a serious hate on for the Azzies, they have probably double or even triple security budgets compared to other corps.

Not unlike Israel's security versus, say, Poland.

-Siege

The only way this will succeed is if the GM lets it succeed. If it was up to me, with all this manpower you're recruiting, and all the resources required somebody will find out.

Hell, it'd probably be easier to deck the orbital than pull this off. If you have the drive to pull this off, why don't you have the drive to move your family out and hide them from Aztechnology along with yourself? It'd certainly be easier than this, and you wouldn't have nearly the headache.

Avaste ye matty this thread be highjacked and never going back.Gar, we're going to pilot it all the way into an Aztechnology Temple. (Evil Pirate Laughter)

I am starting a campain that I will be using the MJLBB as it stands but I will also be runing the game as the Low Power games based on the same book. Based on the costs that listed there I felt it was best to run a game under those rules against that money.

SunRunner: Are you saying that if I as a player want to reach up and pluck the sun from the sky and put it in my pocket, the GM should let me because saying "NO" is GM fiat and railroading? I believe that FrostyNSO was merely evaluating the possibility of this crazy plan actually working. I don't consider realistic results to be fiat nor railroading. The character could certainly try to bring down the big A, but there are a lot of very big things standing in his way. Thats why it would only work if the GM used [IRONY]fiat[/IRONY] to let it happen.

For this plan to work, the GM would have to ignore the hundreds of things that could possibly go wrong with the plan among other concerns as well. Just the fact that he is going to hire all these people is ridiculous. Unless they are all lvl 3 contacts, he had better hope he is paying more than the azzies would for the information. That is what I was referring to.

I don't think anyone's saying its impossible. They're in fact saying that it would be unfeasibly difficult to pull off. If the Azzies respond in a realistic manner, also covered in a certain amount of detail in the various sourcebooks, and stop your plan in its tracks because of an oversight on your part or something certainly feasible given the game setting that simply couldn't be predicted, like a traitor, that is not railroading, and is in fact taking part in you writing your own stories. You have to deal with the consequences of your actions be they on the run itself or two days later when they (insert method) your hoop and leave you for dead. Its not railroading or fiat. If you've genuinely thought of everything and do everything right in the aftermath, it would be possible to do what you do. However, the chances of something going wrong with a large complicated plan involving lots of individuals, however well paid, are so high that a GM would be more remiss NOT to have something go wrong than they would to allow your plan.

In my opinion, anyway.

EDIT - oh, and in response to your 'I walk up to you as the GM and...' no, of course I would not rewrite the security and whatnot, not if I've gone to the trouble of designing it so you can work out your plan. That would be foolish, and unfair. But you'd probably really have to work hard to get the plans in the first place depending on what you were blowing up. And if you did get them, and no one knew you had them who might sell you out, or the target didn't find out, and so on, you might get away with it, guards taking random trips to the bathroom notwithstanding (which I would roll for anyway, and not just spring to be awkward). But if you slipped up anywhere and it was feasible the target might find out, then yeah, you could well find yourself walking into a trap. Its impossible to predict in advance, either for Gm OR player, so if stuff doesn't go strictly according to plan, its far more likely to be Life ™ than cheating.

which is why I find BTL 8 P-Fix "loyalty" chips so much better than nuyen.

So unless you can call in an orbital strike or...well...a dozen, it's not particularly plausible.

-Siege

SunRunner, if you walk up to me as the GM, and present to me a plan that will cost hundreds of million of nuyen, involve you recruiting a couple hundred people, at least, and end in a full frontal assault on a megacorp(not just an office, or a lab, but the ENTIRE megacorp), unless we're playing a game where the players are top hierarchy members of a megacorp themselves (and potentially have access to these kinds of resources), then I'll simply say no, it's ridiculous. It's like a runner making a serious attempt to take out Lofwyr single handed. All it's going to get them is dead, because something like that is simply beyond the scope of any single runner.

Out of curiosity Edward, what kind of resources do you have to throw at this project? That would go a long way to clearing up some of the debate.

But to get a million dice would take two or three decades, maybe more. That and a lot of people, and surviving all that time.

Basically, it would take a government or a new mega.

Incidentally, even if I give you a million dice and eight rerolls a day for a year, and make it a leap year, your chances still round to zero on my computer's calculator. I think I'll lighten up and call it thirteen sixes, giving you a slightly better than 22% chance of success, though that might be a bit generous.

Edit: each time I say "eight rerolls", I'm lying. It's one roll and seven rerolls, but given that that's 127 karma pool, or 1270 earned karma for a non-bad-karma human, I think it's fair.

~J

Once you buy more than three or four R8 Personafixes and aren't obviously strung out, you're going to get negative attention. Either you're a dealer or you've got something else in mind requiring a bunch of drones, the first of which will get attention in and of itself and the second bit of intel being potentially worth cred.

~J