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SirFozzie posted:There's a preview released today. Got a link by any chance?
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Apr 30, 2013 05:03
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SirFozzie posted:There's a preview released today. Oooh, where did it get released at? I can't find it on either of the big Shadowrun sites.
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Apr 30, 2013 05:05
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I'm gonna assume it's not  to copy a file from a site that requires registration to download free stuff, so: http://ari-rahikkala.net/misc/E-CAT27PP1_SR5%20Preview%201.pdf
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Apr 30, 2013 05:36
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Isn't there some book designed to bridge 4th and 5th ed fluff? Is it any good? I'm a little intrigued by what I've seen so far and may want more if it's good fluff.
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Apr 30, 2013 05:40
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That would be Storm Front. I haven't read it, but a lot of people on Dumpshock have.
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Apr 30, 2013 05:51
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SirFozzie posted:There's a preview released today. That's not even the evil ball, it's the what the gently caress ball, because Ares was more or less known for being intensely anti-insect spirit. They were vaguely the least evil corp in SR4 to my recollection because they didn't torture children to get technomancer secrets, they didn't try futzing around with AIs, and they were doing what they could to keep Bug City from becoming Bug Country.
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Apr 30, 2013 06:55
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Maybe the answer to "What have you done Ares" is "Get infiltrated by insect spirits"? 
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Apr 30, 2013 07:13
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Ares being infiltrated by insect spirits is a thing in Storm Front, I don't know how far back it goes.
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Apr 30, 2013 13:02
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SirFozzie posted:Oh ares, my ares, what have you done?  What the gently caress though? Like Cirno said, Ares was like the loving Bug Hunt corp. Firewatch was pretty much founded to stamp out insect spirits.
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Apr 30, 2013 13:19
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They've been keeping bug spirits around to experiment on ways to use them as brainwashed (for lack of a better term) soldiers against other bug spirits and also to develop better technology and weapons to use against them. Like a lot of things with Ares, it isn't going well.
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Apr 30, 2013 13:26
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I think it's meant to build up to follow the age-old saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
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Apr 30, 2013 14:05
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He who fights monsters? Did they seriously name it Storm Front ? 
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Apr 30, 2013 14:07
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Yeah, 99% of the world doesn't think of them when they see "Storm Front". It's also a perfect loving name because almost nothing happens in the book but setting up that maybe cool or interesting poo poo could happen down the road. So you see, it's not the storm we get to read about. We just get to watch the storm moving closer.
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Apr 30, 2013 14:10
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Haha yeah I had no idea what you meant by the godwin. Nobody cares about some stupid neo-Nazi internet forum.
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Apr 30, 2013 14:22
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Swagger Dagger posted:They've been keeping bug spirits around to experiment on ways to use them as brainwashed (for lack of a better term) soldiers against other bug spirits and also to develop better technology and weapons to use against them. It just strikes me as bizarre because that's not Ares' usual MO. Ares' big five were arms, space, entertainment, security, and vehicles. They've never been into bioengineering or mucking about with spirits or any of that. They were always categorized as one of the most if not the most "down to earth" megacorp. They didn't get all crazy with the Matrix or with magic, they were the simple guns and steel guys.
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May 1, 2013 07:19
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I found this on page 59 of Corporate Guide, near the end of the Ares section.quote:> I was skimming your Chicago guide, Sticks. What’s the deal behind
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May 1, 2013 11:20
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Yea I'd actually really love it to be a 'thing' that Ares spent so long fighting the bugs they didn't even notice when they crept in the back door. All it takes is one executive who thinks 'hey, why not fight fire with fire?' to give enough space for them to crawl in.
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May 1, 2013 14:53
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Tatum Girlparts posted:All it takes is one executive who thinks 'hey, why not fight fire with fire?' to give enough space for them to crawl in. 
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May 1, 2013 14:56
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ProfessorCirno posted:They didn't get all crazy with the Matrix or with magic, they were the simple guns and steel guys. And Storm Watch ends with them both big in the magic and big in the Matrix, hilariously [They got the rights to upgrade the CAS to new and stronger Matrix protocols]. Ares: Literally nothing like the Ares of a handful of years ago!
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May 1, 2013 14:59
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I'm going to be running some compound/building infiltration missions in the coming months and I was wondering if any of you have any good sources for either satellite images of prisons or shipyards or warehouses or anything. Additionally I'd like to be able to get some floorplans/blueprints for players to use. I have a nice color printer and I'd like to give the players some handouts if they negotiate and/or hack well. I'm not going to be using any pre-made adventures other than On The Run and/or Food Fight for the beginning of the campaign. My initial idea was to just print out some google maps satellite images for whatever type of compound I'm using for the mission but I have no idea where to start for detailed floorplans. Any help would be appreciated.
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May 1, 2013 16:10
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If you do a Google search for "INSERT BUILDING TYPE floorplans" and use advanced search to look for line drawings you can find pretty much anything you need pretty quick.
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May 1, 2013 16:25
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If you want satellite imagery, I suggest Cryptome.org's Eyeball series, which is an archive of publicly available google/bing images of various interesting places. Be advised, if you print these out, have your players scribble infiltration/attack plans all over them, and then get investigated by law enforcement for some reason, they will probably go Steve Jackson Games on you.
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May 1, 2013 16:46
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Yeah, that's always been one of the problems with Shadowrun; I never feel entirely comfortable talking about it, let alone getting into writing down plans. 
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May 1, 2013 21:30
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I know we've talked about this, but why do the sourcebooks do the worst job ever of explaining what a loving T-bird is? This Shadowrun Forum thread exemplifies how misunderstood they are: http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=10746.0 About halfway down the page, somebody has to explain (probably for the hundredth time) what a T-bird actually is. If they're gonna be so lazy, they should just have small print that says "Read Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams if you want to know what this commonly-discussed but never-explained Shadowrun vehicle is and how it's used."
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May 1, 2013 23:35
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Except the Panzers in Hardwired are literally hovercraft, with skirts and everything, while T-Birds are capable of NOT being stuck to the ground IIRC?
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May 2, 2013 00:17
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I really love it when people start a sentence with "except" and end it with a question mark! It's never condescending or annoying as gently caress, and it always makes perfect grammatical and syntax sense.  Anyway I was under the impression that T-Birds were ground-effect vehicles similar to hovercrafts but with a higher ceiling. I've never seen it explained well in the sourcebooks so maybe I'm totally wrong.
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May 2, 2013 00:23
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Ground Effect Vehicle, AKA Shadowrun T-Bird Vs. Hovercraft, or Air Cushion Vehicle. Not the same thing, but easy to confuse, especially because beyond some experimental stuff and several soviet projects that flew around the Caspian sea in the 60s-70s, no one in the west has really seen one. Everyone is familiar with the channel Hovercraft, so they just make the assumption that they are the same. I'm relatively certain that the Panzer in Hardwired was an ACV, basically a low-observable, armed & armored version of the US Navy's PACV. I have not read that book in years.
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May 2, 2013 00:45
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Ah, okay, that makes sense. I just looked at my copy of Hardwired again and sure enough, the panzers are just armored FUTURE hovercrafts. He describes the skirt and everything.
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May 2, 2013 00:48
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Thanks for checking, I can't find my copy anywhere. From what I recall in the first and second edition rigger books, a T-Bird would be like if you took a Harrier Jump Jet, and added the armor, payload, and weaponry from an M2 Bradley. So it can't hover over a few meters, and can't fly over 10-15. Thinking about it, I can't imagine what advantage it would have over a regular AFV or helicopter gunship, because the compromises needed to get it to fly would make it bad at both roles. So I guess it's one of those rule-of-cool things. 
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May 2, 2013 00:56
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Martello posted:Ah, okay, that makes sense. I just looked at my copy of Hardwired again and sure enough, the panzers are just armored FUTURE hovercrafts. He describes the skirt and everything. 
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May 2, 2013 01:07
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You're good dude, I've just been browsing awful  threads in D&D and Games (not Trad Games) too much lately. Thinking the worst of people right off the cuff.
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May 2, 2013 01:13
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…the problem really comes down to the skill choice: T-birds were driven using the Vectored Thrust skill, effectively making them jump jets that couldn't stay flying through aerodynamic forces alone (which would exclude them from the WIG category and definitely disqualify them as regular aircraft). And then they added in that odd 1km flight ceiling, which makes no sense any way you cut it. I've always seen them as ye old completely nonsensical and unrealistic “float on top of a vertical jet stream” air cars — powered by secret ancient illuminati tech, no doubt, since the range would be about 40' and the thing would overheat and explode in short order unless built by orbital-rocket heat shield material. At best, they might have been some kind of enclosed-rotor helicopters that magically got a whole lot more lifting power out of the tiny rotor diameter (if the illustrations are to be believed) than is really possible.
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May 2, 2013 01:49
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MRC48B posted:Thanks for checking, I can't find my copy anywhere. It's better to think of the T-bird as this with a bunch of guns hanging off of it...  Seriously, look at the Banshee and compare it to the Thunderbird 2...  Of course, the Stonewall looks even more like it...  Tippis posted:I've always seen them as ye old completely nonsensical and unrealistic “float on top of a vertical jet stream” air cars — powered by secret ancient illuminati tech, no doubt, since the range would be about 40' and the thing would overheat and explode in short order unless built by orbital-rocket heat shield material. At best, they might have been some kind of enclosed-rotor helicopters that magically got a whole lot more lifting power out of the tiny rotor diameter (if the illustrations are to be believed) than is really possible. Shadowrun didn't have the cyberpunk staple of flying cars and still really doesn't, but T-birds somewhat filled that role. Because, let's face it, the price point of something like that is going to exceed even the luxury market and the only real people who can justify that expense, as well as cut the red tape that'll allow them to operate (like not filing flight plans, skirting FAA restrictions, insurance premiums, etc.) are going to be the military and law enforcement. Also, I've always just pictured them as APCs with jet engines strapped to them. I think there was one in one of the SOTA books on mercenaries that sounded exactly like a BMP with jets mounted on the sides instead of treads. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 03:08 on May 2, 2013 |
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May 2, 2013 03:00
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Oh snap, has anyone noticed? http://store.steampowered.com/app/234650/?snr=1_7_15__13 Shadowrun Returns I have the incredible temptation to throw all of my money at it.
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May 2, 2013 03:20
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Rockopolis posted:Oh snap, has anyone noticed? Some of us did that already when it was kickstarted a year ago. It looks wonderful too, complete with a level editor and Matrix now.
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May 2, 2013 08:02
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I missed the kickstarter but I at least got the Collector's Edition before the offer expired.
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May 2, 2013 14:11
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Thanks for the tips on getting satellite photos and floorplans guys. I'll burn everything after each session just in case. 
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May 2, 2013 15:27
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So, the latest bit about fifth edition laments how hackers can't be the ubergods of combat by turning off opponents guns and cyberware, because people (gasp) disable wireless, so they added a rules change to encourage people to run with wireless on for cybernetics, so hackers/deckers can hack them again. (can you tell I'm not a fan?)
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May 5, 2013 05:43
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I think we went over that before, it works for the idea of a super connected/web integrated world to have most people running wireless, and it makes hackers no longer the door-opener job, it's a decent change.
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May 5, 2013 06:18
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SirFozzie posted:So, the latest bit about fifth edition laments how hackers can't be the ubergods of combat by turning off opponents guns and cyberware, because people (gasp) disable wireless, so they added a rules change to encourage people to run with wireless on for cybernetics, so hackers/deckers can hack them again. Go back a few pages to us having literally this convo and...well, some of us, myself included, ending up on the polar opposite position as you are. I think hackers being able to mess with your optics and poo poo owns, personally.
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May 5, 2013 06:54
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