[Stars Without Number] Glory in the Black

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Rhyos: Jan 2, 2006; It's probably my fault.

Waador posted:

That said it is probably worth noting that I think he has tolerance 4 for armatures, and I have tolerance 5 reserved for the same, so at some point I am pretty likely to slip into a world-ending calamity of an armature. It will likely be a space-based weapon of some sort, if I know myself.

If you take the armature tolerance out of the equation, Gen has 6 tolerance points available.(17/20 used, with 3 for the Nemesis armature. 17-3=14, leaving 6 remaining.)

# ? Jul 12, 2016 07:30

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 10:28

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
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Wahnsinn

Waador posted:

I agree, I just didn't want to start slamming on mech/vehicle-specific fittings that technically can't be done without discussing it. In all truth fusing an assault suit onto an armature, while technically no different from buying and wearing one outright, still multiplies his combat capabilities significantly right out of the gates.

If we want to start considering the possibility of adding mech and vehicle fittings onto an armature (which probably isn't unrealistic), we should probably start to figure out some house rules to upscale and downscale various technology. There are definitely vehicle fittings that I would want to slam onto an armature, but also onto a spaceship, as an example. Ghost driver is a good example of that, but according to the vehicle fitting guide it would require 1 Power and 1 Mass from a host vehicle. That makes it a bit harder to justify relative to spaceship fittings with the same guidance for power and mass consumption, but radically larger benefits to go along with the larger vehicle. Any thoughts on how you want to approach that?

I actually would be against Ghost Driver for space-use. At least the possession aspect, I would say from a game mechacs standpoint that makes AIs too good, and from a lore standpoint once you get to space distances the timelag is too great for it to be useful. With the Fampir I would say it would allow basic commands like "go to these coordinates", "return to mothership" and so on, but the expert system would be at a severe disadvantage in actual combat. While on the subject of ghost drivers, it's not stated in the rulebook but I'm going to house rule that an AI can only possess one vehicle at a time - true large-scale control is the domain of unbraked AIs.

I also think that when it comes to using starship fittings on vehicles and the other way around, it might be easier to just go case by case rather than try to math out something that works. I'm not too worried about the PC's spaceship becoming overpowered, though. While some of the themes I want to explore might be a bit dark, I still want to keep the spirit that you guys are big drat heroes.

Waador posted:

I had initially thought some kind of upgrade/downgrade system might make sense to account for size, but it could be complicated (i.e. 1 spaceship mass = 3 or 5 vehicle/mech mass). Looking through the mech hull section in the core rulebook, and the vehicle fitting data in Engines of Babylon, there seems to be a fairly smooth progression between mech hull limitations and vehicle fitting limitations, being:
pre:
			Mass	Power	Hardpoints
Psi suit		   5        5	         1
Specialist suit		   5	   10	         1
Shock suit		  10	    5	         2
Gravcar			   3	    8	         1
Helicopter		   5	   11	         2
Gravtank		  10	   17	         4
If we assumed that all mech hull and vehicle fittings were interchangeable, we arrive at more or less the same result of a gravtank being able to kit itself out absolutely ridiculously, but a gravcar or mech suit being a bit more limited in its arsenal, which I think makes sense. I am not sure where you would want to land in terms of the available power and free mass for an armature, though it should probably be based on tolerance allocated to the task, I suspect.

An idea would probably be 1/1 for a basic tolerance 3 armature, +4 for each additional point of tolerance dedicated to modularity. That way Gen could have a 5/5 hull which is in line with a psi suit, while not strictly better than a much more expensive specialist or shock suit. That would work out more or less as follows:
pre:
			Mass	Power	Hardpoints
Basic armature (3)	   1        1	         0
Modular armature (4)	   5	    5	         1
Modular armature (5)	   9	    9	         2

vs.
Gravtank		  10	   17	         4
Presumably the cost of the fittings would not need to be modified from what is already within the core rulebook and/or Engines of Babylon, which serves to keep the upgrades a bit gated by being unaffordable right now.

Given our backstories I think that makes total sense. Since I rolled Tech(pretech) 13 to understand the core holding his brain it is probably safe to assume I know the eccentricities of how he has to network with devices. I also sort of assume it is a radically different approach to how a true AI interfaces, so if we're fine with it I think we can assume any armature I build for him can only be used by him? For as long as he's in his pretech brain bubble at least.

That said it is probably worth noting that I think he has tolerance 4 for armatures, and I have tolerance 5 reserved for the same, so at some point I am pretty likely to slip into a world-ending calamity of an armature. It will likely be a space-based weapon of some sort, if I know myself.

The only issue I have with that approach is that I still want to keep the progression to the pretech ones for Gen, and don't want what he has available now to be strictly better than something extremely difficult to obtain.

I haven't actually done the math to figure out if it would be super powerful, but the simplicity of the idea appeals to me - how about this: the basic armature has 1/1, as you suggested. Gen gets another +4/4 due to his additional tolerance point for 5/5. He can go further with no hard limit, but every additional 4/4 comes with a -1 to all rolls due to the increased difficulty of operating an exponentially more complex armature.

In that case I would also say the only way to modify AC should be through vehicle/mech fittings. He keeps the laser rifle, but it can be traded for a hardpoint - with the catch being that mounting a better weapon comes with the same mass/power costs as with a suit or vehicle.

How does that sound?

And yeah I was thinking you have the understanding to build an armature for Gen. I'd also like Durandal to be able to finish the transferance process to a true AI that's one of Gen's goals, but not without access to a pretech facility. I think that's better in terms of team bonds and storytelling than random NPCs doing it. :v:

Once that happens, the armatures would still be Gen-only due to technobabble reasons, but you could modify them to accept his AI core easily enough.

As for how you've been able to build two within 24 hours: well, my thinking was that in addition to what you described in the post, you also had a team of techs at your disposal to take care of the man-hours.

Durandal posted:

Practically speaking, he had run many diagnostics, and he knew for a fact that he was an rear end in a top hat. The evidence was incontrovertible, and fairly voluminous.

Durandal posted:

Chatham's abomination

I'm just going to leave this here.

Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jul 12, 2016

# ? Jul 12, 2016 09:46

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

Rhyos posted:

If you take the armature tolerance out of the equation, Gen has 6 tolerance points available.(17/20 used, with 3 for the Nemesis armature. 17-3=14, leaving 6 remaining.)

Ahh you're right, I must have misread and/or not correctly remembered your sheet. That's awesome. Let's do this.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

I actually would be against Ghost Driver for space-use. At least the possession aspect, I would say from a game mechacs standpoint that makes AIs too good, and from a lore standpoint once you get to space distances the timelag is too great for it to be useful. With the Fampir I would say it would allow basic commands like "go to these coordinates", "return to mothership" and so on, but the expert system would be at a severe disadvantage in actual combat.

I am not too worried about how we handle it. I think it makes sense that it is harder to ghost ride a spaceship as opposed to a car, what with the more complex engineering involved, and presumably a corresponding larger number of things to pay attention to while driving. I largely wanted it as an option of last resort if it ever got stolen or if I was forced to return it and apologize.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

While on the subject of ghost drivers, it's not stated in the rulebook but I'm going to house rule that an AI can only possess one vehicle at a time - true large-scale control is the domain of unbraked AIs.

I think ghost driver contained a caveat that 'Only one such vehicle may be remotely operated at a time by an AI.', so that area is covered. That said there's a weird inconsistency between that and Starvation Cheap, which reads:

Starvation Cheap (pg. 31) posted:

Very few planets in the modern day have access to a functional AI. The few surviving intellects are almost all creations of Mandate scientists and cyberpsychologists, and few of the sane ones have much interest in generalship. However, a sufficiently powerful robotics industry wedded to a determined AI can make an overwhelming difference in warfare. An AI core needs access to vast stores of computing power and support circuitry to take control of a robot army. An AI core with nothing more than an armature to carry it can do no better than an ordinary bot wrangler, but one interfaced with a computing cluster as big as a factory building can control tens or hundreds of thousands of bots.

The power of a safely-braked AI does not lie in superhuman intelligence or unfathomable knowledge, but in the ability to calve their attention and awareness over multiple processes. An army of robots controlled by an AI is each individually as intelligent as the AI itself; the core�s control can turn a legion of brainless expert systems into a swarm of fearless, intelligent robotic soldiers. These soldiers are not individuals, but simply the same AI mind focusing on countless single bodies at once. Because they all share the same awareness, their coordination is incredibly precise. Confusion, disorganization, and ignorance are unknown to such a robot army. AI cryptography is also much stronger than that possible to ordinary handler rigs. An AI can control bots anywhere on the planet provided some sort of communications medium can reach them. Only sealed and radio-shielded zones can force an AI drone back on its default expert system.

While magnificent tools of war, most polities are predictably uneasy about handing an inhuman intellect enough firepower to wipe out the entire ruling class of humanity. The few polities with both the robots and the AI necessary to create such an army can�t be expected to do so save under the direst provocation of need. Afterwards, the disarmament of these bots can provide to be an even greater challenge.

I think the delineation here is that an armature-installed AI can't really achieve anything terrifying. A single ghost driver-equipped vehicle can be handled with their inherent parallel processing capabilities, but if you want to control ten, fifty, a thousand, or a million drones at once you need a linearly scaling base of operations dedicated to the computer hardware to help make it happen. Practically speaking that is probably not affordable unless state-sponsored in some manner, though I suppose the logistics might take care of itself once things were up and running.

It also carves out a bit of a niche between braked and unbraked intelligences. On the braked hand you've got this awareness that can expand outwards into infinite bodies, assuming enough processing power and other hardware, but its stats are always going to be the same and more or less in line with a human. On the unbraked side you've got this terrifying awareness that can do that, or also dedicate the hardware to giving it 18 in all statistics and +4 in every skill (or higher, I suppose), achieving things in a few months that even the most competent human can't even imagine, let alone set out to accomplish in a lifetime.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

I also think that when it comes to using starship fittings on vehicles and the other way around, it might be easier to just go case by case rather than try to math out something that works. I'm not too worried about the PC's spaceship becoming overpowered, though. While some of the themes I want to explore might be a bit dark, I still want to keep the spirit that you guys are big drat heroes.

That's fair. I don't imagine it will come up often enough to really require a lot of discussion, so we probably don't need to flesh out mechanics for starship fittings on vehicles and vice versa.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

The only issue I have with that approach is that I still want to keep the progression to the pretech ones for Gen, and don't want what he has available now to be strictly better than something extremely difficult to obtain.

I haven't done the math in great detail, but I think this still plays out more or less appropriately. A Nemesis costs 500 credits to make, and if you drop another 50,000 or 100,000 into it with mech hull fittings (for example, to give it antigrav hoverjets and the ability to submerge underwater), it starts to look about as scary as a Bane, which would only run you 50,000 credits, and which also has better inherent statistics and weapons. So the Bane remains the more attractive option in terms of raw damage, statistics, and hit points, while a customized Nemesis can probably do a few unique things that are pretty powerful if the situation is right, but all around isn't strictly mechanically better.

The same situation plays out more or less for the Titan, at 1,000,000 credits. It provides 18's in physical stats across the board, +10 HP per level, comes equipped with a wide array of pretech weaponry, and is in general a monster. If you were to try, I don't think you could actually spend 1,000,000 credits in upgrades on a Nemesis before running out of free mass and power, though you could definitely build 30 differently-kitted Nemesis units suited to different situations. It'd probably be the Batman/Superman thing at that point. The Titan is all-around amazing and almost impossible to defeat in a head-to-head fight, but a factory full of Nemesis units designed to obliterate very specific situations is just as hard to deal with once the correct unit is brought out of its box.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

I haven't actually done the math to figure out if it would be super powerful, but the simplicity of the idea appeals to me - how about this: the basic armature has 1/1, as you suggested. Gen gets another +4/4 due to his additional tolerance point for 5/5. He can go further with no hard limit, but every additional 4/4 comes with a -1 to all rolls due to the increased difficulty of operating an exponentially more complex armature.

I think my only question here is how to handle higher limits relative to existing armature tolerance costs. What I had in mind was that if Gen has 6 points in his pool technically available for armatures, and a Nemesis costs 3 points, that leaves him with 3 points to play with for upgrades that cost free power and mass. Similarly if we slam him into a Bane, he would only have 1 point of room for upgrades that cost more free power and mass. This creates an area to play in with slow progression of upgrades that come in small batches of credits, free power, and mass, rather than huge scaling jumps when the armature upgrade from Nemesis to Bane (or Bane to Titan) would otherwise occur.

I would probably suggest that the hard limit be the tolerance available to spend on it, and do away with the -1 to rolls piece as a result (i.e. he could only ever get +13/+13 to a Nemesis, and +5/+5 to a Bane, rather than infinite scaling). The thing to keep in mind is that the roll penalty starts to incentivize to just steal a mech or gravtank, or buy a helicopter, since they have inherently more hardpoints and free mass and power and wouldn't suffer those roll penalties to kit out with half a dozen grenade launchers. Ultimately it's up to you but I'd be wary of anything that contains the words "no hard limit" when applied to PCs, and similarly I think the math starts to degrade in favor of vehicles quickly with the roll penalty.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

In that case I would also say the only way to modify AC should be through vehicle/mech fittings. He keeps the laser rifle, but it can be traded for a hardpoint - with the catch being that mounting a better weapon comes with the same mass/power costs as with a suit or vehicle.

I think modifying AC by equipping an assault suit still makes sense, though, no? Whether it's integrated into the armature or just worn over top. Similarly if the laser rifle requires a hardpoint, replacing it with a smaller weapon probably still only uses one hardpoint to keep it integrated. I agree the laser rifle probably does constitute one hardpoint to be integrated, but much with the assault suit it can just be non-integrated and carried as regular encumbrance to get the same effect.

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

As for how you've been able to build two within 24 hours: well, my thinking was that in addition to what you described in the post, you also had a team of techs at your disposal to take care of the man-hours.

In true AI fashion I just don't register the contributions of humans very well, I suppose.

Waador fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Jul 12, 2016

# ? Jul 12, 2016 15:36

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

Zepp, do I need to pay or roll to recover from my injuries sustained at Brynmor? If so, what should it be, and if not, is it cool if I take a bit of narrative freedom for my rapid recovery?

# ? Jul 15, 2016 01:53

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

TheTofuShop posted:

Zepp, do I need to pay or roll to recover from my injuries sustained at Brynmor? If so, what should it be, and if not, is it cool if I take a bit of narrative freedom for my rapid recovery?

Don't worry about it. It was a narrative thing, not a mechanical hitpoints thing. You're welcome to roll with one of these for a while if you like - provides a convenient justification if you take actual hitpoint damage.

Waador posted:

I think modifying AC by equipping an assault suit still makes sense, though, no? Whether it's integrated into the armature or just worn over top. Similarly if the laser rifle requires a hardpoint, replacing it with a smaller weapon probably still only uses one hardpoint to keep it integrated. I agree the laser rifle probably does constitute one hardpoint to be integrated, but much with the assault suit it can just be non-integrated and carried as regular encumbrance to get the same effect.

Sure. I would have preferred it be more different, like ablative plating or whatever than the same equipment people can use, but this game is for you guys and you're welcome to shape it both narratively and mechanically! So I have no problems with your solution.

On that basis, I think we can just say that the power requirements are a narrative thing only rather than mechanical, and only for a short while and then Durandal will figure it out.

# ? Jul 15, 2016 14:19

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

What ever happened to Christof? And/or is Egregious still playing?

# ? Jul 18, 2016 21:57

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Haven't heard anything from him.

People seem to keep disappearing from this game. :negative:

# ? Jul 19, 2016 11:39

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

Interested in joining up if you want some folks to start patching up those holes! :v:

Thinking of running a precog/telepath psychic.

Starting Rolls
Stats: 16, 9, 10, 12, 11, 15.
Starting HP: 4 :woop:

Starting Cash: 6x100+400+3000(?)= 4000 :homebrew:

Life Path 1, 5, 5, 8 ,9, 19

quote:

_{Final Outcome: 1- Extremely positive in most ways.

Event initiator: 5- A child or ward, or someone you protected.

Quality affected: 5- Desired or intended career

Conflict in event: 8- Competition with a rival in love, work, or war.

Consequence: 9- Gained/lost local respect and social standing.

Elements involved: 19- Technology gone badly wrong or very right.}

Still building this dude even if you're not looking haha. This looks like a neat system and character building is always the best way for me to learn.

I had an entire character sheet and background written up only to realize I'd basically 1:1 created psychic Gordon :negative:

, so starting over from scratch. ~~Might see what I can do with a character more aligned with the less active skills like bureaucracy.~~

I was glancing at the skill crossover and I did notice a big hole in that no-one is actually trained for driving mechs around so I'm likely gonna lean into that even if it won't be immediately useful. :v:

I've got character background ideas percolating already so it seems like a good sign!

Successful Businessmanga fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Jul 20, 2016

# ? Jul 20, 2016 19:52

Rhyos: Jan 2, 2006; It's probably my fault.

I don't know - we might be able to use Psychic Barry.

# ? Jul 20, 2016 20:07

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

A Darker Porpoise posted:

Interested in joining up if you want some folks to start patching up those holes! Thinking of running a precog/telepath psychic.

Starting Rolls
Stats: 16, 9, 10, 12, 11, 15.
Starting HP: 4
Starting Cash: 6x100+400+3000(?)= 4000
Life Path 1, 5, 5, 8 ,9, 19

Still building this dude even if you're not looking haha. This looks like a neat system and character building is always the best way for me to learn.

I had an entire character sheet and background written up only to realize I'd basically 1:1 created psychic Gordon , so starting over from scratch. ~~Might see what I can do with a character more aligned with the less active skills like bureaucracy.~~

I was glancing at the skill crossover and I did notice a big hole in that no-one is actually trained for driving mechs around so I'm likely gonna lean into that even if it won't be immediately useful. I've got character background ideas percolating already so it seems like a good sign!

More than happy to give things a go! This might turn into a bit of a revolving door but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

# ? Jul 20, 2016 22:27

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

I've got some skills and stuff sorted out now, but I'm a bit busy today. I'll have a background/character sheet post up either sometime in the middle of the night or early tomorrow!

# ? Jul 20, 2016 22:55

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

Oops I lied and did it now :v:

. Life path worked for my original concept, but it doesn't really fit in with the character anymore so I'm discarding it.

Psychics with combat training are already kind of a rarity so I figure the CID would want to snatch him up for their purposes ASAP, but we can come up with another reason for him to be around if that's no good.

Character Sheet

Name: ~~Jean Dupont~~ Cyril Cavil

Class: Psychic

Background: Worker

Training: Military Psychic

Stats:
Strength: 11 [+0]
Intelligence: 10 [+0]
Wisdom: 16 [+1]
Dexterity: 15 [+1]
Constitution: 12 [+0]
Charisma: 9 [+0]

Skills:
[+0] Combat/Primitive, Combat/Psitech, Culture/Vasa, Exosuit, Profession/Videographer, Stealth, Tactics, Vehicle/Grav.

Languages: English and a native language if Vasa has one that isn't also English.

Psionics:
Main- Precognition.
Secondary- Telepathy

Goals:
1: Get in a real fight!
2: Survive a close scrape with death.
3: Gain ownership over my own mech.

Purchases: 4000 credits starting
Armored Undersuit 600 cred
Holdout Monoblade 500 cred
Magpistol 400 cred
40 rounds 20 cred
Argus web 200 cred
Dataslab 300 cred
Compad 100 cred
Combat Field Uniform 1000 cred for those go loud from the getgo situations.
Grenade x4 100 cred

1280 credits remaining.

Background:

"-and can you believe they tried to arrest me? Just for that!? Ridiculous!" The patron of the bar that had been waiting to cut in on the story they believed Cyril had been telling them becomes fed up and moves on. Cyril isn't finished however and continues to blather excitedly for minutes more until he reaches the tail end of recounting his grav chute escapades "I mean sure the thing exploded and may have smashed the windows out of that gravcar, but I wasn't anywhere near it when it malfunctioned! How was I to know those things are a death trap." A pause for an exaggerated wink and transitional editing "Anyway my fellow junkies that's it for me today, but you all keep living dangerously! Next week I'll be drilling into another system to find more KILLER footage for you all! In the mean time you'll be getting a sneak peek at a sector wide exclusive as I go in hard on the underground world of mech boxing on Persev!"

A few flicks of the finger and a password input is all it takes for Cyril's argus web to disable and begin dumping the latest episode of his semi-popular thrill seeker's show to his personal network. Within seconds of disabling the contraption the facade of energy fades and he throws himself into his drink.

The gig on Vasa seemed like it was going to be worth it, and while the money was nice the action involved wasn't exactly exciting in the way Cyril wanted. A true adrenaline junkie just couldn't be satisfied working under these conditions. Rush Incorporated, the company Cyril had been working for these last few years, made very sure that their talent was in no actual danger whilst filming any stunts or video series which was a fact that Cyril truly lamented.

Resigned to his fate and settling his tab, Cyril made off to find his way to the starship that would be delivering him to Caerleon for his next segment. That was the last anyone heard of him.

Now, when a registered civilian precog and telepath trips the red flags in the system on arrival in sector you do the obvious and look into them to make sure they're not actually a threat to your planet. When a registered precog and telepath trips those same red flags, and that person has several months worth of exosuit training in mundane and combat situations? You snatch them up right quick, which is exactly what the CID did.

It didn't take much to convince Jean that he'd enjoy working for them; the lethally exciting situations he might be placed into and the decent pay would be quite acceptable. It did however take them quite a bit of screening to clear Jean for the field, a few bits of surgery to his face to hide who he'd been, and an easy change of the name to match his new documentation, and a month to wean him off the four different stimulants he was habitually taking.

Eventually the new person in the form of Cyril Cavil will be ready to be put in the field to go after whatever the CID deems nessecary, until then however it's just handy to have someone trained to operate a grav-powered forklift around the compound.

e: I'm still figuring out what other bits and bobs of equipment I want on me, but that's mostly the finished character.

e2: Decided on my goals.

Successful Businessmanga fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 21, 2016 04:31

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

You're in!

I may or may not have a multi-GB folder of images that I've been itching to use. :v:

# ? Jul 21, 2016 23:36

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

Haha, I felt bad that your original pre-cog never actually showed up! It's a fun narrative tool to play around with. Look forward to working with y'all.

e: Got a game to attend tonight, but as soon as that's done I'll have a proper post up.

Successful Businessmanga fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jul 22, 2016

# ? Jul 22, 2016 00:28

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

I'm so sorry! I have been super busy out of town for my girlfriend's birthday most of the week and weekend. I've been far too drunk to post anything worthwhile but I'll have a big post up tonight or tom morning going over Gordon's actions.

Also Welcome to our new player! :getin:

# ? Jul 22, 2016 05:26

Rhyos: Jan 2, 2006; It's probably my fault.

Yay! Let's get this train rolling again!

# ? Jul 22, 2016 07:54

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

TheTofuShop posted:

Also Welcome to our new player!

Rhyos posted:

Yay! Let's get this train rolling again!

Secondary language stuff: My character is from Draken on the planet Vasa, translated together the name is Dragon Hiss; the pirate/smuggler planet gets more metal all the time. :rock:

Anyway I imagine the final native language that my character speaks from there is a pidgin form of a bunch of the Scandanavian languages having run together more tightly than they are today.

Character building stuff: I know Gordon, 588, and Christof started at a specific xp level as new characters, but I'm not sure where I fit into that? :v:

If I'm starting fresh or with an arbitrary amount I'd be interested in where I'm sitting.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:52

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Let's say you're an arbitrary 10 XP away from lvl 2. :v:

As for Durandal's expenses, I think it's most reasonable that Voight covered the armature bits itself (not the extras like the assault suit). The rest comes out of cash, but, you know, you are kinda loaded at the moment.

# ? Jul 23, 2016 01:41

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

So I just need to punch Voight in the face and somehow avoid being captured by the ensuing security squad that comes to murder me to level up? Got it! :v:

I was just interested if I'd be starting at 2nd level because it'd let me do the retroactive credit expenditure for training skills/spending a couple weeks causing brain damage to myself so I'd have mastered some psychic skills. Should be a fun ride to get to those last 10xp haha.

# ? Jul 23, 2016 04:10

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

As for Durandal's expenses, I think it's most reasonable that Voight covered the armature bits itself (not the extras like the assault suit). The rest comes out of cash, but, you know, you are kinda loaded at the moment.

Sounds good to me! Would have been happy to pay for all of it in truth, was just trying to figure out if I needed to draft up a post slipping her half a year's wages on a credit stick. I've removed the 14,250cr from my sheet and will post accordingly when the right time arrives.

# ? Jul 23, 2016 18:09

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

I think we're about done with the scene, I just want to let Tofu have an opportunity to take part before we timeskip ahead.

# ? Jul 23, 2016 20:53

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

I think we're about done with the scene, I just want to let Tofu have an opportunity to take part before we timeskip ahead.

Sorry it took so long, I just put up a giant post. Also, whats the Tech Level of this planet? Assuming that I can requisition things within reason during my time at the base.

# ? Jul 23, 2016 22:44

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

Homeworlds: here's a map. New Caledonia, Gen's homeworld, is (was) the only TL5 planet in the sector. TL4+ are Caerleon (military tech), Draken system (spaceships), Perseverance (assortment of small-scale specialities, no economies of scale - all jealously guarded secrets by the corporations), Holst (inbetween TL4 and TL5 in many areas, but less advanced than the specialised worlds).[/b].

Looks like we're sitting on the gold mine for military gear, but other stuff might be slightly sketchier to get.

# ? Jul 23, 2016 23:21

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Yeah, Caerleon is inbetween TL4 and 5 in terms of military hardware. Think of it as having the ability to make TL4 things better than listed spec and TL5 things below listed spec.

Since you're working for the government at the moment, you can acquire things within reason, but no top of the line stuff just yet. But that is one of the rewards for this arc - earning enough favour with the government to be put on a whitelist for gear and vehicles.

# ? Jul 24, 2016 12:56

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

So question about the tranq darts Voight said she could get the squad, if we did have the opportunity to load up are we just treating them as non-lethal rounds for our normal guns? Or is there an actual dart gun that I missed /is in the supplements?

# ? Jul 24, 2016 20:44

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

There's one in Darkness Visible:

quote:

Weapon Skill Damage Range Cost Magazine Attribute Tech
Dart Launcher Projectile Special 40/80 300 5 Dex 4

Available in both pistol and rifle formats, the dart
launcher uses specially-treated flechette ammunition to hit a target
with a dose of some poison, such as the toxins listed below. The
darts are useless against someone wearing a vacc suit or with AC
3 or better armor, as they lack the penetrating power to pierce a
full-body protective suit. Rifle-sized launchers cost twice as much
and have twice the range of pistols.

Stunchems: Toxicity 8, Interval 2 rounds, Virulence of 2. Intended
to pacify kidnap victims and others best kept quiet, an affected
victim experiences no effects beyond a slight dizziness unless they
fail two saving throws against the chems before throwing them off.
Victims successfully affected immediately become dazed and silent,
and require guidance in order to move, eat, or perform any other
action. They make no resistance or action even in the face of torment
or death. This daze lasts for six hours before wearing off. Cost:
200 credits per dose

# ? Jul 26, 2016 21:24

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

If we can have Gordon retroactively bought 2 Frag Grenades, 2 Flashbangs, 2 Smoke Grenades, He would have brought them along in a duffelbag in the sedan. If he can acquire a block of C4 (or two) he would buy that also.

Grenades listed at x25 each, but there's no profile for Flashes or Smokes in the Rulebooks I own. Call it 150 credits? I dunno how much the C4 would cost, I'll leave that up to you.

Did we get a tranq dart pistol/gun? :getin:

# ? Jul 27, 2016 00:23

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

I'm working under the assumption that we got the pistol + magazine of 5 darts, but if not I'll have to retroactively change my equipment around to afford it haha. Holdout ~~envenomed boomerang~~ monoblades don't pay for themselves. :cry:

.

If Momma Voight wants us to take some criminals alive she's gonna have to issue some hardware haha!

I'd wait for GM confirmation on the fact, but don't forget to drop the Anna card Cyril told you about if this is that guy :v:

, could get him talking real fast.

Successful Businessmanga fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jul 27, 2016

# ? Jul 27, 2016 00:43

Rhyos: Jan 2, 2006; It's probably my fault.

Pretty sure I had mentioned wanting some less-lethal hardware, but hand-to-hand can work just as well if I can't retcon.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 00:47

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

TheTofuShop posted:

I dunno how much the C4 would cost, I'll leave that up to you.

What you're looking for is a lance charge from Starvation Cheap.

Starvation Cheap, pg. 98 posted:

Lance charge
Damage: 3d12
Range: N/A
Cost: 250
Magazine: Single-use
TL: 4

The details of these demolition charges vary from world to world. Some rely on plasma jets, while others use more esoteric shear fields not unlike those used in heavy cutters, while a few still involve a mixture of explosive chemicals. Each lance charge is roughly the size of a dinner plate with one adhesive side and a grip on the other. The charge is pressed against a surface, the detonation set for any time at least six seconds from now, and the grip trigger is pulled. No hit roll is necessary if the PC is close enough to touch the vehicle. The charge�s countdown then begins, and any attempt to remove the lance charge must succeed in a Int skill check against difficulty 9, using the better of the remover�s Combat/Gunnery or Tech/Postech skills. Failure causes immediate detonation.

When the charge detonates, it blasts apart virtually everything in a cone ten meters long and five meters wide at the farthest end. It is treated as an anti-vehicle weapon against any class of vehicle the PCs are liable to encounter for purposes of the optional vehicle instant kill rules, and even if the target survives that, it does damage as a gunnery weapon. The explosive cone is tightly focused and can be used even in small areas with wartime-adequate levels of safety, though the charge�s damage is suffered by anyone standing directly behind it when it goes off.

Charges issued to demolitions teams or special forces usually come with radio-detonator circuitry that allows them to be remotely detonated with a standard military compad coded with their encryption keys. The range of this signal varies with the intensity of enemy jamming in the area, but is usually anywhere from 50 to 1,000 meters.

Whether or not anyone would be wise enough to sell you demolition charges going into a recon mission is, of course, separately debatable.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 01:31

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

TheTofuShop posted:

Gordon
Sitting in a car with a Precog, and two Armatures was far from where Gordon saw himself more than a day ago, but from seeing the carnage they stopped at Brynmor, he couldn't help but feel safe with his new comrades.

Worth noting 588 is wearing an Echo and is functionally indistinguishable from a human being unless we get him on an operating table and start slicing the body open :v:

. As far as I can tell we'd all be under the impression that the human sitting in the car with us is the real 588 and that they'd been piloting the armature you'd run into at the party from a remote location. Voight and her team have a much clearer picture of what's going on.

# ? Jul 27, 2016 23:45

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

A Darker Porpoise posted:

Worth noting 588 is wearing an Echo and is functionally indistinguishable from a human being unless we get him on an operating table and start slicing the body open . As far as I can tell we'd all be under the impression that the human sitting in the car with us is the real 588 and that they'd been piloting the armature you'd run into at the party from a remote location. Voight and her team have a much clearer picture of what's going on.

I don't think anyone is even aware of the butler bullshit. Though questions might exist with regard to how or who stole the spaceship.

# ? Jul 28, 2016 00:07

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

TheTofuShop posted:

If we can have Gordon retroactively bought 2 Frag Grenades, 2 Flashbangs, 2 Smoke Grenades, He would have brought them along in a duffelbag in the sedan. If he can acquire a block of C4 (or two) he would buy that also.

Grenades listed at x25 each, but there's no profile for Flashes or Smokes in the Rulebooks I own. Call it 150 credits? I dunno how much the C4 would cost, I'll leave that up to you.

Did we get a tranq dart pistol/gun?

Sure. And yes, you each get a tranq pistol and 5 darts.

No lance charges yet. That's a little overkill. :v:

# ? Jul 28, 2016 14:26

Successful Businessmanga: Mar 28, 2010

Should have a post up by the end of the day, just dealing with my nephew's second birthday today :v:

so that's a handful.

# ? Aug 4, 2016 02:51

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

Tofu this is a reminder that I gave Gordon 1,000cr back in the briefing room a while ago. I deducted it from my sheet but not sure if you added it to yours.

# ? Aug 4, 2016 03:23

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

Waador posted:

Tofu this is a reminder that I gave Gordon 1,000cr back in the briefing room a while ago. I deducted it from my sheet but not sure if you added it to yours.

Yeah, I haven't been updating the sheet, I think Zepp has been doing it but I dont think I tracked that 1k. I do remember it now though. I'm probably going to put up a pre-rendezvous post sometime tomorrow. Zepp, do you have an idea of how much $$ I have access to? and which, if any armor could I have integrated into a suit? I assume that Armored Undersuit would be able to be woven in, but could I get something with a lower AC? I assume we don't have access to something like a Field Emitter Panoply :getin:

# ? Aug 4, 2016 12:36

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

I've been quite lazy with sheets, sorry.

No I'm not saying I'll be less lazy with them. :v:

For now, armoured undersuit is going to be the best you can do if you want to be inconspicuous. When you're done with this arc, you'll be able to get your hands on Caerleon's top of the line. So you very well might be able to get a proto-FEP... with a some major downsides.

Don't worry about the cost of the suit with armoured undersuit level protection. That's paid for by CID.

# ? Aug 4, 2016 14:03

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Stealth suits!

Here's what I'm thinking:

AC 4 (has to be a tradeoff against pure combat gear)
At a range of over 50 meters, it gives a +4 to a stealth check. It doesn't muffle sound or prevent you from kicking up dust clouds or leaving trails in water and so on.
With each 10 meters, the bonus becomes smaller by 1, so at 10 meters it's a +0 as you can see the visual artefacts quite easily.
It's got the downsides mentioned when Durandal got their hands on the specs, so the thermal buildup over longer periods of use and difficulty in processing complex or rapidly changing visual environments.
The glide harness basically functions like a modern wingsuit, though somewhat less efficient beacuse of the smaller surface area. Requires atmosphere. In Earth-like gravity and atmosphere it would attain a glide ratio of 1.5 in passive mode, but the gravitic components can smoothly modulate it anywhere up to 6 at the cost of heat buildup (the more it's modulated, the more heat generated). In an emergency, it can function like a grav chute from the rulebook, but that would cause rapid heat buildup. It's backpack-sized and can be taken off and on in about a minute.

# ? Aug 6, 2016 13:04

Waador: Sep 11, 2001; Smashin' down the light.; Pillbug

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

Stealth suits!

All of that seems to make sense to me. It being an upgraded version of the combat field uniform seems like the right balance, since assault suits and powered armor already have their own separate set of special bonuses (i.e. immunity to weapons below TL4), and it definitely shouldn't be as good as the pretech TL5 armors of the FEP and deflector array. I think the only two questions are whether it should have a requirement for exosuit training, and whether it should have an encumbrance value.

I suspect the answer to both is no, since that aligns with the 'upgraded combat field uniform' theme, in that it's the base item plus a few perks, with combat field uniform also being AC 4, encumbrance of zero, and not requiring exosuit proficiency to use. I could probably see an argument for encumbrance of one though to offset the perks, depends on how well you want to position Raven's manufacturing in the narrative. Thoughts?

At that point you've got an armor progression, essentially, of:
T1 > Combat field uniform [AC 4 / ENC 0 / Cost 1,000 / TL4]
T2 > Stealth field uniform [AC 4 / ENC 0 / Cost ? / TL4+]
T3 > Assault suit [AC 2 / ENC 2 / Cost 6,000 / TL4 / Exosuit 0 / Immunity to TL3 / Atmosphere]
T4 > Deflector array [AC 2 / ENC 0 / Cost 30,000 / TL5 / Immunity to non-primitive TL3]
T5 > Powered armor [AC 1 / ENC 2 / Cost 10,000 / TL4 / Exosuit 1 / Immunity to TL3 / Atmosphere]
T6 > Field emitter panopoly [AC 0 / ENC 1 / Cost 30,000 / TL5 / Immunity to TL3 / Atmosphere / Immunity to Radiation]

That said, your other post mentioned the stealth suits also have "advanced optics, navigation systems and of course the stealth system." Is that just flavor or are there specific subsystems integrated into the suit for the optics and navigation? I ask because TL4 thermal, binoculars, and low-light vision are separate items, as is a navcomp, so any items bundled into the gear would definitely be good to know.

Waador fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Aug 6, 2016

# ? Aug 6, 2016 17:16

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 10:28

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Oh yeah, there's a few things I forgot to mention.

I'd say for making-sense purposes we can count on things like mapping software, optics and such to be included in any decently advanced helmet (anything fancier than a combat field uniform) rather than having to keep track of it as a separate item. It doesn't make sense to me that a cool future helmet wouldn't have things like that on a suit of power armour, for example.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that due to the delicate nature of the stealth system - as evidenced when you guys fought enemies equipped with them - it will malfunction as soon as you take HP damage. You've got a plot-infinite amount of spare parts though. I think in-base or on-ship repairs would be automatic, and in-field might require a skill roll depending on the situation.

I think we'll stick with encumbrance 0 for the suit itself, but 1 for the grav harness.

Oh, and since there's the inconvenient part about weapons being, you know, visible, the best hand-wave I can come up with at the moment is that the suits come with little canisters of polymer resin that can be applied to bits of kit that then interface with the main suit through the gloves.

Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Aug 7, 2016

# ? Aug 6, 2016 22:25

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