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How do you get High Availability Gear?

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Banshee

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« Reply #30 on: <01-12-16/1120:24> »
i developed a chart that you cross reference based on whether it is a public citizen or a security/corporate official versus your public awareness to determine the threshold of the knowledge check to determine if you're known to them

basic example ... a Mr Johnson who's job is to know who's who in the shadows has a good chance of knowing you but the guy behind the counter at the local Stuffer Shack doesn't
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falar

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« Reply #31 on: <01-12-16/1123:17> »
i developed a chart that you cross reference based on whether it is a public citizen or a security/corporate official versus your public awareness to determine the threshold of the knowledge check to determine if you're known to them

basic example ... a Mr Johnson who's job is to know who's who in the shadows has a good chance of knowing you but the guy behind the counter at the local Stuffer Shack doesn't

This sounds beautiful. I love it.

Herr Brackhaus

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« Reply #32 on: <01-12-16/1529:10> »
Nice! Sounds good, Banshee, thanks!

ScytheKnight

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« Reply #33 on: <01-12-16/1642:28> »
Gotta add this sounds really awesome. Nice to see more of the systems being integrated into Missions play.
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Raven2049

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« Reply #34 on: <01-12-16/1922:01> »
looking forward to seeing the new rules out!

Tarislar

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« Reply #35 on: <01-12-16/2026:02> »
i developed a chart that you cross reference based on whether it is a public citizen or a security/corporate official versus your public awareness to determine the threshold of the knowledge check to determine if you're known to them

basic example ... a Mr Johnson who's job is to know who's who in the shadows has a good chance of knowing you but the guy behind the counter at the local Stuffer Shack doesn't
I assumed the "if known" was more simplistic.
Are they a Contact?  Then Yes
Are they a Stranger?  Then No

Tarislar

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« Reply #36 on: <01-12-16/2029:21> »
So, for getting higher availability gear, you need to follow the standard Availability Test rules with your contacts rolling Loyalty + Connection times two. Outside of actually acquiring gear during a session, this will generally be done as a downtime action. This means that you don't roll dice - you buy hits.

If you yourself are a face, you should be able to get up to 19 availability fairly easily. Your contacts, however, will have trouble exceeding 14 availability. Given that most Missions connections only have a Connection rating from 3-5, this means that they can really only provide upgrades if you're Loyalty 2+ with them. Loyalty maxes out at 6 (and many contacts have a maximum loyalty), which means that you're stuck at nothing greater than Availability 15, outside of a few options.

And this is why you buy a Fixer with your own Karma at Chargen who is 6C/1L or 5C/2L giving you 13/12 dice right off the bat.
Then use your Face to buy anything higher than 15, which really shouldn't be much with the small earnings from Missions.
I mean, how can you afford Wired-3-Beta anyway ??

falar

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« Reply #37 on: <01-12-16/2219:18> »
Then use your Face to buy anything higher than 15, which really shouldn't be much with the small earnings from Missions.
How do you get a personal companion in Missions to be your Face? I have a Rigger and have never 'run with the same 'runners twice.

Tarislar

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« Reply #38 on: <01-17-16/2222:02> »
How do you get a personal companion in Missions to be your Face? I have a Rigger and have never 'run with the same 'runners twice.
Ah, I see.  I was thinking you had a group you played with that contained a Face.
It is a bit harder if you don't have one in the group that you can work with to go gear hunting for you.

Mechanically, Faces doing their own gear hunting instead of using contacts have to take time off their calendar, which in turn means rent is due sooner for your Lifestyle.  So for the cost of some time at your Lifestyle, they can find the item for you.

falar

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« Reply #39 on: <01-18-16/0904:14> »
So, you're saying that you solve the problem by always having another Player Character do the work for you? Basically, treating them as a contact?

In my mind, that's not how Missions should assume you have to work to get your gear. You should be able to use your contacts to get a hold of the gear that you need. Otherwise, what's the point of a hardware supplier or a cyberware supplier or a fence if they can only get you the crap gear and you need to have a Player Character of a certain archetype to get you the gear you want?

Tarislar

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« Reply #40 on: <01-18-16/1157:28> »
No.
Myself I always use my own Contacts and I have a couple that can hit the 12/13 Dice Pool needed to buy up to Availability 15 with ease.
So does everyone else in the group.

But, I'm saying if you want to get better stuff than that, then you could use the group's face in the method I described above.
Its not about treating them as a contact, its about letting them do the job they would already be doing in a non-Missions campaign.
Since I am my group's Face, I have offered to help out if needed & 1 character was thinking about it but ended up using a different weapon instead.

You can use the method previously mentioned in the thread where you are buying some extra hits for a higher price.

Gear is limited to Avail-12 at Chargen.
A basic contact limited to just the starting 7 point cap can get you up to 15 easily.

Availability 16+ gear should be hard to get.

Missions isn't designed to be a high powered jet set around the world & use all the best gear of government/corporate specops groups.

If you want stuff with 20 availability then design the character to be more than some random guy doing some Shadowrunning.
Take the Positive Qualities that let you get access to Higher Gear or Better Contacts at Chargen.

Or, expect to pay some more as already stated.
   If you use a basic 5/2 Fixer, 12dp, & then buy them up to 20 they can get you anything up to 23 at double the time & 3x the price.


falar

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« Reply #41 on: <01-18-16/1322:04> »
I refuse to believe the Missions designers intentions was that characters would not have access to high-availability gear without paying triple-cost. If that was the case, the nuyen rewards would need be roughly triple to give any gear-oriented characters a hope of progression.

Notably, this is mainly only an issue if you compare primarily gear-progression characters (cybersams, deckers, riggers) with primarily karma-progression characters (adepts, mages, aspected magicians, technomancers, mystic adepts). With the rewards from two Missions-legal runs, a karma-progression character can easily submerge or initiate, which provides them a large, tangible character progression. While I don't think that gear-progression needs to be as close, it needs to be close enough that, over the course of 10 Missions-legal runs, a gear-progression character progresses about as much as a karma-progression character.

Note that this is not to say that primarily gear-or-karma-progression archetypes do not benefit from the other resource - they just generally benefit less. A rigger can get an additional die in one of his skills for 14 karma. A mage can get the ability to quicken all of their spells and quicken one spell for 14 karma. A street sam can get a significant implant (like a Pain Editor) for 50,000 nuyen. An adept can get a dice or two more with a melee weapon.

Tarislar

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« Reply #42 on: <01-19-16/0136:33> »
As stated previously, Missions is not a "high level" campaign.
Its designed to keep things at a low level intentionally.
You don't get big cash rewards often & you don't get to go buy lots of flashy hi-availability Deltaware.


Tarislar

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« Reply #43 on: <01-19-16/0142:20> »
I also don't think it's a Missions design goal that you should have to pay 185% to 210% markup on the most commonly used bullets (APDS).
Why are you paying so much for something that is available at Chargen?
And why would you think that Military Grade, illegal, ammo is the "most common".
Regular Ammo, it the cheapest, & would be the most common.

falar

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« Reply #44 on: <01-19-16/0942:41> »
As stated previously, Missions is not a "high level" campaign.
Its designed to keep things at a low level intentionally.
Where is this stated?

You don't get big cash rewards often & you don't get to go buy lots of flashy hi-availability Deltaware.
I'm not talking about high-availability deltaware. I'm talking about meaningful progression.

One of the first things on a CyberSam's shopping list after character creation is usually a Pain Editor. Not always, but usually. It's probably equivalent to the mage's first initiation for jump in power. Let's see how this breaks down:

  • First run - 10,000 nuyen and 5 karma. Neither the mage nor the Sam can do much but convert to 10 karma and 20,000 nuyen.
  • Second run - 10,000 nuyen and 5 karma. The mage can now initiate and gain Quickening and quicken two spells, which is a huge, huge, huge improvement to them as a character. The street sam is sitting at 40,000 nuyen.
  • Third run - 10,000 nuyen and 5 karma. The mage is now sitting at around 10 karma. They can gain two more spells, which widens out their options significantly. The street sam can now barely afford the Pain Editor - but wait, he really only has a 5 Connection / 3 Loyalty Martin Tate who can get this. That gets him ... any gear up to 15? So he needs to spend an additional 75% to get the Pain Editor - meaning he has to get 84,000 nuyen.
  • Fourth run - 10,000 nuyen and 5 karma - The mage can grab a few more spells or start saving up for his next initiation. The street sam now has around 80,000 nuyen, but he'll need more because we're buying hits.
  • Fifth run - 10,000 nuyen and 5 karma. - The mage can easily initiate again, gaining another powerful metamagic. The street sam can finally get his first piece of meaningful advancement.

I don't think that's right. I also don't think a Pain Editor is a drek-hot piece of gear that no Missions-legal character should ever be expected to get. It's solidly on the low end of things.

I also don't think it's a Missions design goal that you should have to pay 185% to 210% markup on the most commonly used bullets (APDS).
Why are you paying so much for something that is available at Chargen?
Because you have a Loyalty 2, Connection 3 Sid Gambetti as your main contact. Because he's a fixer, that's a 10% markup. Because you need to up his dice pool by four, that's +100%.

And why would you think that Military Grade, illegal, ammo is the "most common".
Regular Ammo, it the cheapest, & would be the most common.
Because you're a Shadowrunner. You don't get called out of bed to handle normal ammo problems. You get hired because there's a Force 8 spirit that you need to contend with and all you have is an assault rifle and a grenade launcher. You better be packing APDS or you ain't a real Sam.


Also - are you intentionally missing my main point? Karma-progression characters do not have it harder to advance. Only gear-progression characters have it harder. To even the field, you'd need to half or third the karma rewards. And I'm pretty sure that's not the Missions design goal.