[Beta]

Per my IC, we haven't looked at how the door is locked and how we get around that, yet. 

And I agree about AM staying in the car, I just noticed her body stat while I was looking up her spells -- let us not expose her to random violence if it can be avoided!

[gilga]

Well, his weight can be reduced if we turn the kid into something small... Even without the Skimmers, it is very fast, and we can buy a pair of cheap skates (as goofy as it sounds...) for +50% speed.


About locks, Mato is our lock guy as well - and otherwise, they can be hacked from the car.

[Beta]

I don't know how well skates would work on a fire escape (normally made out of metal bars, rather than a solid surface)

A couple of thoughts for consideration.
- if Jawsie can take out the (hellhound?), then he could manifest and talk to the kid.  Maybe persuade him to accept being turned into an animal for the escape?
- If AM spiked the camera, they might send someone to check on it (probably just thinking it was broken?).  Which could be our entry into the room?  Mato might be able to land from the roof to the 4th floor balcony with a well angled jump?  And Bobby could do some sort of shape change to be nearby or show up quickly?

Combining those two would look like: spike the camera, take out the hellhound (use edge aggressively!), jump whoever goes to look at the camera when they go in, throw some other distraction as Mato and Bobby come out with the kid and AM pulls up in the car.

[Tecumseh]

There are lots of options. Hell, if Jawsey takes out the hellhound and manifests then he can tell the kid to just walk himself out. He can meet Mato and Bobby on the balcony and be escorted away from there. We just have to deal with the camera. If the hacking fails, then we can go to manual (i.e. physical) hacking.

Shapechange has a limit on the size differential; I think it's Body +/- 2. Since this kid is an ork his Body is probably 6, which means that even if we transform him he's still going to be huge. Maybe it's less conspicuous if I make like I'm taking him out for a walk, but I don't think we can change him into something so small that I could carry him.

[Jack_Spade]

Jeez, you guys are fast.

Now, all we need to do is decide if we want to hack or kill the guard. Once no-one watches the cameras anymore we have pretty much free reign - provided Jawsee can give us an accurate layout with all the positions of hostiles in the tenement building.

[Lorebane24]

Gilga:  Can you be a bit more specific about what info you are looking for?  You have the locations of cameras and commlinks, amd everything relevant seems (except for the PANs of the smartlinked halloweener) seems to be slaved to the host.  My understanding is that matrix perception gets you one specific question for each net hit.  Generally, I figure up till now you've been mostly concerned with "what's there to work with?" So I've focused on that along with what's in a PAN, what kind of ratings do things have (I suppose you could easily glean the host is rating 3).  But now that you know what icons are there and what is wireless, are you looking at for specfic stats (4 applied to the host, which is not running silent, for example, could get you each of its matrix stats, or you could try to figure out what sort of IC it can launch (i think?).  Alternatively, you could apply those hits to personas or cameras to get more detailed info on them.  I think we are starting to approach the limit of what mateix perception can glean here, though.  For much more access you'll have to start marking things.

[gilga]

Many other things may exist there.
1. Locks.
2. Drones.
3. Guns. (wireless)
Now that we know the physical area of where we are looking to strike it is easier to search for security devices.

What do you want me to roll  then?

[Beta]

While the hellhound is their primary security, I expect that the doors will be locked from the outside -- if only to keep the hellhound from escaping!  So the kid _probably_ can't walk himself out.  So likely we need to get Mato up there on locks, then get both him and the kid back down after.

Jawsey can go astral scouting again, but it seems likely to draw the attention of those cats, and somebody might notice?  Likely worth it for the intel, but I'm not going to IC it until we are agreed on him doing it.

[gilga]

Let's use the astral perception to gauge the host's firewall stat
and the camera's device rating.

Should I roll dice? How many? I mean we are not in combat time.

[Lorebane24]

I think I mentioned that most of the guns seem to be throwbacks with the exception of the specifically mentioned smartlinked weapons - these guys seem to prefer laser sight.

As far as locks go, I MAY have forgotten to mention this one.  Yes, each apartment in the tenemant seems to have a central terminal  (the hellhound room has one too, unslaved) that controls locks and such.  The stuffer shack has a wireless lock slaved to the host, but the bar doesnt seem to have any wireless locks.

The drones I KNOW I overlooked.  There arent any security drones you can see, but each apartment (including the one with the hellhound) has a basic cleaning drone.

So I guess we ought to agree on how matrix perception works when you start doing it beyond a "what's around" check.  My reading was that you have to focus on a specific object, IE a camera, amd each net hit lets you ask one detailed question about it and get an answer (what's its device rating, whats its firewall, what is it slaved to).  If I am misunderstanding this PLEASE CORRECT ME - I dont want anyone to feel like my interpretation of the rules is gimping them.  In tjis case, for the sake of expendiwncy we'll just spread then out.  The Stuffer Shack Host has a firewall of 5, and the camera has a measly 2 device rating.  As far as not being in comba, I generally see matrix perception to be fairly risk-free (and maybe the only risk-free matrix action, except for search), but just as with meatspace perception it still needs a roll to see how effectively you can make out the details of given icons.

I will admit that providing details for wireless icons is trickier for me than astral because it is so ubiquitious that small details (like cleaning drones) are easy for me to dismiss as irrelevant, but it qlso occurs to me that tjere coukd be ways to use that.  I know it seems light around here as far as matrix stuff, but this will NOT always be the case.  Here, it is partly because the new Weeners are disciplined enough to minimize their matrix footprint, partly because matrix infrastructure is kind of light in the Barrens, and partly so I can get a feel for what you guys will do with it before I start throwing tons of shit at you.  Given how much of a focus matrix stakeout has been here, expect the next job to have some meatier matrix bits.

In the futurw, how does this sound?  If there is something you feel like I may have overlooked, or that you think is likely to be there that you can use, just ask me directly as you can (the abve list is a good reminder of what I need to consider).  If it's something I hadnt given much thought to but that would be logical to include, it will be there.

[Lorebane24]

Also, I dont have my rulebook handy at work today (forgot my ipad).  Are host stats -1, +0, +2, +3 for atteibutes (with the host rating as the base), or is it +0, +1, +2, +3.  I was thinking its the former, but if not, the host's firewall is only 4

[Tecumseh]

The latter.

I'll have plans to propose when the floor plans are available.

[gilga]

Okay with 4 firewalls and device rating of 2 I think hacking the cameras is not that risky. Let's go for that solution.

[Lorebane24]

Given Beta's note about astral perception, and make sure that astral perception doesn't totally overshadowing hacking, I'd like to hold off on putting the floor plan up till you guys can get a visual feed or something similar.  Hack away!

[gilga]

I don't know by the rules - I know that rolling dice for each icon, and each property when not in combat is kind of annoying. Do you really want me to give you 100 rolls every time I ask for what is around? I agree that during combat if (for whatever reason) you want to do that, then this guessing game may be appropriate.  Even then it is annoying and exploitable. "My character is carrying 10,000 stealth tags and therefore makes it impossible to search for silent devices... "  So I don't know what raw says, it makes the whole process tedious, and if we need to ping-pong between us for every single detail - it would be very long and perhaps not the right approach for a PbP...

 As for assensing analogue: Technically speaking, you should require a roll for every single aura even to determine if it is an awakaned. You might distinguish a hellhound from a person, but not a mage (even Gandalf powerful) from a mundane. So spotting a mage with no active spell in a bar requires assensing every single person there - (unless the mage has a telltale sign like active foci and spells.)

By the way, given that it is a building in the Barrens - which means old. I'd make a floor plan the kind of things you get from a matrix search. It is very old, passed two matrix crashes - likely hacked a million times before. If it is a cooperate building with serious security and extraterritoriality, I'd require the character to hack their host assuming they know what they do. But this data is a property of a manicipality that did not know what to do with it and how to secure it.


Also, astral perception sees different things than matrix perception. It also misses out of things that matrix/physical perception does. E.g. it identifies people very good but may miss a machine gun turret or a combat drone entirely.